We’ve all been there. Perhaps it was a lecture. Or a conversation on a plane. Or perhaps it was even… gulp… at church.

That’s right. I’m talking about listening to a real bore. You know, the person who made you struggle to stay engaged—perhaps even to stay awake.

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go back to one of those times in your mind. I know. It’s not fun at all. Even a little painful. But trust me on this one. I need you to do it just for a minute.

OK. Now go back and try to relive that experience. Really try to remember everything you can about it. See you in a minute.

Back with me? Good.

Now, what was it about that person that was so boring? For some, it might simply be they were talking about something boring. But for many others it wasn’t the subject at all—it was how they were talking.

Monotone.

Expressionless.

Passionless.

Take the boring preacher for example. If that preacher was preaching from the Bible, the source of boredom was not the subject at all. The boredom only existed because of the way that preacher was talking about the subject. I’ve sat through my fair share of boring sermons and seminary lectures. Rarely has it been because of the subject matter though.

Now turn it around. Who are some of your favorite preachers and teachers? Now think about how they communicate.

For me, I love listening to J.D. Greear, Matt Chandler, Voddie Baucham, David Platt, Francis Chan, Alistair Begg, John Piper, and Russell Moore. Not only are these men solid when it comes to teaching the Word of God, but they all do it with passion. With energy. And for some, with a good amount of humor mixed in.

I don’t have trouble staying zoned in when I listen to them because of the way they communicate. They draw me in. Sometimes even for an hour or more. They know the art of communication.

As preschool and kids leaders and teachers, we have the amazing privilege to use the art of storytelling to share stories of the Bible so that our kids learn the story of the Bible—the gospel story of Jesus Christ that runs throughout Scripture.

Because the way we tell a story matters, we’re going to provide a few general storytelling tips in a series of blog posts during the next four weeks. My hope is that this blog series helps you deepen your familiarity with the art of Bible storytelling so that you can tell Bible stories much like Maegan does for our preschool videos and Tyler does for our kids videos. You might want to bookmark or download these videos (or watch any of their other ones) to reference especially when we get to the last two blogs in this series. 

So here are the topics we will explore in this series:

• Preparing to Tell the Story
• Creating an Atmosphere to Tell the Story
• Using Your Body to Tell the Story
• Using Your Voice to Tell the Story

We really hope this series and the new storytelling tips in the leader guides help you communicate the beauty and power of the gospel to your kids in an even deeper way each week.