Being Expert at Their Own Story
How to tell your unique story and be able to communicate your faith actually begins with being a good listener. Learn how to carry out James 1:19 "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;" in skills and attitudes. Engage in understanding the Hebrew concept of "heart" and how to hear the heart of another and connect with that heart. It's easier than you may think and yet will keep you learning your whole life. Most people don't feel that they are really heard and understood. Make a difference by being an exceptional listener and by understanding another, a radical communicator of love.
Being Expert at Your Own Story
Before you find the opportunity to Tell Your Story, we all have to be expert listeners. We have to have heard someone well enough to Tell Their Story back to them as a summary. David Augsburger said it well "An open ear is the only believable sign of an open heart."
In any encounter there are two Storys, yours and the person's who you want to connect with. Listening well enough that you can tell the other person's story back to them is our goal. We want to demonstrate love through hearing and understanding first. Then comes the opportunity to bring your story into the conversation. This section is about refining your own "My Story" (uniquely yours), like Paul presents in Acts 22. He had his own "My Story" and told this story many times, and it parallels Acts 9. This is Paul's "elevator speech."
Learn how to refine your story, elements of a good story, progression of a good story all in the context of the message of LIFE, the good news (Gospel) of Jesus in your life. The content is your own story of the power of the Life Bringer (Jesus), your experience and your content and meaning that only you can tell. This is your powerful testimony to the Love of Messiah as you reach out with that Love in the hope of it touching others.
Bringing Power to Every Encounter
The Gospel does not exist in a vacuum, it exists in the power of changed lives. Your changed life is foundational to reaching into our truthless times with unchanging truth. While arguments about truth are never ending, no one can argue with the power of your own changed life. This is your own experience of the Gospel in your own, personal life, and no one can go there without your permission, and no one can change your story because it is yours!
Having heard and understood the story of another, to where you can tell their story, you are now equipped to share your own story bringing your own history and story of your changed life into contact with others. As Yeshua has said, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” Mrk 5:19 Your story, their story, each of you wants to Tell My Story.
About Tell My Story
We live in a storytelling culture. Think of all of the episodes of weekly television shows that tell a story that picks up again in a week. We are used to stories and we get caught up in stories.
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When people try to communicate the good news of Messiah, content seems to readily find a place well ahead of understanding how to communicate that Truth. The Bible, however, has much to say on the subject of skilled communication when communicating Truth to others. For example:
✓ Colossians 4:5 - 6 "Walk in wisdom toward the ones outside, redeeming the time. Let your word be always with grace, having been seasoned with salt, to know how you ought to answer each one."
✓ Proverbs 25:11 "A word rightly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver."
✓ James 1:19 "So that, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath."
Often, communicating the Bible is based on how people feel about things, or who has the best intellectual arguments. This can lead to frustration, hurt feelings, loss of opportunity, disappointment. misunderstandings and a derailed attempt at trying to fulfill the command to make disciples, beginning with presenting the right content.
Content is important, but delivery - speaking to the hearing of your listeners - is key.
Tell My Story's “Straight To the Heart” assumes an understanding of the content of the Bible and the Gospel (Good News) message and focuses instead on the often underestimated effects of a skilled delivery of Good News. What is often missing is the method of communicating truth that was understood in the First Century .
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Paul states clearly that the key ingredient in communicating truth is not logical arguments or a passionate delivery, but directing of the truth to a conscience. Listen to Paul:
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"But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor corrupting the Word of God, but by the revelation of the truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God." 2 Corinthians 4:2
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At Tell My Story we will help you be equipped first with your story, then help you develop the skills to bring your version of My Story with the Good News message to a conscience. Then we are here to help you hone that presentation with powerful skills and attitudes that will equip you to be a skilled communicator, Bringing Timeless Truth to Truthless Times©.
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