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Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling

December 14, 2010 by 2 Comments

I’ve written before on Pomomusings about the power of story and even preached about storytelling and youth ministry. I’ve been drawn to other resources that talk about how to incorporate storytelling into ministry and so I was drawn to Jon Huckins‘s new book “Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling: Creating Fictional Stories that Illuminate the Message of Jesus.”

Jon is a veteran youth pastor and public school teacher who is now on staff with NieuCommunities, a collective of missional church communities who foster leadership and community development, in San Diego.

The book is broken up into four parts:

  1. Theology of Storytelling: here he discusses the importance of embracing the narrative of Scripture
  2. Philosophy of Storytelling: a discussion about why teaching through story invites and engages listeners
  3. How to Create Fictional Stories that Illuminate the Message of Jesus: this is the practical or “how-to” section of the book. Jon walks people through how to artfully create modern day parables that offer theological and practical insights
  4. Story Resources: Jon shares some of his own stories that he has written

If you’re in youth ministry or another teaching ministry and are interested in the power of story, you should check out Jon’s book. You can download the Kindle version here, which is available today.

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Top 20 Youth Ministry Blogs of 2010

June 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment

If you’re coming to Pomomusings for the first time from the Youth Specialties blog, welcome! You can find some basic information about me and the blog here. You can also find me on Facebook here and follow me on Twitter at @adamwc.

Youth Specialties published a listing of the Top 20 Youth Ministry blogs of 2010 yesterday. I’m honored to be on the list, because there are some really great minds in the field of youth ministry on the list. But I am a little shocked that apparently when they made a list last year (that wasn’t published), Pomomusings was the #1 blog. That ranking was based purely on stats so I guess I had some pretty good stats. But I know that Pomomusings certainly isn’t exclusively a youth ministry blog.

This year they added a level of “influence” to the rankings, which had an interesting effect. They asked those who were on the Top 50 list from last year to do a poll about the influence of youth ministry blogs. It’s a pretty great list that has some blogs that I currently read, but definitely some new ones to me. Be sure and check out the list – and they also created a Twitter list of the top bloggers that tweet.

Guess I need to start writing more about youth ministry. For those of you who read this blog and would like to read more about youth ministry topics, what would you like to see featured? Anything in particular?

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Every 15 Minutes: Mock Crash Scenes at High School

May 18, 2010 by 7 Comments

Today I received an email from our local group of youth ministers (who I choose not to get together with for a variety of reasons). They wanted me to know that this week at our two high schools in Livermore, the schools would be putting on the “Every 15 Minutes” program. I don’t know how many of you experienced these in your high schools growing up, but I remember when it was at my high school. I’m pretty sure I was a freshman – and while I do remember it, I don’t really remember what my reaction to it was. You can visit the Every 15 Minutes website for more information, or check out the information provided by the Livermore Police Department. Below is an excerpt describing some of what will happen over the two days.

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