March 28, 2024
Book Reviews, Storying, Worldview

Book Review: Worldview-based Storying

Tom Steffen’s book, Worldview-based Storying: The Integration of Symbol, Story, and Ritual in the Orality Movement, is the first book in the Series “There’s More to the Story” written by the consultants of Worldview Resource Group. I reviewed book two (July 2018) and book three (December 2017) – the books were not published sequentially. Each book stands on its own yet reading them in the order intended would be beneficial to the reader. In the Preface, Steffen describes the concerns addressed by the series: Cross-cultural communicators of the gospel all too often neither provide adequate backstory nor sufficiently know whom they address, much less how they story. In fact, some even consider such awareness totally unnecessary! This all too often leads to an ineffective, truncated biblical story. This series “attempts to preempt the rapidly-prepared, quick-fix approaches that tell only small portions of the biblical story, and in their place, present… Read the whole post
Contextualization, Gospel, Storying, Worldview

Worldviews are interpreting your stories

In communicating the gospel message, whether through Bible stories or Discovery Bible Studies, we need to be aware that our hearers will interpret what they hear through their worldviews. In a 1993 issue of the MARC Newsletter, Bryant Myers wrote about what happened after showing the Jesus Film in a Fulani village in Africa: The white missionary walked back to the village with the women, listening to their animated conversation. Something didn’t make sense. “What was it that so captivated your attention?” He asked. “The Christian man from the coast who made the magic!” they exclaimed. Confused, he asked, “What magic?” “We’ve never seen a shaman who had the power to make people get up and move about on a sheet and talk,” they explained. What message had the village women heard? From the point of view of the missionaries showing the Jesus film, they had heard the good news… Read the whole post
Worldview, Books, Book Reviews, Storying

Book Review: A Novel Approach

Story is a common topic in mission circles, and often is understood primarily as a way of communicating the Gospel and Scripture in oral cultures. But story is more than a communication tool; it is a key to understanding culture as well. It is often overlooked when talking about ethnography. My friend, Mike Mathews, has written a helpful book explaining how story can help us understand culture – A Novel Approach: The Significance of Story in Interpreting and Communicating Reality, 2017. He writes in the introduction:… Read the whole post
Books, Book Reviews, Contextualization, Worldview

Review of Paul Hiebert’s Transforming Worldviews

Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change is variously described as “the capstone of Paul Hiebert’s work”, “Hiebert at his best!”, and “mission anthropology at its best.” (from the back cover). A. Scott Moreau writes, “For the first time, all of his major missiological insights – from set theory in church growth to the flaw of the excluded middle to critical contextualization – are integrated into a single volume.” (back cover). Hiebert’s central focus is that the transformation of worldviews must accompany change in behavior and beliefs. Without the transformation of worldviews, change in belief and behavior remain on the surface level. He writes:          … Read the whole post
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