GoTell Helps “Dayton Cooks” Tell It’s Story
Grace Church in Dayton, Ohio is the home church of GoTell’s Tom and Amelia Boomershine. Tom plays the organ and leads the Grace by Heart scripture telling group; Amelia leads Children’s Worship and the Seeds of Grace biblical storytelling jail ministry. This summer was the launch of Grace’s incorporated ministry to address unemployment in Dayton: a chef-training program called “Dayton Cooks.” GoTell produced this video intro to help Dayton Cooks tell its story.
From Workshop to Worship
New service inspired by storytelling workshop
This past Spring, Brice Thomas, one of my peers in the “Telling the Good News in 21st Century Ministry” D.Min. focus group, implemented his action research project at Harmony Creek UCC. The project was a new worship service called Symposium that features telling, learning, interacting and praying with gospel lections.
The service was too popular to end after the allotted project time, and so it continues. I attended on a recent Sunday when the parable of the sower was the centerpiece of worship. The service was both refreshingly contemporary and deeply faithful to Christian tradition. We connected with sacred story, each other and God.
Though I was busy conversing with people at my table during the interactive reflection time, I did take notice of all the children and youth engaged in their own lively discussion about the parable at a nearby table. Another bonus was use of graphics and metaphors developed by GoTell and Midnight Oil Productions during our Lumicon days.
Check out the Symposium website for details on upcoming scriptures and worship themes. You might be inspired by this creative model to start something similar at your church.
Amelia Boomershine
A Portent Appeared in Heaven…
The NBS Seminar is a 2-day intensive for storytelling scholars and scholarly storytellers preceding the annual Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers. Last year we focused on Genesis, so it only made sense this year to focus on Revelation, especially since one of the FG theme stories will be Rev. 21:1-6.
I’ll be teaching “New Heaven, New Earth” for an FG novice workshop, but for the Seminar I’ll be telling Revelation 12. That story was all new territory for me-fun to learn and thought-provoking as well. My imagination has been full of cosmic women and multi-headed, child-devouring dragons. My spirit has been inspired by “those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.”
A couple of Sundays ago I worshipped in Queen of Apostles church in a Marianist community near Dayton, Ohio. The chapel features a stained glass representation of the woman and the dragon. The dragon is blue instead of red, as described by John, but the window was a treat to see nonetheless, and the liturgy was wonderful.
Amelia Boomershine
