Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers Aug 5-8, 2009

Anticipating the Festival Gathering

The Network of Biblical Storytellers’ annual Festival Gathering is both a festival (open to the public, inviting all who are interested) and a gathering (a “family reunion” of the geographically dispersed members of NBS). It is a get-together characterized by a lot of storytelling, humor, and deepening spirituality.

The Festival Gathering lasts four days and is filled with many wonderful opportunities to hear and tell stories, to learn from the nationally known keynote speaker, to be entertained by various storytellers, to participate in top notch workshops, to be a part of moving worship services.

This year’s Festival Gathering theme is “Provoking Creation: Saving the World through Holiness and Tenderness.” The daily theme stories are “The Garden of Eden” (Gen 2:4-9), “The Promise to Abram” (Gen 15:1-6), and “The Parable of the Sower” (Mark 4:1-9). The daily stories are told in worship, addressed in the keynote address and taught in storylearning workshops.

The “epic telling” is one of the most popular Festival Gathering activities. An epic telling is a tag-team performance of a whole book or major portion of scripture for which participants have each prepared a piece in advance. The epic telling provides an opportunity to hear an entire section of the Bible told uninterrupted with different voices and styles. It enables us to get a sense of what it might have been like for early believers as they listened and told the stories of the Bible. This year’s epic telling will be Genesis chapters 1-11.

The 2009 Festival Gathering will be held August 5-8 at the Ridgecrest Conference Center in the mountains near Ashville, North Carolina. GoTell will be present and active leading workshops and promoting our mission. We hope you will come, too!

For more information and to register, visit the NBS site.