It’s coming…GoTell’s New Website
We have been hard at work redesigning the GoTell website. Above you see the new header. We hadn’t updated the look of our site since 2007 when the site was designed so it was due for a new look. All the same great content will be there, but the look will be different and some new features are possible. Integration with social networking, automatic scaling for the site so it looks good on your mobile devices as well as your desktop screen, and opportunities to interact with the content including the ability to comment on individual stories. We hope this will increase the usability of the site and help us to know what is working for you in your usage of the site.
The new site will launch the week of November 23. Please be aware that the site may be down for a few days while we make the transition. We look forward to sharing the new site with you all and we hope you will continue to find GoTell’s resources of use to you in your ministries.
Cortney Haley
Linking the Jail, the Church, and the Kingdom
Jesus talked a lot about the kingdom of God. One time he asked a rhetorical question: “What is the kingdom of God like?”
Almost every week when I engage biblical stories with women in the Montgomery County Jail I get an inkling about what the kingdom of God is like. This phenomenon came to me as I considered how to start my article about “Seeds of Grace” for the UMC Deacon and Diaconal Ministers blog.
Biblical storytelling was a central component of the Seeds of Grace Emerging Ministry Project, funded this past year by grants from the General Board of Higher Education & Ministry and the Miami Valley District of the United Methodist Church. To fulfill a grant requirement, a blog entry was submitted for the UMC Deacon blog, which was posted October 30, 2015.
Since a “ministry-in-action” photo was requested, along with a story about how the project connected the church with the community, the item I submitted focused on the prayer card aspect of Seeds of Grace. I wasn’t about to take a photo of the women in the jail, but the Monday morning prayer group of Grace Church, Dayton was fine with me taking a photo of them reading the prayer cards that the women had recently written.
Click here to read the blog entry…
Amelia Boomershine
Repertoire: The First Three Stories
Last month I committed to identifying three stories to begin building my biblical story repertoire. It turned out to be harder than I anticipated because I thought of various criteria for picking them. I finally settled on three “firsts” – that is, three stories from the first verses of a book. That seemed to go along with their being the first stories in my repertoire, plus they are stories that I know already, more or less:
- Genesis 1:1-5
- Mark 1:1-15
- John 1:1-5 (this one I have to work on a bit)
Next steps: Write my take on a SHORT (2 page) performance criticism commentary on each of these stories and identify three more stories.
Amelia Boomershine