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A story is a work of art, and story-telling, like all forms of art, is one part natural gift, 2 parts technique and 10 parts practice & sweat.

Musical comedy writer George M Cohan summed up the parts of a story as

Act One: Get the hero up a tree
Act Two: Throw rocks at him
Act Three: Get him out of the tree
and that's right (BTW, I found that in Clifford Warne's book "The Magic of Story-telling" ANZEA Publishers, 1971). As I get to them I'll add articles here on my own experience of story-telling over the last 30+ years, with the hope that it might help someone else.

A Heavy Load

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Kids' talk in church 25th September, 2016 Kids carry heavy loads in their backpacks when they go to school. Hard work on a hot day! MORE...

A Stormy Night

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(Here is the background to my sketch) in this Bible story we see the power and kindness of Jesus, and how much we need Him. MORE...

ChampionsChallenge - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article ChampionsChallenge: Here are my illustrated Bible stories for a kids' school holiday "Adventure Time" at a church in the Hunter Valley. The theme for the week is "Champions' Challenge", hence the title. This is my 4th (and in 2015, 8th) "Adventure Time" with lots of primary age kids and a wonderful team of all ages from the church. They really do the lion's share of the work, and it is exciting to be with them. MORE...

Fear and Fear Not!

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Here is the Christmas story I told with my sketch-board at a "Carols among the Gum-trees" in December 2016. The story begins in the Judean hills near Bethlehem. Some shepherds were sitting at night watching their flocks of sheep. They were not modern shepherds, with quad-bikes and sheepdogs, just poor men who guided the sheep to good grass in the daytime and guarded them at night. It was a dirty, lonely and at times dangerous job, because there were wolves around. Nobody thought much about them, but they just got on with their job. MORE...

GroundBreakers - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article GroundBreakers: Here are my illustrated Bible stories for a kids' school holiday "Adventure Time" at a church in the Hunter Valley. The theme for the week is "Ground Breakers", hence the title. This is my 5th "adventure Time" with lots of primary age kids and a wonderful team of all ages from the church. They really do the lion's share of the work, and it is exciting to be with them. MORE...

Jesus, King of Christmas

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Do you get excited waiting for Christmas to come? There is the Christmas tree, and the lovely decorations, the lights, the family get-together, the feast, and of course the presents! The first Christmas, over 2000 years ago, is what gave us all these exciting things, because that first Christmas was more lovely and gave better presents. It was so good that its good things flow down to us even after so many long years! MORE...

Jesus, King of Christmas - Video

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Jesus, King of Christmas - Video I simplified it a little to make it more visible in a large school auditorium. MORE...

Jim's boat - 'Twice Mine!'

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Who MADE absolutely everything? Well, we like to make things too (making things is one of God's gifts to us all). A young boy called Jim loved to make things. Jim spend many weeks making a model boat. He painted it bright colours and put a strong electric motor and some batteries in it so it could go fast in the water. MORE...

KnightsOfTheKing - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article KnightsOfTheKing: This is a set of Bible stories and sketches I did for a kids' holiday Bible Club in a country church, in the Riverina farming area of NSW. The theme was "Knights of the King", built around a medieval knight trying to find the true King, so that he could follow him. The stories are from Matthew's Gospel, in the Bible.

MORE...

Landlubbers! 2006

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Kids' Adventure Time 2006 I really enjoyed spending a a week at a country church in the Hunter Valley as the Bible story-teller/teacher at a holiday "Adventure Time" MORE...

Land-Lubbers - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article Land-Lubbers: Kids' Adventure Time 2006, 2012 I really enjoyed spending a a week at a country church in the Hunter Valley as the Bible story-teller/teacher at a holiday "Adventure Time" MORE...

Lightning Lettering

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Lightning Lettering (also called Ladder Lettering) is a really easy but seemingly magical way of drawing or painting words. All ages from little kids to grandpas and grandmas love watching words appear as if from nowhere. I have been using this method in my kids' Bible stories for many years now. I usually put in a background colour, and then draw the bordering "Ladder". You don't need to be too fussy about alignment - it doesn't matter if a bit of colour is outside the border. Tip: count the letters and SPACES if any in your word or phrase, and then divide the ladder up. For example, if it is 8, divide the ladder into 2 halves, then the halves into quarters, then the quarters into eighths. If 9, divide into 3, then each third into three. Tip: you can make "M"s and "W"s a bit wider, and any "I"s a bit narrower. MORE...

PyramidRock - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article PyramidRock: Here are my illustrated Bible stories for a kids' school holiday "Adventure Time" at a church in the Hunter Valley. The theme for the week is "Pyramid Rock", one the life of Joseph, with his many sufferings, eventual joys, and who God used him to rescue his family from starvation and early death. MORE...

Sketchboard Sermons, by Jim Duffecy

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When I was a young man I had the privilege of watching a great story-teller at work. Jim Duffecy sketched and spoke at the same time, and wove both mediums together into an unforgettable whole. His passion was the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his story-telling always aimed at that. I think I learned more from him than any other, and when I wanted to do some basic training for would-be Bible story-tellers in 2004, the publishers of Jim's little book "Sketchboard Sermons" kindly gave me permission to copy it for any who wanted it. Thank you, https://oacusa.org/ MORE...

Sketching - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article Sketching: Sketching and telling stories (and especially the stories from the Bible) is a marvellous way to communicate with kids. I've been doing it for 40-odd years. Here are my brief notes, in the hope that they will encourage others to have a go. You don't have to be a Rembrandt or a Leonardo Da Vinci. If you tend to think in analogies and images, and can doodle, you can probably sketch easily. MORE...