Preparing For Assisting At A Workshop

Next week I will be an assistant instructor at a Simply the Story workshop in Beaverton, Oregon. The workshop is 5 full days and I have stories, teaching points and illustrations that I will be doing in front of those who are taking the workshop. Believe me, learning all of these things and having to teach them all without any notes is a challenge for my 57 year old brain. I now know the true meaning of "brain freeze". Sometimes as I go over them in my head while I am driving (no, I don't take the papers with me to read while I am driving), I seem to jumble some parts of one story with some parts of another story. Combining the Good Samaritan story and the story of Jesus Calming the Storm makes for an interesting "new" story. But, the Holy Spirit has been present as I prepare in various ways. I decided that posting videos of myself doing the stories, etc. on YouTube would be a helpful tool for me to use. I could record myself using the Camera App. on my iPad and then post the videos. First of all, have you ever tried to tell a Bible story to an iPad? It is very comical. Well, at least for me it is. I had to find a place in our house that was high enough so that when I recorded the stories the "audience" could see my face and hands. That is very tricky for someone who is tall. I tried one spot after another until I finally found a place that would work. I guess I could have taped the iPad to the ceiling and told them while lying down on the floor. Next, I had to figure out how to use the camera application as a video recorder. Half an hour later and I was able to get the camera so it was recording me and not what I was seeing through the camera. You know how when you watch movie directors on the set and they say, "Action, take one"? Well, for me it was Take One, Take Two, and by about Take Twenty Five I was able to actually make it through telling one five minute story without having to start again. Now came the time to post the videos on YouTube. I had to create a YouTube account and then give my video a title and tags so that people could find the video and watch it. In case you don't know what a tag is I will tell you. Tags are short, descriptive words that people can type in their search engine and then, hopefully, they will be taken to your video. I tried to use as many tags as possible to ensure that my videos could easily be found. For my recording of the story of The Terrible Storm I used the following tags: shawknee(a nickname), storm, bible story, and terrible storm. I thought that if anyone typed in "shawknee" in their search engine it would take them right to my video. Boy, was I wrong. There were so many items that came up when I typed in "shawknee". I quickly learned to type in "shawknee" and another of the descriptive words. After watching several of my videos over and over again I was able to learn how to make the presentation not come across as robotic or as just a memorized recitation. My lead instructor was able to view them and give me valuable suggestions. With practice, I am now much more relaxed about presenting at next week's workshop. Well, about as relaxed as I can possibly be in front of a group of adults. I will pretend they are kids and I should be just fine. Actually, I am really looking forward to this opportunity to share God's word and to dig deep into the Bible stories. I will post more after the workshop and keep this blog updated with my continued adventures in Oral Bible Storytelling.