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Chronological Storying – A Powerful Way to Teach the Gospel
(November 2000)

How do you bring the gospel in depth to people who know little about the Bible story? This is great challenge for all true Christians in these post-modern times. Maybe we at Rock of Israel can help. We are a Messianic ministry reaching out to the Russian Jewish immigrant community of Philadelphia with the love of Jesus.

A lot of immigrants don't know much about the Bible. Many Russian Jews don't even know who King David was! When we meet such folks for the first time, and show them our sinfulness and our need for a savior, they find it interesting. But, like most post-modern people, they do not have any sense that God is completely holy - that He utterly despises sin and will not tolerate it at all.

Some are intrigued enough to want to hear more. They come out to our Bible study group, led by Fred Klett of the CHAIM ministry. We have been doing an evangelistic study for several years, going verse by verse through Matthew and Hebrews. This is an inductive study, where Fred engages us with interesting questions about the text. Almost always we get an interesting two-way discussion going, in both English and Russian! It's amazing that every Bible passage somehow points to God's plan for rescuing us from the grip of death, and that Jesus His Son is at the center of this plan.

Recently I came across another powerful way to tell the gospel story. Its called chronological storying. You use a dozen or less stories to provide an overview of the Bible, in the end leading to a gospel presentation and a call to commitment. The idea is to tell the story of Messiah the way people learned it through history: creation, the fall, the flood, Abraham the father of faith, the Passover and the Ten Commandments, the history of the Temple, how the Prophets called people to holiness and again emphasized their need for a savior, and finally, the coming of Jesus Christ. There is a fantastic book that shows you how to lead a Bible study like this. Its called "Storyteller's Bible Study for Internationals" (a better subtitle would be "for Post-Moderns") by Bill Perry, available from http://www.multilanguage.com. We have begun a small group using this approach. Week to week the suspense builds about the Promised One who will come to set us right with God. People are eager to come back to hear how the story continues! Please pray for our group, that the gospel would take firm root in their lives.

On another note, the meeting place that was promised to us is no longer available. Please pray that we could find a comfortable home or a large apartment in the Russian Jewish neighborhood, that would let us meet with 25 or more people on a regular basis.

With Glory to Messiah Jesus, the Rock of Israel!
Marko Malyj
Congregational Planter, CityNet Ministries