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Storytelling & presentation course

The Art of Storytelling

Telling a story your hearers cannot forget

Sixteen sessions that take you from finding your stories to telling them with a steady voice and a clear appeal: structure and tension, sensory detail, pacing, dialogue, nerves, reading an audience, handling Bible narrative faithfully, and setting the story inside a sermon so it leads to Christ. Every session carries a synopsis, key points, key texts, eight discussion questions with model answers, and an eight-question quiz.

Sessions
16
Questions
128
Quiz questions
128

How to use this course

Read this first — it takes two minutes and will double what you get out of the sixteen sessions.

  1. 1. Work one session a week

    Each session is a single sitting of about forty-five minutes: read the synopsis, look up the key texts with your Bible open, then answer the questions. Sixteen sessions make a four-month course, or eight weeks if you take two at a time.

  2. 2. Write your answers before you look

    Type your answer into the box under each question first. The model answer only appears after you have written something, and it is there to confirm or correct your thinking, not to replace it. Your writing is saved on your own device and is never sent anywhere.

  3. 3. Take the quiz last

    Open the Multiple choice tab once you have finished the questions. Answer every item, check your score, then use Show all answers to review the explanations. Retake clears it so you can try again later.

  4. 4. Tell a story every week

    Storytelling is a skill of the mouth, not the notebook. Each week take one story — from Scripture or from your own life — and tell it aloud to someone: a child, a family member, a small group. Practise the specific skill of that session and ask your listener one honest question afterwards.

  5. 5. Keep a story file

    Start a notebook or a note on your phone today. Write down every incident, image, and Bible scene that moves you, with just enough detail to bring it back. By session sixteen you should have a file you can preach from for years.

  6. 6. Using it with a group

    In a class, read the synopsis aloud, discuss four or five of the questions together rather than all eight, then give each member five minutes to tell their story for the week. Close by running the quiz together on one screen.

  7. 7. Keep Christ at the centre

    Technique is a servant. Every skill here — detail, pacing, voice, gesture — exists so that the listener sees Jesus more clearly, not the storyteller. Finish each session by asking: how does this make the cross plainer?

A word on sources. This is an original sixteen-session course on the craft of Christian storytelling. It is not a reproduction of, nor taken from, any published book. If you are working through a printed storytelling title alongside it, read the book's chapters in whatever order suits and use these sessions for discussion, practice and review.

The sessions

  1. 01Why Story Works: The Storyteller God and the Power of NarrativeStory is God's own chosen method of revelation8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  2. 02Where to Find Your Stories: Life, Scripture, and ObservationStories are gathered, not manufactured, by a watchful and prayerful eye8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  3. 03Letting the Listener Walk in Your Shoes: Point of View and Sensory DetailEmpathy is engineered through vantage point and the five senses8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  4. 04Structure: Hook, Rising Tension, Turn, and ResolutionA God-given shape carries a story from opening to impact8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  5. 05Making It Unforgettable: The Single Dominant ImpressionOne clear impression outlasts a hundred scattered details8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  6. 06Knowing When to Ramble and When to Cut: Pacing and EconomyRhythm and restraint keep a story alive in the listener's mind8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  7. 07The Finishing Touches: Dialogue, Names, and Concrete DetailsSmall, specific choices give a story the texture of real life8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  8. 08The Last Ingredient: Telling a Story That Changes the ListenerTechnique serves transformation, not applause8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  9. 09Preparing Without a Script: Learning the Story, Not Memorizing WordsInternalizing a story so it can live freely in the telling8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  10. 10The Voice: Volume, Pitch, Pace, and PauseShaping the voice as an instrument that serves the story8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  11. 11The Body: Eyes, Hands, Face, and StanceLetting the whole body tell the story truthfully8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  12. 12Handling Nerves: From Stutterer to StorytellerTurning fear into fuel through preparation, prayer, and grace8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  13. 13Reading the Audience: Children, Adults, and Mixed CrowdsAdapting delivery and content to who is actually listening8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  14. 14Telling Bible Stories Faithfully: Accuracy, Imagination, and the LimitsEnlivening Scripture with imagination without distorting its truth8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  15. 15Story in the Sermon: Illustration, Appeal, and the Call to ChristUsing story to open hearts toward a decision for Christ8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages
  16. 16A Lifetime of Practice: Building Your Story File and ImprovingGrowing as a storyteller through disciplined, lifelong practice8 questions · 8 quiz · 3 key passages