Last week, The Story CD, music inspired by the best-selling Bible The Story, The Heart of the Story by Randy Frazee, and God’s Story, Your Story by Max Lucado,  was released by EMI CMG in conjunction with Provident Label Group, Word Entertainment, Zondervan, World Vision, Proper Management, and CAA. The 2-disk CD set and the DVD contains 18 new songs written by Nichole Nordeman and Bernie Herms that tell God’s story through the eyes of principle Bible characters.

Since The Story was written in an easier reading style than The Bible, I was curious how a music compilation would be able to embody its same feeling of understanding and intimacy. But once I heard the lyrics, I was surprised to find that I was overwhelmed by the passion of each character’s song, especially since each story is told in the first person, from the characters point-of-view.

As someone who grew up listening to Nichole Nordeman, I understood immediately that it was her introspective writing skills that made the music speak to me.

Nichole explained the mission of the music best in an interview when she stated, “I really unearthed some things in my own life, and in scripture, and in these characters that I was unaware was waiting there for me. And I hope that’s what the listener does as well; I hope that it encourages people to get back in the Word.”

Of all the songs, I felt the strongest connection with “Alive,” the story of Mary Magdelene when she discovered that Jesus had risen, as sung by Natalie Grant. I felt a strong connection and understanding of the awe that Magdelene must have felt when she came to the tomb and discovered that Jesus had risen once again. The lyrics convey this perfectly as Magdelene contemplates the wondrous power and love that helped her change from a once broken woman. Over and over she proclaims “Alive! Alive! Look what Mercy’s overcome, death has lost and love has won.” This powerful song was described by Nichole as “the hardest song I’ve ever had to write in the history of all time; all songs.”

Click here to hear “Alive” by Natalie Grant

The Story CD is a great companion to The Story book. I highly recommend getting the CD set and listening to it as a whole in order to feel the impact of the narrative. In addition to the CDs, there is a companion DVD with the 18 songs set to video footage shot all over Europe and Africa. The Story Tour will be traveling to 13 different locations, bringing together Max Lucado, Randy Frazee, Steven Curtis Chapman, Newsboys, Francesca Battistelli, Natalie Grant, Selah, and Anthem Lights. For more information about the tour and how to get your hands on a copy of the CD set, check out thestorycd.com.

(-Madeline, The Story Team Intern. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its partners and representatives. The writer’s opinions are his own, and he’s sharing them for information and entertainment purposes only.)

The last three stages of preparation prior to your launch are important in setting the stage for happy teachers, growing groups and excited people.

Preparing Teachers

Gather your teachers and group leaders together for an orientation session. Offer different orientation sessions for each ministries – children, youth and adult leaders should meet separately. If needed, offer more than one orientation session so all the teachers can find a time to participate.

Children’s teachers and youth leaders

During orientation sessions for the departments:

• Use the reproducible materials (children and youth) and distribute the guidelines for the curriculum
• Discuss the format of lessons and how your department will be using the resources
• Distribute a complete set of curriculum resources for one lesson
  • Lesson plan
  • Student handouts or activity pages
  •  Skit or storyreaders scripts
  • Parent Pages
• Run through the actual lesson to demonstrate how to use the materials

Note: Both the youth and children’s departments may want to make use of the excellent introductory and review videos on the teen resource DVD.  If so, be sure to show them during your orientation session.

Adult Sunday school teachers and group leaders

The orientation session for adult ministries leaders, such as Sunday school teachers or small group facilitators, will focus on doing a run-through of a sample lesson. If using the adult video-based curriculum by Randy Frazee:

• Distribute the participant guides, review the format of a typical lesson, show the video for the first lesson and divide the group into discussion circles and choose 2 or 3 questions to have the groups discuss.
  • Going through an actual lesson is a great way to reassure your new leaders that they are capable of facilitating this curriculum.
  • A resource is Exploring The Story.  This book provides background information for the scriptures included in each chapter of The Storysuch as:
    •  Archeology
    •  Geography
    •  History
    •  Timelines
    •  major characters
    • major themes

Some churches are giving a copy of Exploring The Story to all their adult ministries leaders as a thank-you for their investment of time in The Story.

Ways to Foster Growth

Populating Small Groups

If you are hoping to build or strengthen your small group ministry, The Story offers a perfect opportunity to do so. So many of the shorter campaigns are proponents of the “let’s get them in the door for a low-level commitment period, and see if it sticks” philosophy. But the aftermath of these short-term commitments is usually a pretty high fall-off rate, with most groups disbanding after the campaign is over.

When people enter into a group with a time limit in mind, they are less likely to invest emotionally in the other group members, and the group is less likely to survive. But the mentality of The Story is entirely different, and the results that have been seen in group ministries are different.

With The Story, you are asking people to commit to a group not for a temporary experience, but over a significant period of time. People are entering the group with an expectation that they are going on a long journey together. And with these fellow-passengers, their level of transparency with each other is more likely to be deeper than can ever be reached in short-term groups. And, when you have more transparency, you have deeper bonds within the group, and deeper bonds result in committed groups that stay together after the curriculum is completed.

In one church, the small group participation tripled at the beginning of the campaign from 30 people to 100. Now, three months after the conclusion of the campaign, that church still has 100 people involved in small groups. There was zero percent fall-off!

Leverage this opportunity to start new small groups and rejuvenate existing ones! There is a simple procedure to follow in the Implementation Guide that involves 2-3 weeks of recruiting new hosts and 2-3 weeks of recruiting group members. A generic sign-up card is included on the Church Resource DVD. You may very well see some permanent life-change in those who participate in groups, as they develop a new lifestyle of learning together in community over time.

Passing out Books

If you thought people were excited before, once those beautiful new books arrive, the excitement reaches a fever pitch! The book distribution is place where a key exchange takes place: you hand over a book, and they hand you an information card. Make use of this opportunity to collect information from your congregation you have been wanting to know. Do you need to build up your email list? How about finding people who speak non-English languages? Are you unsure about who attends your home groups? How about finding people with particular skills? Build these questions into your information card, and require the exchange of a card for a book at the book tables.

Distribution of books should take place far enough in advance of the campaign that people have time to read the first chapter before the Week 1 sermon.

Tips for ordering: 

Be sure to order extra copies of The Story for Children. This beautiful Bible storybook is quickly snapped up by the grandmas for all their grandchildren, and by the parents because it’s the type of keepsake book they will want to have in their permanent family library.

Fill in your adult book supplies with the teen edition.  If you are concerned about rounding up or rounding down to a certain number of whole cases of books, consider filling in some of your order with extra copies of The Story: Teen Edition and offer them for sale to the adults. Some adults prefer to use a softcover book, and because the text and page numbers between the two books are identical, the adult book and the teen book are easily interchangeable.  Besides, with the clever flip book feature in the corners of the pages, now the adults can play with their books too!

Try out a copy of Exploring The Story. This excellent resource book will probably be a big hit, but if you don’t want to risk buying a whole case of 28, just purchase one copy for a sample and put it on your book table for people to review and place orders. This book does not come in the kit, so you have to buy one in order to see what it’s like. This is a great resource book for your group leaders and teachers, and for anyone who loves to go deeper in their study of the Bible.

Don’t overlook the children’s trading cards.  Although this may seem frivolous to some, those trading cards are a great teaching tool. They are referred to in the children’s curriculum as The Story Cards, and the back of the card has a verse and a description that focuses on the character qualities of the featured Bible person. Don’t give out a whole pack at once! Leverage those trading cards! Open up each pack and dole out one card per week. You will have children dragging their parents to church each week so they can get their next card.

Maximize your discounts by calling your Story Specialist to order.  It’s always a good idea to contact a Story specialist directly. The discounted prices you qualify for are not shown in the online store.

Bob Edwards: NC, SC, VA, WV, PA, NY, VT, NH, ME, MA, CT, RI, NJ, DC, DE, MD
Bob.edwards@zondervan.cc, (336) 408-3565

Ric Alessio: MI, IL, IN, OH, KY, TN, GA
Ric.alessio@zondervan.cc, (214) 724-3076

Mark Thompson: TX, LA, AR, OK, KS, MO, FL, AL, MS, NM, PR
Mark.thompson@zondervan.cc (214) 663-5555

Shelley Leith: NE, IA, SD, ND, MN, WI, MT, CA, NV, AZ, CO, UT, WY, ID, OR, WA, AK, HI
Shelley.leith@zondervan.cc (949) 525-2280