From Stories to Substance

Welcome to Kidman Backstage, the place where we talk about kids' ministry and take a peek behind the scenes.

We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them.

We release a new episode every Friday and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our Kid's ministry.

I'm your host Gabe Baker and today I am joined by Brother Miles Story. How's it going?

It's going good. You're having me.

Yes. I glanced over at you and it's funny because the way the light is shining on your hair from my angle.

You hit one of those like I was interviewing Ben Shapiro.

Yomaka.

Yeah.

Oh man.

I do actually have one of those at home.

Do you really?

Yes, I do.

A friend of mine, he went over to Israel several years ago and he brought me back one of them.

Oh that's funny.

The funny story is growing up.

I've got told.

Oh yeah, we're Jewish, we're Jewish.

We're Jewish.

We're actually in blood-wise.

Oh really?

Yes.

Oh wow.

I get engaged in my now wife and she's like, okay, you need to take a blood test because I'm not tired of hearing about this.

I want to know, are you really or not?

So I actually took the blood test and funny enough, I'm only 1% acidic to you.

Okay.

Well, hey, there's 1%.

It doesn't really count for a whole lot.

But anyway.

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah.

Man, I should take a blood test.

I don't know.

It's really interesting honestly, especially like where they've come from and all that kind of stuff they can like point back

like what kind of what this part of the family and like the percentages and everything like that.

Oh wow.

It's all you, it's weird what they can do now these days.

There's still a little bit of saliva.

You send it off and you get test results a little bit later.

Oh man, I'd be afraid like what I might find out.

I'm probably a clone.

All right.

Well, what are we talking about here?

We're talking about from stories to substance.

From stories to substance.

So I was trying to get some illiteration in there.

You know, we we talk a lot about that, you know, our Bible stories and stuff that we do and themes and all that.

But I was just I was kind of thinking about.

I was really thinking about theology is what I was thinking about when I first started with this thought.

And I was thinking about with the kids in sunny school.

I think some of the word theology can be like, you know, scary or whatever.

You picture sitting down with your church and your Bible.

And it's got to be a big Bible, too.

Yeah.

That's a big big one like that.

Yeah.

And all right, kids, fold your hands and quiet up as I quiet down as I light up this candle and we're going to read.

And they're going to fall asleep in 10 seconds.

Yeah.

So kids, as we know, they don't learn that way.

Not very well.

I remember one time.

I, man, I can't remember what book it was.

So I can't reference it.

But I remember they were talking about how you don't have to teach kids.

Like, let's just take a sport, you know, football or basketball baseball.

Let's say baseball because baseball cards.

You don't have to teach kids like baseball stats if they're like baseball.

They can rattle them off.

They know them.

And that's numbers and like technical information, but they know it because they love it.

Yeah.

And they're interested in it.

And so that's I guess the whole premise today, you know, I talk about how they learn,

kids learn through stories, they learn through playing, they learn because they're curious about something.

They want to know about it.

And so that's kind of the whole premise with our goal, I guess, in sunny school,

is we want the kids to not just hear this droning on.

And yeah, there's times for a serious city on lesson, but we don't want them to just hear this droning on.

And then go and talk about the latest comic book character or God forbid movie

or whatever they're really interested in.

I want my kids to be really interested in David and really interested in Daniel and know the stats.

Yeah.

You know, so to speak.

Yeah.

And so that's, anyway, that's just kind of the thought I guess today.

I mean, we can go back to, we can even look at that.

Jesus is a perfect example.

I mean, I wish I would have looked it up beforehand, but it came into my mind.

How many times do we see it found record in the gospels?

Yeah.

He's telling a story.

Yeah.

And he's telling, he's getting across this biblical principle through his story.

And there's even times that he told the story that it was this particular, say,

I'm going to just use something random because nothing's coming to my mind.

But the point he was trying to get across to the crowd was lying.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

But then his disciples pulled him a sigh later on and they're like, what were you really trying to explain?

And then Jesus explains this is exactly what I'm trying to tell you guys.

Yes.

And that's what's amazing about stories and is that as long as we're doing our best as sonnest school teachers,

maybe something else will pop into the kids.

And they'll get, they'll get some sort of little different information or a little bit of different perspective.

Yeah.

And they'll, yeah, they'll remember like that.

It'll stick with them.

I, you know, I, I've talked about before.

I think it was for the booker told the story or something or not the story,

but the example of like kind of the entertainment factor.

Like you entertain them and it opens the lid on their brain.

And then you can stuff some word of God in and close it.

I like that analogy.

It's funny.

Man, that would be a cool graphic.

That is a very good one.

The good visual.

Yes, it's a very good one.

But, you know, when it's not just that, it's also okay.

Like every, every church kid, I'll put it this way and a lot of non-church kids.

Every church kid knows the story of David and Goliath because it's such a visual.

It's a very big visual, especially because, well, Bible talks about him being a young kid.

Yes.

And sometimes we put him at that age group.

So, like, I remember being a kid.

And I remember thinking, like, me throwing this rock and hitting this giant,

this big old giant in the head and like, like, especially as a kid,

putting yourself in that kid's spot or like, or even like,

we can do a chat or act, me, Shaq, and then bend and go.

There's so many Bible stories that you really, that has,

you can put the kid, can put themselves in that position.

And that way it starts turning some wheels and start some imaginations in their brain.

Yeah.

And that's what we try to prompt, you know, in this day and age,

there's so much with movies and even if you dive into that,

special effects and all this stuff.

And I have heard it said, and I understand what it means,

but I've heard it said, well, there's no way we can compete with that.

Well, I kind of have a different opinion in a way.

We can't compete with it in the same level.

Right.

But where we can compete with it is one thing is the power of God,

right?

Exactly.

But even on a practical level or, you know,

carnal level, not not spiritual, is this format that we do

is closer to a play, maybe than it is to a movie,

because we're live, we're on stage, you know,

and so this format is not as common.

Kids don't see this very much.

And so, and then on top of that, we're interactive.

You know, what we do is interact with Sunday School.

Like we, the kids get to come up on stage almost every week.

And then sometimes like when we're full on in a theme,

and we go from the main room, and we go into, you know,

over to a forest or whatever it might be that's in kind of the next room.

And so I remember I mentioned that, I don't know,

I think it was last year at a seminar.

I mentioned something about like we get the kids up,

and we go to it's like a whole other room.

And it was a couple of people that blew their minds like, what?

Yeah.

And so we have the facilities for it, which is we're thankful for.

But regardless, there's many, many things that you can do.

And so I wanted to kind of go through some of those practical tips, I guess.

But I wrote, start with story, not explanation.

When you use a story, and I guess I have two different kind of missions

almost in Sunday School with the kids is, we've talked about it before I think on the podcast.

But one is, I want the kids to know a lot of the stories,

so that as they grow older, and then they get into the church,

and they hear the story of, you know, Jeb the mentioned,

it's familiar to them.

Yeah.

And they know who Samson is.

They know about Baylem and his donkey.

They know these stories.

And of course, Stephen Glyth and these other ones.

But so that's one part of it.

And I think it's a big part of it.

I think we do teach lessons every week.

But I think that is a big part of it is we want them to understand the Bible's stories

and have that as a part of their foundation.

But then also we want them to have doctrine and truth in them.

And so we utilize the Bible's stories and the theme that we are doing

to reinforce that part of it.

And so that's just kind of, that's where we talk about trying to make it more,

more horrible, you know, where they're going to stick with them.

And I think that, like you said, because we do that more play like concept,

it helps put that more in perspective.

Yeah.

Something they kind of just jumped out to me when I was still attending Sunday school.

It was probably 11, 11 years old, and they were,

it was on normal at the church that I tend for them to do more that acting part

just because there was more like, okay, here's flannel board and that kind of

Oh, wow.

I mean, that can have its place in a certain places and times.

But I remember that we did, they were doing more of it acting

and they were doing the story of Samson and Delilah.

Okay.

And what worked out is it was a married couple.

So obviously, like, Samson was able to lay his head on Delilah's lap.

Okay.

And they did it in such a way.

I didn't even notice it.

I didn't pay attention.

And I should have even as a kid at that age noticed it.

But like, he had a wig on.

And so when they went, and when she cut, like she cut a little piece of up the wig off

and held on there.

And then when he popped up, he had, he didn't have a wig on anymore.

And he lost his power.

And to me that, I just remember as a kid, it just like,

like my eyes were just like, just me just so real.

Like, even though I'd already knew it, I knew the story about Samson and Delilah before.

But just actually seeing like that whole cutting of the hair.

And I was like, yes.

Okay.

That's it right there.

That makes a lot more sense now.

That's so cool.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, that's another thing like, we do a lot of silliness.

You know, and we are going to continue to do this.

Yes, that's just who we are.

Yeah.

We do love that.

Absolutely.

But I thought about like, I would like to,

and we've done it a few times occasionally,

but taking stories and our, you know, air quotes here,

but special effects to the next level.

Yeah.

Like, just imagine if, you know, Daniel and I said,

okay, so that's a crazy story, if you think about, you know,

getting thrown into a cage, you know,

a full of lions that are hungry and all that.

But to make it so real to the kids,

like, so where they can, they get it.

And we do like the growls and the special effects,

you know, like that.

But if we could make it to where it's like,

they're thinking about it, you know,

where their heart's pounding.

Yeah.

And like, and the disadvantage,

disadvantage, or advantage, I guess,

but the disadvantage is a lot of the kids do know the story.

And he's like, okay, he's going to be okay.

Yeah, he's going to be okay.

Yeah.

They already know the ending.

Yeah.

But if you think about even,

even some of these stories like, you know,

if you think about David, you know,

we know the ending and we also know that,

yeah, he was, he had confidence in God.

But still, even with that,

his heart had to be pounding.

Exactly.

I mean, the adrenaline had to be so high as he's,

I mean, I wonder if he,

when he's getting the stones,

I wonder if his hands were shaking.

You know, I mean, like,

just the details like that to make it,

not to make it fake or embellish it,

but to make the kids get it like.

Yeah.

This is a big deal.

It's a huge deal.

Like, we already know the end,

but he didn't know.

Yeah, absolutely.

He might have thought, you know what,

I'm sacrificing my life for God.

You know, he might have,

I don't know, you know, I mean,

it's,

if we could take the stories to the next level

like that where the kids feel it and understand it,

I just think, you know,

it'd be really cool.

And we've done that like,

actually with the stories the same,

the same one that you just said with Samson,

we did that for youth.

And we did it.

I just, the main part I remember

was we did,

where the very beginning,

like I almost called the prequel,

because a lot of people don't even kind of remember

this part.

But way before the lila,

the girl from Timnath,

and they burned her and her father alive

in their house.

And so now that's pretty morbid for kids.

We have, we did do it not too long ago.

We just did it.

I remember that.

And we did talk about that.

But at youth, we like,

we enacted it.

We had, we had a little shack of onstage.

And we had, we had a throwbleite with a cellophane,

and we had a fog machine.

And then the actor playing that she,

I told her, I want you to scream.

And we practiced it beforehand.

And then the quote of what father,

you know, was another actor,

and he's, he's yelling and kind of screaming too.

But she screamed.

It was like blood curdling scream.

Yeah.

And it was, it was incredible.

And then Joey,

Joey Boggs played Samson.

Okay.

And he comes running.

Of course, we haven't used it going and stuff too.

And it's loud.

And he comes running in.

And it's like, it's too late, you know.

The shack is collapsed.

And the smoke is still, the fog machine, you know,

it's still dissipating.

And he comes running on center stage.

And he grabs.

We had a cloth that was like,

quote unquote, her dress, you know.

Yeah.

And so grabs the dress.

And he's just, he's like yelling.

Oh, no.

Wow.

It made it, it made it so real.

Like you experienced, first of all, the horror of what they went through.

And then the grief of Samson.

And then something that has hit me a little bit more,

because doing this as a Sunday school teacher,

being an actor, it has made my brain roll a little bit more.

As far as like, is weird as it sounds.

Like, there's been times like,

I like playing the prodigal son and running to that father.

Like, I like the emotion.

Like, it was like, all I couldn't do.

As a grown adult, not to start like wanting to start in a weep or whatever.

Oh, yeah.

I like it.

Yeah.

It would throw on the other background.

But like, I can just like,

because I've been able to like, place myself in those feet.

And like, it's like, it's just one of those things that like,

once you really start putting that,

those emotions and that kind of like stuff into it,

it's very, it's very interesting.

Like, I have, man, there's a couple different stories.

Pop through my brain.

But something that I've read a little,

I came across a little article this week.

They're doing, obviously we don't agree with it,

but like, they're redoing the,

what is it called?

It's not the passion of the Christ,

but they're redoing all that stuff.

I don't know if you've seen that.

Oh, is it like the part two or something?

Yeah, something like that.

I think I heard about that.

They were talking about it,

and they were talking about the crucifixion scene.

They, they said that like,

like these, they're not, they're not apostolic there.

And they don't, they don't have truth.

But they said that they were getting so into it

that they had to stop several times

because everybody started weeping.

Oh, wow.

He's the actor that plays Jesus says that

he actually feels like he has like PTSD from that scene

because he got so involved into it.

Oh, my goodness.

And it's put so much emotions into it

that like he felt like he's,

he feels disturbed after it.

Oh, wow.

Because he put so much into it

because like this is,

that's crazy.

And it's like our point is like to do our best, yes.

We don't want to be so, so graphic for the kids

that we don't want to disturb them.

Yeah.

Like we need to like do our best

to make these like,

this is a real story that happened.

This is not just like your comic book

that you read the other day.

Right.

It's not just like some book

that you pull off the shelf,

things that happen to people that just you and I.

Yes.

This is something that is real that happened to it.

Yeah.

And yeah, because if they get that,

it's like,

it sticks to one of my favorite stories

I've told it before is about my older son Adrian

when he was a kid.

He loved David.

As many church boys do.

He loved David.

But he loved David so much,

the story of David,

that I mean he was little

and we would,

with all my kids,

I've read to them, you know,

a night when they were little.

But he would ask me,

can we read about David again?

And we would lay down in bed.

I would pull out the King James version of the Bible.

Uh-huh.

And we would read about David.

Wow.

And he loved it.

Yeah.

I mean from the King James version.

Now I would embellish sometimes when I talked to him.

But we would read the verses.

And he loved it.

And he knew it.

Inside and out.

I mean he knew,

you know, how many brothers he had.

He knew, I mean details.

You know, he did.

And it wasn't,

there was no test sheet.

It was like the baseball cards in the kids.

There's no test for that.

They just know it.

They can write all those facts off.

And that's how he was.

He still can.

He was more about David in the night here.

He loved David.

And that's so awesome.

That's so cool.

And if we can get our kids to where they love it,

and they want to know more, you know,

they desire to know more.

If we can do that,

then we are doing our job as Sunday school teachers.

Now, let me qualify a little bit.

I don't do that real often on the podcast.

But I will qualify a little bit.

Every Sunday school is different.

Absolutely.

And there are some things that are not negotiable.

Like Ultra Call is one we talk about

that we feel like you should have.

But you don't have to do full on dramas like we do.

We love it.

And we think it's the best way for us.

You know, it's the best way.

But you don't,

that's not how it has to be.

But it needs to be interesting.

Yes.

Like, if here's an example,

not that we're just awesome.

But if you just imagine,

you mentioned flannel graph a moment ago.

Imagine if we did flannel graph.

Well, if we did it,

it would be like on a next level.

Yeah.

I don't know what we would do.

I don't know how it would be.

But it would probably be live size.

We'd probably be throwing the stuff

at the flannel graph.

I don't know.

You know, we would do something great.

We should do it.

That would be fun.

That would be a great video.

It would be very interesting.

And a big flannel graph.

Yeah.

Oh, that's, yeah.

We're going to do that.

That would be fun.

But, but, you know,

because one thing is,

we like to do, you know,

kind of big things for wherever it might be.

That might be a negative.

I don't know.

But the thing is,

whatever you do,

if you're doing flannel graph,

or if you're just,

if you're telling stories,

make it interesting.

Absolutely.

And be invested.

The thing is,

I love stories out of storytelling.

I could sit down with kids,

and I could tell a story,

and I could spend,

our segments are really short,

like two minutes.

I could probably spend 20 minutes

or more,

and keep kids engaged,

because of how I tell the story.

Yeah.

And I,

and I'm also,

I'm constantly observing,

and I'm catching,

I'm dropping what I call hand grenades,

like I'm losing their attention.

I'll change the voice and flexion,

or do something.

And I can,

I can usually keep kids,

pretty engaged,

when I'm telling stories.

But a lot of that is,

because I'm,

I'm very invested in what I'm doing.

And so,

on a practical tip, I guess,

it's better to have that,

than have five actors,

on stage doing something,

have heartedly.

Agreed.

100% agreed.

Yeah, because if you're up there,

and the kids don't get it,

and you're just like messing around,

you might as well,

stop and teach the theology.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Um,

I know that every,

every single children's

ministry is at a different place,

but,

to tell a little,

hopefully, if I encourage me,

I remember,

we did not have a very big,

from the church that I was in at the time,

at a younger age,

we did not have a big,

Sunday school department.

It was two teachers teaching about 12 to 15 kids.

Sure.

But I,

they,

I remember several times,

there's two teachers,

individually.

They put some,

thought process,

and effort.

They didn't,

they kind of reinvented the wheel sometimes.

Yeah.

But like,

they did some acting with that.

And they took the scripture about,

oh, I'm going to butcher it.

I had it a minute ago.

Uh-oh.

But the scripture was talking about,

like, not,

not taking or adding anything to the Bible.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

They,

there's a couple different things like,

I had scriptures that we had gone through that,

throughout the quarter,

and they did some acting.

Like,

not that they,

they had gotten

a Dollar Tree Bible.

Oh.

Where's that?

The scriptures are fine.

They grabbed it,

and they seriously,

they ripped it out of the Bible,

and went away.

Like, it was just something like,

something, obviously,

we're,

it was acting,

we're not being sacrilege,

or anything like that.

Yeah, exactly.

But it was something that,

like, even just as a little,

little, like,

just one or two people,

like, just try to do your best,

and pray that God

would help open up your mind.

Like,

I remember another one.

They, uh,

talked about Jesus coming back,

and they,

Trumpet from the platform,

and they did,

tada tada.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, it's loud and it's louder.

Especially the little,

there's a very,

a small room, it wasn't a very big room,

and just something little

like that.

And like,

you would be so amazed,

just like those little bit of things

that, like,

yeah.

Something different this,

this week,

we're, okay, we're gonna do something

a little bit different.

Okay?

Yeah.

I.

You remember,

there's a story about a preacher

that did that.

The Bible thing.

Pulling the pages of the Bible.

I can't imagine that would be just like,

as an adult, shocking, you know.

As a kid, cuz like, as a kid, like, especially like,

as 10, 11, 12 years old, you gotta be night,

this is your Bible, this is the word of God,

this is sacred, don't be thrown it around,

don't be like, you're all set in the sea, like ripping.

You're seeing that, the pastors, why take a page

and rip it out?

Yeah, like what in the world?

I was new in exacting, but I was like,

I had to pick up my job, the ground.

Oh man, yeah, no, that's really good.

And it goes, you know, a teacher can make huge impact

on kids like, well, like you remember that forever.

And so we have to be careful, you know,

in the negative side, but we can make such an impact

where kids are like, you know, they want, I mean,

okay, so we did a spy theme,

quite a while back in, I don't know, a year or so ago.

And we had our boys, my son being one of the main perpetrators.

They bring, bringing walkie-talkies to church

and going outside at night and like,

I remember coming out of the building to grab something

on like a Sunday night or something

and hearing what I saw them running around, you know,

I hear one of them, I'm on the west side.

Do you know, I do remember that now.

And I didn't even like click into my head

what they were, why they were doing or what they were doing.

I just like just wrote a hundred percent sense.

Yeah.

And so when, like, I love it, I tell the story,

like my son, even now, he will have friends over

and they're playing Bible stories.

Yeah.

And they even sometimes they play Sunday school,

like they're acting out the Bible story.

And I mean, that's awesome to me.

You know, I was like, okay, success.

Yes.

Absolutely.

So the other thing I wrote,

turned big truths into simple pictures.

I wanted to mention that I think that sometimes

we can still teach,

you know, object lessons are great for this.

But we can still teach not just the Bible stories,

but the concepts, you know, Biblical doctrines

and the concepts behind the Bible by, you know,

obviously like the parables are,

oh, that's what they are doing, right?

Yes.

And so we can, but we can teach even with our theme skit.

And so often our theme skit will be analogous

to the Bible story that day.

And so like, you know, it'll be kind of where

the main character or maybe the dawns

or something makes a mistake.

And it's very similar to the Bible story mistake.

And we used to have, we always would kind of make fun

of ourselves with the phrase, that reminds me.

That reminds me of a Bible story.

We'd segue, you know, as I finally,

I was like, we gotta come up with more original.

But, you know, like, I'll give an example.

Maybe somebody can use us.

We've used this a couple times.

We should do this again soon.

So we did this, we did this example where we have,

we had somebody that was the character.

I think it was a woman character,

but we had somebody that was really, really sick.

And so we did like, I think it was dynamic opening

with them or something to set the stage kind of,

so to speak.

And so they were very sick and I can't remember

what it was from or whatever,

but anyway, they have this disease.

And so then we go on.

We do offering prayer, what do you know,

we do all these different segments.

And so we're going on.

And then we have the scientists.

And it's all funny, you know, this part is all funny.

We have the scientists and stuff.

And then they discover, they have, you know,

you, we've done it in a couple of different ways.

One way was almost like an adventure,

like where they discover this new chemical or whatever.

And that's like, anyway, so it kind of longs way short.

They discover we have the cure.

Yeah.

And we have this cure.

And then we have news people come out

and they're interviewing them and they're celebrating

that they have this cure.

And then they, we, we will like do one of our songs

and we'll be shouting and jumping up and down

because we have the cure and we'll have this container.

And we'll be shaking it and we have the cure.

We have the cure.

And then that woman from earlier will slip out

and she's over in the corner, huddled up, quote,

dying of her disease.

And we're over there celebrating.

We have the cure.

We're getting interviews because we have the cure.

We, we are posting it on social media

because we have the cure.

And then we go and we're going to lock it up

because we want to keep it safe.

We want to keep the cure safe.

So we lock it up and then we, we go home.

And the woman is there on stage dying.

And so we use this, it's a powerful analogy.

Super powerful.

We use this to talk about evangelism.

And like we have the greatest thing.

We have the plan of salvation.

We have this and we even bring it to the kids level

of we have the coolest Sunday school,

well, probably in the world,

but certainly in Washington state.

Yeah.

We have the coolest Sunday school ever.

Are we telling anybody about it?

Is anybody coming to, to be a part of the cure?

You know, to get the cure?

Yeah.

And so that's a way that we can take something.

It's not even a, it's not a Bible story.

But it's, and it's not really a theme skit necessarily.

But we can take an example and, and there's a lot of comedy in it,

but it hits home at the end.

Yeah.

And, you know, you, you can see some kids kind of get it.

Like, oh, it clicks.

Yeah, because then they start to feel sorry for the woman.

They're like, oh, and we're careful that when we do that,

this is like, I guess practical tip in acting,

but we're careful that anything with the woman is not comedic.

Yeah.

So that's nothing, you know, so the opening is like,

oh man, that's sad.

What's going on with her?

And then we go on and we have these scientists

and they're crazy and funny.

Yeah.

But then towards the end, then it's like, oh, wait.

You know, we had all this fun.

And we got this cure, but what are we doing with it?

Exactly.

So, anyway, yeah, those are some of the ways, I guess,

like just some examples we're kind of out of time,

but some examples of how we can, you know,

utilize our stories.

Just take the stories, turn it into something.

Yeah.

With some substance, something like that.

Something that the kids can like feel and touch

and make it come alive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess to wrap this up with a nice neat bow, you know,

from stories to substance is we are all about,

I mean, we have a reputation for this.

We are all about themes and costumes and cool decor

and slides of kids get to go down and all of these things.

We're all about that.

But we do it for the substance.

Yes.

And that's what we're trying to.

And maybe there's some other ways to do it.

I don't know that are easier and cheaper

and let's take less time.

So this is how we do it.

Yeah.

And I think it works.

I guess it's kids love it.

All right, well, that's a wrap.