Renewing + reconnecting
Fun with the Sermon on the Mount, Reader's Theater, a new look + more to come
In this issue…
// our website is getting a major makeover
// explore the Sermon on the Mount with family-friendly extras
// try our free Reader’s Theater studies as a fun way to enter the story of Scripture
// OneStory is getting a new look!
Dear fellow story-dwellers,
It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Almost six months to be exact. And wow — do we have a lot to share!
But I’ll kick it all off by sharing that this season has primarily been one of renewal. I’m now even more convinced that God’s way of renewal is often painstakingly slow, but it is also painstakingly beautiful. In the process, I’ve been learning to embrace the type of connections that can only be formed in intermissions of rest.
All that to say, we haven’t forgotten about you, and we hope you haven’t forgotten about us. This newsletter is a mix of news and renewals, with a few fun bonuses along the way.
If you have friends who will enjoy these bonuses, please invite them to subscribe and join us. We anticipate sharing much more in the months to come, and this newsletter is the best way to find out about them.
With grace and peace to your families from ours,
Amber
As summer warmed up, we became aware that new families weren’t able to access our curriculum. By the end of the summer, we finally had a solution: convert everything to PDF and make it available on our website. This, however, was a downright daunting project. Therefore, we are thrilled to share that our friends at BibleProject have stepped in to accelerate the process.
Don’t look now, but in a few months, we hope to have a searchable library of printer-friendly resources on our site, including full curricula, individual lessons, and new resources, such as reader’s theater Bible studies.
For our Bible time this year, my family is engaging with BibleProject’s year-long series on the Sermon on the Mount. In addition to watching these beautiful videos, my kids (ages 9-16) are joining me in following along with the weekly playlist. The weekly podcasts on the Sermon on the Mount are also in a format that breaks up the conversation in ways that make it easy for my kids to follow along.
That being said, I still wanted to do more, and I’ve heard from other parents who are also wanting to supplement the Sermon on the Mount series with additional family-friendly options. If this is you, how about we crowd-source this? I’ll share what we’re doing if you share what you’re doing. Here’s a button to make it easy for you:
Did you share? Okay — then I’ll share, too:
We prepped for Matthew 5-7 by becoming familiar with Matthew 1-4
Yes, it starts with genealogy. But have you heard Matthew’s Begats by Andrew Peterson? We absolutely love it. On repeat.
For the rest of Matthew 1-4, I designed Announcing the Kingdom, a series of four reader’s theater-style Bible studies. (Read more about reader’s theater in the next section!)
After we watched the first episode of Sermon on the Mount, I created a Blooket game to help us remember and review what we heard. Blooket is a blast. You can choose from a number of online games to review the same questions. We start with the classic game and then move on to Fishing Frenzy, Racing, and Gold Quest. There are also games for single players. If you have a problem with the link, create a free Blooket account and search for OneStory. Then click on the game that looks like this:
This is my family’s new favorite way to read Scripture. None of the text changes, but each person plays a role in the story you are reading. And it is so much fun!
You can sit around a table or a living room and simply read it, or you can choose to stand and act it out. Either way works! Afterwards, you explore questions that help you discover how that story is connecting with your own story.
It also works for a wide range of ages. Have struggling readers? Give them small roles. Have a group of older students? Add layers of creativity. Last night my home group (all adults) enacted and engaged with Matthew 15 for over two hours. Then, we topped it all off by turning our reader’s theater of Matthew 15 into an impromptu musical…complete with accompaniment. Best home group ever.
Here’s another link to the reader’s theater study for Matthew 1-4. These aren’t available via the website yet, so we’ll be sharing download links via email in the meantime.
OneStory is getting a new look, and we absolutely love it. Just look at the thought that our friends at BibleProject put into it:
However, do you want to know the design feature that literally brought Nicole (our co-founder and managing editor) to tears? The drop-cap O that encapsulates it all. Those O’s in storybooks have always been a portal that invites us to immerse ourselves in the story that follows. We’re excited to continue immersing ourselves in this beautiful story Jesus is telling…and to continue doing so together.