An UPDATE to the discussion about how to handle "long stories" 

written by Neil MacQueen, Lead Writer of the Rotation.org Writing Team

The Rotation.org Writing Team has encountered this "LONG STORY" issue on numerous occasions, and each time we have a big discussion about how to handle it.

Whether you're a Rotation or Traditional format Sunday School, we all pretty much have the same length of classes  --45 to 55 minutes, thus, the various solutions we've come up with will undoubtedly work for you too.

Our solutions usually depend on the type of story we are dealing with, namely, is it just "LONG" passage or is it a GIANT story spanning multiple passages and chapters, or is it an entire BOOK.

There are LONG passages like the story of the Crucifixion, and then there are GIANT STORIES that span multiple chapters like Joseph's stories. And then there are stories which are an entire BOOK, ...Jonah for example.

"LONG":  Adam and Eve, Jesus' Crucifixion, 

"GIANT":  Jacob and Esau, Joseph, Exodus.

"BOOK":   Ruth, Jonah

LONG stories are the easiest to deal with, but how you deal with them will depend on the story itself and whether you are Rotating or not.

For example, when writing Jesus Goes to the Cross, we chose Mark 15:1-47 and then wrote a slightly condensed version of the story that preserved key characters, scenes, and dialog. By doing that, the Team reduced the word count by about 40%.  Many long Bible passages are like that.

We also wrote CREATIVE approaches to reading a lot of verses. Every lesson plan in that set has a different way of reading the story as a group. Supporting Members can see how we did all that at https://www.rotation.org/forum...et-the-cross-Mark-15

Using a condensed Storybook version (or writing your own), excerpting verses, summarizing certain parts and only reading key verses ---these are all ways to deal with LONG stories (those that have a lot of verses).

You can turn this "need to condense" into a game, which is especially fun if you have a Bible Skills and Games Workshop to play it in!   The game is called "How Few Can You Do" and was first described at rotation.org as a way to condense Deborah's story in as few keywords as possible.  It is described in a Writing Team lesson for Lazarus here, and in the Judges-Deborah lesson here, and also in general here for those who aren't supporting members.

GIANT or BOOK stories, like Joseph or Ruth simply need broken down into multiple lessons, and/or use what you might call "Focus on the Best, Summarize the Rest" -- identifying the key scenes to focus on and verbally summarizing the rest of the story. 

For Example, in our Wandering through the Wilderness lesson set, we identified four key scenes in the overall story to focus on, and noted that each of these key scenes were really dealing with the same issue:  "Stop your complaining and trust in God." 

Joseph's story has several scenes which could be summarized, ....Potiphar's Wife, for example, and the dream-telling in prison ...which is really just a set-up to get Joseph in front of Pharaoh to interpret his important dream.  The same can be done with the story of Ruth.

BOOK and GIANT stories require an approach geared to the story itself and tapping some special resources that are available.

For example, the Writing Team wrote six connected lessons about the story of the JUDGES -- where the THEME was the over-arching POINT of the lesson set, and each week's individual story about a different Judge reinforced that overall point.

The Team will be doing Ruth next year, and because Ruth features strong emotional content, it will make sense to SHOW actors vividly portraying those emotions and relationship, rather than attempt to read through each verse. 

For Jonah, let me take a moment of personal time to recommend the Elijah & Jonah software I produced for Sunday Software. We took the story of Jonah WORD FOR WORD and turned it into an interactive comic book. That's a good example of what you can do about a BOOK or GIANT  or LONG story when you have a special resource that helps you cover the story without losing your students' attention.

Drama Workshops can sometimes pull some of this BIG story weight too, IF you have different groups in your class prepare the different parts of the story and then come together to present the full story.

For these big stories, you might also use a drama technique I call, "1 minute Bible" ...where different teams compete to see who can retell the story in the most complete way, not leaving out key moments, ...in under a minute. 

VIDEO is TERRIFIC WAY to deal with Long, Giant, and Book stories.

Invariably, a good video that retells the story without too many changes, is a great way to "SHOW" the Long/Giant or Book story to kids, rather than subject them to a period of reading that can take up way too much class time and turn off learners.

One of the techniques Rotation churches will often use is showing a video of the complete story on the FIRST WEEK of the Rotation to a gathering of all the classes in rotation. This kicks off the four to five week of workshops by giving all the students "the full story." 

In traditional Sunday Schools, you would show the movie on one week, and follow up on it the next with scripture and activities.

  In Summary, there's usually a creative solution to the problem of teaching long, giant, and book Bible stories. And often the answer depends on the story itself, and what resources you can find to do the heavy lifting.

You can find a similar discussion for Rotation Model Sunday Schools in the "Scope and Sequence" discussion here for the Rotation Model.

Feel free to post your thoughts and questions. 

If you have a story you need ideas for, you should post it in the Teachers Lounge