I find it very interesting what happened when a major shift in theology took place in the Early Church - that of the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles (story in Acts 11) - and the leaders “took issue” with Peter about this, saying “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them”.

I don’t know about you, but perhaps when you’re accused of doing something “unbiblical” you would choose to defend yourself theologically with argument about how this and that doctrine matched up with your actions. Maybe even to your church leaders this is the only way they would respect your answer.

How did Peter respond? Interestingly enough he chose to tell two stories: 1) the story of the dream in which God told him (three times!) “what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy”, and 2) the story of how “the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning”.

His conclusion in verses 16 and 17 was interesting. Firstly he pointed to remembering Jesus’ words (“John baptised with water; you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit”) and secondly he spoke one short sentence, asking his hearers (the Church leadership in Jerusalem) about how they could object to God pouring out His Spirit on those who believed (among the uncircumcision).

Fascinating!

And the response from leadership? Dissatisfaction with Peter’s simple apologetics? No. As the Message puts it (in verse 18) you have a response that I have seen many times as people hear a story embedded with truth (via oral communication!): “Hearing it all laid out like that, they quieted down. And then, as it sank in, they started praising God. ‘It’s really happened! God has broken through to the other nations, opened them up to Life!’”

It was “laid out” by a story. And ... it “sank in“. Result? Praise to God, and the truth of the inclusion of the uncircumcised (who believe, into the Body of Christ) was received.

We now have a page of buttons to choose from (including an animated graphic!), if you would like to add a link to us in your website or blog or whatever. Please do consider doing this if you are a friend of story4all, as this will help us get the word out about orality, storying, the podcast, etc., as well as raise our “visibility” among search engines.

You can access the button page by clicking here

On our Links page we also now have a side bar (right hand side) in which we expect to list button-only links to various friends of the ministry who have podcasts. Not all podcasts listed there will necessarily be orality-focused per se, but they may occasionally have orality discussions or resources mentioned. We will only put links to podcasts we feel would be of interest to people who would visit our site. The current listed GNN (God News Network!) podcast is a show that seeks to bring you stories about what God is doing in the world today. Their summary says: “Are you tired of listening to what the big news agencies are feeding you? Then check out God News, and find out what He is doing in the world today. You won’t hear this on CNN!” They have some tremendous stories of God at work round the world. Check them out!

Our Links page, in the main central section, will only have ministries listed that are orality-focused, or have storying aspects to their work. If your ministry is not listed, and you feel you qualify, please send us a button (128 x 50 size please), a URL for your website, and a little summary ‘blurb’ about the ministry you do, and we will seek to list you also.

We did some work on the web site last night and put up some new bits and pieces on the Links and Stories pages. Keep watching out for more stories that will appear as time permits us to put them up, and after the summer break we’re going to be taking in a week’s time. Keep checking back to read the exciting reports and stories from round the world that will appear on that Stories page. Or, you can click the "feed" link in the sidebar of that page to be notified when new stories are posted.

We have many more sites to put up on the Links page but we want to talk to each agency and ministry first to do reciprocal links where possible and to get their preferred wording for the page, so that page will develop over the rest of the summer.

Please note: During our break (from 13th to 26th July) weekly podcast shows should appear as normal each Tuesday, but correspondence via email and response to Voice Mail will inevitably be sluggish. Thanks for your understanding on a busy time for us. Your prayers are appreciated as we seek to find a new location for story4all and prepare to move to more suitable accommodations.

It is encouraging to us how word continues to get out about story4all. We have managed to place some press releases in various key Christian magazines and news sites, as well as some more ‘secular’ ones. Today I just got my copy of Momentum magazine, where they published my article on story4all on page 15. See here to read that article/magazine. We're also here