Become a Visual Story Practitioner

Become a Student of Story.  Read the 10 Immutable Laws of Storytelling.  (www.visualstory.org/10laws).  Story is what makes all of life interesting and meaningful. 

Live Aggressively into God’s Story.  If you don’t have God stories occurring in your life, you’re either disconnected from Him or you haven’t developed eyes to see.

Tell Your Story.  Write down your own “faith-awakening” story.  Keep it under three minutes.  Pray for one opportunity to share it each month.  Eventually you should be able to tell many stories of God “showing up” that will reveal the power and goodness of God to those around you. 

Know the stories in surrounding culture.  Watch the films, TV programs, and news stories that are being discussed among your peers (within reason).  As you better understand the personalities, motives, shortcomings, etc of the people involved, you’ll see “windows” that lead to greater and even ultimate Truth.  When you’re at least moderately conversational in current culture, you’ll have opportunity to share your thoughts about the good, the bad, and the beautiful in a situation.  With a little practice, it becomes quite natural to bring light and truth into the open.

Develop a list of your favorite visual stories.  When you see a great film, documentary, TV episode, or short film, put it on your favorites list.  Tell others.  Post a link to your Facebook page.  Tweet it.  I’ve got a small library of short films on my iPhone that deal with various real-life issues.  In the United States, we’re beginning to see films appear in theaters that have an authentic faith perspective that are not altogether embarrassing.  Tell friends about them; take friends to see them with you. 

Create Story.  Don’t wait to begin creating story.  Dare.  In the first few years of our marriage, Shirin would occasionally say, “I’ve got this idea for a story about…”.  I’d stop what I was doing, put my hands on her shoulders, look her in the eye and say, “Honey, you know what writers do?  They write.  They don’t talk about writing.”  One day the muse visited and stayed.  Within thirteen days a rough draft of a novella was completed.  Once she dared, she entered a season that would result in two novellas completed and two non-fiction works published in five years.  If you have an idea, dare to write, film, photograph, paint, etc.

Take a Course.  There are a variety of online tutorials or short-term training programs in writing and film making.  A variety of training videos made by those within the VSN community are available here.

Check Out Additional Resources

Why we need visual story.  www.visualstory.org/need.

VSN wiki (categorized list of faith-based media resources): www.visualstory.org/wiki

It’s a bit long, but check out this session from our Edinburgh Summit with grey-haired saints commenting on their journey in kingdom and media.  http://www.visualstorynetwork.org/video/essentials