Open the Book is a project created in the Bedford area as a Churches Together initiative for the Millennium - it was a great success and has spread to other areas across the country, including the Otley Deanery in Leeds. In 2007, Zephaniah began working with Shipley Christians Together to offer the project to Shipley's schools.

 
THE PROJECT

Open the Book trains teams of volunteer storytellers from churches to go into local primary schools and lead regular assemblies, using stories from The Lion Storyteller Bible by Bob Hartman.
Each story is supported by a unique set of props created by a volunteer props team. Over time, the stories build up to give
the children an overview of God's big story.

For the project in Shipley, John has written a specially commissioned song called Open the Book, which is sung at the beginning of every assembly. The song will be available on the new children's album, Haven't You Heard, due for release in July 2009.

IN SHIPLEY

Our Zephaniah storyteller, Julie Wilkinson works alongside Linda Hacking and Helen Longman from St Margaret's Church, Frizinghall, to deliver Open the Book to Shipley's schools. The project is run with the full backing of Shipley Christians Together, bringing people from different churches together on the storytelling and props teams.

Starting in January 2008, we now have three storytelling teams taking fortnightly assemblies in Shipley CE Primary, Saltaire Primary and Wycliffe Primary, and are looking to develop our fourth team. At present, our storytellers are reaching more than 600 children every fortnight with God's story.

The storytelling teams are made up of twelve individuals from six churches and there are more than fifteen members of the props team from at least five different churches.  

If you would like to know more about Open the Book, please contact Julie through our office.

You might also like to visit these links to learn more about the project in other areas:

Open the Book in the Otley Deanery

Bob Hartman - author and storyteller

Open the Book - new national organisation

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