Ways to use The One About

Individuals, small groups, and churches used The One About Vol.1 in a variety of ways to encourage people to recognise how God may already be working in their lives, and to enrich their imagination for how he might. Maybe one of these ways will spark an idea for you and your church.

On your own

1. Make your quiet time story time. Read a story a day or a story a week, and reflect on the questions in your devotional time. Each one can help you think of ways you can see and show God’s presence that day or that week. Jot them down to remind you in times to come.

2. Write your own stories. After reading, take some time to think about what stories you have of God’s work in your day-to-day life. Set an exercise for yourself to write them down – in a journal, as a testimony, or as a memoir for family. Use the questions and tutorial video link on page 66 to get started. If you feel led, share your ‘one about’ with us at licc.org.uk/myoneabout. We’d love to hear from you.

3. Take a retreat day. Personal retreat days aren’t only for ministers! The One About can help you reflect on your ‘ordinary’ life and calling through God’s eyes. (Hint: it’s not ordinary to God.) Dig into the context of the verses that go with and between chapters, read the stories, and ponder the questions. Take time to listen to what God is calling you to in your Monday to Saturday life.

In a small group

4. Read through book-club style. Read one of the stories (or the whole set) together and discuss what strikes each of you. Stop at the question partway through and ask how you or others might have acted. Then read on and discuss the question at the end as well.

5. Get to know each other. Have a The One About evening where people share their own stories, and others reflect on what they noticed about them. It can help foster understanding amongst the group of each member’s day-to-day context, and their spiritual strengths.

Questions to help you learn from each story:

• What aspect of God’s character do you see in the story?
• What godly characteristic(s) does the person display?
• What connection with your own life or a friend’s life do you see?
• What biblical story or verse or passage or truth does it remind you of?

With a whole church

6. Earth your sermon. If you’re preaching, there is nothing like sharing the stories of real people to help your listeners see how God works in every context. You could build a sermon series on selected stories or use them as illustrations in sermons on any number of topics or scriptures.

7. Deepen small groups. Take the church into a time of examining what it means to be disciples in every area of life by encouraging small groups to go through The One About stories for a season and examine how they are helping each other see God in their various contexts.

8. Commission the congregation. How about commissioning people as they return to work and school? One church gave everyone a copy of The One About Vol.1 as a gift at the end of the service, reminding them of the ways God works in those contexts. For ideas for commissioning services see licc.org.uk/commissioning

9. Give a harvest encouragement. At harvest, we bring the fruit of our labour together in worship and are sent out again with a fresh vision and purpose for the contexts where we serve. Use stories in The One About to envision and encourage your church in bearing spiritual fruit.

10. Add some drama. Use the stories as a drama series of ‘inspiring frontliners’. Ask people in your congregation who resemble someone in one of the stories to read that story out and comment from their own experience. Or, if you have creative and adventurous members, create a drama based on one of the stories, to lead into a sermon or discussion.

11. Kick-start story sharing. Help your congregation to discover their own stories of God at work. Use the stories as examples and ‘The One About You’ (page 66) as a framework. Ask everyone to send their stories to a church leader. Perhaps make this question a regular call for stories of God’s work in the everyday: ‘What’s your “one about”?’

12. Introduce a new Sunday segment. Sharing stories from The One About in the service, giving a copy to everyone at church, or emailing stories and videos in the church newsletter can be a great way to introduce – and recruit – story-sharers for a short everyday testimony segment on Sundays. You could facilitate ‘Your One About’ interviews of church members weekly or monthly, using the questions on page 8.

The One About is more than just this little book… see all the resources at licc.org.uk/theoneabout