Story Weavers Global is a ministry focused on evangelism, discipleship, and addiction recovery that uses storytelling as a key method to reach people and share the gospel.
Summary:
Story Weavers Global is a ministry focused on evangelism, discipleship, and addiction recovery that uses storytelling as a key method to reach people and share the gospel. The ministry was founded around 7 years ago and has expanded to operate in multiple countries and languages, with a focus on oral communication and building relationships.
The key approach of Story Weavers is the “TOGA” framework, which involves listening to someone’s personal story (“their story”), sharing the minister’s own story (“our story”), connecting those stories to God’s story from the Bible, and then helping the person create a “new story” moving forward. This method is effective because it helps people feel valued and understood, and then introduces biblical truth in a contextual way.
The ministry has seen many lives changed through this approach, as evidenced by a story shared by George Banda about comforting a family who had tragically lost a father and multiple children. By sharing his own personal experience with loss, Banda was able to empathize with the family and then introduce biblical truth in a way that provided them strength and comfort. Story Weavers Global is an effective ministry that is leveraging the power of storytelling to share the gospel and help people in difficult circumstances.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, George Banda from Botswana, and we are here together at the Billion Soul Conference in South Korea. Now, I love what you’re doing in ministry. Tell me a little bit about what your ministry does.
George Banda (00:22):
Thank you so very much Evangelism podcast. I’m so excited to be given this opportunity. Yes, like you can see, we are called Story Weavers Globe. We are into evangelism and discipleship as well as addiction recovery. The world is struggling with addiction.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:43):
So Story Weavers Global.
George Banda (00:46):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:46):
And tell me a little bit about how you got involved with Story Weavers Global and what God has done through you.
George Banda (00:53):
Yes. God has used story weavers to reach out to so many through conversations. We do believe that in every culture, in every language, in every village, any part of the world, God has blessed each and every culture with the gift of conversations just like we are doing here. So
(01:14):
In story weaving, we do believe that we have what we call the toga, where you have to tell your story to your story, my story, and then God’s story. And then we add a new story. In other words, we have what we call their story, our story, God’s story, and a new story, which is the toga. And we use this toga as our GPS. This works well in evangelism because when you listen to someone’s story, they feel valued. By the way, someone can forget what you said, but they cannot forget how you made them feel. So we’ve come to use these tools to reach out to the world and the responses are overwhelming and so amazing. I can attest to that, that I came to know, and by the way, I’ve been pastoring a full-time pastor for over 16 years in Africa,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:09):
Botswana, and where? In Botswana?
George Banda (02:11):
Botswana, I’ve been to almost all the districts. I started in HaBO and then transferred to almost all the districts. When I came to add to my ministry these two, I personally came to a place where I said, wow, I’ve been preaching, but I’ve not been listening to people. So this was, I think it’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:32):
Interesting, God gave us two ears and only one mouth. One mouth. And so we should listen twice. As much as we should
George Banda (02:39):
Talk, we should talk. So I came to be a student and later on a teacher and started weaving story with us group. And this has worked well for me. My ministry has added to what I already had. I think that’s what I can say for now. By the way, store weavers, we have our materials translated in most non word languages. We have French, Spanish, and yes. And so story weavers is in
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:08):
Many different countries.
George Banda (03:10):
We are just about seven years old ministry.
(03:13):
Course, our founders, brother Aid and Ms. Au are based in America, but we have been moving almost in all the continents.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:23):
Yes. Wow. Yeah. And then you also helped to set people free from
George Banda (03:26):
Addiction. Addiction is what we call Freedom Ascent. This is a program where we are saying breaking free from addictions to experience a whole new life. These are great materials and great teachings. As you can see, if one wants to reach to us, they can go to our website, which is story weavers global ww Do s wg world. This about
(03:55):
Just like you can see on the logo there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:57):
Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So tell me some more about weaving God’s story into everyday conversations. How do you do that? I think this is especially good in cultures that love stories. In the West, we like points, we like 0.1, 0.2, 0.3. But I think in many cultures, story is extremely powerful and people will remember truth that they discover in a story. So how do you help people to discover the truth of God in a story?
George Banda (04:30):
Yeah. I should also make mention here of we are more of oral learners.
(04:36):
So when you get to tell me your story, I will align my testimony or my story to your story, what you’re going through, what challenges you’ve been or encountered. And then I come to a place where I tell you what I have also gone through and what God says about your situation. It shouldn’t be maybe all my episodes. It can be just one short episode of my life, and then I add God’s story, which is scripture to your story, and then I show you how God or I tell you how God loves you and how he values you and wants you to know that you are loved. So from there you get to understand that you are not alone in this. There are so many people that have gone through this. Not necessarily saying that your problems are small or devouring them, but empathizing with you and getting you to see that even God is involved and loves to see you out of what you’re going through.
(05:39):
Yeah. Out of that, we’ve come to discover that people respond well when you value them, when you listen to them, when you give them time, this may not happen at just one point, but you keep on building a relationship. This is the reason why in store weaving, we believe in building a relationship. It’s not a hit and run. Of course, we do appreciate any other organization, by the way. You can’t reach the great commission alone. We need each other. We need to corroborate, we need to come together. That’s why Evangelism podcast is yet today together with story weavers through this, we are reaching out to the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:16):
Yeah. So let’s talk about, okay, let me start again here. Okay, so you love telling stories. Talk to me about a story of someone whose life has been changed by story weaving. It is time to tell a story. Now
George Banda (06:39):
It’s time to tell a story. Yes. Let me say of myself, you see, a few months ago in Botswana, a principal of a college died in a car crash losing his three kids on the sport, and the other kid was critically sick or heal and is on the life support
(07:05):
Machine. So I was the heading chair person of the church board in Muni that time. And then I received a call from the office of a district commissioner to say, this is what has happened. And you as pastors see what you can do to console or comfort this family. Now, when you receive such kind of a call, you don’t know which scripture to call. You are talking about someone who has lost his life, who was a breadwinner husband, brother, father, and then the situation is saw so much into the hands of the nation. It’s on the papers and everyone is talking about it in the town. And then you get to see, okay, fine, I’m going to speak. What am I going to see? Now in Story Weavers, I have been trained that as I listen to their story, I should come to where I tell them my story. It’s their story, our story. So I got to see, oh, what kind of a story or testament that I can use in my life to align to this widow
George Banda (08:13):
Who
George Banda (08:13):
Is going through this pain? Then I remembered that I also at some point lost my loved ones.
George Banda (08:19):
I
George Banda (08:20):
Might have not lost my wife or children, but at least I lost my sister, my big sister, my first born sister died in two zero one. My third born sister died in two zero three, I mean two zero one. Our firstborn died, sister two zero two, our second born sister died, two zero three. Our third born sister died, and when she died, she left a two days old baby.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:48):
Oh wow.
George Banda (08:49):
Who also died a week after.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:52):
It’s a great tragedy for the family.
George Banda (08:53):
So the pain was unbearable. What I was going through that time until now, I can still, when I go back down the ears feel that pain because all these died in my hands. When I shared my testimony in that auditorium, I could see strength in the face of the people, on the face of people, and the widow came to talk to me that your testimony has changed how I feel about this. So just that testimony is one of those many testimonies that I can share here. So the power of listening to someone or knowing what they’re going through and sharing an episode of your life to what you also encountered in line with what they’re going through or they have been through works well. And then you add the scripture. Because story weavers, we are all Bible centered storytellers. Yes. One might say there are so many programs that are going on. How is this story with uss different from these others? We go a mile ahead or beyond by mostly we are oral illness, so it doesn’t matter where you are, what type or level of your education. We are so much in relation building. And the other thing about Story Rivers is that we take time because we believe some doors are closed, some doors are partially open, some are widely open. So we understand all those stages and go and work with a person all this way, and we do have time.
(10:38):
And so you take
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:38):
The time to listen and then to tell your story and then to start talking about God’s story and then to make a new story,
George Banda (10:46):
New story.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:48):
And people have been coming to Jesus through this
George Banda (10:50):
A lot, a lot so far. We have had the workshops that I’ve attended, of course, there are so many. Even as I’m talking to you now, there are programs that we do on the physical arrangement, online programs, zoom or WhatsApp. By the way, we are dealing with the World Exchange, so we are also doing online
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:12):
Programs,
George Banda (11:13):
But we also do onset where we can have one-on-one like I’m doing now so far, personally, I’ve led more than 20 people to the lot using Story Weavers.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:24):
Wow. Praise God.
George Banda (11:25):
Yeah. More than 20.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:27):
Wonderful.
George Banda (11:27):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:28):
Well, if you want to know more information about them, the website is S wg.world Story Weavers Global Global World. And so thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
George Banda (11:41):
Thank you so very much. Bless you. God bless you. My name’s George Bander and I’m one of the teachers in Story Weavers Global. Thank you so very much. God bless you. It has been a blessing to be on Evangelism podcast. Thank
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:55):
You. Thank you, sir.
