Khanh Le likes to tell stories. She tells them to her taxi drivers when she travels from her home into the city, which takes about two hours. That’s plenty of time in which to weave a tale. And Khanh’s got plenty of those. She gets them from the Bible.

“I sometimes tell stories to the drivers to share Christ,” says Khanh. “It engages them and I can share about Christ without being preachy, when I’m not supposed to.”

Khanh is working in South East Asia, in a country where evangelism and talking about your faith is restricted. She’s been there for 12 years, using biblical storytelling to reach out to the community with the gospel, and training others to do the same as part of Simply The Story.

Khanh believes in the power oral storytelling, particularly where literacy is low, as is the case in many parts of South East Asia. But she says the oral storytelling tradition can enrich biblical understanding even for those who’ve been reading the Bible for years and years.

“Bible storytelling makes the story come alive; the people become real and the time factor kicks in. Whereas just reading allows a person to quickly glide through the story … without consideration of the real emotional and spiritual impact of the character’s actions and choices, storytelling … helps people slow down and go deep into each story.”

Many stories from the Bible to have been committed to Khanh’s memory, filed away to pull out in the taxi or at a moment’s notice, when the opportunity arises. She says she particularly likes to tell the stories in Jonah 1, Daniel 6 and Joshua 5-6.

She is conscious of the need for biblical accuracy, and teaches her students of oral storytelling to continuously go back to their source (whether that be the written Bible or the audio Bible, for those who can’t read), as they’re working on their facial expressions, tone of voice and physical actions that accompany the story.

“I always skim over the Bible story before I retell, to double check my memory for accuracy,” says Khanh, even after 12 years of telling the same stories.

Biblical storytelling will be at the centre of a new conference, Bookends, looking at the oral communication techniques that can be used to communicate the gospel.

Bookends, hosted by a group of Australia’ Bible agencies including Bible Society Australia, Wycliffe, Scripture Union, Bible League. CWCI and the Pocket Testament League, is on in May, offering a deeper look into the opportunities, successes and challenges of biblical storytelling.