Owen Shelley’s Autobiography and How to Tell Bible Stories

Posted on September 29, 2014 
Filed under Resources

Owen ShelleyHere’s a note from Shelley and Son…

“Earlier this year Owen got very excited about a new project. He wanted to write a simple guide that would help people involved in Children’s Ministry to tell Bible Stories in a relevant and interesting way. His life’s pursuit had been to present the gospel to children through stories and hence he had very clear and well thought out ideas and strategies of how to present a clear message that would also engage the children. 

He was often asked how he dealt with discipline and he could honestly answer that he didn’t have a lot of problems with needing to discipline because children are rarely disruptive if they are vitally interested and engaged with the story and message being presented. Owen completed his guide to ‘How to Tell Bible Stories’ and it was in the editing process when he passed away. We have now finished the editing process and want to make it freely available for everyone to access and share with others.

We feel, as Owen did, that the quality of how the gospel and Bible stories are presented to today’s children needs to be the very best that it can be so that they will be engaged to hear God’s word and learn about the one who died for them. Our hope is that Owen’s guide can find it’s way into the hands of as many children’s ministry presenters as possible so that they can gain ideas and strategies from his decades of experience presenting to children.

Since retiring in the 90’s, Owen was also encouraged by friends and interested people to write his Autobiography. His response to this was “Who would want to read it?”. Nevertheless, he was convinced to put pen to paper and was in the process of writing his autobiography. It was, unfortunately, incomplete when he passed away. It’s obvious that he did not put a high priority on writing it when there were children’s interactive stories, games and memory verses to create.

We have edited what he had completed which takes us through his childhood to his early years as a children’s missioner for Scripture Union.

Both these publications are now available online or as a download from the Shelley and Son website: sites.google.com/site/shelleyandson

They are both completely free.

Please feel free to share them with anyone and everyone in either an electronic format or printed out. Our only stipulation is that they are shared as complete unaltered documents. If you would like to use all or part of these documents in a further publication please contact us and we will give our permission for this.

We also have available, via the Shelley and Son website, the resources and ebooks that Owen, and his son Stephen, produced over the last few years. We would greatly appreciate these being promoted in your circles as they are excellent Christian ministry resources which will greatly enhance the presentation of children’s ministry.

They include Owen’s previously published books in ebook format (The Storyteller’s guide to the Gospels, The Storyteller’s guide to the Old Testament, The A-Z of Understanding and Communicating Gospel Concepts, Chalk & Talk – Quick Sketching for Beginners), Sets of interactive stories to present to children using a data projector and computer (5 Christmas stories, 6 Jesus stories, 7 Easter stories, 8 Joseph stories, 12 Moses stories & 6 Daniel stories), a CD-ROM of interactive revision quiz games, 2 CD-ROMs of interactive memory verses (our second one was only just completed in July this year), and 2 CD-ROMs of puppet plays and puppet play recordings.

We pray that Owen’s ministry can continue to bring children to Christ through those that use his resources in their ministries.

God Bless

Shelley and Son.”