He had them absolutely captivated.  Entranced.  A room full of eyes following his every movement, almost as if watching the neon yellow orb darting back and forth on the deciding point of a legendary tennis match on Wimbledon's center court.  When he raised his arms up in the air, the eyes went up with him.  When he darted to the left, the eyes darted left with him.  When he stopped his leftward progress, the eyes stopped as if having collided with a brick wall.  He was that good.  While he spoke, mouths gaped absently open.  They cried when they were supposed to cry, laughed when they were suppoed to laugh... It was an incredible example of engaging an audience...

Especially considering the fact that the audience was largely composed of four- and five-year-olds.

The setting was the speellokaal of my son's elementary school.  The members of the audience were children from group 1 and 2, with a couple of teachers and a handful of parents thrown in around the edges of the room.  And the center of attention this hour -- the magnetic force binding all things together, the pied piper playing his hypnotizing tune, the music man mesmerizing these kindergartners -- was de Verhalenman (the Storyman).

Apparently, the Verhalenman has been plying his trade -- telling stories -- for quite some time... because he's quite good at it.  He employs minimal props, simple technology, and no formalities.  Still, his storytelling is quite theatrical.  Relying primarily on tone of voice and active body language -- along with a clever set of interactive costumery -- he spun a tale that involved the kids, entertained the kids, and educated the kids thoroughly for almost an hour.  Heck -- I can't pretend like the magic worked only for the children -- I was absorbed!  We followed the story about Frankie and his mom and their trip to Africa, where they met some of his distant relatives and learned about their culture... And we were totally along for the ride (and not just those who got to be a part of the airplane scene).  I came away from the experience completely awed and amazed by the power of a good story...

As fate would have it, later that evening I found myself congregating with 35 or 40 other people from Zolder50 to participate in the "Three Story Evangelism" training seminar, being offered at the H88 by Bob Phillips (a dear old friend of Zolder50)... We talked about the power of a good story -- of the good story.  The Gospel.  And we mused together about ways in which we could become better storytellers in the city of Amsterdam.  We traded pieces of our stories and spent some time laying the groundwork for honing our ability to understand the stories of others, to more compellingly communicate the story of God and its outworking each of our individual lives.  Even as Bob Phillips shared his own story of coming to follow Jesus in 1972, I was freshly inspired by the transformative power in God's story, particularly observing how it works itself out in countless lives.  As I sat through the seminar, I found myself wanting more and more to become a good storyteller... particularly as it relates to telling the greatest story of all-time.

I just wonder how the Verhalenman would do it.