During my third year of pastoral ministry, I experienced a dream which stimulated deep and wild thoughts about using my art training to teach the Bible. Funny is the way I dreamed about something which had been done for the previous forty years. I just didn’t know about it. Before the internet, a person needed to poke around at the library and in the bookstores to discover new information. The library did not provide any help, but at the Baptist Bookstore, I found a small book about chalk talks.
Armed with more insight, I wrote requesting information from the addresses provided and received an order form from Teuling Ministries in Michigan. Dingamon Tueling worked as a traveling evangelist who presented chalk talks. Because the materials required for this did not exist out there in the public marketplace, he started buying, making, and supplying the materials needed to present a chalk sermon. When Ding passed away, his ministry became eternityarts.com.
So I built my first hinged easel which proved more awkward that manure covered workboots. Using a large piece of newsprint with my box of pastel chalks I presented my first chalk sermon. The church service was a winner… I was not pleased. So practice, better designs, buying gray bogus paper, and the proper lecturer chalks with a selection of Black Light chalks improved my creations.
I wrote my doctoral dissertation on my research into oral storytelling. I wanted to justify the value of visual imagery combined with story. My research proved right on target. Anytime more receptors are combined in teaching, the audience is better engaged, and memory is stimulated at a deeper level.
