Stick Figures Save the World: Drawing Simply to Share Jesus Well

Endorsements

How can you share Jesus with a napkin sketch and save a life? Our hearts all long for God-size stories that captivate our imagination. This handy Stick Figures Save the World equips us to communicate gospel stories any time, any place, and with anyone. In Sunday schools, in suburban homes, and among unreached peoples around the world, a growing movement of Jesus lovers are drawing simple stick figures to impart hope and invite people to follow him. Anyone can share Jesus with stick figures . . . so that everyone can love and obey him!

DR. MARY HO

International Executive Leader, All Nations

Dr. Pam Arlund has taken the big, scary complexity of evangelism and storytelling and simplified it in practical and important ways, so every believer can be empowered to share the good news of Jesus. Stick Figures Save the World is practical, inspiring, and a refreshing look at the art of storytelling. We all have good news stories to share, and this book will help you share them effectively. I highly recommend you read this, practice it, and make it part of your lifestyle.

JOSHUA JOHNSON

Co-Executive Director, All Nations Kansas City Hub

I was privileged to be mentored in this approach by Dr. Pam Arlund before our season of ministry with Middle Eastern refugees, and I am so thankful! We used the process described here to disciple many Muslim background believers and help them write the Scripture on their hearts. Pam’s down-to-earth way of learning, sharing, and teaching Jesus stories is so practical and effective—and not only with those who are less literate! Every believer can use this approach to know the Word more deeply, and to be empowered to share it more widely!

MEREDITH JOHNSON

Co-Executive Director, All Nations Kansas City Hub

The pictures and the text of Stick Figures Save the World all proclaim, You can do this. Don’t panic because you are a bad drawer. The book is just the right length. Halfway through you might feel that there is a lot of new technique to learn, but then you see the simplicity of it and find that you can get started. I am sharpening my pencil now!

I often use illustration in teachings, because even while people copy the pictures, it helps them to remember better. In the God-is-greater-team, we also use painting as a way to remember what God is telling us. And we often find as we draw that the pictures develop even more, and the Lord continues talking.

CORA E. LUEPNITZ

Public Librarian, MA

Founder, The God-is-Greater-Team Hamburg, Germany

Recently, my church-planting team and I were trained to share the good news. At the end of this training, we began to share the good news we learned from Stick Figures Save the World. I shared a story that we learned during training, and it was very exciting. When I went to a beauty parlor, I suddenly met two married women that I did not know. By sharing different Bible stories using stick figures, they were very surprised to learn about the power of Jesus Christ. I think these stick figures will help you share the power of Jesus too, especially for those who are illiterate. I learned how to share everything from pictures of the Bible to the great commands of Jesus Christ!

PASTOR MOL

South Asia Ministry to Muslims

After I encountered Pam’s teaching on the simple power of stick figures, I started using this method to tell stories cross-culturally to a group of Czech college girls. The students loved it, but the amazing byproduct was gaining an incredible tool to disciple my preschool-age daughter! She became fascinated by the stories and soon began to ask for them and even try to copy them. I’m so thankful that Pam’s engaging book now gives more people an opportunity to share Jesus with anyone, no matter their age or cultural background!

JEAN NIES

Mom and Preschool Teacher

If you would have told me a year ago that stick figures would lead to one of the most life-giving seasons of campus ministry I’ve had yet, I don’t know if I would have believed you. But this past year in my living room I have seen everyone from passionate atheists to church dropouts, to international students from the most unreached people groups on the planet engage with God’s story in a way they may never have had if I had first opened a bible and tried to read. What’s most important is that people meet the Savior for themselves, and this book will teach you a way to help people do that in way that is simple, not intimidating, reproducible, and a lot of fun!

MATT WALLIN

Campus Minister, Northern Kentucky University

Stick Figures Save the World: Drawing Simply to Share Jesus Well.

© 2022 by Pam Arlund. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission from the publisher, except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in magazines or newspapers. For permission, email [email protected].

For corrections, email [email protected].

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked The Message are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, represented by Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

Published by William Carey Publishing

10 W. Dry Creek Cir

Littleton, CO 80120 | www.missionbooks.org

William Carey Publishing is a ministry of Frontier Ventures

Pasadena, CA | www.frontierventures.org

Cover and Interior Designer: Mike Riester

ISBNs: 978-1-64508-340-5 (paperback), 978-1-64508-342-9 (epub)

Digitial Ebook Release 2022

Library of Congress data on file with publishers.

This book is dedicated to

those who have not yet heard of Jesus

and to

those who long for everyone to know and love Jesus.

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Jesus People Tell Jesus Stories.

That’s What Jesus People Do.

Chapter 2: Jesus Told Stories. You Should Too.

Helpful Bits:

Which Stories Do I Tell? Ones That Connect to People’s Lives!

Chapter 3: Super Non-Advanced Drawing for Non-Drawers

Helpful Bits:

Discovery Bible Studies

Chapter 4: Becoming a Story Ninja

Helpful Bits:

What Are the Seven Commands of Jesus?

Chapter 5: Little Pictures

Helpful Bits:

Which Stories Do I Tell? Ones That Help Us to Obey!

Chapter 6: Big Pictures for Groups

Chapter 7: Next Steps

Appendix A: Sample Drawings

Appendix B: Sample Drawings from Others

Preface

If you can check even one of the following boxes, then this book is for you:

  Human being

  Loves Jesus

  Loves other human beings (at least sometimes)

Did you check even one of the boxes? You did? Then keep on keeping on. This book was created for you. I promise this is going to be fun! You were made for this!

This book is for every Christian, no matter where you live and no matter where you work. Your primary workplace might be with your own kids as you educate them and help them to love and obey Jesus. Or you might be curing cancer or solving one of the mysteries of the universe. Or you might be a pastor or a missionary or a home-group leader. No matter. I hope that this book will encourage you, challenge you, inspire you, and even make you laugh. I realize that the humor in this book is probably pretty American (and likely very quirky, since it is my humor!), but I hope I can at least get you to groan and roll your eyes. I hope this book is an easy and refreshing read.

There are people in my country, the United States, who have still never really heard of Jesus. There are people in several thousand people groups around the world who have literally never heard of Jesus. If every believer would simply be a Jesus storyteller, this could change. I long to see this change. I pray to see this change.

The good news is that we don’t have to be theologians to share Jesus with other people. We don’t have to know apologetics to share Jesus. Having experiences with Jesus and his book, the Bible, qualify all of us to tell what we have seen and heard. Just before his ascension, Jesus promised, in Acts 1:8, that his followers would have the power to be his witnesses—not theologians or apologists, just witnesses. We simply tell what we have seen and heard and experienced of our amazing Savior, Jesus.

Now don’t get me wrong, theologians and apologists (many of whom are my friends) are wonderful people, but that is not what we are all called to. We all are called to be Christ’s witnesses. I hope this book will help train the Holy Spirit power already inside of you to be a witness to the goodness of God everywhere.

1Jesus People Tell Jesus Stories. That’s What Jesus People Do.

OK, OK. It’s true—telling Jesus stories is not all that Jesus people do. Jesus people do all sorts of things because of our love for Jesus. In fact, you might say that living life with Jesus is really super awesome. Most people, when they discover something as amazing as Jesus, talk about what they have found.

If we would think for about half a second (I know it’s a really long time, but hang in there!) about how humans all over the world share good news, it would probably become clear that most folks don’t talk about wonderful things with long, boring, droopy faces. So talking about Jesus should definitely be more exciting than talking about the local sports team X (which shall remain unnamed, for fear of making somebody mad) or the latest movie Y (which shall also remain nameless, in case you weren’t thinking of Star ****). Jesus is also surely more interesting than talking about the