Imagine a formational curriculum for children and teens that allows them to engage with the Bible in creative, interactive ways. Imagine it follows the liturgical calendar, engaging them with the enduring traditions of The Episcopal Church. Imagine it offers multiple entry points, allowing students and teachers to build deep connections with scripture and with one another. Imagine it requires a minimum of prep time. Imagine it works in both large and small churches and all sorts of classroom settings.

Imagine it’s fun.

Imagine it’s real.

Diocese of Central Florida churches, click this image or use the QR code to visit StoryMakersNYC.com and enter the promo code, CFLMATCH2024, for the 50% diocesan discount.

For the Gospel

Combine that imagining with God’s redemptive narrative and a financial partnership from the Diocese of Central Florida that allows churches to purchase the resources at a 50% discount, and you have StoryMakers, a set of resources designed to bring the Bible to life by sparking curiosity, hope and faith.

“The whole idea about StoryMakers is that God’s the ultimate StoryMaker, and we’re StoryMakers too,” said Melina Luna Smith, founder and executive director of StoryMakers NYC, the  organization behind the resources. “We all embody the story. When we get creative, we’re living into the image of God, really connecting to God’s big story.”

Smith founded StoryMakers NYC in 2019 out of a creative arts camp experience she started at her own church, Calvary-St. George’s, New York City, where her husband, the Rev. Jacob Smith, serves as rector. “The idea was to immerse kids into the stories of the Bible,” she said. Out of that experience, leaders realized that this full engagement with scripture captivated kids in fresh ways.

Fast forward to today, and StoryMakers has become a not-for-profit creative studio with the core desire that kids, teens and grownups know that God is with them, for them and actively redeeming them.

StoryMakers’ mission statement, articulated on its website, flows from that same gospel-based understanding: “Our mission is for kids and grownups to connect to God’s story through play, art and social-emotional connectors. Our desire is for kids to know they are loved, forgiven and are grafted into God’s story.”

Want to know more? Click the image above to watch a StoryMakers Live webinar where StoryMakers founder and Executive Director Melina Luna Smith and Bishop Holcomb dive into the topic of hope and resiliency. And set aside Tuesday, April 9, at noon Eastern for another StoryMakers live webinar featuring Smith and our bishop!

It was this gospel focus that attracted the Rt. Rev. Dr. Justin S. Holcomb, bishop of the Diocese of Central Florida, to StoryMakers. “I’m grateful for StoryMakers because its curriculum is focused on Jesus Christ and overflows with gospel comfort,” Holcomb said. “The Scriptures tell the story of God’s redemptive work in the world, and StoryMakers does a spectacular job of engaging youth at every age with that narrative and drawing them into it personally.”

For Kids, Teens and Adults

How does StoryMakers work in the local church setting? The organization offers a variety of tools available on a subscription basis. Church Adventure subscriptions for grades K-5 provide 42 weeks of material, which includes two Old Testament and three New Testament adventures of the church’s choosing. Packages, which arrive three times a year, include a quick starter guide, guides (teacher lesson plans and instructions), memory cards, playbooks (helps for kids to embody and engage with the story), puppets and zines (small, graphic-heavy magazines that serve as student workbooks). Accompanying digital tools (artwork, Bible verses and printable activity sheets) are delivered electronically.

Church teen subscriptions for grades 6-12 include teacher quick guides, two teen zines (300 pages of art, scripture, grounding theological truth and processing space, available in sets of 5-200), teen discovery cards and postcards, stickers, digital posters and fun extras. Boxed materials arrive twice a year and are all designed to meet the unique needs of this age group.

“We wanted to create a resource that any kind of church could use, and we always think of the most challenged environment and the most under-resourced environment when we’re creating content,” Smith said. “So everything is self-contained. With our children’s materials, every kid gets their own adventure zine, and then the teacher would have a guide, and we always tell the teachers to have their own zine. Teachers don’t have to do much in preparation for drawing kids into the adventure.

“Every zine has six points of entry,” she explained. “They enter through visual, then there’s a scripture verse, and there’s fun facts, and then there’s social-emotional questions and an activity to round out the experience of every chapter.”

Despite its creativity, the curriculum is far from chaotic. “There’s a cadence that happens every week, so it’s a familiar rhythm,” Smith said. “Kids don’t know what the next story is going to be, but they can anticipate what’s ahead and what’s going to be asked of them.

“The kids love to play the parts,” she added. “They act out the story every week, and there are social-emotional questions every week. Those are the two places that kids really are flourishing and are enjoying. Most Sunday schools that I go to have to do the story part twice because lots of kids want to play the parts. And because they’re acting out the story, they remember the details of that story.”

StoryMakers shadow puppets in action | Photo: StoryMakers NYC

The creative team at StoryMakers considers kids’ diverse situations too. “There are puppets in the back of every zine, and digital puppets as well, so if you have kids who are nonverbal, kids who don’t want to act out the parts, they can utilize those resources to really enhance their experiences,” Smith said.

StoryMakers also offers Spanish curriculum opportunities. Its Creation and Exodus adventures and all the accompanying pieces have been translated into Spanish, and part of its Global Missions initiative is to translate each adventure into that language. StoryMakers is eager to offer support and training for Spanish-speaking congregations as well.

For the Church

“We love to walk alongside churches,” Smith said. “No matter what your size, a big Sunday school classroom or a tiny one, you are able to get a church subscription for your younger kids. You can also get a church subscription for the teens. So that’s your resource for 42 weeks, and you’re walking through the Old Testament and the New Testament throughout the year.”

Creating such extensive resources comes at a cost, which ties in with the diocese’s decision to partner with StoryMakers to make the materials more affordable.

“We don’t want cost to be a barrier for our churches to have access to such a rich curriculum for children and youth,” Holcomb said. “That’s why the diocese covers 50% of the cost for any of our churches.”

Smith, too, is motivated to remove barriers to receiving quality gospel resources, “If the need is greater than what the partnership offer is, we encourage churches to get in touch with us,” she said. “That’s part of the reason we’re a not-for-profit.”

The diocese joins several others in partnering with StoryMakers: The Dioceses of Long Island, Texas, Pittsburgh, Hawaii, E+W Michigan, Michigan and New York. The Rev. Stu Shelby of Central Florida believes the curriculum has much to offer the local church. “Week after week, StoryMakers helps All Saints Church of Winter Park give our children and their parents a front-row seat to God’s love and mercy as we discover them in the skies above our heads, the earth beneath our feet and the Scriptures in our hands,” he said.

Children enjoying StoryMakers. | Photo: StoryMakers NYC

And StoryMakers NYC offers much more than content. “We also offer trainings throughout the year,” Smith said. “So your Sunday school teachers who may feel underresourced with no time or capacity can book a call with us and we’ll prep them for any season. We’ll walk them through any of the adventures that they have questions about or go over things like how to launch Sunday school, how to relaunch Sunday school; we’ll do all of those practical pieces right alongside StoryMakers.

“We’ll come alongside and we’ll help offer whatever extra resourcing a church may need,” she explained. “Sometimes they just need encouragement, and sometimes they just need someone to pray alongside them and help them catch the vision of the possibilities, even if they don’t yet have kids in their church but are preparing for them, or they’re just being faithful to the ones they’ve been given. That’s how churches grow.”

The diocese’s partnership with StoryMakers offers churches not only a 50% discount but full-service help as well. “The partnership means that you can be resourced, and you can continue to be resourced, and you can resource your littles and you can resource your teens,” Smith said. “And we will walk alongside you through that whole process.”

How can a local church get started with StoryMakers? “Folks can reach out and book a training with Brittany [Smigielski, director of sales and missions, brittany@storymakersnyc.com],” Smith said. “That always helps. We’ll host a larger training for the diocese, but we encourage you to always be in touch and ask questions. We’ve got all sorts of resources, and we want to resource folks in the way that makes sense for them. There’s a lot of customization that happens, and we want folks to have the freedom and get what they need.”

Click this link to shop at StoryMakersNYC.com using the code CFLMATCH2024 when you check out to receive the diocesan discount.