Orienting With the Word Storyteller - Alaina Dobkowski | Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Duration: 6:31 1036 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Alaina Dobkowski shares her personal journey from being a shy, quiet thirteen-year-old who feared speaking in church settings to becoming a confident leader in Bible study. Although she grew up in a religious environment in Michigan, she did not join a church until eighth grade when a friend invited her to puppet ministry. This role was perfect for her because it allowed her to learn Bible stories and connect with friends while remaining behind a curtain, shielding her from the anxiety of being called upon directly. For decades, this fear persisted whenever she moved into Sunday night youth groups or led Bible studies without that protective barrier, leaving her feeling small and convinced that everyone else knew more about Scripture than she did. The turning point in her story came after graduating from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in 2024, when she was invited to participate in the "Orienting with the Word" program. Initially, she experienced the same familiar anxieties before the training, worrying that others would know everything while she knew nothing. However, as she engaged in the method of confessional Bible study, her experience transformed completely. She discovered a space where digging into commentaries, exploring languages, and creating art allowed participants to ask questions freely and show up as their authentic selves. This approach created an environment where people could wrestle with the text together without the pressure of performance, effectively replacing her old fear with a sense of safety and community. A profound moment of realization occurred when a community member noted that her body still felt tense before Bible study but then recalled a quote by Raymond Brown describing Scripture as a father's house where children are permitted to play. This image helped Alaina understand that the new method allowed her to finally relax and engage with the text without fear. The group began meeting in her living room, where they practiced these techniques together, eventually moving to a new worship location where she even secured an office. She invited participants to display their artwork on a bulletin board in that office, a step that would have terrified her thirteen-year-old self but which now symbolizes her growth and the shared journey of exploring the Word. Ultimately, Alaina's story illustrates how shifting from a performance-based mindset to a confessional, playful approach can heal deep-seated anxieties about faith and community. The artwork hanging in her office serves as a lasting testament to this transformation, representing images of how the group has been exploring, wrestling, and orienting themselves with the Word. What once seemed like a terrifying prospect—being called on or having one's work displayed publicly—has become a source of joy and connection. Her experience demonstrates that when Bible study is treated as a communal space for honest inquiry rather than a test of knowledge, it becomes a gift that allows individuals to grow in confidence and deepen their relationship with the text.

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So, when I was a kid, around age 13, um and before that and after that, um I was really shy and quiet. And I've been in therapy to try to work out the very many reasons that that was the case, um but I'm here to tell you all about Bible study. >> [laughter] >> Um so, I won't get into that. Um and I also didn't grow up in the church, um but I grew up in a part of Michigan that was very churched. And so, I was often invited to uh my friends' churches um to VBS and all the things. But it wasn't until I was in eighth grade that I got involved in the a church consistently. Um and the thing that got me involved was a friend who invited me to puppet ministry. And this was the perfect setup for shy, quiet, 13-year-old Elena because I got to um learn Bible stories behind a curtain. Um and get to know my church friends. And this I haven't been involved in the puppet ministry circuit for about 25 years. But in the '90s, this was like legit. [laughter] Uh we had skits and songs and we would travel to mega churches for competitions. Like it was a whole thing. Um but I always got to be when I was up in front of people, I was behind a curtain. So then I got to know these friends and then they started to invite me to Sunday night youth group. And [snorts] that was fun, but we would always have this time of Bible lesson and discussion and prayer where there was no curtain. >> [laughter] >> Um and then I started to really fear getting called on um during those discussions, uh whether it was for prayer or for any questions related to our Bible lesson. And I would I remember one Sunday um after getting picked up and brought home, thinking, I don't think I said a word tonight because I would just make myself as small as possible um so that I wouldn't get called on. Now, that fear [snorts] of Bible discussion stayed with me for a long time. Um the questions of did I know enough? Um did I did somebody else know something about the Bible story that I wasn't aware of? Um I I had this sense that I didn't grow up in church, so everybody else was like a little bit ahead of me. >> [snorts] >> Uh and so, that posture, that anxiety, that hung out in my body. Um >> [snorts] >> my 13-year-old body, my 23-year-old body, my 33-year-old body, and it's still here in my 43-year-old body. Um and so, when, you know, in those decades that I just described, uh I've led a lot of Bible studies, I've participated in a lot of Bible studies, um and they've been great, but that anxiety would still exist. It would still show up. So, fast forward to um a couple years ago, well, 2024 when I graduated from AMBS, and Melinda invited me to be a part of the Orienting with the Word program. And so, I got invited to our training, and I had some of those anxieties before the training of um all right, everyone else is going to know everything. I'm not going to know. Um and as we engaged in it, I started to experience something that was very, very different. So, I fell in love I fell in love with confessional Bible study. I came home to my congregation where I serve as the pastor, and we started to practice it together. And [snorts] about a couple months into our practice, we were sitting around in my living room, and one of our community members said, "I've noticed that before I come to Bible study, my body gets super tense. Um and I have to tell myself that this is different. Like this is going to be a different experience than what I've had before." And and then she said, "Recently, I was reading and there's this quote that stood out to me from uh priest and scholar Raymond Brown that said, 'In my father's or the scripture is my father's house in which the children are permitted to play.'" And I had I just had this thought or a moment where I was like, "Oh, my body feels tense. This is different. The children are permitted to play." And took a deep breath. And I realized that I was feeling so many of those same things, um and that's why I had fallen in love with this method of Bible study. Because we were engaging in some of the things that Joel had described. We were digging into commentaries and looking at the languages, which I love, and looking at um all of these really fun things cuz I think Bible study's fun, too. And then we were spending time doing art and practicing things. And what it allowed for us to do was to ask questions, to be in a space where we could show up as ourselves, and allow whatever we brought to the table to be shared in community. >> [snorts] >> Now, um we don't meet in my living room anymore. Uh we have switched to meeting at our new worship location that we just moved to in December. And I actually even got an office, which was a big step. Um and uh after Bible study, I've been inviting folks to take their artwork and hang it on the bulletin board in my office. And when I look at this, I smile because the only thing scarier than being called on in Bible study >> [laughter] >> for 13-year-old Elena would have been hanging my art in a public location. >> [laughter] >> Um and now my art hangs in my office where other people are coming and going all the time, um but it's it's hanging up there alongside all of my other community members' art, and they're images of how we've been exploring, wrestling, and orienting ourselves with the word. And it's such a gift. >> [applause]