Ministry and Storytelling

Introduction

Narrative theology, a theological movement that illuminated its era, sought to understand Christian faith not as an abstract system of doctrines or propositions, but as a narrative in which God and humanity, community and the world, are woven together. From this theological perspective, spiritual growth takes more than intellectual assent to doctrine. Each believer can achieve it by interpreting their own story within the broader narrative of love and salvation revealed in scripture. Using French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s (1913-2005) philosophical terms, we might say that this process of growth is where a person “emplots” their life as a story within the larger framework of faith and constructs a "narrative identity" through that story.

What, then, should a gathering or program look like if it is designed to help church members interpret and shape their stories as part of the process of spiritual maturation? In what follows, I would like to share some insights gained through various storytelling programs that grew out of this simple question. I have learned that such a program need not be built around an elaborate curriculum. If a program can create space for people to share their stories with open hearts and offer a time to view those stories in the light of scripture and faith, it is enough to help them recognize, share, and bear witness to the way the stories of their lives and the story God has been writing with the faith community are interwoven like warp and weft threads in the depths of grace.

1. Create a Space for Members to Share Freely and Listen with Open Hearts.

Because personal stories, by their very nature, contain a great deal of private information, it is important to structure storytelling gatherings with intentionality. The ideal group size for storytelling is around ten people, and it is recommended not to exceed fifteen. In the first meeting, participants must make a confidentiality covenant, with a clear emphasis that any personal or sensitive information may not be disclosed to others without the explicit consent of the person concerned.

A storytelling group is equally a story-listening group. To this end, the group should establish and reinforce attentive listening—listening with open hearts without evaluating or judging another's story. In practice, after each person finishes sharing, it is helpful to have the whole group offer a set response so that the time does not drift into too many follow-up questions or other people's related stories (something simple, like "Thank you,” or “Thank you for your sharing”). After everyone has spoken, set aside time for discernment, reflecting together on how the stories resonate with one another in a dimension of faith, how similar experiences connect, and what common threads run through all our lives.

2. Seek Together the Theological Meaning of Storytelling.

Consider beginning the first storytelling session with Deuteronomy 26:5–12, which summarizes Israel's story in a brief confession. Beginning with the words "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…," this text shows how the people of Israel interpreted their stories of wandering and suffering, survival and settlement, as a journey guided by God, viewed through the lens of faith. It also shows how they extended their own suffering into an ethical responsibility toward the suffering of others. As the passage concludes by reaffirming responsibility for the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows as the will of God, we see how the stories of individual believers and their community are interpreted within the larger narrative of God's salvation and justice.

When people of faith share their stories, what happens is not merely a simple exchange of past events but an act of hospitality in which they open their hearts to one another and recognize the image of God in each person. It is not a matter of reducing another's experience to abstract categories, but an act of incarnation—an effort to interpret the narrative of grace that flows through our stories.

3. Start a Group for Reading and Writing Spiritual Autobiographies.

Sharing our stories orally in storytelling gatherings is a wonderful way to reflect on faith and life. Yet what may enable an even deeper level of reflection is writing our stories. Because it can be difficult to begin such writing on our own, it helps to gather with like-minded friends from the congregation to read examples of spiritual autobiography together, then write and share short personal stories on related themes.

In a Tuesday evening group called "Our Stories of Faith: Reading and Writing Spiritual Autobiography," church members and I read a portion of a well-known spiritual autobiography one week and, the following week, shared stories of faith we had written ourselves. We read and discussed spiritual autobiographies by writers from as many different periods, racial backgrounds, and cultural contexts as possible, and we selected themes designed to help members look deeply at a strand of their own lives and put it into writing.

Richard L. Morgan’s Remembering Your Story: Creating Your Own Spiritual Autobiography is helpful for learning how to write a spiritual autobiography and for identifying possible themes. The autobiographies we read together included Christian classics such as Augustine’s The Confessions and Julian of Norwich’s Showings, as well as modern classics such as Simone Weil’s Waiting for God, Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness, Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, and Howard Thurman’s With Head and Heart. We also read authors whose works bring together a range of racial and contemporary voices, including Nadia Bolz-Weber, James Cone, Richard Rodriguez, and Cole Arthur Riley.

4. Offer an Accessible and Easy-to-Join Storytelling Group.

Programs that require a significant investment of time and effort from each individual, such as a group for reading and writing spiritual autobiography, may feel burdensome for some people. But it is possible to design storytelling programs that are more accessible and comfortable for a wider range of participants. For example, we have a gathering called "Short Stories and Lasting Wisdom" that has continued for many years. The gathering features one short story each week, along with a scripture story or passage. Participants read and discuss the texts and are invited to share their own stories in response.

The stories read and discussed in this program were selected from a wide range of literary works, philosophical and religious parables, autobiographies and essays, and novels and writings that have generated meaningful social reflection. Again, I made an intentional effort to include works representing diverse periods, cultures, and racial backgrounds. The pieces that drew the strongest responses and sparked the most spirited discussion included Heart of a Stranger by the Korean American Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by the artist Makoto Fujimura, Braiding Sweetgrass by the Potawatomi ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, and selections from The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, an anthology of postcolonial literary voices.

5. Actively Use and Apply Existing Storytelling Programs.

Actively using existing programs and content focused on storytelling is a great way to get a gathering off the ground. I recommend programs offered by The Hearth, a nonprofit founded by Mark Yaconelli, author of the New York Times bestseller Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us. This platform offers a variety of storytelling workshops and certificate courses for individuals and communities. Reading Yaconelli's books together is also an excellent way to begin a storytelling group. Another good resource is the Austin Story Project, created by Mark Yaconelli and Melissa Wigington, a vice president of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. This program guides participants through a structured process in which they come to see how their stories resonate with others' stories and with the story of Jesus, and how new meaning and shared patterns can be discovered.

When I led this program in my church, participants took turns telling stories about their most memorable meals. After everyone had told their stories, one person read the story of the Last Supper, narrated from Jesus’ first-person point of view, as if he were sitting beside us. In that moment, a story we had heard countless times came to us in a new way, beautifully overlapping with our lives and stories.

Conclusion

Reading different stories of faith and sharing our stories became an invitation into deeper relationships: bringing forth the intimate stories of our lives, listening to those stories with care, and discerning God’s presence within them—sometimes glimmering like fragments and at other times shining clearly like light in the darkness. Through these practices, we experienced a community of faith growing together.

Storytelling among people of faith bears witness to God's love as it appears in the many colors and hues of our lives, and it reveals the church as a community of people—each carrying an irreplaceable story—who discover one another within God's greater story and find their way forward together. We are living in an age where the stories of most people are consumed by homogeneous narratives of power and control, merit and success, and linear narratives filled with certainties that have laid the groundwork for violence and discrimination. In times like these, storytelling may well be one of the most important Christian practices for keeping our faith.

Korean - 목회와 이야기 나눔

Rev. Earl Kim
University United Methodist Church, TX