Storytelling

In all of human history, we have this one thing in common: communication.  We can speak, listen, reason, argue, support, and most importantly, it is language that gives us the ability to think and think deeply about things.  But a central part of communication that ties us all together is how we tell stories to each other.  Something that my generation is in danger of losing is the art of storytelling.  Our celebrities, our friends, our artists, and even our president have a bad habit of communicating primarily through 140 characters or less (though even twitter has expanded that to a whopping 280 characters!).  

As Presbyterians, we look towards Scotland for our spiritual origins and our ancestral home.  In the traditions of ancient Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales, there were well known entertainers known as Bards.  The Bards were storytellers who composed long, epic poems telling the history of the family of their Lord or their Noble. Their songs, stories, and poems were passed down through generations of other Bards so that the stories of many generations would be known to the people who were in a particular land.  Banquets would be incomplete without the Bard blessing the people with the story of the Lord’s great-great-grandfather’s tragic tale of heroism. 

Within the church, our stories are vital for us knowing who we are as a community. When we read the bible, we are reading our story through the eyes and ears of our spiritual ancestors.  When we share with one another in small groups, in classes together, and over a Sunday afternoon lunch, we are continuing to build our story as a community.  In the sermon on Sunday (January the 21st) I mentioned wanting to know the stories of this congregation and I challenged you to record it somehow and share it with me.  I asked to hear the story of how you first understood or connected with God, your “salvation story” in other words. Additionally, I am interested in hearing how God has impacted your life: how your faith story has been written across the last years and decades. 
 

In this newsletter, I repeat my challenge and ask you to please share your faith story with me and with your church family.  You can type, write, record a video, make an audio tape recording, anything that will make a record of your story.  Through the next few newsletters, I will be sharing my story (though I’m certain some of you have heard it before) to serve as a catalyst for this project.  Ultimately, I would like to create a collection of “Faith History” for our congregation so that 100 years from now, our spiritual great, great, grandchildren will know who we were and how we encountered God, just as the Bards of old shared the mighty works of ancient Lords and Ladies.