The Art of Storytelling

Editor’s Note: Earlier in the week we shared the fantastic resource Faith @ Home with you, our Grow Christians community, and today we’re at it again. On Tuesday as I perused curricula reviews on Building Faith (hello! last minute planner!), I came across an article for a webinar on the Art of Storytelling. It caught my attention for sure. Just two days earlier I attended a formation class for parents at my husband’s church where we talked about the importance of teaching our children how to tell stories. Not just teaching children how to tell imaginative, fairy tale stories, but how to tell ‘their’ stories. This webinar narrows the focus even more and will address telling our story in the context of God’s story. This is a free offering from Virginia Theological Seminary and is taking place on Thursday, September 12th at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. More information is below. I hope you’ll participate and share your experience with us in a comment below or over on our Facebook page.  Faithfully, Allison 

Where did you see God today?

Where are you in the story?

These questions and processes help young people to identify where they are in the story of God. Storytelling helps us to find language about our faith journeys and helps to process different challenges and remain hopeful when things are hard. Stories are so formational and identity building. They are foundational to who we become as Christians and continued identification with our communities.

How does storytelling shift into a digital platform? In this webinar, stellar examples will be given and stories swapped. Come prepared to learn from the master storytellers Lisa Brown and Hershey Mallette Stephens. They will share their experiences gathering and shaping stories and how they reflect our own religious and personal narratives. You’ll walk away from the webinar feeling inspired and equipped to experiment with storytelling.

Lisa Brown is the Director of Digital Ministry for Membership Vision and works with faith-based organizations to map their ministries onto the digital landscape. She is passionate about creatively enriching spiritual lives through digital storytelling, experiential learning, and collaborative art. Lisa contributed to John Roberto’s book Faith Formation with a New Generation and her book, The Best VBS Workbook Ever! was released in 2017.

A writer for Building Faith and InsideOut camp curriculum, and an active member of Forma, she thrives on supporting others in their ministries. She continues to grow in personal faith through Education for Ministry (EfM) and holds a certification in Leadership in Faith Formation from Virginia Theological Seminary.

The Rev. Hershey Mallette Stephens serves as the Associate for Children, Youth, & Families at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, MD. Before joining the St. John’s staff, Hershey worked in the Presiding Bishop’s Office of Evangelism, where she was Project Lead for the Beloved Community Storysharing Campaign. This work afforded her the joy and opportunity to hear stories of faith, grace, and discovery from Episcopalians of all ages and backgrounds from around the country.

Hershey enjoys listening and learning from children and young people, and dreaming up new and fresh ways to tell the story of God in Christ. She has served as chaplain intern at New York University, and as a chaplain at several international youth events and Episcopal Church young adult conferences.

Join us next week on Thursday, September 12th at 3:00 p.m. eastern time to learn about the theological and community groundings of storytelling. If you can’t make it next week, register anyway! The webinar will be recorded for later viewing. If you register, you’ll get an email when the recording is ready to view.

Register for the webinar here.

[Image Credit: Public Domain via Pixabay]