Tell Me a Story
I have met people who do not like vegetables but I have yet to meet a person who does not like food.
I know people who don’t like hip-hop or R & B, people who don’t like country music and people who don’t like classical, but I have never met anyone who does not like music.
I know people who don’t do email and people who don’t write letters. But I’ve never known the person who does not desire, who does not crave, communication with others. There are few, if any, among us who do not like to communicate; even those of us who are shy and retiring, quiet and reflective are communicative. To be human is to communicate.
In a real sense, this need to communicate is at the heart of who we are, both as those who call ourselves Christian and as participants in Sustaining Pastoral Excellence. As Christians, we know not only that humans communicate amongst ourselves, but we confess, proclaim and believe that the Triune God spoke to our ancestors, the Triune God speaks to us, and the Triune God will speak to generations yet unborn. The God who created us, calls us. Our God communicates. To be God is to communicate.
But how does God communicate? When does God speak? How do we know when God has spoken?
My parents tell me that one of the first questions I asked as small child was, “Please, will you tell me a story?” I asked this question early and I asked this question often: “Tell me a story.” And I am not the only child who ever asked it. Our need for stories, an ancient, hallowed way of communicating, is as real as our need for oxygen. Stories are told in every culture on every continent in every language. Consider our own culture. We never stop asking the question, “Will you tell me a story?” When we buy books we are asking this question. When we watch movies and television shows we are asking this question. When we listen to beautiful song lyrics we are asking this question. When we enter the sanctuary we are asking God what we asked our parents: “Please, will you tell us a story?”
The Christian life teaches us that we do not live by bread alone, but by every story that comes from the mouth of God.
Deuteronomy 6: 20-21 contains the defining prayer of Judaism, the prayer that places the people of God in the right posture to hear the story: Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One.” These are the first six words of the first prayer and passage of Scripture that many Jewish children learn. This prayer is recited in the morning and at night. It prepares body and soul for worship and it prepares heart and mind to hear the story:
God will bring you to the land sworn to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God will give you a rich land with cities that you did not build. You will live in houses that you did not furnish. You will drink cool, fresh water from wells you did not dig. You will enjoy the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards you did not plant. And when you get there, don’t forget to tell the story of how you got there.
How does God communicate? The same way we do. By and through stories. And God tells us to do the same: “Don’t forget to tell the story of how you got there.”
In much the same way, it is critically important that SPE projects tell their stories and tell them well. They must each tell the story of how they got where they are and where they are going. As many of us learned in last month’s Faith and Fundraising Seminar in Indianapolis, sustainability and storytelling are intricately intertwined. Your supporters, your potential donors, are out there, waiting with the same question that I asked as a child: “Please, will you tell us a story?” If projects cannot tell their stories well they will not be able to attract the donors and gifts necessary to sustain their work.
The stories should be clear, compelling and concise. Donors want to know how your projects have helped ministers and ministries. Who is being served? How have their ministries been changed? The answers to these questions can be found in true stories of lives changed and ministries transformed.
The Faith and Fundraising seminar, which will be offered again next month, reinforced for me and for all of us in the SPE Coordination Office the critical importance of storytelling. Whether secular or religious, virtually every successful organization in the world today has and tells a story that keeps people coming back. Over the coming months, we will be working to develop strategies we can offer SPE programs to maximize their capacity for effective storytelling.
But meanwhile, get started now telling your story. And when you do, be sure you tell it as part of the broader story of which we are a part, the story of God’s redemptive love in Christ.
The Rev. William H. (Bill) Lamar IV is a managing director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity and works with the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Grant Coordination Office.
