Teaching Our Story: Narrative Leadership and Pastoral Formation

Teaching Our Story is based on the premise that as congregations become intentional story-forming communities, they can shape the lives of millions of generative, faithful, and civic-minded adults. To do so, a framework that relates narrative work to the full range of congregational life is needed. This book offers such a framework, featuring essays that examine crucial shapers of narrative, outline a course in preaching that addresses crucial questions for today’s church leaders, illuminate the creative power of listening to the collective stories of a faith community, and observe what can happen when first-year seminary students are asked to become story brokers—integrating the stories from their communities with biblical stories, their own personal stories, and the theological doctrines formed within the story of their tradition.