I teach a Culture & Communication class at Trinity International University one of the ways I told my students that culture is learned from one generation to another is "storytelling". I remember the days my aunts and uncles and grandmother would sit in the front porch of the house in Naguabo, PR to tell the grandchildren/nieces and nephews about what is meant to them to be "puro Puerto Rican" and how they wanted us to never be ashamed "even if we lived in NY."  If you think about it, our Christian culture and our individual faith journey can be shared with others and be a source of inspiration, warning or blessing when we do some "storytelling" of our own.

I am always saying how "we all got stories to tell." Granted some ain’t pretty and some are totally awesome, both kinds of stories however are part of the puzzle that makes up our embedded theology. Narrative theology has become popular in recent years. I’ve mostly heard about all this through Emergent type events. There are even websites focused on helping people get back into the art of storytelling.

As a church that is led by people who are bicultural from a theology where we believe all are wounded healers (thus our name) a new kind of church for us also uses storytelling formally and informally to share their story amid the big gospel one. Also its not just about the people in the church sharing but even the pastors. The folks who come to WHF will tell you me and Hiram are the first to cry (not that we particularly like it, it happens and we let it flow).

The new kind of church celebrates the stories and the brave storytellas. In the stories people find their own humanity and in that there is the seed of healing. Boy do I have some stories to tell.