Share Your Faith Stories

“ so are you excited about your First Holy Communion next Sunday?” asked Nana Peg of her granddaughter Cara. And little Cara went on excitedly about the rehearsal she and her second-grade friends had been through, her cool new outfit, and the great party afterwards in her backyard, adding, “You’re coming, Nana, right?” Peg assured Cara that she wouldn’t miss it for the world and said, “Oh, you’ll have lovely memories, Cara, of your First Communion day; you’ll remember it all your life, as I do.”

Then Nana Peg, beginning with “I remember so well…,” told a great story of her own grand day, and Cara was rapt with attention. Peg reminisced with obvious joy and wound down with, “When I finally received Holy Communion, the first thing I said was ‘Welcome Jesus and thanks for coming to me today.’” “Ah,” said Cara, “that’s what I’ll say to him, too, Nana.”

As I reflect now on my eavesdropping to that lovely round of stories, I’m reminded again of what gifts we all have to share from our personal stories of faith. Indeed, there is probably no more effective way for us to share “the greatest Story ever told”—Christian faith—than through the filter of our personal stories. This is heightened all the more when parents and grandparents share such stories with their children and grandchildren (and surely aunts and uncles, too). Nothing is more effective in evangelizing than the storied witness of Christian faith.

Of course, we will always need effective formal catechesis in our parishes and schools. This is necessary to ensure that we “hand on” (the literal meaning of the Greek katekesis) the whole Christian Story and likewise the great Vision it proposes for living Christian faith— faith that is alive, lived, and life-giving for ourselves and for “the life of the world” (John 6:51). For sure, there is nothing more persuasive than to access that great Story through the personal faith stories we can all share with the rising generations.

If a key strategy for passing on the faith is through our own faith stories, this begs the question of how best to craft such conversation. As Aquinas wisely advised, sharing our faith should ever be done “according to the mode of the receiver.” The heart-engaging power of stories suggests that we can craft our own faith narratives to intentionally lend access to the great Story and Vision of Christian faith.

To return to my eavesdropping, I note well how Nana Peg drew out Cara’s story first before she shared her own. And I propose that there is no better example of such story-to-Story pedagogy than that of Jesus himself. There are innumerable examples of him drawing out people’s stories in the midst of sharing his own great Story—the Gospel of God’s reign. Recall how he crafted his conversation with Nicodemus (John 3), or with the Samaritan Woman (John 4), or with the disciples on the Road to Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16).

Indeed, it seems as if Jesus almost always began his teaching with some familiar narrative from his listeners’ daily lives. So, the reign of God is like fishermen sorting fish; I bet he was talking to people sorting fish or at least with those familiar with this morning work. Or the reign of God is like a woman baking bread; I imagine him talking to the women at the well. Or note when he was talking to farmers about sowing seeds, and the examples go on. Then, in the midst of such familiar stories from his listeners’ lives, Jesus taught them “with authority” (Mk 1:22) the Story of faith and invited their lived response for God’s reign (Mk 1:15)—God’s Vision for us all. Pedagogically, Jesus was engaging his listeners’ own stories as an entreé into the great Story he had to share.

Though this “story-to-Story” pedagogy is present throughout Jesus’ public ministry, nowhere is it more evident than with the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus (check Luke 24:13-35). Recall how they are leaving

Jerusalem (running away?) for Emmaus—a seven-mile journey. Jesus, now the Risen Christ, approaches, joins their company, and “walks along with them.” For some reason (blinded by their broken hearts at the death of their beloved Jesus?) they don’t recognize him.

Even more amazing, however, is that Jesus doesn’t begin by telling them what to see. Instead, as he walks with them (Pope Francis cites this text as a model of catechetical “accompaniment”), Jesus first draws out their own tragic story of how he was taken and crucified, and now their shattered hopes for a Messiah “to set Israel free” (from Roman rule?).

Only when he has drawn out their own painful story and lost hope does he catechize his version of the great Story of the faith community. So, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted for them every passage of Scripture that referred to himself,” and explained how the Messiah had to suffer “so as to enter into his glory.”

Now their own stories and the faith Story are on the table, yet the Stranger still doesn’t tell them what to see but waits for them to put the two together and come to see for themselves. Which they do, after they have offered him hospitality, and he sits with them at the table for “the breaking of the bread.” In that eucharistic moment, they recognize the Risen Christ, whereupon he vanishes from their sight. In many ways, his work was done—they had come to “see” for themselves and thus renewed their own faith. He likely was off to another Emmaus road—as to the dinner table in your family.

Now the two disciples recall how their “hearts were burning as he opened the Scriptures for us.” Would that we can do likewise—to craft the great Story to burn into people’s hearts. Surely the clue to setting hearts afire is that we connect and integrate people’s own stories with the great Story of Christian faith.

I warrant that at least once a day every child asks a question or raises an issue or makes a protest or takes a stand that demands the attention of their caregivers. When this happens, take the time to draw out their “story”—the narrative of what is going on with them or happening to them. Not always but often, we can find an entrée in such moments to share a faith perspective, to sow a seed from our own faith story to reflect the great Story of Christian faith.

In our daily lives there are constant opportunities to share an explicit faith story, as with Nana Peg and Cara; be sure to take them—they are golden for handing on the faith. And there will be implicit faith moments as well, when you are simply encouraging their faith in themselves, in others, in life. Take those opportunities, too.

So, like Nana Peg and that Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, ever try to draw out your child’s own stories first. That will likely lend a clue for how best to craft your personal faith stories as an entrée into the great Story and Vision of Christian faith. We have no greater gift to share! ■

Thomas Groome is a longserving professor of theology and religious education at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry, and director of BC’s Ph.D. in Theology and Education. He is a former director of the Church in the 21st Century Center.

This revised edition of “Share Your Faith Stories” was originally published in C21 Resources—Our Faith Our Stories (Fall 2015). Guest Editor: Brian Braman.

Learn more about the C21 Center's popular Agape Latte program, a monthly faith storytelling series for teens and young adults. It was founded at Boston College in 2006 and has spread to over a hundred high schools, colleges, and parishes nationwide.

Interested in bringing Agape Latte to your school or parish?

Contact the C21 Center at church21@bc.edu