thrice-told tale, part 1

A few months ago a young woman who has started a successful online business asked my husband and myself for advice about how to tell the story of its development and its advantages over other programs.  The crux of her inquiry was the question, “Who should be the hero of this story?” That got me thinking that there are often multiple ways of telling the same story.  Identifying the protagonist is key.  So I’m going to take the next three posts to tell the same story, through slightly different lenses:

When our son Court was going into sixth grade Dave and I saw the need for a youth group at our church. When our older child had been in high school there was one seminarian running a group.  It was tiny and clique-ish and didn’t continue once he moved on.  So we approached our pastor and asked if he had a plan.  This enquiry was mostly to see that we wouldn’t be working against something already in motion if we decided to create a Junior High youth group ourselves.  The pastor hemmed and hawed and talked about churches he could possibly approach with whom our congregation could partner.  I stopped him and just asked point blank, “Would it be okay if Dave and I started a youth group?”  You could hear an audible sigh of relief on the other end of the phone as he said, “That would be great!”  So we had his blessing.  (It helped that his twin sons were the same age as Court.)

For the next five years, Dave and I opened our home to weekly meetings, coordinated work projects and two ambitious retreats each year.  We spent hours planning lessons, art projects, coordinating meals, praying for and writing weekly letters to the kids in the group to keep them focused on things that we had done the week before.  And we were definitely not afraid to look silly before them…making ourselves the brunt of the joke.  What’s learned with pleasure is learned full measure. 

Once our son was asked who was the coolest youth minister around, and his response was, “My parents are the coolest.”  High praise coming from a 14-year-old!

Love, Liz

Are we always the hero in our own stories?  Next week the story told from another point of view.