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The Try Tank Podcast is about innovation and the church
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: From the tritank research institute. This is the tritank podcast. And welcome to the Try Tank Podcast. I'm Father Lawrence Labrija. It is good to have you with us once again. Today we are talking on Hope Exchange. Hope Exchange is a new program that will be launched, is launching I guess you could say and will be officially launched later this fall from Virginia Seminary. It is part of the grant cycle from Lilly that Virginia got and it is an amazing new program and it really is I think innovative in the way that it shares stories and what it's going to do with it all. But to talk about that we have the new director of that program here to talk with us about it. The uh, Reverend Kyle Oliver is uh. Sorry. The Reverend Dr. Kyle Oliver is an Episcopal priest and educational media producer and researcher interested in faith and faith adjacent meaning making. He has served in Christian formation roles at Virginia Seminary Church Divinity School of the Pacific and was the founding producer of the Way of Love with Bishop Michael Curry and Media and Social Change podcast at Teachers College, part of Columbia University. His dissertation becoming chronicles storytelling initiatives at a foster youth mentoring ministry. And we'll talk a little bit about that in our conversation thinkingly different about mission formation and belonging. Kyle is uh, the program director of Hope Exchange. Sharing stories, Exploring faith, that's the full name of the program and we will be talking about both the public facing side of the new program but the church side of the new program. What it's about, how I think will be really impactful, what it, it really just goes to the core of who we are as human beings I think and in the end how you can get involved as well and maybe be part of it uh, with it. So with no further delay, let's get to it. Doctor Oliver, welcome to the Tritech podcast.
>> Kyle Oliver: Thank you, thank you.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Good to be here. And it's good first of all uh, for people who may not know, Kyle used to be part of vts once upon a time. Even uh, before my days here at ah, Tritech. Even before there was a Tritech. And now you're back, so it's good to have you. And it's also good that we found ourselves on campus.
>> Kyle Oliver: Absolutely.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Since we're both remote employees. Right. So let's begin right at the top. Tell us, tell our listeners, tell me what is Hope Exchange?
>> Kyle Oliver: So Hope Exchange is our storytelling initiative in the new uh, uh, Lilly Endowment cycle of grant making. And we have an ecumenical group from the Presbyterian uh, Church usa, the ELCA Lutheran denomination and the Episcopal Church uh, who are really, um, interested and compelled by the power of story, and particularly the power of story for engaging people around questions of faith and spirituality in a way that sort of meets them where they are. I really believe that storytelling is one of our oldest human technologies. Uh, it is a way that we uh, form identity, connect with other people. Um, and the, the church has an incredible story to tell, uh, many incredible stories to tell. And sometimes we tell it in a way that focuses on the institutional perspectives rather than on the sort of human perspectives that illustrate to somebody who's not already involved in the church what it means to have relationship with God, what it means to uh, belong to a community in a way that, you know, you show up for them and they show up for you. You bear each other's burdens. Uh, it's a way of sort of getting into the theology in a way that people who don't know any theology, uh, can uh, appreciate. And so we're looking to hold some space around storytelling in m. The church.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: I think, you know, uh, even Jesus used stories. That was. His whole ministry was about stories. But uh, we have ample evidence that it is much easier to get people to understand what you're talking about if you get to it through the heart than it is through the mind.
>> Kyle Oliver: Right.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: This isn't about apologetics of Christianity and letting people believe, but rather in fact, uh, when we. I was actually part of the team that wrote the grant originally, when we were writing the grant, the, the key, the sort of the North Star in it, stories of how people came to know and love God through their faith community. Because that, that is theoretically what faith communities are, are, Are meant to do. Right. Um, so where is, what's, what's. Could you give us some concrete examples of not only where uh, you, you think is going to go in the next five years as a five year grant, what do you, how do you envision it out into, in the world and also where uh, is it at now?
>> Kyle Oliver: Sort of.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Yeah.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. So we are still getting organized. We are still building the team. M. I came on in January. Uh, this is a good time to influence uh, our partners at Future of Faith. Future uh, of Faith is an amazing team of folks. I think of them sort of as applied sociologists of religion who uh, partner with uh, faith groups who need that skill set. Uh, and uh, it has been a joy to get to know the folks of Future of Faith. And um, uh, my colleague Nikki Collins, uh, has uh, joined their team and will sort of be my counterpart on this project. We have a kind of division, uh, of labor on this project. Future, uh, of Faith is taking the lead on what I see as uh, really the most important part of the project, which is the public facing part. So we want to work with local and national partners across our three denominations and beyond to invite people into opportunities to hear and share stories with one another. So there's a really rich sort of storytelling festival tradition. Um, uh, Nikki and I are going to attend the international storytelling. It's not a conference. I forget what it's exactly called.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: You can't call it a conference, but you're gonna go hear stories, you know.
>> Kyle Oliver: Uh, uh.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: That sounds like you're cool.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. In uh, early October. It's in Jo, Uh, Jonesboro, Tennessee. So sort of tapping into that kind of Appalachian storytelling tradition. Yeah, there are many schools of thought about storytelling. I think there's a. There's a kind of common underlying, um, almost genetic but certainly social kind of DNA that underlies them. But obviously there are differences in these traditions too.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: I think all of us can. Can say that was a good story versus like I didn't really understand that story. Yeah, we all. You're right. There's like a human instinct to like. I sort of knew who the hero was and I sort of saw the challenges and. And they reached some sort of conclusion at the end.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. And there are. And I uh, as I understand that there. There's evidence that some of that is. Is sort of neuro cognitive.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Uh, would not be surprising.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. Um, and of course it uh, sirtelling looks different in different cultural traditions and different regional and religious traditions. So as you might imagine. But I think there's so much in common. Um, so a piece of what we want to do is holding that space for sharing and hearing stories in the form of storytelling festivals. So a big part of the agenda is working with local partners to get uh, people in rooms presumably uh, people of faith. Maybe people who are sort of curious about faith. That I um, think. I think this is future of faith language. That language about people uh, who are uh, spiritually curious but institutionally wary.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Oh yeah, yeah.
>> Kyle Oliver: Um, this is the. This is the kind of activity I think that is, that is designed for those folks who might be interested in uh, learning more about what it is like to have a relationship with. With God and a faith community. If it comes in the context of a story from someone they know and trust.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Correct.
>> Kyle Oliver: Rather than from someone who wears a collar, Someone who you know, controls uh, you know, uh, institutional social media account. Uh, yeah. Or what have you.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Well, there's There is nothing that compares to. I mean think about it. Even outside of just faith, if you were to look at it, who do you trust to give you the best review of a movie or of a restaurant or something? If a friend comes and says, or oh you've got to try this place out, you automatically it's like, oh, when I walked in they treated you like this. And it was like this versus just seeing a commercial or seeing a social media ad for a restaurant. The same. It could be the exact same place. And we know there is ample research that shows that when people do come to, to a church for the first time, for the most part they have uh, over 80% were invited by someone to say you should come here or like they know, oh, Lorenzo's an Episcopal Palin and I live in a different city, but I'm going to look at an Episcopalian church because I think that's what they sort of are like. Yeah, uh, it is that personal connection. You're absolutely right that, that makes it so that's the public facing. There's going to be these. And I'm imagining uh, as you're saying it kind of like moth events from public radio or TED Talks where people can, can share their stories, uh, or even like Prairie Home Companion just like sharing stories in an old fashioned sort of way. That's, that's pretty neat. So that's the outward facing uh, part of the, of the grant. Now tell us about the other side.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah, so uh, my, my role on the project. And here we are on the campus of Virginia Seminary. VTS's role in the project is what I'm calling the church facing side of the project. And that's sort of a shorthand for three distinct audiences. Uh, the folks that we're trying to reach with this project are uh, theological educators, uh, people who work in seminaries and other places where church leaders get uh, trained and formed and raised up denominational uh, leaders. So at the church wide level of these three denominations at least, uh, and beyond, uh, and uh, more local denominational levels. So in our Episcopal tradition, you know, people who work in, in um, diocese. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Or for the Presbyterians it could be the Presbyterians.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. Yeah. So we, ah, you know, different words.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Pretty much same. Yeah.
>> Kyle Oliver: Um, or we could use the word judicatory.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: There you go.
>> Kyle Oliver: Fewer people know exactly right.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Let's go into the weeds now and turn it off.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. And then, and then the third part of, of the audience for this side of the project is uh, you know, working local church Leaders, so pastors, formation leaders, um, you know, evangelism leaders, you know, people who are, you know, working in local congregations. And the goal here, I think is to help, uh, you know, the church, capital C, whatever, the body of Christ in these contexts, to maybe to take a step back, to uh, reflect a bit on what it means to tell the kinds of stories we're trying to draw out, on what it means to listen to and receive the kinds of stories we're trying to draw out. Um, you know, so that we are not. When somebody asks us why you go to church, talking about Judith, toys, you
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: know, right over their heads.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. And there's a, There's a real knack to talking about spiritual experience in a way that resonates with people, especially when the particularities of faith are part of what is meaningful to you, but they also are often part of what is inaccessible to the people that we might be talking to. I spend a lot of time talking to my neighbors who, uh, don't go to church, but who know what my spouse and I both do working as uh, priests and in different contexts. And it's a like, really good, like intellectual and human challenge to try to share a bit about why we do the work we do, um, about what our faith means to us and you know, to try to strip out the jargon, to try to get into that personal stuff that um, you know, sort of socio. Emotional stuff stuff. Um, often people want to talk about the history and the theology and you know, in there. I don't want to cut off anyone's way in. Um, but I'm not here for the history and no shade to people who are, um. Uh, you know, I am here because I was raised up in a series of communities that cared for me and uh, showed me what it was like to have a relationship with God and to be, um, you know, buoyed by uh, the love of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And um, I want to tell them something about that.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Correct.
>> Kyle Oliver: Without, you know, and I think people worry that this is something about, like, are you, are you ashamed of the gospel? Like, I'm not ashamed. I just don't think the other people are gonna know what I'm talking about.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Right. If you just go around talking. In fact, we. Oh, funny you say that. We, uh, a couple of years ago we were working on a project, the Phoenix Project, if anybody. I think we did a podcast on it, uh, which basically was, can we create an experimental prototype faith community for people in their 20s? And we did a week long Design Sprint. This is how the ecumenical work began. Actually. It was that thing we just said, can we just get together and try to figure this out? We have all this research, let's do this. And the outcome was good. But, um, the goal at the end of the week after the Design Sprint was we were going to present it to a focus group of young people. Say, like, okay, we have a deadline. We got to present them something. And we present it to them. And we use, for example, the word transcendence, M, which you and I would understand. Nobody of those young adults, um, knew what the word transcendence meant. Right? We could talk about otherworldly. We could talk. We had to, like, find other ways of describing it. But you're absolutely right. It's hard to describe to people what keeps you. If you think about it, every Sunday, X number of people go to church. The majority of them, I'm hopeful, are there because their lives have encountered the Holy Spirit, have been transformed by that experience, and have a different relationship with God and with Jesus. And thus they like to participate in community, to sort of be thankful for that. That is what the Eucharist is, the Thanksgiving, you know, to bring your concerns to God, all those things, living in the community of the body of Christ. But it is, you're absolutely right. It is so difficult to someone that hasn't experienced it to say, hey, come over here. You're gonna experience transcendence, and it's gonna be amazing. And it's like, whoa, chill it, uh, out what you've been smoking, and take a step back. And so you're right. Um, and just to chime in here for a moment, uh, in part of writing the grant, we did a, um, very, you know, Future Faith and Tritech Research Institute working together. So obviously it was a research project. So we, uh, we put 20 people. We created a bot that was my, hey, let's use AI for this. So we created a bot that walked people through the process of putting together their faith story. And we had 20 people use it, uh, to come up with their faith stories. And then at the end of it, we interviewed all 20 people for an hour each and, and did a, uh, the research. That way we. 19 of them, 19 of the 20 told us, uh, that just coming up with their story was formational for them because they had never shared this story before with anyone. And that that in and of itself reminded them of, like, this is why this matters to me. So I think even for those of us who have been in church for a long time, we don't necessarily have the words that say, this is why I'm still here. So, and so we fall back on things that are easy to point out. Go to most, uh, Episcopal churches, say, why do you come here? And they might tell you, because I feel welcome. That's good, right? But what they're saying is community. Uh, a lot of them talk about the music, right? It has a great music program. It's like, well, theoretically what that's doing is it's allowing you to reach a transcendent level where you can experience it more. So being able to help people sort of put words to that, I think is. It's just. It can actually be very impactful for people.
>> Kyle Oliver: Can I tell a little story, please? So my.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: That would be a shame if I. Talking about storytelling is like, no, no stories here. Thank you.
>> Kyle Oliver: Uh, uh, my m. Dissertation work is about storytelling in these kind of faith, like I call them faith adjacent settings. So I was getting started on this work and I was working in, or working, collaborating with a summer camp in a, uh, Latino congregation in suburbs of a big city. Uh, this was a camp that was really there so that the kids of this community would have somewhere to go during the summer.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Okay.
>> Kyle Oliver: And, uh, so I came in and I had all this fancy training in a particular storytelling tradition and, you know, had, uh, had an idea about what a storytelling project in this community could be as an educational experience, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, but this was research. And so part of what I had to do was get, uh, informed consent from both parents and ascent from the young people to participate in this storytelling project with me. And I started talking to him about what we were going to do. Oh, I want to. I want to help you tell a story from your life. I want to, you know, um, we're going to choose some photos and some music and you'll get, you know. And they were kind of like, we're at camp here, buddy. We don't really want to step away from the fun we're having at camp to sit in here on computers talking to you. It was a really humbling experience. Um, recentered me in an approach to research ethics that would go through the whole project. But in the end, because I had a relationship with a few of these young people, a few of them agreed to do this with me. And we had a kind of negotiation about what the project would be. And in the end we decided that they would tell a story about what this camp meant to them.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Okay.
>> Kyle Oliver: And so over the course of several days, they would step away from camp for a couple hours in the afternoon. And, um, you know, some of what we were doing was about craft. Right. Like, how do you tell a good story? Like, what, what are the structures? You know, all that kind of stuff. But a lot of what we were doing was like, what does camp mean for you? You know, and it became this opportunity for these young people who knew they loved this place to better articulate why they love this place. And at the, at the end of the week when we finally had the video with the script and the music and the. All of it, all of it put together, the contrast between, between at the beginning of the week where, like, they weren't even gonna do this project to. They, like took my laptop and they were like running around camp being evangelists.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Yeah.
>> Kyle Oliver: You know, for this story, they were like doing exactly what I had done earlier in the week, like cutting people off and be like, hey, hey, stop, stop. Stop what you're doing. Like, stop playing kickball, stop.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: You know, you gotta see this, you
>> Kyle Oliver: gotta, you gotta get in on this. And they were so, um, connected to their own, ah, loving experience of this place in a new way. From having had someone with a little bit of the sort of technique, um, but mostly someone willing to kind of hold the space, ask follow up questions, take some notes, double back to things. Um, just a little bit of lightweight accompaniment allowed them, uh, the space. Space to connect with their own voice and their own perspective in a way that left them with something that gave them a new perspective on their own relationships and something that they were excited to share with other people.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: That is, I think, and since you were with them, as you were saying the story, it sort of reminded me Future Faith did this whole research on sacred listening. They have these tools and, um, for our listeners, uh, Future Faith, Josh Packard, Dr. Packard, uh, we've done several podcasts with him. He's our research director at Tritech as well. He consults with us on that and we do a lot of work with him. So listen back to those podcasts as well if you want to. But the one of the things that they talked about, which I think is what you just sort of gave the example of, right, is that very few places take our story seriously. And we live in a world where there's so much noise, so much things going on that no one just has. No one generally takes the time to sit there and say, hey, Kyle, tell me your story. I just want to hear, who are you? You know, tell me you. What are you? You know, I want to hear that. And What a gift it is to be able to not only share it, but to have it held by someone, to be like, thank you. Thanks for sharing that story that matters. You know, it's, uh. I think that's what you sort of touched upon them, that they were like, wait, my story has value? And what a, uh. And probably part of the reason why storytelling is so. So impactful for faith traditions. Right. I've always been. I think I'm gonna be called a heretic. But I've always thought that if we left more space in Episcopal services or something for people to share their story of how God has been active in their lives. People are like testimony in the Episcopal Church. What are you talking about? That. I just think it would be powerful for us to hear regularly how active God is in the world still.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah, I totally agree. I, um. I was. I don't. I don't think that's inappropriate to tell this story. I was, uh. I was, uh, in Washington yesterday, uh, meeting with the folks at Metropolitan AME Church.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Okay.
>> Kyle Oliver: Uh, another institution that has one of these lowly grants. And we were exploring possibilities, possibilities to collaborate. And, uh, over the course of an hour or so's conversation, we kind of kept coming back to the tension that I think you're getting at about this. This issue of sort of like authority in the church. Right. And how do we as, uh, we me, uh, you know, as a person who wears a collar, represents the tradition, and some way unclench a little bit, you know, hold our hands back a little bit and say, I want to hear about how the Spirit is moving in you and in your community and trust that they are going to share something that is, uh, you know, true and good and discerning in that moment. And it is wonderful to have the chance to come to a place like VT Us and, uh, learn the canon, learn the tradition, engage with the thinkers. But, uh, even as somebody who already had this kind of disposition that we're talking about, I remember finding myself in congregations hearing stories and wanting to be like, oh, but, oh, can I make a little theological edit there? Can I? Like, uh, the pull that we who have been entrusted with the traditions have to kind of, uh, you know, overstating it a little to say, be the theology police.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Correct.
>> Kyle Oliver: You know, that that is real. And yet so many of the renewal movements that have happened in the history of the church have come from the margins and have come from stories on the margins and people saying, we might not have a lot of ecclesial power, political power, whatever, but we have Some testimony about, um, how God is moving in us and in our community. And, uh, that is compelling and that is holy. And so, you know, we kept nodding yesterday to this reality of, you know, what disciplines can we embrace? And I think being a good audience is one of those disciplines, right? Like, how do I, like, receive your story? Um, perhaps tell you, um, something about your story that's still speaking to me. But, you know, all these different storytelling traditions have these ways of encouraging the audience to engage, to relate to, even share feedback, but without saying, hey, I want to make my story your story. I've got some edits.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Exactly right. Let me tell you where you were wrong and make it about me now.
>> Kyle Oliver: And so I think that, uh, the invitation, uh, to us Church leader folks is to, you know, find these ways and embrace these disciplines that will allow us to, um, receive and be thankful and, uh, learn something from these, uh, explicit and implicit stories of how, uh, God is active in the world.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: You know, first of all, the way you described it, even, it reminded me a lot of the Being with program. Because in the Being with program, when someone. It all begins with what was at the heart of your week. And when people are sharing, the only acceptable response is from the lead storyteller, which is to say, thank you, and that's it. So we received your story. So even I, as a listener, I'm not here listening, like, oh, that reminds me of a time, or let me think of. No, no, it's just thank you for that gift of the story. Whether it's good or bad, you're sharing of yourself, and that's worthy of us receiving it. But it also reminded me, um, a few years ago, the presiding bishop, this was Michael Curry at the time, was preaching in San Diego, and I was invited to be the Gospel, uh, because I told them I want to do it in a different way. They're like, oh. And I said, let me tell the story, not read the Scripture, but let me tell the story that Luke says. And I had to remember, you know, I had to be on point because the presiding bishop was literally going to preach on what I was saying, right? So I had to not change the story, if you will, twice. But if you think about it, all of us who probably who are listening can say, there's a story of the Good Samaritan or the story of, uh, the Prodigal Son. We may miss a detail or two here or there, but the truth will still be there, right? In the Good Samaritan, it's the person you least expected who stopped and picked up this person. Right. And took care of them. Whether I say that the first two, one was a Levite and the other ones, you know, those not as important as the truth of the story, which is what I think is called to do. And that just I think speaks to the power of stories. I think we failed some of that. So again, to go back, there's the public facing side, was going to create these um, storytelling festivals. Um, but apparently there's also going to be tools that come out of that for others to do their own story.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah, yeah. So that's, you know, these storytelling traditions, um, wide variety of them. All understand this uh, this quandary. I think this, this point about how do we receive respectfully, um, uh, how can we be a supportive audience, all that sort of thing. Uh, so there is like real wisdom and craft involved in convening a storytelling experience. And I fully expect as someone who is interested in craft that uh, we are going to learn a lot about what is essential about the various storytelling traditions that we're engaging with, about how those uh, perspectives kind of rhyme with and maybe sometimes conflict with uh, other values and practices that we have as church people. Um, and so I believe that over the course of uh, these experiments in festival convening, we are going to learn a lot, uh, about how to do this kind of work. Well, I suspect that what we'll learn is like you got to do a lot of prep, you got to do a lot of training. Um, but we can make that more accessible to people and we can avoid. We can help them avoid making um, you know, some like, logistical blunders. But I think also the kind of ethical blunders, like that's something we haven't talked a ton about yet, except in my sort of, uh, false starts in my uh, in my research. But um, storytelling is really vulnerable. Oh yeah, um, it gets to the heart of community identity. Um, uh, it speaks often to trauma and injustice. Um, so storytelling is uh, and story listening and story sharing, these are ethically fraught acts. And so I especially think, uh, and other grantees are thinking about these questions of course as well. Uh, as I understand it, some of them are thinking about the ethical stuff here in particular and ways to resource the church around that. But so I think this kit, this resource, this playbook, whatever it is we're working on, uh, is going to have a lot of guidance, including how do you do right by the communities that you're bringing together and in the individuals that you are listening to, uh, inviting to listen all the rest. So I think, um, we're going to learn a lot and we're going to share what we learned.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Awesome. And on the sort of more church facing side, uh, there's going to be a symposium, if I recall correctly, that may change by now. Uh, and there's some sort of framing around a theology of this work.
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah. So, uh, we know that, uh, for good reasons, uh, theological educators, uh, want to start with a theology.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Right.
>> Kyle Oliver: Just like in the title. Right. And uh, we take that seriously and have been working on a theological framework for this project. Um, I think many people intuitively, you know, would understand the value of stories, would understand why we want, um, storytelling to play a bigger role in ministry and ministry training, etc. Um, but it is meet and right, as Episcopalians say, that we uh, think through the theological, uh, invitations and implications of, you know, a move to uh, elevate the role of storytelling in our, in our common life. And so we've been working on, you know, a set of commitments. I, uh, I mentioned before this idea of how storytelling, testimony, witness is often a tool that empowers people at the margins of power in the church. Um, if you don't have a title and you don't have funding and you don't have whatever it is in whatever generation, um, you see, uh, still have your ability to, you know, give an account of the faith that is in you.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Correct.
>> Kyle Oliver: Um, and we recognize that as having its own spiritual authority. I'm drawing here especially from a lovely book on preaching as testimony by Presbyterian, uh, scholar named Anna Carter Florence. Okay, um, uh, so I've been reading a lot and uh, people in our project are uh, reading and trying to figure out who, who are the disciplines in theological education and church leadership who should uh, be involved in a project like this. So you know, we need homileticians, we need biblical scholars, we need, uh, you know, constructive theologians, uh, we need religious educators. Uh, we need folks who are thinking about evangelism and church planning. Uh, thankfully, um, my counterpart Nikki, you know, led Presbyterian, uh, yeah, 1001 communities, church planning and, and really like her convictions about the like animating power of these stories, as I understand it, were a big part of your work.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: Absolutely. In fact, when, uh, a little background on how this proposal came to be. As I mentioned, we had already been working ecumenically. This is the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, ELCA and uh, Lorenzo and Try Tank and bts, representing sort of the opposite Episcopalian side. And uh, Lily put out the call for, for this, this initiative for the storytelling initiative. And Nikki, she's an amazing person, by the way. Nikki was driving down the street and she was thinking about it and she's like, oh my God. She's like, where have I. My whole life is around stories. Because her communities that the Presbyterians are Starting in the 1001, many, uh, of them tend to be in places where you wouldn't have a church. They're not necessarily building based. They are, uh, also reaching out to many parts of the margin, whether it be Latino or whether it be poor, uh, communities or, uh, communities of color. And she's like, the stories that I have heard in those places, those are exactly the type of stories I bet you if we just keep looking in all three of our dynamics. So she called Josh Packard and Josh, like, oh my God, that's a great story. So, like in. In a day or two, the. The three of us plus Josh were on a call and we're like, what do we think of this story? What do we think of this proposal? It's like, what if we did it this way? And it just started to develop, right? It's like, how can we really sort of, if you will formalize without, like, institutionalizing storytelling so that more people can learn to tell that story of faith? Because that will bring. And again, the. The thing that guided us through the whole thing. How did people come to know and love God through their community of faith? And that's how the proposal, uh, sort of developed. We decided to apply through VTS as a sort of place and, um, with future faith sort of running a lot of it for us. And that's how we got the proposal. But it just shows the power of stories. Even there it was the story, uh, ah. I think even taking one step back to the Phoenix Project thing, this is what happens, I think with stories. Stories, uh, are a way of building social capital. Because I had only known, uh, at this point it was Ian Chester, uh, Nikki Collins, uh, and Josh Packard. I had only literally, Josh. I had known for like four days when I invited them, hey, can you guys all take a week off and go to New York on your own dime? I will host us on the campus of General Seminary. But can you take a time so we can run a design spread that will have a convener, uh, sort of run it for us, a facilitator. But to try to come up with this thing? And they all said yes. And all of that was just based on social capital of like, we've been trying to work together. We do this sort of things and it was from there that we started doing ecumenical research together and now we're doing AI work together. But again that's stories. We shared our stories with each other. We're like, we're on the same sort of path, trying to figure out the same things. Um, so if someone wants to learn more, if they want to get um, involved, how can someone reach you or what's next?
>> Kyle Oliver: Yeah, uh, so we're in the early days, uh, we will have both public facing and church facing, uh, web presences and uh, digital presences in the coming months. Uh, we're still getting organized on that front. So to be honest, the best way to get uh, involved, tap in, and I sincerely invite you to do this, is to email me at KMoliver Emma's M in Matthew kmoliverts Edu and we will get you added to our lists and stuff. We are, as I said in the, in the, in the very early days of that. Uh, but we are trying to connect with scholars, uh, from relevant disciplines who have an interest in storytelling for uh, for this symposium that will um, be by a podcast that will be uh, uh, beginning to produce in the fall and be launching in uh, January. Uh, so people will be able to subscribe to the Theologies of storytelling, uh, podcast and newsletter. Uh, they'll be able to, you know, check out the, check out the websites. We do expect to be up and running um, again probably by The Fall at HopeExchange uh.net uh, so there'll be ways to plug in on the church side the sort of culminating experiences. Uh, here are going to be some kind of publishing project, a book, a journal, something, um, as well as a seminary course that we hope will be taught in seminaries of the various denominations. Knowing what I do about seminaries, I think it's maybe the most ambitious goal of the project.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: It's not putting together the festivals or reaching thousands of people. It's like getting seminaries to do a course together for credit. Might be a.
>> Kyle Oliver: Well, on the church side of things, it's one of the harder parts. Uh, there's going to be a lot of like rich and challenging work that's going to stretch us and we're going to learn a lot. Um, and uh, you know, if you are liking what you're hearing and would be interested in the idea of being a, you know, a local partner for a storytelling festival in the midst of this, we'd love to hear from you as well. So if any of this sounds interesting at all, email me. KMoliverts edu and we will get you, uh, plugged in, in the appropriate place. Uh, this is early days, and we've got a lot of, uh, strategic decisions to make. We're raising friends, we're making plans. Uh, we're learning as much as we can. And, uh, it's exciting days.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: No, it sounds very exciting. Um, it is. Uh, I'm super excited by what might come of this. And even, by the way, uh, for someone that maybe just is like, I probably won't be able to host a festival or help much with that because I'm already stretched to thin or whatever. And you all will provide a lot of help with it as well. But, uh, it might be worth it just for them to learn more about storytelling, to become better preachers, you know, to become. How do we share more stories within. Even if our congregation is 12 people in a very rural place, how do we make sure that we're hearing everyone's stories? Whose story are we not hearing? And how do we invite them in to share that story? Because I think that's at the core of it as well. If someone can't share their story of faith in their own community of faith, then they're certainly not going to do it outside. Right. And I think that that's something to say.
>> Kyle Oliver: Um, and I mentioned that threefold audience, and we really care about serving the theological educators, the denominational leaders, and the people in congregations. And so, uh, again, uh, that newsletter is going to have activity plans and guides to the techniques and recommendations about the different traditions and how you might tap in. And you don't need that much training to invite people in your congregation to share stories with each other. You know, it's a few ethical guidelines, a few, you know, facilitation tips, and, uh, you know, a kind of, um, commissioning to go out there and hold
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: the space and a willing spirit to do it. I think it's something that people could even do. I mean, we do it already, if we think about it. It's just not officially around the dinner table. We break bread together, and we just share our stories. And imagine, actually, if every church in the. Oh, man, this would be a dream. Every church in the Episcopal Church, once a year, just held a dinner where people got together with other people in the same church, and they just shared their story of faith with each other, how it would change them. Because you will get to know someone completely different by how they got to this place and who they are. And then how much from that will radiate out into the rest of the neighborhood, into the rest of the community. So it's km um kilo. Michael Oliver. O L I V E r@vets.edu hope exchange.net and that's two E's, right. So it'll be hope another exchange.net uh, when the website comes up, uh, obviously you can look for it also in the Tritech newsletter. Uh, the Reverend Dr. Kyle M. Oliver. Thank you very much for joining us. It has been a pleasure having you with it and I am super excited about your work. So I will be if I'm, um, probably already not the first, but I will be one of the early subscribers.
>> Kyle Oliver: I have implied implicitly subscribed you. I have inferred your permission. You are on the list.
>> Father Lorenz Lebrija: All right, thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe and be sure to leave a review. To learn more About Try Tank, visit tritank.org be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter where you can keep up with all m all of our experiments. The Tri Tank Podcast is a production of Try Tank in association with Resonate Media. Try Tank is a joint venture between Virginia Theological Seminary and General Theological Seminary. Again, thanks for joining us. I'm, um, Father Lorenzo Abrija. Until next time, May God bless you.