MISSION OF STORY

In a world that is often siloed and segregated, we believe that stories are a first-step in building bridges across difference and diversity. Stories have the power to build empathy, induce compassion, and to convert bias into new loving perspective. The process of story-sharing is a transformative act of re-membering. The hope is that it is mutually transformative, as gathering and re-telling one’s story is a reflective process that enables the sharer the space to reclaim inherited narrative, as much as a hearer has the opportunity to restructure perceived assumptions.

We believe that story-sharing is theological and spiritual. We believe that each individual’s story matters and deserves to be shared in community. As Christians, we are always holding space for people’s experiences to impact the way we understand God and our collective existence. God shapes us through stories, as we shape our stories of God. In this way, story-sharing is hermeneutical and deeply anthropological. Story-sharing allows an embodied, incarnate God to be animate in our present moment.

We believe that stories have power. Stories have the power to shape our consciousness, to provide structure for our lives, and to help us make meaning. Because of this, stories hold the potential to be destructive or life-giving. Thus, we recognize that it is important to closely examine the stories that society has offered to us and to others. Not all stories are good and true. And, the process of story-sharing allows for us to recognize where bias, assumptions, prejudices are ingrained in our subconscious narratives, handed to us by generations of societal stigma.

It is our hope in story-sharing to work through subconscious bias, to unpack death-dealing narratives, and to reclaim our stories in life-giving, loving, and liberating ways.

We are privileged to have the space to curate a podcast together. The podcast is one platform for story-sharing, and we have every intention to exercise the utmost care and responsibility in utilizing the platform to build Beloved Community. We hope the impact is the same. Please hold us accountable, help us reform and refine this platform. We recognize that we are always in process, as our stories are always in process, and desire to be a liberating space for all people seeking Beloved Community.

Our hope is that the podcast will not only be a download of story-sharing and information from podcast mouth to listener ears. We are wondering on ways to build more relationship with our listeners. This desire comes out of the theological impulse that God is calling us into friendship with one another. We are seeking to dismantle a system of whiteness that privileges transaction, consumption, and competition as its primary modes of operation. Podcasting and media are as susceptible to recapitulating these systemic powers as anything else. Because of this, we are weary to allow story-sharing to be another form of consumption, and instead hope to invite a call and response model of listening and interaction. We believe that stories are for the community, and the community is accountable to the stories shared.