A New Chapter for Storytelling at Future of Faith

We are grateful to share some big news with our community: Future of Faith is helping to lead the storytelling work for a new, five-year ecumenical project supported by a $5 million grant awarded to Virginia Theological Seminary through the Lilly Endowment National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life.

This project—currently titled Stories of Hope and Renewal—brings together partners from across Christian traditions, including leaders from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and The Episcopal Church. We are honored to coordinate and guide the storytelling and listening dimensions of this work alongside VTS, whose theological leadership anchors the project.

For us at Future of Faith, this moment feels like a natural extension of what we have been building for years. Our research consistently shows that, in an era of low institutional trust, people encounter faith most powerfully through relationships and lived experience. Storytelling—when rooted in deep listening—creates space for those encounters.

Over the next five years, we will help develop local storytelling gatherings, digital platforms like the Library of Hope, and practical tools that equip communities to surface and share their own stories of faith, meaning, and renewal. Some stories will travel nationally. Others will remain beautifully local. All of them will begin with attention to real people and real lives.

Here is just a sampling of what we'll be doing:

• Designing and facilitating local storytelling festivals that help communities surface and share stories of faith, hope, and renewal rooted in lived experience

• Developing and launching the Library of Hope, a national digital platform for short-form video stories that can be viewed, shared, and contributed by communities across the country

• Creating an off-the-shelf storytelling toolkit that equips congregations and organizations to host their own storytelling gatherings without outside facilitation

• Developing and deploying Sacred Listening Tools to support story collection, reflection, and trust-building in local and national gatherings

• Coordinating national storytelling gatherings that bring practitioners, theologians, and storytellers together to refine methods and share learning

• Producing public-facing storytelling content across blogs, podcasts, and short-form media to share stories and reflect on what they reveal about Christian life today

• Leading research and evaluation efforts to track participation, engagement, and impact, with a focus on how storytelling and listening shape trust and faith formation

• Sharing learning through webinars, brief reports, and partner briefings so insights from the project can inform wider church practice

We see this work as ministry, research, and collaboration all at once. We cannot wait to invite you into what comes next.