Welcome Rohini Drake!!!

We've added another member to our Future of Faith team! Welcome Rohini Drake, our new Storytelling Creative Content Director! Rohini will be working alongside Nikki Collins, our Storytelling Ministry Director, who's leading 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. We can't wait for you to see the upcoming work from the both of them, but in the meantime let's get to know Rohini!

Rohini Drake is a creative director, producer, and storyteller passionate about finding and sharing stories that have been traditionally underrepresented in mainstream digital spaces. Through her work, she brings together strategy, storytelling, and compelling visual aesthetics to create space for voices that are too often overlooked. 

What excites you most about steeping into this role as Creative Content Director?

I’m excited about getting to do what I enjoy most, which is helping people tell stories. There are so many incredible people with stories of their unique humanity, and I think the more we can hear those stories, the more we can feel connected to each other and to God. I love the idea of creating spaces where stories can be told and heard. 

What kinds of voices or stories do you feel most called to elevate in this role and why?

I want to hear from people who have real and/or complicated relationships with faith. People who have found God in unexpected places. People who have stayed, left, returned, questioned, rebuilt, or completely reimagined what faith means to them. There are so many people who have stories to share and maybe haven't had a space to share them safely and I think those stories have the potential to change the way someone else might understand God or themselves. 

How do you see storytelling helping reimagine what faith can look like in the future?

I think storytelling gives us permission to imagine beyond what's right in front of us. Faith can often feel confined to doctrine, tradition, or theology, but stories from real people help put a human face on those sometimes abstract or hard to understand concepts. Stories help us see and understand what faith really looks like when it's interwoven with real life. 

What impact do you hope storytelling will have on individuals, communities, and the broader faith landscape through your work?

At the most basic level, I hope people feel less alone. I hope someone watches or hears a story and thinks, “Oh, I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who felt that way." For communities, I hope storytelling helps us become better listeners to one another and helps us imagine what beauty can come from being more empathetic and inclusive in our current communities and friend groups. For the broader faith landscape, I hope we can help expand the stories we tell about who God is, who belongs, and what faith can look like. If we can make room for more voices and more honest stories, I think we create more room for people to imagine themselves in the story, too!

Would you rather give up your phone for a year or social media forever?

Social media. No question.