Storytelling: The Open House Experience
We’re sharing a story from a very active Peace Chapter group in Australia as inspiration. The simple act of listening to each other can inspire love and empathy. Thank you Brenton & Kylie Stacey for your creative and meaningful ways of building community & breaking bread together.
The Open House is a welcoming and loving community seeking to strengthen relationships through appreciation and affirmation of difference. We value inclusivity, diversity, equity and authenticity—a bigger table. One of our favorite experiences is preparing food to serve around shared tables. Our tables are safe places. We invite everyone to eat. Conversation follows. We tell stories. We listen. We learn.
The Open House manifests this mission by continuing to cater and host a free monthly meal on Fridays for those in the community. We promote the meal as the Open Kitchen & Garden.
Gathering around food & story at The Open Kitchen
To encourage others to experience the power in telling and hearing stories and to discover how Jesus worked them into his meta-story, The Open House planned, financed and hosted a speaking tour featuring teacher, writer and editor Becky De Oliveira and book editor Nathan Brown. Preceding the tour: weekly commentary on Facebook and conversation inspired by the book, A Bigger Table, which we facilitated through an in-person and online book club. The commentary and conversation considered why stories exist, whether they serve us well, and how we can use them to bring peace and light into our lives and the lives of others.
The tour, called Becky and Brown: Sharing Stories Around A Bigger Table, launched a five-part follow-up series called This Life where those attending listened and learned as guests told in 20 minutes a portion of their life story. Then those attending asked the guest any question they wanted.
A reminder for each gathering. Radici Studio
I invited guests who had not previously shared their story in a group setting: a counselor who contemplated suicide; a public relations specialist whose humor masks depression; a truck driver describing the not-so-simple pros and cons of life on the road, and; a social worker’s idealistic search for a non-judgemental church community. The guests and those of us who listened to their stories found the experience therapeutic, which built a strong sense of community and of belonging.
And after previously hosting screenings of the documentary Seventh-Gay Adventists and the companion dialogue film Enough Room at the Table and facilitating a public conversation with a transgender friend, The Open House accepted an invitation from Avondale School to speak about LGBTQ+ groups with its Year 12 Community and Family Studies class. I invited my transgender friend to share her story and my counselor friend to talk about in-and-out groups. The students listened and then asked questions. The conversation that followed was filled with empathy and understanding.
Jesus most often used storytelling, listening, and small gatherings to connect with people during His time with people. His example models for us what compassion and empathy look like. If you feel excited about the idea The Open House used, we invite you to start small and invite a few friends or neighbors over to share a story. Keep it simple and comfortable. Then, share your experience with us! We love to hear your story!