In this episode of The Backstory, Elizabeth Parks, Editor of the International Journal of Listening, joins the team to explore listening as a practice—ethical, interdisciplinary, and transformational. They discuss listening as invitation, the risks and costs listeners face, and how to collect stories in non‑extractive ways.

Practical takeaways include setting boundaries, centering reciprocity, asking who benefits, and preparing organizations and staff (like pastors and project leads) to be changed by what they hear. Parks points listeners to the International Journal of Listening and her work for further resources.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethshun-chingparks/

Website: https://www.elizabethsparks.org/

Welcome to The Backstory's expert episode featuring sociologist Nancy Ammerman. Nancy introduces the idea of lived religion and explains how narrative methods—asking "tell me about a time," using audio prompts, photos, and PhotoVoice—help researchers build trust and surface everyday sacred and spiritual experiences.

She also offers practical guidance on listening for people’s vocabulary, layering multiple methods to deepen stories, and organizing qualitative data through coding and memoing to find meaningful themes.

https://studyingcongregations.org/

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Stories-Spiritual-Tribes-Religion/dp/0199917361

In this episode of The Backstory, hosts Elizabeth, Josh, and Shannon speak with Laura Everett of the Massachusetts Council of Churches about their storytelling initiative, Revelations. The conversation pulls back the curtain on project planning, ethics, and the practical steps they are taking to support storytellers.

Topics include research into safety and psychographic audience insights, cohort-based storytelling tied to film screenings, a national resource center for wholeness and security, and partnerships that protect vulnerable narrators while cultivating prophetic imagination and community.

https://www.masscouncilofchurches.org/