Welcome to The Backstory episode featuring Metropolitan AME Church’s storytelling project. The team describes their “Come to the Table” approach built around three tables—Welcome (hospitality and church in the wild), Imagination (artists and creative expression), and Creation (climate justice). They emphasize research-driven, ethical, non-extractive storytelling aimed at engaging Black Gen Z “dones” through listening, focus groups, and collaborative production.

The conversation covers early planning, challenges with distribution and impact measurement, questions of compensation and ownership, and the hope that these experiments—supported by a grant—will amplify marginalized voices, strengthen community ties, and model new ways for faith communities to welcome and connect.

Welcome to The Backstory from Future of Faith — a behind-the-scenes look at storytelling work funded by the National Storytelling Initiative. This episode explores how organizations translate grant support into action, featuring Ross Allen of Christian Century on cohort training, community reading circles, and efforts to "reclaim the story" of American Christianity.

Hosts and guests discuss the challenges of narrative change, the tension between deconstruction and reconstruction, and the hope found in building public voices, belonging, and practical steps congregations can take to amplify stories that matter.

In this episode of The Backstory, Elizabeth interviews Melissa Wigginton from Austin Presbyterian Seminary about the Austin Story Project: a grant-funded effort training story guides to lead small, embodied "story circles" centered on Jesus moments. They discuss project design, early wins (training 50 guides), challenges with participation, distribution plans, and built-in evaluation with EffectX.

Guests also explore practical lessons about hiring for storytelling versus communications roles, the power of simple questions to draw out meaningful stories, and how local, community-based experiences can contribute to a wider shift in narratives about Christian faith and life.

In this premiere episode of The Backstory from Future of Faith, project leaders and guests pull back the curtain on the National Storytelling Initiative. They discuss early learnings from planning grants, working with master storytellers and marketers, audience and distribution strategy, and the surprising role of AI StoryBots in shaping personal narratives.

Chris Leach from the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry joins us as our special guest and conversations cover youth protagonism, diocesan capacity, the emerging Library of Hope, and practical questions about ethics, consent, and scaling local stories into national campaigns as the projects move from planning into execution.

Welcome to The Backstory, a candid look at the roots, soil, and saplings of narrative change.

Hosted by Josh Packard (Future of Faith), Shannon Hopkins (Rooted Good), and Elizabeth Coffee (Lake Institute), this podcast is a dedicated companion for the Lilly Endowment Storytelling cohort. While most people only see the "canopy"—the polished, final stories we share with the world—we’re interested in what happens underneath.

In this series, we pull back the curtain on the creative process to explore how faithful narratives are actually built. We dig into the "backstory" of our work: the ethical dilemmas, the technical challenges, the unexpected wins, and the messy reality of trying to shift culture through story.

Join us each month for:

- Behind-the-scenes breakdowns of our own active projects. - Peer-to-peer interviews with fellow grantees from the field. - Honest conversations about what it takes to tell stories that shape the future of faith.

Whether you are in the thick of a grant project or just passionate about the intersection of faith and storytelling, come listen, learn, and grow with us in The Backstory.