At our recent leaders night I decided to tell three stories that have been playing in my mind recently. The first two stories were familiar childhood stories which may have been told as bed time stories, the third story was a familiar story from the bible. Although the stories were familiar I encouraged the group to listen to the stories with fresh ears, looking for fresh insights.I asked the group to listen to the stories as leaders and listen for what values they heard in the stories, what the stories said about team work and leadership and what the moral of the story might be.
The first story I told is a story that pops into my head every now and then about a Little Red Hen who wants to make some bread but when she asks the pig and the duck and the cat to help they decide to stay where they are comfortable instead of helping out. The little red hen goes through the motions of making the bread, asking the others to help her along the way but they continue to refuse. Finally the bread is ready and she asks who will help her eat the bread, the pig, the duck and the cat all offer to help eat the bread but the hen says because she's the one who made it, she will eat all the bread by herself.
I like this story because as leaders we can relate to struggling to get people out of their comfort zones or wanting to get something done but others not seeing the vision. As a group we also wondered whether the hen had asked for help the year before and the pig and the duck and the cat had all offered to help but the hen was such a perfectionist that it put them off helping this time!
The second story I was reminded of when I heard it told at our recent Synod meeting. It's the story of Stone Soup. This story seems more gracious than the story of the Little Red Hen. A stranger comes into town and starts to make stone soup. It sparks curiosity in the villagers. The stranger then invites the villagers to bring what they are able to add to the stone soup to make an even better soup. Everyone is invited to share in the soup, even if they didn't contribute.
I like the way people were invited to share what they had; herbs, vegetables, meat. It may not seem like much but there isn't any judgment on the offerings and when they were all put together in the pot it created something that none of the offerings could have done on their own. Not only was there soup but community was created as well.
The third story I told was Jesus heals the paralytic. This story tells of 4 men who take their friend, who is paralyzed, to Jesus to be healed. They face obstacles in getting their friend to Jesus but they are focused and determined and they carry their friend to Jesus and the result is their friend is able to walk home that day.
I like this story because it shows the love the men have for their friend and the faith they have in Jesus. The friend would never have been able to get to Jesus on his own. Many people worked together and overcame obstacles for a common goal, and the outcome was amazing.
These stories generated a lot of table discussions for our leaders and we shared together our own stories and insights. I enjoyed being a story teller!
