{"id":5384,"date":"2011-12-23T11:55:25","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T16:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=5384"},"modified":"2011-12-23T11:55:25","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T16:55:25","slug":"someone-wants-to-hear-your-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/12\/23\/someone-wants-to-hear-your-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone wants to hear your story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The headline of this post is true for all of us, actually, even when it doesn\u2019t seem like it. Someone wants to hear your story.<\/p>\n

But the point of this post is a bit more specific with regard to the someone<\/em> and the you<\/em> here.<\/p>\n

The someone<\/em> in this case is Margot Starbuck, who\u2019s an insightful writer (author of, among other things: Unsqueezed<\/em> and The Girl in the Orange Dress<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n

And the you<\/em> may or may not be you, in particular.<\/p>\n

Bruce Reyes-Chow<\/a> points us to Starbuck\u2019s \u201cSpecial Sinners Project<\/a>,\u201d in which she wants to hear the stories of people who\u2019ve been judged, condemned, rejected, hurt or otherwise mistreated by Christians. Yes, she\u2019s working on a book. Starbuck thinks that Christians need to hear these stories, to come to terms with them, and to \u2026<\/p>\n

Actually, it\u2019s probably better if I let her explain it:<\/p>\n

If the church has ever judged you to be a special sort of \u201csinner,\u201d I want to hear from you.<\/p>\n

The church really needs to hear your story and there\u2019s no way we can know this stuff without hearing your voice. (And I do understand that sharing yourself with an anonymous stranger who wants to listen probably either strikes you as horribly wrong or potentially lifegiving.) If this weird thing has got your name on it, please email your three quickie answers to the questions, below, to: SinnersSpeak (at) gmail.com<\/p>\n

1. Because of a behavior others decided was \u201csinful,\u201d were you treated poorly by Christians? How?<\/p>\n

2. Who loved you well? How?<\/p>\n

3.Was there an unexpected someone who loved you well? How?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She adds:<\/p>\n

Though I\u2019m clearly looking for ideas to build up the church, our correspondence is entirely confidential. So your bright idea might one day find voice in my writing, but never your identity. Fair?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a delicate, tricky thing. There\u2019s no getting around the awkward, unpleasant presumptuousness of asking people who have been hurt by Christians to share their stories in order to help Christians<\/em> \u2014 even when the point is to teach Christians to stop hurting people the way they hurt you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit like encountering someone hurtful from your past and finding out that they\u2019ve arrived at the Ninth Step. Their deep need to make amends may be suddenly in conflict with your<\/em> deep need to never, ever, ever see them again. If that\u2019s how Starbuck\u2019s search for stories sounds to you, then please ignore it.<\/p>\n

But if \u201cthis weird thing has got your name on it,\u201d then someone wants to hear your story.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The headline of this post is true for all of us, actually, even when it doesn\u2019t seem like it. Someone wants to hear your story. But the point of this post is a bit more specific with regard to the someone and the you here. The someone in this case is Margot Starbuck, who\u2019s an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSomeone wants to hear your story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The headline of this post is true for all of us, actually, even when it doesn't seem like it. Someone wants to hear your story. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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