Story Sharing #3 - Honoring a Person's Story
As followers of Jesus, our lives tell the story He is writing through the Holy Spirit. When we share that story with others, we allow the Spirit to continue His work by writing it onto the hearts of those who listen.
Hearing someone’s story is a holy moment. Their story reveals the grace of Jesus at work in their life, and sharing it requires trust and vulnerability. Because of that, we receive their story as a sacred gift held in confidence. Sharing can feel like stepping into the open, and our response is an opportunity to cover them with dignity and care. This practice is essential to forming a community shaped by the gospel.
The principles below guide us in responding in ways that honor the person, their story, and God as its author. We encourage reading them aloud before someone shares, helping us prepare our hearts to listen well.
Before, During & After Their Story
- Begin by praying that they would experience God’s peace, that He would communicate what He desires through their story, and that they would feel known, loved, accepted, seen, and heard as they speak.
- Keep in mind that hearing someone’s story is a sacred trust. Their experiences, sufferings, and joys reveal the saving work of Jesus in their life, which makes this moment holy.
- Commit together to confidentiality. Resist the temptation toward gossip so that trust and intimacy can deepen in the community.
- Give your full attention. Use gentle, affirming nonverbal cues — steady eye contact, a slow nod — and avoid verbal reactions that pull focus or interrupt the flow of their story.
- Listen for both sorrow and joy, for places of wounding and places of God’s faithful pursuit. Notice themes and moments where the Spirit’s work is evident.
- Thank them for sharing their story, for their trust, vulnerability and the honor of hearing what God has done in their life.
- Offer a brief reflection on specific parts of their story. Our responses serve as their “re-clothing.” Model sympathy and compassion, engaging them at an emotional level by entering into their pleasures and pains with them.
- Healthy responses might sound like: “Hearing that scene of abuse in your story made me so sad for you as a little child”; “It’s so clear to me that you are broken over your sin”; “I loved hearing how God so faithfully pursued you throughout different seasons.”
- Keep the focus on them. Avoid shifting attention to your own experiences or offering advice, resources, or follow-up questions.
- In order to grow in our ability to speak the gospel to one another as a community, it can be helpful to ask this one follow-up question: “What truth about the gospel do you need to be reminded of most often?”
- Pray over what you heard. Speak Scripture’s truth into their experiences, and entrust them to the ongoing care and shepherding of Jesus.
- Ask the Father to protect them from spiritual attack, especially from doubt, shame, fear, or condemnation.
- Pause right now to put all technology on “Do Not Disturb” or remove it from the room entirely.