As One (Telling Stories for Inclusive Worship)

It is our stories that connect us to one another and enable us to become a community. When we come together to worship and share the stories of our life, our stories become God's story. In fact, our personal and community stories are inseparable from sacred narrative. Worship is the telling of God's story, but we ourselves are part of the very story we are telling.

This book uses a method of "narrative communication" that integrates feminist perspective with aspects of narrative theory and Christian communication theory, to look at the significance of storytelling as a medium for evolving inclusive worship. The author speaks specifically from and for the context of the tribal Baptist Christians in North East India. Women have been rendered storyless because of patriarchal traditions in local cultures and inherited from early missionaries. How may women tell their stories in worship then? The author asserts that we have to overcome our story-lessness by using the scripts of our lives as our sacred story. Our stories can be woven into our prayers, sermons, and rituals. We can also read the stories of the Bible as women and re-imagine biblical narratives to challenge traditional perceptions. Our stories invite our hearers to experience our story, to view things from our perspective, so that we and our hearers are no longer strangers but become one community. The underlying premise of this book is that storytelling can be an ideological tool to challenge discrimination against women and girls.

Rev. Dr Marlene Ch. Marak is a member of Tura Baptist Church and an ordained minister of the Garo Baptist Convention, Meghalaya. She earned her PhD in Christian Communication and Worship and Preaching from the University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia. She is currently Associate Professor of Communication at Eastern Theological College, Jorhat, Assam. She is married to Rev. Dr Zhodi Angami, Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek, who also teaches at Eastern Theological College. They are blessed with a daughter, Mima Tejoé Marak, and are also guardians to a young girl, Rangkambe Ch. Marak.

Humans will die without stories. Coherence, which is central to identity construction, is impossible without stories because we create our selves through the stories we tell. We are the stories we tell. By "stories we tell" I mean the stories we tell about us as well as the stories around us. We exist in and through our stories. Stories not only give sense and meaning to the experiences of our life, but they enable us to build a hospitable world to live in. In theological language, we may say that our stories are intertwined with God's story. The biblical story of salvation has no redeeming efficacy until it comes into contact with the stories of our lives.

As One is a search for identity. In this book, I propose connecting storytelling in the sacred spaces of worship as a step towards acknowledging and celebrating women's presence and identity in worship. The underlying premise of this work is that storytelling can be an ideological tool to challenge gender segregation and contribute towards overcoming gender and other discriminatory boundaries. To achieve my objective, I employ a "narrative communication" method that integrates feminist perspective with aspects of narrative theory and Christian communication theory, to look at the significance of storytelling as a medium for developing inclusive worship.

I speak especially from and for the context of the tribal Baptist Christians in North East India. Churches in this part of the world are influenced by patriarchal traditions both from local cultures and inherited from early missionaries. Symptoms of gender apartheid in worship are seen in the use of sexist language, discriminatory biblical theology, androcentric language about divinity, and sexist hymns and songs. The appropriate response to counter gender apartheid is the creation of inclusive community. The theological rationale for pushing the agenda of an inclusive community comes from God's call to all to worship as equals, to share communion, and to live in community. The cause of building inclusive community is also served by recovering the practice of the Lord's Supper as a common meal shared by the community and re-envisioning baptism as initiation into a new reality where the old prejudices and distinctions have no meaning. Here, I also explore ways by which women can tell their stories in worship. We have to overcome our storylessness by using the scripts of our lives as our sacred story. Our stories can be woven into our prayers, sermons, and rituals. We can also read the stories of the Bible as women and re-imagine biblical narratives to challenge traditional perceptions. Our stories invite our hearers to experience our story, to view things from our perspective, so that we and our hearers do not remain strangers but enter into a relationship of friendship and communion.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages