OUR STORY
Once upon a time...
A new vicar of an Anglican church in Southeast London wanted a storytelling curriculum to revive a church playgroup. He wanted Jesus to be at the centre in a fresh and engaging way. And so he asked local storyteller, Gemma Gillard, whether she could help? It wasn’t long before The Church of England committed the funding, Gemma wrote the stories and God imparted His power and plans.
In January 2019, these stories found a new home. A care home in Poole. Along with a group of mums and their little ones from the local church and community. Truth Be Told, an intergenerational storytelling group bringing joy, hope and life to everyone in the room was piloted. And then it took off.
In an entirely different church congregation in Milton Keynes, someone who knew nothing of the initiative shared an astonishingly detailed, insightful and encouraging prophecy. “That God is going to lead you to a ministry [where] through the children and the church family He was going to start bringing [people] truly home to Jesus and the Father’s embrace. The agency of the children but linked to the presence of the church family seemed key. Singing, play, dance and the involvement of the young people in inviting the seemingly inaccessible and apparently hopeless”.
God had confirmed that this spark of an idea, this little pilot group was just the beginning. TBT groups grew and multiplied and having won the Cinnamon Network Project Incubator competition, we are now a replicable social action project for churches anywhere to pick up and run with in many different contexts.
The TBT team are passionate about developing others because we believe that by the lavish grace of our Father God, He has allowed us to be a part of His story. The most powerful and transformative story of all time. And He has created us all, in different ways, to be tellers of that story. It is not a skill that is reserved for the dramatic or the narcissistic but is a natural overflow of the heart. To share, to connect, to commune.
