Kristin Maier, author of A Good Telling: Bringing Worship to Life with Story (Skinner House Books, 2013) shares the first in a series of tips for good storytelling. Purchase A Good Telling at the UUA Bookstore.

Good stories are central to good worship. As a Time for All Ages, as part of a sermon, or as part of a multigenerational service, stories engage our hearts and minds and help us grow.

Stories from Other Unitarian Universalist (UU) Sources

Storytelling in Worship

✳ Pssst! Have you visited our Storytelling page? It's filled with tips, how-to's, and lots of resources!

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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5

  • This Time for All Ages is greatly enhanced by visual elements. If you're able to create a slide show, it may be helpful to show the accompanying images, as well as diagrams of the geocentric and heliocentric models of the solar system. We humans have always looked up at the stars, wondered about...
    Time for All Ages | By Erika Hewitt | March 21, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Awe, Earth Day, History, Identity, International, Living Our Faith, Partner Church Observation, Religion, Science, Secular, Wonder
  • To prepare for this Message for All Ages, you’ll need to do the following: remove a small white tea light from its aluminum casing make a fake candle out of a turnip or jicama: carefully peel and cut (adults only!) until your disc of turnip is the same size as the tea candle. (The aluminum case...
    Time for All Ages | By Erika Hewitt | November 20, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Children's / Religious Education Sunday, Children's Sabbath, Direct Experience, Doubt, Freedom, Playfulness, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Responsibility, Truth, Unitarian Universalism, Wonder
  • There once was a child who got lost in the woods. As night began to descend, the child became more and more frightened. I’m sure any of us would be frightened too, in that situation, but what made this child even more frightened, was that he had always been afraid of the dark. He was more afraid...
    Story | By Sheri Phillabaum | January 25, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 7th Principle (Interconnected Web), Awe, Beauty, Courage, Fear, Halloween, Samhain, Winter Solstice / Yule, Wonder
  • It was not a city. It was not a large town. But it was not a small town. It was—just average, you might say. Except for one thing. There was a Storyteller in the town. That’s Storyteller with a capital S. The Storyteller had arrived one day without advance notice (or as some people would put it,...
    Story | By Orlanda R Brugnola | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Imagination, Mystery, Revelation, Tradition, Wonder
  • There are two things we can learn from a daffodil to help ourselves and each other.
    Time for All Ages | By Ruth E Gibson | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Change, Earth, Earth-Centered, Flower Communion, Growth, Nature, Spring, Strength, Transformation, Vernal Equinox, Wonder