‘What’s your Story?’ training starting in PE next week

PE church leader Glenn Weiss invites churches, youth groups, schools, and businesses in Nelson Mandela Bay to join a story-telling revolution by getting plugged into  a powerful national reconciliation campaign called “What’s Your Story”

So what is all this talk about, “What’s your Story”?

“What’s your story” is an initiative developed and backed by the well-respected Heartlines team.

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It is an initiative to get people of all races, cultures and backgrounds to get talking… and listening (The part that most of us battle with).

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The subtitle to the programme, “You know my name, but you don’t know my story” perfectly describes how we live our busy, segregated, compartmentalised lives.

Most segregated metro
My friend, Gary Koekemoer wrote an insightful article in the Herald recently, where he highlighted the fact that our beloved Nelson Mandela Bay metro is the most segregated of the big six metros in our country. Meaning our race is still a huge determining factor in where we live.

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A tool called the Theil’s entropy index scores our city at 0.70 (on a scale where 1.0 = total segregation and 0.0 = total integration.). So in other words, we did a great job of implementing the Group Areas Act in it’s day.

So the reality is, we still have very low levels of interest, understanding or even tolerance of people who are different to us.

The “What’s your story” process will promote understanding, trust and reconciliation through personal storytelling.

Jesus was the master story teller, so let’s take a page out of his book and get involved in this initiative.

So how do we get involved you ask?

Facilitator training from March 13 to 18
In the week of March 13 to 18 2017, the Heartlines team will be conducting facilitator training in the metro for those interested in running the 4 or 5 week story-telling initiative or simply finding out more about the initiative.

The training plan including the locations and contact persons is available on the Gateway News and PE Church Net or else contact Glenn Weiss on glenn@storehousechurch.co.za for more information regarding the training session closest to you.

Beyond The River — a must-see movie
Another significant part of the “What’s your story” roll out is the SA movie, Beyond the River that will be launching nationwide on April 28 in Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro cinema’s. The movie is based on a true story of two men, from radically different backgrounds who come together to enter the Duzi Canoe marathon…. You will have to watch the movie to find out more… It is brilliant is all I will say, as I have had the privilege of viewing the movie as part of a group of city pastors/spiritual leaders. (See Gateway News movie review).

Information regarding block booking will be released closer to the time. The bottom line, it is a movie that every South African should get to watch as it reveals the true value and potential behind us launching a story-telling revolution in our city and nation.

Once the movie has launched, we are then targeting the month of May as the month to kick off the “Whats your story” campaign all over the city.

Personalised interventions
The beauty of the “What’s your Story” campaign is that Heartlines have tailored personalised interventions that can add huge value in a number of areas of society including:
Church communities/cell group/house churches
Youth groups
High schools
Tertiary study campuses
Workplaces/businesses

Workplaces are a natural “melting pot” of people from diverse backgrounds, thrown together to produce a product or offer a service. However, tolerance, understanding and sensitivity do not flow naturally.

The roll out of “What’s your Story” in workplaces promises to be a very impactful training and development initiative in line with the Employment Equity Act and the need to conduct ongoing diversity training. The net result — the creation of a more inclusive and diverse workplace that in turn will lead to improved team work and productivity. Which business can say: “I don’t need that.”

We all have a story worth telling….