“I Love to Tell the Story”

You don’t really know a story
when you only know how it ends.
To get to the heart of a story
you must go back to the beginning.

The 129th Annual Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina will be hosted by the women of the Durham Convocation on November 11-12, 2011 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Durham. All are invited.

Katerina Whitley, an author, dramatist, and extraordinarily gifted storyteller who now makes her home in the western part of our state, will lead the program, “I Love to Tell the Story.” By exploring this multi-purpose theme she will, in a very real way, help us back to the future. Let me explain.

First, “I Love to Tell the Story” will launch our preparations for the Diocese of North Carolina’s bicentennial in 2017 by providing a framework for the coordinated gathering of the stories of the women - named and unnamed - of the church in North Carolina. (See the related article by the ECW archivist and historian, Lynn Hoke, “Engraved with Love.”) One of our contributions to the bicentennial celebration will be By Word and Example: Women Who Have Graced the Episcopal Church in North Carolina, 1817-2017. This success of this ambitious long-term project will rely on the gathering of information from people in places large and small throughout all three dioceses (remember, we used to be just one diocese).

To inspire us for the work Katerina will first take us back to the time of our biblical fore-sisters. Through Bible stories we will learn how women lived and used their faith to meet the challenges of their time. She’ll then walk us through the ages to present day, offering dramatic monologues about various women whose faith informed their lives and the life of the church in many different ways.  

Second, and equally important, having claimed our past and present, we will begin charting a 21st century way, a new beginning for the ECW in NC. There cannot be growth without change. What will our ministry’s story be by 2017 — and beyond? Won’t you help us as we start writing the next chapter?

Strength and blessings,
Lisa Towle
ECW President
Diocese of NC