The Rev. Terry Pierce convened a group of women veterans and facilitated a program of storytelling and songwriting, as a way to open space for God to speak to their lives. She worked in partnership with singer/songwriter Kelley McRae, who performs one of the songs here.
Pierce reflects that her grant work caused her to explore her own discomfort with the word “evangelism,” and that prospective participants as well as social services partners were apprehensive about being targets for conversion. In the process of executing the grant work she engaged careful discernment about how she would, wholeheartedly, take the word of God and Christ into the world. The process of convening and creating with this group, and the relationships that resulted, inspire her to dream of creating more small groups that are sustaining, supportive places that use storytelling as a way for people to share their lives and live the Gospel.
A public performance was held on Veterans’ Day 2019 in Taylor, Texas. The workshop participants introduced themselves and their songs, and McRae and her band performed them.
