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 - 18 of 18

  • We can plant the seeds of love and justice in the world.
    Time for All Ages | By mandi huizenga | March 29, 2022 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: #8thPrinciple, America, Anti-Oppression, History, Humanism, Justice, Race/Ethnicity, Secular, Seven Principles, Unitarian Universalism, WorshipWeb, Worship
  • Think of where you feel safe and at peace. What’s the signal that tells you it’s okay to be at peace? (Ask for answers.) For people in the United States military, there’s a special signal that says “you’re okay, and you’re at peace.” It's a melody called "Taps," and it's only 24 notes...
    Time for All Ages | By Erika Hewitt, Paul S Sawyer | May 21, 2019 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: America, Death, History, Memorial Day, Military, Secular
  • I want to tell you about my bicycle. The frame is a sparkly kind of blue and it has pink handlebar tape. And guess what color the wheels are? Lime green! I love my bicycle. Now suppose this was your bicycle. And suppose one day you biked to school and totally forgot to lock your bike when you got...
    Story | By Isabel Call | November 9, 2018 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), America, Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, History, Indigenous American, Race/Ethnicity, Thanksgiving
  • This service was written by Rev. Clyde Grubbs and Mary Jane Holden, and adapted by Erika Hewitt. It uses readers—as many as ten, plus the Worship Leader—to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement as it unfolded over the course of a decade. This story was designed to be read while photos were...
    Script | By Clyde Grubbs, Mary Jane Holden, Erika Hewitt | January 4, 2018 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Activism, Anti-Oppression, Direct Experience, History, Humanism, Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, Multiculturalism, Race/Ethnicity, Secular, Solidarity
  • In his autobiography, Theodore Parker relates that as a child, four or five years old, living on a farm in Roxbury, he was walking through the fields one day absent-mindedly swinging a stick through the tall grass. This was many years ago, in the days before the Civil War. It was summertime. He...
    Time for All Ages | By Gary Kowalski | September 8, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Animals, Children, Compassion, Conscience, History, Parents, Unitarianism
  • Our Time for All Ages this morning is a time of make-believe. I’d like you to put your imagination caps on so that we can pretend together. Raise your hand if you've ever been to a baseball game. How many of you follow a team you think of as “your” team? Well, I have bad news. (Here’s the...
    Time for All Ages | By Erika Hewitt | April 2, 2016 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), 5th Principle (Conscience & Democracy), Belief, Choice, Courage, Generations, History, International, Living Our Faith, Partner Church Observation, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Psychology, Secular
  • 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
  • This was created as a Message for All Ages for a service honoring Yom Ha’Shoah, the Jewish holiday for Holocaust Remembrance. In 2016, Yom Ha'Shoah begins on the evening of Wednesday, May 4th and ends on the evening of Thursday, May 5th. Once there was a place that was very bleak and dreary. All...
    Time for All Ages | By Martha Dallas | May 12, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Beauty, Connections, Direct Experience, Food, Generosity, History, Holocaust Remembrance / Yom Ha'Shoah, Hope, Judaism, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Secular, WorshipWeb
  • This reflection was created for Choir Sunday, an annual tradition at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, Vermont. You can adapt the language as suitable for you....
    Time for All Ages | By Martha Dallas | May 11, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Arts & Music, History, International, Music Sunday, Unitarian Universalism, Unitarianism
  • There once was a man named Daniel who was as gentle as a lamb. The King loved Daniel so much that he gave him power over the entire kingdom. But this made many men jealous of Daniel. One day, when the men happened to see him praying to God, they thought of a way to hurt Daniel....
    Story | By Christopher Buice | April 14, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Animals, History, Judaism, Peace, Power
  • Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Olympia who had a dream. She dreamed that one day she would grow up to be a minister. But during the 1800s, only men were ministers, so it didn’t seem likely that Olympia’s dream would come true. Olympia, however, continued to dream. Time passed,...
    Story | By Christopher Buice | April 14, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Commitment, History, Judaism, Purpose, Universalism, Women
  • By Jan Gartner, adapted from the story, A Unitarian King, in A Lamp in Every Corner: A Unitarian Universalist Storybook, by Janeen K Grohsmeyer. Written as a no-rehearsal skit for middle-elementary worship or classroom use. NARRATOR Our story takes place in the mid-1500's, in the country of Hungary.
    Story | By Jan Gartner | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: History, Unitarianism
  • There was a young man who grew up in China. Everyone said that he was so calm and peaceful, he should become a monk. Not wanting to displease his family and friends by telling the truth, the young man let them think he was indeed peaceful and calm. Inside, however, the young man was filled with...
    Story | By Denise Tracy | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Body, History, Multiculturalism, Peace, Self-Care, Taoism, Multiculturalism
  • There once was a person named John Murray. He lived in England, and worked as a minister there. The congregation to which he belonged took religion very seriously. They believed in life after death, but they thought that almost everyone was going to have a terrible, horrible time after they died.
    Story | By Kelly Weisman Asprooth-Jackson | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: History, Universalism
  • John Haynes Holmes was born into a Unitarian family soon after the Civil War. He grew up just outside of Boston, and his father would take him to Unitarian churches in Boston every Sunday so that he would hear the best preaching the city had to offer. Holmes idolized his grandfather, John Haynes,...
    Story | By Paul Sprecher | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: History, Nonviolence, Unitarianism, War
  • Rev. James Madison Rasnake was the best Baptist minister in Georgia. His first career had been as a lawyer, and he was known for his splendid reasoning abilities. After creating a well-known law practice, he found his true calling—ministry—in particular, the Baptist ministry. In 1896 he was...
    Story | By Denise Tracy | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: History, Salvation, Universalism
  • "You want to do what?" her friend said. "But you can’t, you can’t, what difference could you make. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard!" "But if someone doesn’t do something, how many more people will be killed, maimed or starve to death because of the war?" Emily answered. "But two...
    Story | By Denise Tracy | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: 6th Principle (World Community), History, Peace, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Unitarianism, War
  • For any of the components, below, you might insert other options from WorshipWeb's resources -- or write your own!...
    Complete Service | By Anonymous | January 21, 2015 | From WorshipWeb
    Tagged as: Aging, Children, Coming of Age, Faith, Family, Generations, Growth, History, Parents, Unitarian Universalism