Making Peace: A StoryCorps Project
Be inspired! Listen below to the wonderful, heartfelt stories of church members and friends talking about making peace – some experience by which they have found or created some peace in their lives and in our community.
Use the scroll bar in each box to see a short description of each story. Click on the orange arrow to listen to the recording. These stories were recorded using the StoryCorps phone app and are now archived in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress!
If this page does not load on your phone or mobile device, use this link to listen to the stories.
More information about StoryCorps and this project is below. There is still a chance to add your voice to our project! Contact Christy Hightower by email or at 831-459-4708.
What is StoryCorps?
StoryCorps travels the country collecting the stories of everyday people, who get to take the microphone and interview each other about their lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has recorded and archived more than 60,000 interviews of pairs of ordinary people telling their stories, all of which turn out, of course, to be extraordinary in their own way. Perhaps you have heard excerpts of some of these moving stories on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. You can also hear them on the StoryCorps’ Listen Page.
StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.
What is the Making Peace StoryCorps Project at Peace United Church of Christ?
Recently, StoryCorps created an app (application) for smartphones and tablets that allows you to be the person who makes the recording. You can then submit your recording to the StoryCorps.me website where it can be heard by anyone in the world. All interviews published to the StoryCorps.me website are also archived for future historians in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Here at Peace United Church, Christy Hightower and others were excited by the chance to honor and share the stories of PUCC members and friends using the StoryCorps app.
The first PUCC StoryCorps project is called Making Peace. In 2013, our congregation then known as “First Congregational Church” changed our name to “Peace United Church of Christ.” We believed then, and still do, that peace is God’s gift to us in faith, and that peace-making is our vocation in the world.
Starting in fall of 2016, to celebrate the third anniversary of our name change and also our commitment to peace-making, Christy Hightower, Mary Male and Lisa Johnson invited church friends to share a story with them about making peace – some experience by which they have found or created some peace in their lives and in their communities. These are those stories recorded with the StoryCorps app and shared with the world.
We hope you enjoy getting to know these wonderful people better, and we hope they may also inspire you to create more peace in the world.
If you have a story of making peace that you would like to tell, there is still a chance to add your voice to our project. Contact Christy Hightower by email or at 831-459-4708.