Fact: Your descendants will treasure your personal family stories long after you have left this earth. Have you ever told your children how your faith in God or another higher power began and developed throughout your life? Even if you have had these conversations, you need to capture that story in print, audio or video so that it can be curated for all of your descendants.

Here are some ideas on how to tell your stories of faith so that they won’t get lost to fading memories.

Telling Your Story of Faith

The story of your spiritual faith or other life passion is one of what I consider to be 5 starter topics to write for your family story collection. My mission is to help as many families as possible curate their family stories. 

A big part of that mission is trying to remove any obstacles and hindrances that are holding you back. Some people just don’t know where to start. To help with this, I’m giving potential family story collectors 5 important stories to write for future generations. 

Honestly, if you only write just one of these 5 stories you will have given your descendants a precious gift. But I’m giving you what I call the Big 5 – Personal Faith, Marriages & Weddings (aka love stories), Births, Career and – last but not least – Pets. Read more about the Big 5.

So let’s take a look at telling your story of faith, however that translates for you personally.

If you grew up Baptist like I did, then you’ll understand what I’m asking you to do is to “share your testimony.”

Start at the Beginning

I want you to consider what your descendants need to know about the spiritual faith or other life passion that has guided you morally. Tell the story of how you came to believe in a higher power and how it influenced and shaped your life.

You often hear people say, “I’ve been in church since I was a baby in the nursery.” That is certainly the story for many of us who grew up in a church community, but the development of your personal faith is a different story.

Just like me, you may have chosen to follow the same path of spiritual faith as your parents and grandparents. But at some point you had to choose that belief system. It had to become personal for you.

Many of our family members may only know us as Christian, Jewish or Muslim. But within those religious communities there are subtle and sometimes strong differences. For example, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church community and was married for a time to a man who was a minister at SBC churches. But there are plenty of other Christian denominations that don’t follow the same church doctrines as the SBC.

Or, you might have chosen a completely different spiritual faith than your parents.

Dig back into your memories and tell the story of the very beginning of the development of your personal faith.

Story Suggestions
Who in your family or some other acquaintance influenced you? Did you resist their influence at first? At what point did you reject or accept the faith they practiced?

How Your Faith Changed You

Practicing faith in a higher power involves more than just believing. It often also involves being part of a community and culture that supports your moral and personal growth.

Tell our descendants how your faith journey has guided your decisions during your life. Talk about the community you were involved in and what that meant to you. 

Story Suggestions
Write about how being part of a faith community felt. Did you feel included and nurtured or condemned and challenged by strict spiritual practices? Did you rebel against it as a teenager or young adult or flourish in the community’s support?

Why You Might Have Stepped Away

For some of you, a point was reached in your life when you left the spiritual faith of your youth and chose another path. 

For others like me, my faith and relationship with God have stayed the very same, but in the last few years the community where I practiced my faith has changed in a big way. I no longer felt that I could authentically relate to the denomination of my childhood and a change was needed.

This change alone is a story worth telling because of the big life events surrounding my decision to make that change. How about you? Do you need to tell a similar story?

Story Suggestions
Try to tell the story of your faith without using “churchy” terms. You don’t know which of your descendants will be reading your story in the years to come. Keep your story simple and authentic so that anyone could understand it.

What Your Faith Is Now

Wrap up your faith story by telling your descendants what practicing your faith is like for you now. With the wisdom of your older age, talk about what your faith has meant to you through your lifetime.

Story Suggestions
Looking back, what would you have done differently in your faith journey? This is a chance to reflect and express your heart about decisions you made and maybe even regrets you had about missed opportunities or misplaced commitments.

So there you have it – the first of my Big 5 topics to write about from your own life experiences or those of an ancestor. These stories will be treasured by your descendants as well as your immediate family.

Now it’s time to sit down with your laptop, pen and paper, or maybe your phone’s voice memo app opened up. Start from the beginning and share your faith journey with the very people who will benefit the most from hearing it.

Next up in the Big 5 – Marriages & Weddings (love stories!).