Did you hear about the time…? Did I ever tell you about…? Do you remember…? Were you there when…? For more than thirty-five years at Union University, conversations often began with some version of these phrases. From August 1989—when I arrived as a scared little freshman—until my job ended in 2024, I was frequently regaled with stories about Coach Blackstock, Coach Rushing, and Tommy Sadler. It didn’t matter where I went or who visited campus; more often than not, someone had a story to share. And these men had all kinds of stories of their own!

If you’ve never been part of a sports team or program, it’s hard to explain the bonds that form when a random group of people unite around a common goal. You live life together—the good and the bad. You invest hours behind the scenes trying to make life better for those you serve. You ride the highs and lows of competition, discover who truly supports you, and realize how precious the relationships are that grow in that environment. You become connected through Shared Stories.

Did you hear about the time the van’s engine caught fire and players dove out the doors on the interstate? Or when coach stood a little too close to the heater in the dugout on a frigid February day? Or when the power went out during the conference tournament, leaving us in the press box for hours? Or when Buster reenacted the infamous ice-skating scandal of the ’90s during a game? Or when coach drove off from the gas station with the pump hose still attached to the van? These moments—big and small—bind us together. Shared Stories matter.

Stories are how we connect. They have been since the beginning of time. One of the hardest parts of being uprooted from a place where you invested most of your life is realizing you have no Shared Stories with the people in your new space. You hope they’ll come in time, but at first, you feel disconnected—you don’t have the knowledge of how long a team has been pursuing a goal or what scoring records were recently broken—you have no history here. People have no idea how much it means to you to be included in the game-day activities, to be allowed to serve the students and coaches in this manner because you’ve yet to create any new Stories. So, without Shared Stories, you feel unmoored.

Did you hear about the time…? No, but please tell me about it, I want to hear. I’d like to learn about this new place, its people, and its stories. I worry we’re losing the art of storytelling—the ability to Capture Moments that linger, last, and allow us to savor life. Our world moves fast. New content floods our screens every second. But what happens to the deeply significant moments when we stop valuing the contribution it takes to cultivate Relational Equity?Because that’s what Shared Stories do—they allow us to connect with others, to gain perspective of what we have in common, to build relationships that matter.

The most significant story is the one we find in Scripture, but your story matters too. Don’t allow people to make you feel otherwise. God is Weaving Threads together in your own unique story. He’s planting people and moments in your life that might have a lasting legacy on others. Whose life are you currently improving? What Shared Stories will people desire to impart about you?