Palmer People: Biblical Storytelling with Cynthia Pollard

If you have had the opportunity to take the biblical storytelling class, you have had the pleasure of being taught by Cynthia Pollard ‘03 MTS. Cynthia teaches the class, with Old Testament Professor Deb Winters, as a one-week intensive course every other summer . Students enter on Monday knowing that by Friday they will need to tell a story to the class. What students often don’t expect, is the vulnerability needed to enter into this process with God as well as their faculty and peers. But it is when students press into their vulnerability, amidst rigorous exegetical work,  that their gifts really flourish. Cynthia remarks that it is not uncommon for students to begin to ask, “Can I get away with this”, as they consider taking more risks in their storytelling. “We tell them ‘You can get away with any of it as long as you give it your all.’” To use one’s imagination in front of their peers takes unanticipated vulnerability.

This is a journey that Cynthia herself walked as a student. Originally from Philadelphia, she passed Palmer’s original city line campus often. When she sensed a call, it was not towards a specific ministry. “It was just a call. I sensed a power within, and knew there was a seminary on the corner. I felt a call to ‘apply there’ and see what happens.” Cynthia says she just took the classes as they were listed in the back of the catalog. In doing so, she took The Art of Biblical Storytelling with Ian Scott. She was required to read the work of Thomas Boomershine, the founder of the Network of Biblical Storytellers International. She then met Boomershine at a festival put on by the network that same summer. She told the story of the woman restored, commonly referred to as the woman with the issue of blood. Cynthia was a monologue storyteller, but Boomershine affirmed her gift and encouraged her to tell the stories as they’re written in the text. From then on, she expanded her learning to not only tell the biblical story word for word, but to put it to poetry as well. She went on to write The First Housewives, a story which plays through the lives of the women in the BIble. It will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Not long after, Deb Winters invited her on the journey of teaching Biblical Storytelling at Palmer. “We each bring something different to the class, different styles. We demonstrate for students that they each need to find their own voice,” she says. “Now I get a peek at where I was. Like me when I first took the class, many students are nervous. But we get to bring out their gifts and encourage them to trust the process.”

Christen Blore, Director for Alumni Care and Seminary Engagement, approached Cynthia Pollard and Deb Winters, in 2022, to help plan an alumni retreat which would utilize storytelling. Cynthia describes its development as a slow walk, giving special consideration to the retreat’s theme and aesthetic. It was meant to be a set apart time offering not only an experience through the biblical story but through the stories of our alumni as well. It was important the alumni knew it was not a conference. Retreatants were assured that they could participate in communal offerings, or could step away for solitude and contemplation. “All we did was provide a sacred space for respite, to connect with yourself, with others, and with the Lord. And the hope is that you take those connections beyond the retreat.” 

When asked to again participate in discerning and designing the upcoming 2024 alumni retreat Morning by Mourning: A Soul Wellness Retreat, Cynthia said “Yes” immediately.  “Trust God. Trust the process. The best is yet to come.”