(Note: the blue horizontal menu bar directly above lists the subsections of "Constructing the Story." Be sure to read each of these subsections before moving on to the next primary section, "Telling the Story.")

Constructing the Story: Turning Points

After you have established and verified the time line, step back and scan it for turning points, for decisive shifts in the story. A flood in the town, the collapse of an industry, rerouting a highway, calling a particular pastor, and adopting a resolution to begin a new social ministry or to open an educational institution are but a few examples of such decisive shifts. What you are looking for are places where a new trajectory or dimension in the congregation's life begins.

Here is where your committee's collaboration is invaluable. Different people will see different turning points. As you discuss and weigh those turning points, a sifting process occurs that allows the distinctive shape of your story to emerge. This is a time when consultation with other historians and archivists (denominational and local) can be especially helpful, since they will also see things that may not have been obvious to those who live closer to the events.

History is more than a series of turning points, however. It also includes the subtle dynamics that sometimes eventually produce larger changes than those produced by sudden intrusions or catastrophe. A congregation of German laborers and shopkeepers gradually becomes one of professionals and various ethnic heritages. Over several generations, women move from restricted areas of congregational life into equal partnership. Traditional worries about eternity spent in heaven or hell give way to modem quests for self-realization.

Now turn the time line on its side and let the prominent events and central dynamics become the sturdy bones, ligaments, and joints of your story. You have a skeleton upon which you can hang many of the discoveries that are bursting to be released from your files.

New England church, Little Compton, Rhode Island