At Lunch With:
Charles Maynard: Storytelling minister
By Tom Hodge
“How in the world did a United Methodist minister wind up as director of advancement for the International Storytelling Center?”
The Rev. Charles Maynard grinned, sitting across the table at Main Street Café in Jonesborough, Tenn.
Maynard was taking a few minutes away from his job across the street – which was a hubbub of activity just a week before some 10,000 people from across the nation arrived for the annual Storytelling Festival. He'd had an earlier lunch when his wife Janice stopped by – and so he confined himself to a glass of tea.
“There are two parts to it,” he said. “But storytelling has always been an important part of who I am.”
He noted that he had been connected with the Storytelling Center, as a storyteller, since 1985. The other part, he said, was that he had written two books about the Smokies. When he was pastor at Kingsport's St. Matthews United Methodist Church in 1993, he was asked to do a similar book about Yellowstone National Park.
From that came the opportunity to be founding director of the Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Sevierville, Tenn. He and his wife Janice “talked about it and prayed about it,” and he took the offer. Maynard said it was a way “to serve our creator in our corner of creation,” which he did from 1994 to 2001.
Then nearly two years ago, Jimmy Neil Smith, founder of the Storytelling Center, asked him to join the center in public relations, “telling our story.” Maynard has held that position for 18 months.
But he noted that he still preaches a couple of times a month at various United Methodist churches. He uses his storytelling talent in these sermons. After all, he finds storytelling used effectively in the Bible: “The parables were stories, it was the way that Jesus taught. This is the way that humans remember.”
The center has seminars for teachers and for ministers to help them utilize storytelling, for both counseling and preaching. This winter, Maynard will teach a storytelling class at Emmanuel School of Religion, located at nearby Milligan College.
With storytelling, he says, there's more than one way to make a point. He said he recently talked to a class of children about how truth and facts can be different. He told the kids if he had climbed up a mountain 1,500 feet, and then climbed back down 1,500 feet, what was his average? When a student replied, “Zero,” he challenged the student. “Then the mountain was flat?”
Indeed, counseling is simply listening to other people's stories, he says.
So, what does the future hold for Maynard? How long will he remain with the Storytelling Center?
“I don't know,” he said. “I miss the parish, being involved in lives of others.” But he doesn't miss the administrative work involved.
Both he and his wife, Janice, are graduates of Emory & Henry College. Janice, too, is a storyteller. She's written several romance books. “Storytelling is a part of our lives,” Maynard says.
Then it's back across the street to the Storytelling Center to get ready for the thousands coming in for the festival.
Tom Hodge is editorial director at the Johnson City Press and a member of First Johnson City United Methodist Church.
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