A Korean pastor recently told me the story of the Ungnyeo, the mythical mother of the Korean nation. The myth goes that a tiger and bear both prayed to the heavenly God to be human. The God told them to go into a cave for 100 days, eating only garlic and mugwort, and most importantly, not seeing any sunlight. After 20 days, the tiger, impatient and hungry, left the cave, unable to complete the trial. The bear, however, stayed. At the end of the 100 days, the bear was transformed into a human woman, the bear woman, or Ungnyeo. The heavenly God took the Ungnyeo as his wife and their children became the Korean nation.¹ 

In this story, I was struck by how humanity isn’t offered, breathed into dust, it’s won with will and grit and perseverance. What a powerful testament, what a place to anchor meaning about what it means to be human. It had me thinking about how this story might shape what children are taught to value, what it means to be good. As I read more about the story, historians connected it to values of perseverance and humility, which are highly valued in Korean culture to this day.² 

It had me wondering about our own creation myths, the ones in our scripture, but also our national myths, the myths of our community, of our family, of the churches we lead. Whether spoken or unspoken, those stories shape our values in ways that we may not be consciously aware of. 

In our scriptures, there are 2 creation myths – the first is a poem, (“In the beginning…”), in which God creates order out of chaos, light out of darkness, separates sky from sea and gathers continents. In this poem, we are drawn to consider God’s omniscience and greatness, God as creator, orchestrator of all creation. The second story is an allegory, similar to other Mesopotamian creation stories, where an anthropomorphic God puts their very hands in the clay and shapes us in their image, and then breathes life into our lungs. In this story, we are drawn to consider God’s closeness, God’s love, and what it means to be made in the image of God. These two threads, God’s greatness and God’s closeness, live in tension in every part of Christian life, and I can’t imagine what our faith would look like without either one of them. We need to know that our God creates oceans with a single word, and we need to know that our God walks through the garden looking for us, calling us by name. 

But of course, our faith’s creation myths aren’t the only creation myths that shape us. Those stories are layered in with stories about the origin of our country, our community, our family, and more. How have those other stories worked their way into how we understand ourselves? In what ways do those stories give us courage, hope, or virtue to aspire to? 

What about your congregation? What is the creation story of your congregation? What stories are told (or go untold) about why your congregation was founded, or moved? What faithful disciples made the decisions that led to that name, that place, that congregation?

For a lot of suburban congregations, some chapters of these stories are uncomfortable and include decisions shaped by white flight and segregationist beliefs. While we can be tempted to believe that those chapters don’t matter now, the whole creation story, including those chapters, likely shape your congregation’s sense of who and why they are, whether they are acknowledged or not. Engaging with those histories thoughtfully and intentionally gives us an opportunity to extract what is best about those stories while spotting where we might want to try to shape a different story. 

This week, take some time to engage with the creation stories that shape you personally – your family, your city, your country – and the creation story of your congregation. Understanding not only who your congregation is but why it is, can point to important realities of your context. Unpacking the stories that may be shaping the values, virtues, and vision of your congregation may allow you to see what your next chapter could look like. If you’re interested in digging deeper (or even beginning to change the story) give us a call.

1. I heard the story verbally, but you can read more about it here. ↩︎
2. USC Folklore Archives ↩︎