At the beginning of 2025, Christianity Today wrapped up its inaugural Young Storytellers Fellowship—formerly called the NextGen Accelerator—with a commissioning weekend in Chicagoland. On Sunday afternoon, the fellows lingered in the hotel lobby, waiting for Ubers and shuttles to the airport and reflecting on their experiences over the previous six months.
From August 2024 through January 2025, the 15 fellows had gathered together in person and virtually. They were young creatives—journalists, poets, pastors, illustrators, essayists, photographers, and artists—ranging in age from 19 to 27, from all across the United States.
Between bouts of laughter and farewell embraces, there was a consensus that something special had taken place—something that felt like a need had been answered with lavish generosity. Those six months had been filled with an energy, insight, and blessing that I don’t think we could have anticipated the year before, when we first decided to launch the fellows program.
Rather than explain too much on their behalf, we interviewed the fellows so they could share for themselves what the Young Storytellers Fellowship meant to them. — Hannah Glad
These interviews have been edited for clarity and concision. Illustrations of the Fellows were created by Mary Putrasahan.
Interested in applying for the 2025 cohort? Find out more here!
What were the unique aspects of this program?
Mary Putrasahan: With a lot of things—but especially in art—it’s very much “We’re pouring into you; we expect to get something out of it.” It feels unique that CT said, “We’re going to pour into you, and we’re going to pour into you very abundantly, and we’re not expecting anything in return.” Anything like that, in a world where it’s usually very give-and-take, is really unique.
Kate Millar: You cared about our spiritual formation. That’s invaluable and completely intrinsic to the program, because I guess the point was to view ourselves as integrated beings; we are Christians and artists at the same time. The health of our soul will affect the health of our art.
Anna Mares: By being undefined, the program allowed people to be really creative.
Tali Valentine: The fact that CT understood that relationship was probably the most valuable output—that’s a pretty cool thing. It was smart to emphasize the relational aspect.
How did being a part of this cohort shape your experience?
Steven Slappey: Especially in the creative world, there’s competition: I need to get above everyone else. I think maybe we felt that going into the program—a little bit of Who are these guys?—but once we saw the Lord in each other there was solidarity. The truest thing about me is the truest thing about them, too. We were just for each other. That’s more conducive to good art and good writing. It’s cool how Christianity can flip things on their head in these spaces; support and love is better than harsh competition.
Elijah Ramzy: This fellowship opened my eyes to what creativity can look like in different spheres and helped me to know that I’m not alone. Dallas has a good number of creatives, but not all of them are necessarily Christian, and so to know that I’m supported by other people that are like me, and that care about me and love me, who share the same faith, is really, really sweet.
Rebecca Ince: There’s a quote that says something like, “I’m not just a cool girl. I’m the conglomerate of every woman I ever thought was interesting.” And that’s how I feel fellowship-wise. I’m a little bit of you, a little her, and I’m just better for it. I don’t know what y’all’s process was for picking—maybe fasting and praying for 40 days and 40 nights! But it feels like some kind of a kairos moment. God was just like, “I want these people to know these people at this time and there’s nothing you can do about it to foster this; I’m the one cultivating it.” I think that this can be replicated over and over so long as God is at the head.
What was the most meaningful experience or insight you gained?
Mary Putrasahan: I keep all of my finished paintings in a literal shoebox because I live in an apartment, so I didn’t realize it was going to be so meaningful to be able to display my work at the Inkwell Evening. But it really was. I had never seen so much of my art lined up in frames. It just felt nice. It was a healthy sense of accomplishment.
Jenna Mindel: Being in proximity to creative people who are in my generation along with having insight from people who are older and wiser and have done more work in that area really reminded me of the importance of sharing our work and how our art should be made in the context of a community.
Steven Slappey: The world doesn’t need 10,000 of me. It doesn’t need a bunch of people that look just like me and are passionate about the exact same things within Christendom that I’m passionate about. The world needs Kate, the church needs Chris and Isaac. There’s so much comparison. But at the end of the day, the Lord isn’t going to ask us, “How did you compare to others?” but “Were you faithful with what I gave you?” If we were more focused on being faithful with the gifts God has given us, we would actually produce more beautiful things. A life lived unto Jesus is beautiful, but that looks different for each person. And so for me, going into pastoral ministry, I want to be the kind of pastor that instead of saying, “Hey, this is how you need to look on all these things,” I acknowledge that what you do vocationally and how you serve the church and how you glorify God is going to look different for each person.
Lily Price: I’d never had that kind of engagement around the art I was creating before. It definitely challenged and changed the way I viewed the things I create as an artist and as a writer. It gave me a lot of confidence I didn’t have before. And what a perfect environment to foster that, with people who were excited to get to learn about one another and to see the kinds of art we were all creating.
Did your future vocational plans change because of the program? If so, how?
Isaac Wood: The program solidified my vocational plans. I had tentative hopes of some sort of career in journalism. The thing is—at least where I grew up and in the schools I went to—I didn’t see what that path looks like. There weren’t a lot of roadmaps or scripts for how to go from “I’m pretty good in my grammar class” to “I’m making a salary writing.” Through this program—seeing a lot of other people who are making their living doing that sort of thing and meeting other young people looking to do that—I just felt an encouragement that it’s definitely on the table.
ChiChi Odo: The program influenced me as a healthcare professional who works in substance abuse to ask for people’s stories. For example, I got on the phone with somebody who was concerned about the cost of her insurance and whether or not she’d get the medication she needed or be in withdrawal, and the effect of that on her work. She was obviously upset, but she wasn’t even mad at me. (She works in insurance and she understands the whole thing.) She was saying, “I need someone to hear what’s going on and recognize that I’m somebody who just wants to be okay.” Value for story has improved the way that I work and improved the way that I relate with my colleagues in general.
Maddy Montoya: I think it was kind of a catalyst for what I knew I wanted to do.
Hayoung Oh: I feel like my calling has been reinforced. This program allowed me to go deeper into what I think God has called me to do and it has allowed me to ask better questions about the world around me, how God is involved, and how I’m involved in that, too.
What are some nuggets of wisdom you took away from our mentor calls throughout the program?
Lily Price: You guys inviting Karen Swallow Prior to speak to us was just—chef’s kiss— perfect. That experience really cemented a lot of the thoughts I’d been having about vocation. Prior described vocation as something that’s given or appointed and not something that changes based on what you’re doing. I think—now knowing that—I can say that I have the vocation of writing and creating and it doesn’t mean that I can’t have other jobs in my life. I think that was a huge confidence boost for me.
Jenna Mindel: Jon Tyson talked about how the opposite of burnout is wholeheartedness. I’ve been thinking a lot about that—how approaching work and projects with excitement and things that really do fill your cup, that’s the opposite of burnout. I’m trying to integrate that into my daily life and figure out ways to be wholehearted.
If you had to sum up what you gained from this program in one sentence, what would it be?
Anna Mares: There is enough. I feel like I’m always worried there’s not enough time and I’m not doing enough. I just love the expression: “there is enough.” There’s no rushing true art.
Chris Kuo: I learned a lot from the program about the ways stories influence us on a day-to-day basis, and because of that, the importance of choosing which stories you tell and examining the stories that you’re living by.
ChiChi Odo: I received the gift of dreaming again.
Sonia Parail: Learning how to integrate all the different parts of me, all my different identities, with my identity as a follower of Christ being the guiding lens.
Kate Millar: I gained a broadened imagination of what it means to follow Christ as an artist and friend, and learned that I can bring my full curiosity, the same curiosity that I have brought to secular spaces. Full curiosity is a gift from God.
What role do you think storytelling plays in today’s cultural or faith conversations?
Isaac Wood: I think our generation, or at least the people I know, are fairly wary of people trying to pitch or sell them something, and the cheapness of social-media-style marketing. But strong and compelling storytelling is something that everyone enjoys. It just has this natural ability to connect people, which is important on its own, and then from an evangelizing perspective, it has the potential to be a genuine and authentic way of communicating to people what the faith has to say to our lives and how it’s important to us rather than some sort of sales pitch or marketing scheme.
Tali Valentine: I think the storytellers are the namers. Good storytellers are people who name what to care about and what to look at.
Maddy Montoya: I think people are made with stories, and a desire to hear stories and to tell stories. They are the framework that contextualizes everything. The Bible is the most important story, so I think it makes sense that we’re naturally inclined to this way of thinking. All throughout history, people have told stories…. That’s why I love that the Bible is a collection of peoples’ stories. You see God’s character through them. The Bible could just be a bullet list—God is this, this, this, and this. But are you going to believe that if you don’t see it played out in a story?
Hayoung Oh: I love James K. A. Smith, and he talks a lot about how every philosophy or every prevailing idea in the world is always ultimately a story; how in a post-secular world, it’s less about objectivity and it’s more about who can tell the better story. And he’s like, why not tell the Christian story then? Right? It’s the one about resurrection, it’s something that seems so unbelievable but now, in a postmodern world, it can be something that’s believable, it doesn’t need as much objective scientific truth holding it down. In some ways we can unleash it. This has made me rethink my posture toward postmodernity. I feel like storytelling will play such a vital role in the Christian faith in the 21st century, especially in the online space where you have three seconds to share your pitch or people are going to scroll past you. Crafting the best story is vital, I think, to preserving and spreading the faith.
Elijah Ramzy: One of my old pastors used to say the best story wins. I think it’s really easy to live in a certain narrative, and if all that you hear is that narrative then you’re prone to believe that way, think that way, and act that way. But if you hear a better and greater story, then you’re able to live in a more beautiful and Christlike way. So storytelling I think is of utmost importance even if it’s not going to get all the views.
Sonia Parail: People are starved for connection. Storytelling is a way to connect with others, a way for people to be seen, feel seen.
Rebecca Ince: There’s no way of evading story in life. Literally everything, even data, has a who, what, when, where, why, how. And it’s just how we move through life. Even before we had the written word, we had the orators to pass the stories down. People are also looking for relatability, to feel seen and understood, and I think Gen Z is just hacking it. We’re so raw that even if it’s just TikTok storytelling and somebody’s bawling their eyes out because they got broken up with on a live or something, we’re locked in. Somebody’s always telling something and people are always responding “I relate to this, I feel this…” I’m hopeful for the future of the church and for believers; I think the next however-many years will be marked by genuine storytelling and vulnerability.
Chris Kuo: More broadly, there’s a loss of narrative within our cultural context. In modernity there’s this loss of tradition, and with the loss of tradition, a loss of story. And because stories help give us meaning and give us context for our lives, there’s often a loss of purpose as well. And so I think storytelling can provide people with a sense of purpose because I think we all innately want to be part of some kind of story. We all unconsciously have stories that we abide by and stories that shape us and I think it’s helpful to be mindful of those and then also be mindful about the stories that we create.
We’re excited to announce that applications for the 2025 Young Storytellers Fellowship have now opened! Go ahead and learn more, apply, share with a friend, and see what happens.
