# PNI: three letters that permanently change the way you think about knowledge Some abbreviations come and go. Others stay with you — not because they are easy, but because they name something you already sensed but couldn’t quite articulate. PNI is that kind of abbreviation. Three letters. Three words. And if you take them seriously, three fundamentally different ways of thinking about research, about people, and about where knowledge actually lives. PNI stands for **Participatory Narrative Inquiry**. It was developed and pioneered by **Cynthia Kurtz**, whose groundbreaking work has shaped how researchers, organisations and communities around the world think about stories, participation and sense-making. Her book *Working with Stories* remains one of the most generous and rigorous contributions to the field — freely shared with the world, which in itself says something about her philosophy. Let’s walk through the three letters one by one. P — Participatory This is the heart of it. The letter everything else revolves around, and the letter that deserves the most space — not because the other two matter less, but because *participatory* is at once the most overused, most misunderstood and most promising word in the research world. And I’ll be honest: it is the letter that matters most to me personally. In most research approaches, knowledge sits with the researcher. The researcher designs the questions, defines the categories, interprets the answers and draws the conclusions. Participants are a source — valuable, certainly — but it is the researcher and their instruments that transform raw data into insight. The people being studied are, in a sense, the material. The researcher is the one who makes sense of it. Participatory Narrative Inquiry turns that around completely. In PNI, knowledge does not reside with the researcher. It resides with the people involved. They are not sources of data to be extracted and translated — they are carriers of meaning. The task of the researcher is not to mine that meaning, but to create a space in which it can become visible: to the participants themselves, and to the community they are part of.

How do we create a church where everyone feels welcome, heard, and safe? In our congregation, we explored that question through a short but powerful initiative: a “Quick Dive” into social safety. We formed a small team focused on recognizing complexity and launched a storytelling brigade. Over just a few weeks, we gathered personal stories from members—stories of comfort and unease, of feeling embraced and feeling overlooked. Not statistics, but lived experiences. Not judgment, but deep listening. Four key insights emerged: - 🧭 Connection thrives where people feel seen and known. - 🛟 Trust grows when concerns are taken seriously. - 🕯️ Space matters—both physical and relational. - 🌱 Healing begins with acknowledging what hurts. These insights led to tangible steps: a clear point of contact for concerns, more intentional moments of connection, and open conversations about difficult experiences. But more importantly, we’ve sparked a culture of listening and learning. “We are not just a church—we are a community that learns through each other’s stories.” This Quick Dive wasn’t the end—it was a beginning. A call to every congregation: dare to listen. Because within the stories of our people lies the key to a safer, more welcoming church.