In this Best of BaseCamp Live flashback, host Davies Owens sits down with pastor, musician, and author Jacob Hess to explore how story, liturgy, and imagination shape the hearts of our children – and why the stories we tell matter now more than ever. 
In this episode:
- Life is liturgy: how small, repeatable rituals – at dinner, in class, or before bed – tell the Gospel story.
- Formation over information: why habits shape what we love (Charlotte Mason; James K. A. Smith).
- Worship in every moment: practical ways to make the ordinary sacred using tools like Every Moment Holy.
- Why fiction matters: Jacob’s The Bright Abyss (think Star Wars meets Tolkien) as a case study in shaping imagination.
- A takeaway for this week: identify one small ritual that tells a better story – and practice it faithfully.
Join Davies Owens and Jacob Hess as they unpack how to fill our homes and classrooms with better stories that train hearts to love what God loves.
Resources Mentioned:
Special Thanks to our partners who make BaseCamp Live possible:
The Herzog Foundation
The Champion Group
ZipCast
Wilson Hill Academy
Life Architects Coaching
There is one True Story that all other stories echo, one Story that captures everything that it means to be human and showcases the greatest beauty ever seen: the gospel of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. It is Jacob Hess’ passion to retell this Story in everything he does.
Jacob grew up in Oregon and became a Christian at a young age. God has continued to display His faithfulness to Jacob throughout his life; a journey deeper and deeper into grace. Jacob received a Master of Divinity from Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon and moved to Seattle, Washington with his wife where he works as a minister in the local church.
Jacob’s years in school grew his passion for writing and reading, but he has always had a love for stories, whether they’re told with pen and page or the rhythms and rhymes of song. He agrees with J. R. R. Tolkien when he writes, “the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty,” (On-Fairy-Stories, p. 45). As humans we simply cannot seem to escape a need to tell stories, a desire to reach beyond ourselves and connect to the deeper truths of who we are and what it means to live a life of meaning.
Our stories inspire us, convict us, and encourage us as we struggle through a world not as it should be. This is what Jacob seeks for his stories to do. He wants to tell new stories built on the tried and true pillars of tales centuries old, stories that connect to our deepest longings and speak to our greatest fears. But most of all he wants to echo the greatest story ever told, the One True Story to which all other stories point: the gospel of God’s grace in Christ Jesus.
Connect with Jacob: