STORY=POWER 4b - Be Yourself, Focus on Others

You can enhance the effectiveness of your one-to-one relationships through the power of story. I'd like to share something with you that you've probably been wondering about for the last 3 workshops. In the top circle, we have the Story Building Model: Character, Goals, Conflict, and Values. But what about these legs? What's the rest of the seat? I like to call these the legs a storyteller stands on. As you can see, it's got S-T-A-N-D-S. And once you have a story, once you understand the story and you've got the story developed, then you're going to want to tell the story. And that's a completely different process than preparing the story and writing the story, researching the story, creating the story, developing the character, the goals, the conflict, and the values. You now want to transmit that story through the skill of verbal storytelling to an audience. And this is when these 3 legs come into effect. The ST stands for your style of telling. It's important to tell the style, your, to tell the story your way, in your own style. The AN stands for the audience's needs. What are the needs of the audience? Who are they? What age are they? How big is the audience? What do they already know? What don't they know based on their age or their education or their culture? So what are the audience's needs? And then DS stands for the details of the story, and that's basically understanding your circle really well, having a firm understanding of the seat so that you can tell the story. And once you know the details of your story, your conflict, your goals, your character, and your values, then you're going to be able to present it well as long as you've prepared these two, the ST and the AN. So I'd like to talk to you a little bit about The storytelling style or your style of telling. It's important to understand that you cannot tell stories, you can try to tell stories the way someone else does, but it won't be authentic. And one of the things I get asked a lot of times is, "So how can I learn to tell stories like you?" or "How can I learn to tell stories like Dick Dirksen or Doug Batchelor?" And the real answer is you don't want to learn how to tell the stories their way. You want to learn how to tell the stories your way. And the truth is you don't actually have to learn how to tell stories your way because you've been doing it since you could speak. What you do to learn your storytelling style is just observe yourself when you tell a story. Now sometimes it's hard to do this, but let's say you're sitting around the table in the evening and you start telling a story, the story of your day. You say, "Oh, guess what happened to me today when I was at work?" And you tell the story. Then you've just told a story. You may not have thought about that as storytelling, but that's what you've done. Look at what you were doing when you told that story. Were you really animated? Were you moving your hands all around? Do you speak with your hands? Or were you using very precise words and language as your focus in your storytelling, that you use descriptive words and you use emotive words that draw people into the story through the language and through the word choices? Or was your storytelling style more about communicating with the other people at the table and saying, "What do you think of this?" and "How does that—" and you're feeding off of your audience? Are you more of an interactive storyteller? And as you observe yourself telling stories in comfortable environments, you'll be able to then apply that when you step into environments where you say, "I could never tell a story in front of 100 kids." Well, you could if you did it in your style and were comfortable and you said, "I'm just going to get up there and do what I do. I'm just going to talk to these kids." and tell them the story of what happened, and you know your style of telling, it'll change the way that you feel about storytelling to groups of people because you're just being yourself when you get up there. So what about when you're talking to someone that's a friend, someone you're close to, that you want to share something with but you're not sure how to go to the next step? I'd like to give you 3 points for one-on-one storytelling, or one-to-one storytelling. The first one is to go to them. There's a story in the Bible about Philip, and Philip actually is told by the Lord to chase that chariot. And so he runs to the chariot, he goes to the guy in the chariot, and then when he gets there, he hears him reading a scroll, reading the scroll of Isaiah. And he yells out, "Do you understand what you're reading?" And the man says, "How can I understand it without someone to explain it to me?" And he says, "Well, could I come in and explain it to you?" And so he invites him in. And then the book of Acts just has this beautiful little sentence, and it says, so he started to explain explained to him the story of Jesus Christ from where he was at in the story, from where he was reading. From right there, he started unpacking the whole epic narrative of the great controversy— good versus evil, Jesus being the answer. And that very passage that the man was reading, the Ethiopian eunuch, was leading to Christ. But he started right where the man was at. This is what I mean by go to them. Get to know your, your friends, your family members well enough that you can understand where they're at Rather than saying, "Look, before you can understand my Christian experience, you've got to come over here and be like me," instead go into their world and get to know them and to go where they're at. Then care for them, which by that I mean listen to their needs, help them, offer to be the person that they need when they need a ride somewhere, when they need a place to stay, or when they need a friend, or when they need a meal. Everyone has a different level of need, and if we can provide for their needs, It draws them closer to us and it also builds a relationship with them. And then finally, you can share the good news with them. And by that I don't mean just the gospel, the good news. I mean when you share your story or any story with someone, try to focus on the positive. Try to focus on the good news. You know, the old fire and brimstone sermon used to be very effective because it scared people. And all the ministers who preached them thought that they were doing a great job because people trembled and they ran to the front and they confessed and they said, "Yes, I'll never go back." But what tends to happen is, yes, the heat of the moment, it sounds so scary, you change everything, but then you go home, you get back into your normal life, you get back into your normal scenario, and that experience was just a one-off, and the story becomes surreal, and you let go of it. But if you tell positive stories of hope and love and encouragement and things that draw people toward you and draw people toward Christ and his loving nature, then when they're on the journey of life, they'll be seeking those things and they'll be drawn toward where he is at. So as we share the good stories, we're also leading them towards the good news, the gospel of Christ. And at some point, if we've been going to them, praying for them, caring for them, and sharing our positive stories with them, at some point they'll come up and say, "Why? Why have you done all this for me? And why do you care?" And you can say, "Because God put you on my heart, and I really want I wanted you to know that I care about you, so I've been doing these things because God wanted me to, and God loves you very much. And then you've shared the gospel story with them from the experience of your relationship together. Now, I like this little idea: Christ plus story equals Christory. We all have a story, we all have a journey that we're on, and like the stories that I told at the beginning of this workshop with the men on the Spirit of Tasmania Both of them had their story. Robert was up to a point where he had studied with Seventh-day Adventists, he understood all the teachings of the church, but he wanted an experiential answer to a biblical question. He didn't tell me that, I didn't know that, but that's how it revealed itself, and that's how God led in that conversation to where he was challenged, "Go have an experience, keep the Sabbath." And what ended up happening is him saying, "Oh, I'm already doing that, that's amazing. So you're saying God's already answered my question." Yes, he has. And with John, he was a lot further away from understanding the Christian good news, the gospel. He told me blatantly, "You will not make me a Christian. Does this make you angry?" But I was able to say to John, you know, we're all stones in the journey of life for other people. Some of us are stepping stones, and some of times we're stumbling blocks. And I hope that I've been a stepping stone leading you to Christ. Perhaps you've seen this diagram before. People are in their journey. If this was being a 10, a +10 Christian, fully committed Christian, and this is a complete anti-Christian, an atheist, a very angry person— no, I would never accept any God, or the certainly a Christian God— by having relationships with people, by having one-to-one relationships, we can help them take one step from one stone to the next. Trying to make a big jump with someone is only going to— they're just going to slide backwards. Making the steps one at a time is really the only way that people come to faith. And you know what's interesting? Nobody makes those steps, all of them, alone. They might make one or two steps. They might read a book, they might watch something on TV or read something on the internet where they say, "This is interesting to me. I'd like to research it more." But it's only when they have a relationship with someone that they can say, "I see it working for you. Why is it working for you?" Can you tell me your story? And then you share that story with them and it leads them one step closer to Christ. And what a joy it is if you happen to be that one stone that takes them across from zero to one, to where they say, "Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ." You know, when I said to John that I hope I was a stepping stone, he said, "Yeah, I think you are and I thank you for that, Dave Edgren." And I told him something else. I said, "John, you know what? I have to tell you." I believe in God. I know you don't, but I do. And I believe in the power of prayer, and I know your name, and I'll be praying for you, John. And he actually smiled and said, "Thank you, Dave. I appreciate that." I'd like to challenge you to be effective in your one-on-one relationships by using story and the power of story.