STORY=POWER 5b - Telling Stories in Life, One on One

You can enhance the effectiveness of your life through the power of story. We've been looking at the Story Seat as a storytelling device to help us remember how to tell— build a story and then how to tell a story. And we've seen that the circle at the top is character, goals, conflict, and values. That builds your story. And then we've looked at the legs that a storyteller stands on, which are your style of telling, then the audience's needs, and then the details of the story. And I'd like to spend some time with you now looking at the audience's needs. Every audience is unique. Therefore, every time you tell a story, it will be different. The story will always be what I like to say, now and new, if you pay attention to your audience. Because when you tell it to the audience that's there, you're going to tell it to the people that are in that audience. And so you're gonna have asked questions like, how old are they? What is their past experience? There could be some stories you may need to tell more of because of their past experience. For instance, when I tell the story of Jesus in the temple, when I'm using it, it's a part of a talk that I do, and when he was a 12-year-old in the temple, there's— with high school students, I just mention that, you know, the story of Jesus in the temple. And then with the upper primary, I mentioned it and I asked them, do you know that story? And I get some feedback from them. With the primary kids, I don't even ask them, I just tell them the whole story of Jesus as a 12-year-old in the temple, because not only because they, most of them may not know the story, but they certainly won't have heard the story many times. And so repeating it is going to be a valuable exercise. And also another interesting tidbit, because Jesus was 12, to a primary school student, that's kind of the That's the peak, that's grade 6, that's what they want to become. So to talk about Jesus as a 12-year-old is a big thing for them. So when we're speaking to the audience, we ask that question: What are the needs of the audience? What do I need to speak to? Who am I speaking to? Where have they been? Where are they going? Are they at a school? Are they at a church? That tells you things about them. Ask the principal, ask the teachers, the faith build of the group that's there. How many are involved in church, how many are involved in other faiths, so that you know who you're speaking to. Now, when you're speaking to an audience, the first thing really, before you can speak to anyone, is you need to know who they are. The only way you're gonna find that out is to listen. To listen to them, to listen to other people about them. And there's 3 key points to listening. First of all, you have to suspend judgment. Now, when you hear someone start to tell a story about their life, you automatically start to say, in a subconscious, but you say, "It's like my life," and you kind of just expect them to have a life like yours. And it can be a difficult thing for you if they do something that's very out of the ordinary, and you think, "Wait a minute, I wouldn't do that. Why did they do that?" And you start to— you're not casting judgment on them, but you're judging the story. You're thinking about the story, pulling it apart, asking questions about the content of their story they're telling, and you're getting distracted from listening to them. So one of the hardest things, but the most necessary one of the necessary things to listening really well is to actually suspend judgment, to say, "I'm not going to think about whether I agree, disagree, or have any opinion of the story. I'm just going to listen to the whole story that they're telling me. I'm going to listen to the details that this person is telling me about this audience without judgment so that I can hear what they're saying." Then, after you've heard them, then empathize back with them. Say, "I feel what you're feeling." Is this what you're going through? And by doing that, you're then reflective. You're reflecting back to them what you thought they were feeling. So you care about their needs, basically, by empathizing. And then you start to reflect back and say, am I feeling the right thing? Am I hearing you? Did I hear what you actually said? Am I feeling what you're feeling? Is this where you're at? And by reflective listening, you'll get a good picture because hopefully people will be honest with you and say, Yes, that's exactly what I meant, or no, no, no, you missed it, this is what I was saying. These people are like this or they're like that. So when you're trying to reach into the audience's needs, you need to be a good listener as the primary first thing. Then once you've understood your audience and once you've said, okay, now I know who these people are, you can ask yourself the question, how do I want to apply my influence to this group of people or this one person? And will choose the stories to tell based on the answer to that question. How will I apply my influence in this situation to them through story? And there's 6 basic stories. This comes from 2 different books by an author named Annette Simmons who writes on storytelling. Her most recent book is called The One Who Tells the Best Story Wins. And she has these 6 stories of influence, and I'll just share them quickly with you because I think they're a brilliant way of categorizing the stories in your life. We all have all of these stories. The first one is who I am stories. Your background, your backstory, where you've come from, who you are, why you are the way you are because of your childhood, because of your upbringing, because of where you came from, that you used to live in another country and now you live in this country, or you used to have 6 brothers and sisters, or you used to be an only child. You know, who I am. Then the next one, why I'm here. Why are you in this setting? Why are you here to talk to these people? That can often be a very valuable question and when I do this workshop with teachers, most teachers say that's the question that they would love to unpack with kids because most kids say, oh, my teacher, she or he, they just have to be here every day. No, that's not true. The kids have to be there every day. The teacher chose to be there, chose to be a teacher. Why? Why are you a teacher? And that question, why I am here, why I'm standing in the classroom, for a teacher to share that with a student can completely change the student's opinion of their teacher when they hear of the love that that teacher has for teaching young children. The next one, teaching stories. These are stories that, like what Jesus did where he told a story that said, you know, the man went out to sow seed and he threw the seed, and it's a story that's teaching something through a moral or through an illustration in story. Then we have vision stories, which are basically painting the big picture and saying, this is where I'm heading, or this is where we're heading. A principal at the beginning of the year or a CEO at the beginning of a new merger or something will tell the vision story to try to get people to buy in. And we can tell our vision story as well as Christians. Then there's the value and action story, which is where you take that value that you want to teach And you're looking for somewhere where it's been acted out. And you tell the story of that value in action, and people can buy into that value a lot more comfortably and effectively because they say, "Ah, I see how it works. I've seen it in story." Then finally, there's "I know what you're thinking" stories. And that can be a good one to start with if you're very different than your audience. "I know what you're thinking. What in the world could that person have to say to us because they're nothing like us?" Well, let me tell you what, why I think I fit into talking to you today. So, "I know what you're thinking" stories can be a valuable way to open a topic, to open a discussion. So, once we've understood our audience, we're really ready to pour ourselves into the telling of the story. And we've built the story, we know our style of telling, we know the audience, and we're ready to unpack the details of the story. To our audience. Now, your life. How can you use storytelling in your life? First of all, you need to recognize you are a storybook. There are stories happening to you all the time. Every day multiple stories happen. You need to start noticing them, saying, "Oh, that's an interesting story that just happened to me." And rather than seeing your life as lucky and saying, "Oh, that was lucky that happened," see it as blessed. And you'll start seeing stories differently and you'll start saying, God's putting these stories into my life to help me become who he wants to be. Then you can take those stories, those experiences, and start telling them. And by telling the experiences that have happened to you, you change them into testimonies. And this is the most effective witness we have. This is the most effective evangelism in all of the world, is one person telling the story of, this happened to me and it changed my life. Your story is the most powerful thing you have. Finally, we have the faith journey. Um, you remember the kids in the classroom when the reporter said to them, um, why do you read the Bible? And the first one said, because it's true. And the next one said, because it tells you what to do. And the next one said, because it makes me deeper in my love and my relationship with God. And this is a really good picture of the faith journey that people are on. Some people are in the true phase where This— I just, I need to know what's true, and that, that's what I'm looking for. Then they move on to, so what am I supposed to do about it? How am I supposed to become different? And then they find a deep and meaningful relationship with Jesus, and it becomes about love, and it becomes about relationship. Your stories, your true stories, that things that have happened to you where you've understood that something was true, your to-do stories when you've changed the way you did things in life, and your story of love in Christ and for Christ All of those different stories will reach different people because they're all at a different point in their faith journey. So be bold in sharing your faith. Recognize that you have many, many stories, and as a storyteller, as a homo naren, a person, a creature of the story, when you change your stories, your experiences into stories and tell them, your experiences become testimonies, and you can revolutionize your life Through the power of story.