Narrative
The human capacity to create and share stories of all kinds. They serve as a vehicle to receive, process, remember, and pass on knowledge, ideas, and values.
Story: A Lifechaging Story
Sara was walking in the park when she saw an old man sitting on a bank.
Sara: Excuse me, sir. May I sit next to you?
Eli: Of course, young lady. You look sad. What brings you here?
Sara: I needed to clear my head. Life has been so monotonous and unfulfilling lately. I have a steady job and a stable income, but I feel something is missing. I don’t think I’m making any impact on the world.
Eli: Let me tell you a story. A man walked along the beach, watching a young boy pick up starfish and throw them back into the ocean. Curious, he approached the boy and asked why he was doing it. “I’m saving them,” the boy said. “But there are too many,” the man replied. “You can’t save them all.” The boy picked up another starfish and threw it back into the ocean. “I made a difference for that one,” he said.
Sara: That’s really touching. I guess I will not solve the world’s conflicts, but I can start doing my part by apologizing for the fight I caused in my family…
Eli: That’s the right attitude to have. Remember, even small things can make a big difference to someone’s life.
Examples from the Bible
- The Prophet Nathan confronts David with a story after he slept with Bathsheba and killed her husband. David condemns himself by judging the characters of the story he was told (2 Samuel 12:1-14).
- God shares the story of two sisters with Ezekiel to show Isreal and Juda’s situation (Ezekiel 23).
- Jesus uses these three different stories to teach theology. In these stories, Jesus compares God’s joy of one sinner returning to him. The stories used were contemporary examples that people could identify with (Luke 15).
- Paul shared God’s word and his life with the Thessalonians. Narrative is alive at the moment it’s performed. The narrator becomes a part of the story (1 Thessalonians 1:5).
- Jesus tells a story of corrupt tenants. The people fully understood that he was referring to them (Mark 12:1-12).
- Jesus was a Master Storyteller. The entire Gospels are filled with his stories, his primary teaching method (Matthew 13:34).
- For Jesus, stories are not just illustrations. Stories are/make the point. The scholar of Hebrew Scriptures knew precisely who he WAS in the story about the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
Real-life examples
- A story to teach a moral lesson: During an outdoor night, a boy started to scare his friends by shouting, “A wild animal is outside our tent!”. This happened a few times. The next night, he yelled again, but nobody listened and just tried to sleep. This time it was real, and people were not prepared, panicking. Several people got hurt.
- Biblical stories told in Sunday schools are often vital in forming the worldview of children who grow up in a Christian home. These stories give guidance and orientation for an entire life.
- Hollywood understands how to engage people with stories. Even if the movie features a disaster that wipes out an entire city, the narrative always focuses on a few people in that situation. San Andreas is an excellent example. Even though the city of San Francisco is destroyed, it is a story of a fireman who saves his family and marriage.
Relevance
We must understand a storyteller’s role, influence, and significance in any culture. Stories, myths, and folktales are only alive when they are told. They are always adjusted when performed and ambiguous in their interpretation.
In many cultures, stories are the center of their mythology. Narrative is often manifested in rituals. Together stories, mythology, and rituals are how a people’s worldview is formed and replicated and, therefore, a key aspect of worldview transformation.1
Stories speak to our emotions and are much easier to remember and pass on than bare facts. Additionally, stories engage us emotionally, carry values, and have transformative power.
Storytelling is a crucial ingredient for CPMs and indispensable to sharing the Good News in creative access areas.2
Orality preference continuum
Stories are universally used for communication. We need to look at how stories are used to differentiate narratives in HOR and LOR cultures.
People from HOR cultures identify with the characters of their stories. The narrative has no specific starting point (kairos) and can be continued, repeated, and amended at any time. Stories have an outward look at conflicts and struggles and are generally more empathetic in nature. Proverbs ground their lives and are a collective call to what is true.
At the LOR spectrum, stories tend to be used as illustrations. They have a beginning and an end with a linear progression (chronos), tend to look inward, and are more objective. Life is built on principles, and proverbs round out their lives.
For a more nuanced differentiation, the table below can help us.
| Very high | High | Low | Very low |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teaching morals and lessons is done mainly through storytelling. People strongly identify with the characters in the story. | Stories are/state the point. | Stories are told so the original message comes alive. | Concepts and principles are the paths to communicating the actual message. Stories are told to illustrate the point or to give an example. |
| Mythology and folklore are told to explain life’s challenges (also fairy tales). These genealogies clarify who we are and what we’re about. | Mythology and folklore are told to explain life’s challenges (also, fairy tales), but they are not foundational to one’s history. | Stories and fairy tales are used to teach moral lessons. | Stories and fairy tales are used for entertainment and bedtime stories. |
| We need to use concrete everyday experiences to make our point. That can be seen in our frequent use of proverbs to make a point. | We use everyday experiences and examples to describe things and then discuss the important lesson. | The abstract theories and arguments are what is needed. Then we can apply it to a specific situation. | We can discuss something abstractly rather than looking at concrete examples to process it. |
| A story’s coreness (main point) must come across (characters are most important). | Identification with the characters helps us to draw conclusions for our lives. | The principles found in stories are important, and characters can help in the application. | The correctness of the story is most important (factual content is essential). |
What has been discovered?
Narrative IS communication. We make sense of and explain the world through our stories.3 In oral cultures, stories are not just used as illustrations to a point; stories ARE the point.4
The more people identify with a story, and its message, characters, or plot, raises the probability of realizing change.
Folklore, myth, and most art forms tell a story at some level, yet we tend to discount them for contemporary expressions.5
Para-Social Relationships are created when listeners connect with a story/narrative.6
Good stories “transport” listeners into another world that more readily opens a door for transforming beliefs, attitudes, and practices or behaviors.7
A story that sets out a positive example of a desired belief or behavior typically stands a better chance of long-term impact than negative messages that give negative consequences.8
Additional resources
- Discover more about Narrative through our training materials on the I-OS website!
- Watch this webinar with Tom Steffen about Narrative Theology and check out the corresponding narrative theology resource collection.
- Steve Denning gives examples how stories are used in politics and business.
- David Phillips shows the science of storytelling.
- Will Storr’s The Science of Storitelling as short video and book.
- Transportation and identification in storytelling. How stories shape our minds.
- TheBibleProject – Character in Biblical Narrative.
- TheBibleProject – Public reading of Scripture.
- Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008). ↩︎
- Jack Colgate, “Bible Storying and Oral Use of the Scriptures,” in From Seed to Fruit: Global Trends, Fruitful Practices, and Emerging Issues among Muslims, ed. John Dudley Woodberry, 2nd ed., rev.enlarged (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2011). ↩︎
- Bus, Gretchen. Whoever controls the narrative has the power.
Fisher, Walter. Human Communication as NarrationFisher, Walter. “The Narrative Paradigm: An Elaboration.” Communiation Monographs 52, no. 4 (1985): 347-67.
Toward a Philosopy of Reason, Value and Action. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1987. ↩︎ - W. Jay Moon and A. Moreau, Intercultural Discipleship: Learning from Global Approaches to Spiritual Formation, Illustrated edition (kindle) (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2017), 62. ↩︎
- Manuel, E. Arsenio. “Philippine Oral Traditions: Theory and Practice.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 8, no. 1 (1980): 7–27. ↩︎
- Singhal, Arvind, and Everett Roger. Entertainment-Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change. New York: Routledge, 199. ↩︎
- Green, Melanie C., and Timothy C. Brock. “The Role of Transportation in the Persuasiveness of Public Narrative.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 5 (2000): 701–21.
Slater, M. D. . “Entertainment Education and the Persuasive Impact of Narratives.” In Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations, edited by Melodie C. Green, J.J. Strange and Timothy C Brock, 157-81. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002.
Slater, M. D., and D. Rouner. “Entertainment-Education and Elaboration Likelihood: Understanding the Processing of Narrative Persuasion.” Communication Theory 12, no. 2 (2002): 173-91. ↩︎ - Singhal, Arvind. “Positive deviance and social change.” (2013). ↩︎
