The Power of Story

Stories have the felicitous capacity of capturing exactly those elements that formal decision methods leave out. Logic tries to generalize, to strip the decision making from the specific context, to remove it from subjective emotions. Stories capture the context, capture the emotions. . . . Stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact package, information, knowledge, context, and emotion. ~ from Things That Make Us Smart by Don Norman


I am currently reading several books given to me by my cooperating teacher for the coming semester of student teaching. One of the books is A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink, a manifesto on the need for a change in focus from left-brain thinking to right-brain thinking in our changing world. The book is written from the perspective of economics and business, but the applications are much broader. I may perhaps provide a more detailed analysis of the contents of the book in a future post, but for now I wish to develop a thought that occurred to me in the chapter on Story.


Pink's argument regarding the importance of story in the modern Conceptual Age is that information, once the driving force of development, is now widely available and instantly accessible, thus making it less valuable. What is now valuable is "the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact." This aptitude is known as Story--"context enriched by emotion." Stories lend meaning to information, enriching the lives of the teller and hearer alike. Story is perhaps the one unifying factor of all human societies. Not all societies have written languages, but they all have stories. Not all societies have advanced systems of mathematics, science, and logic, but they all have stories. With this in mind, I present two areas in which we may be more successful if we relied more on Story rather than logic and cold facts. (Not to ignore that logic and cold facts are important and necessary; they work better when combined with emotional relevance.)


The first area is education. There is already somewhat of a movement to emphasize a holistic, right-brain approach to education, but it has not gained widespread traction. The story approach to education is especially applicable to history. What better way to learn from history than by making an emotional connection to the events and people of the past? But it is difficult to make emotional connections with bland pictures in a textbook or dates on a chart. Presenting historical ideologies, events, biographies, and other concepts as an overarching story will provide more opportunity for engagement by the learners. English likewise can benefit from this approach. The rules of grammar can best be grasped by observing them incorporated into a well-crafted story. It is easier to remember stories than grammar rules, to follow models rather than instructions. Science and math may be slightly more difficult to use this approach, but it could still be done.


Another area in which Story is important--the focus of this post for Christians--is evangelism. I have taken classes in apologetics and philosophy, and they have been enormously helpful in solidifying the logical structure of the Christian faith. However, the arguments would most likely do little to persuade someone to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is my opinion that apologetics has more benefit in strengthening the faith of believers rather than influencing non-believers to make a faith commitment. The power of the gospel is not in the logic (although it certainly has logic despite what some agnostics may claim) but in the Story, the emotional connection that arises from understanding that the Supreme Creator of the Universe loves humanity--nay, loves me--so much that he humbled himself to become a man, walked a blameless life, suffered a horrific death to take my penalty for sin, rose from the dead, and invites me to be His son forever. That is where the power is, not in the brute force of logic. Evangelizing Christians would do well to remember the power of Story.