In this week’s episode of The Ministry Growth Show, we’re continuing a series where we are sharing our thoughts and insights on all things brand, marketing, and storytelling. Today, we’ll be highlighting the power of the history of storytelling. Stories have power. They have the power to emotionally engage people, sway decisions, the power to transform, encourage, and edify. We can use this powerful tool to help our ministries grow and become more effective. The story also has a rich history. We are living through a global shift in communication, and the story is more relevant today than it’s ever been.
Transcription:
Welcome back to the Ministry Growth Show. If you’ve just joined us, we’ve been going through a new series where we’re sharing our thoughts on all things brand. In today’s episode, and for the next few episodes, we’re going to be discussing storytelling.
Now, I’ve chosen to break the topic of storytelling into a few episodes because it would be far too long of an episode if it was only one episode. So today, we’re specifically going to talk about the Power of Storytelling within the context of ministry. We’ll also spend some time discussing the history of storytelling, because think it’s important to explore where we’ve come from, and maybe more importantly where I think the Church is currently stuck when it comes to marketing and storytelling. Now, at Reliant, we do our best to root every service that we offer in story. In previous episodes, you’ve learned how we use story structures in our messaging and strategy. You’ll learn in future episodes how we use storytelling in our web design strategies. Storytelling and story structures can be incredibly useful tools for building brand and engaging with people, and for this reason we’ve chosen to use story as often as possible.
So, why do we think storytelling is so important? When I say it out loud, it seems like a silly question, right? I don’t know that you can find someone who doesn’t agree that storytelling is powerful. And yet, from what we can tell in our research, less than 1% of the content being produced by the church is story or testimony content. Now, to be fair, that’s not official Barna research or anything, but we’ve audited the content and marketing strategies of countless churches and Christian organizations and in our research less than 1% of the content we’ve found is true story or testimony content. I don’t know how this happened. I’m not sure how we got here, but here’s what I do know.
I know that we serve a God that is serious about story. It’s a part of His character. Since the fall, God has been telling and we have been a part of God’s story of redemption. As soon as Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world, God told a story of how He would redeem things back to Himself, how He would fix our mistake and rebellion against Him. His first response was grace and a story prophesied. God’s primary tool for communicating with us is through His word. The infallible, God breathed, Holy Spirit inspired scriptures are a collection of stories. Think about that, if God’s primary tool for communicating with humanity is a collection of stories, that’s a pretty good indicator that He is serious about story. If He believes in the power of story, I think we should too. I found this interesting while I was reading a recent Lausanne Movement article by Colin Harbinson. He says, “approximately seventy-five percent of scripture consists of narrative, fifteen percent is expressed in poetic forms and only ten percent is propositional and overtly instructional in nature.” 90% of the word of God is told through narrative and story form. Furthermore, I think God is serious about story. In fact, if we are followers of Christ, He’s asked us to share our stories of His redemptive work in our lives. Why make that command if He wasn’t serious about story?
And here’s something that’s really cool. Dr. Curt Thompson is a Christian Psychiatrist who argues that the process of telling our stories literally heals us. He says, “the process of reflecting on and telling others your story, and the way you experience others hearing it, actually shapes the story and the very neural networks it represents.” In other words, the process of sharing our story and listening to others share their story literally heals us. Now think about that in the context of the commands in scripture to go and testify of all He’s done in our lives… God has commanded us to go and share our stories, because He knows that it literally heals us. Isn’t it like Him to make commands that are for our ultimate good and ultimate pleasure?
Additionally, look at Christ’s ministry. Jesus Christ, the manifestation of God, comes on the scene and a significant tool in His ministry was story. Jesus told stories all the time, the gospels are filled with parables or simple stories used to illustrate moral truths and spiritual lessons. If we are disciples of a storyteller, then why aren’t we better storytellers? Or at the very least, capable storytellers?
I also believe that God is interested in story. A friend and mentor recently said, “God’s got pen and paper to your story right now.” He’s actively writing our stories. He’s interested in how our lives play out, He’s not a distant God, He’s interested in the details of our lives. He’s actively taking part in writing our stories. He is interested in us. He is our creator, and He’s got vested interest in how our story plays out.
God has hard wired us to engage with and be inspired by story. Story is how we interact with other people. Story is how we engage with and make sense of the world around us. Charity Water Founder Scott Harrison has a great quote about story. He says, “Our hearts don’t respond to data and statistics. Stories have the power to make us feel.” I want you to keep this in mind as we work through the next few episodes where we’ll be highlighting story. Our marketing and communication has to start with and be driven by story. Your data, statistics, models and strategies are great, and you’re welcome to communicate those things, you even have my permission to talk about how great your ministry is or how successful you are, but only after you’ve engaged your audience with story.
In a marketing world where providing the customer with value is prioritized above almost all else, we have a unique opportunity in the ministry world. What do we offer donors when we are in need of their investment and partnership in order to stay afloat and thrive? Here’s where storytelling can really start to shine. There is intrinsic value in connecting a donor to the story of a changed life. How do we provide value to donors on a consistent basis without some sort of financial ask tied to the communication? God has given us the answer all throughout scripture. I made a statement just a second ago that I want to repeat. There is intrinsic value in connecting a donor to the story of a changed life. We serve a God that is actively and constantly moving. He’s transforming lives at a rate infinitely greater than we can ever comprehend. More often than we could ever testify. There is an infinite pool of stories that we can pull from, and in telling those stories, the stories of how God has used your ministry to change individual lives, you will be providing value to your donor. God has given us more source material than we could ever use to build community around our brands, and for some reason we want to continue obsessing over our strategies, models and content focused on how great our ministries are. It’s insanity. If you can engage our audience at an emotional level with story, not only will we not ever run out of value based media content, but the results will be incredible. And we’ll talk about this in greater detail in an upcoming episode, but I believe that God has hard wired us to engage with a single story structure that we see play out throughout history, that can be used to make this storytelling process incredibly efficient. But again, more on that later.
Alright, so I think we’ve established that story is powerful. Again, I don’t know that you’ll find anyone that will argue that statement, but our actions in ministry need to start reflecting that belief. Now, I want to spend some time discussing the history of storytelling.
Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I think it’s important to know where we’ve been, and maybe more importantly where I think the Church is currently stuck. Knowing this will give definition and insight into our current marketing and storytelling practices as a Body, and once we know where we’re stuck, hopefully we can begin making strategic movements to move the Church out of that stagnant position.
We are currently living through the greatest shift in human communication since the printing press. The internet has opened up opportunities that didn’t exist 30 years ago for the Church. In 1440, the invention of the printing press had a significant impact on Christianity. For the first time in over a thousand years, the people of God could study God’s word freely. Protests and reformation followed and these new shared ideas brought with it new problems for the Church, but ultimately the reformation, with the help of the printing press, was a significant step forward for Christianity. Over 500 years later we are living through a similar transition and evolution in human communication technology and behavior with the invention and widespread global use of the internet. For the first time in human history, we have complete access to unlimited human knowledge and information. Like the printing press and the reformation before it, the advent of the internet hasn’t been all good, but we are given new opportunities to connect globally as a Church, communicate and share new ideas, and bring glory to God by proclaiming what He is doing all over the world. This is an exciting time to be a follower of Christ, it’s an exciting time to lead a ministry, and for all of us in the Church, it’s an exciting time to storytellers.
With the advent of the internet and the social media platforms that quickly followed, we’re making a move back towards oral tradition communication. Now, to be clear, many of the ideas we’ll explore related to the history of storytelling can be found in Jonah Sachs book, “Story Wars.” For most of human history we have communicated through an oral tradition. One person telling a story to another person or a group of people. With the advent of the radio and television over the last hundred years we moved out of an oral tradition and into the broadcast era, where big brands who could afford air time on radio and eventually tv, controlled the stories and the narrative. The companies and causes with the most money had control over the ideas and the messages that got to the public. With the creation of the internet and social media, we’ve moved into a post-broadcast era, where we now live in a sudo oral tradition era. We again have control over the stories that we tell and share and the power is being removed from the companies that can afford the air time. This poses incredible opportunities for you ministry executives out there to get your messages out to new audiences because audiences control the messages and the ideas that they care about and ultimately share. The ideas that are worth spreading get spread by audiences on social, rather than those that can afford the airtime. Remember back to the brand advocacy stuff we discussed in earlier episodes, this new era we’re living in creates incredible opportunities if we can build brand, develop brand advocates, and build communities around our shared belief systems and our causes.
Additionally, and specifically in the non-profit sector, historically there’s a segment of the nonprofit arena that has used guilt marketing as a tool to guilt donors into financial investment. In the ministry sector this is a “needs only” or “problem focused” storytelling model. Like the Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty videos of the early 2000’s, it might result in some short term gains. That ad campaign went on to raise $30 million dollars for the organization. That’s an incredible result, but did it result in building a loyal and consistent community around the brand?
There’s this great quote by Simon Sinek that says, “there are only two ways to influence human behavior, manipulation and inspiration.” I want to encourage you to tell stories that inspire. Yes, within our stories we have got to communicate the struggle, or problem, or the dire need. The reality is, kids are starving around the world, they are sold into sex slavery and trafficked. Fatherlessness and poverty run rampant globally. New story estimates that by 2030 3 billion people will live without adequate shelter. The abortion crisis has resulted in the largest genocide in human history. These are absolutely the biggest problems and the worst evils that exist. Yes, we need to be communicating the need and the problems, we need to be sharing the hardship and the difficult situations that our organizations are stepping into, but when we’re telling our ministry stories I would encourage you to inspire rather than manipulate. Try to find a balance and tension between the need and the hope. And on the flip side, don’t just communicate the hope. The causes we are working in are NOT all roses and sunshine. It’s a form of irresponsible marketing to only ever communicate the hope. Without conflict, the hope in the story doesn’t have nearly as much weight.
Now earlier I mentioned that I think the church is stuck. Like much of the marketing world, I think we’re stuck acting like we still live in the broadcast era. We’re treating the internet and social media is if they work the same way tv and radio functioned. We’re broadcasting our content all over the internet and claiming success when our content receives 1000 likes and views. We’re plastering our Sunday service on every social platform we can find, and when we get 1000 views on our Sunday service we call it discipleship. There are some churches and ministries finding success. Those that are more relevant in digital are seeing some really incredible growth, but let’s not be too quick to boast about our perfect marketing models. 80% of new church growth in the United States is from people moving from one church to another. That should be a sobering stat. If nothing else it says more about how the Body of Christ in the West functions like consumers than anything else, running from one place to the next trying to find the place that serves my needs best. If the internet is the most significant technology since the printing press, we most definitely have not yet unlocked its potential for reaching people for Christ. I think we’re stuck in a loop building our siloed brands and broadcasting to an audience that’s not listening. We’re stuck in interruption advertisement, trying to grasp for the attention of an audience that’s no longer listening, because the Church isn’t being contextually relevant online. Now, I want to be careful with that last statement. Here’s what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that the gospel isn’t relevant in the digital world. The gospel is relevant across all cultures, we just aren’t treating the digital space like the culture and ultimately the set of sub cultures that it most definitely is. The internet opens up incredible opportunities for engagement and community development, and the church is stuck in it’s interruption based broadcasting models, broadcasting to an audience that’s got it’s attention focused in completely different spaces, towards brands and messages that are culturally and contextually relevant for a digital audience functioning with oral traditions.
Now, to be fair, the internet is new. We’re all still learning. If someone in marketing tells you they’ve figured out internet marketing, or that they’ve unlocked the secret to success online, run for the hills. It’s still far too early for anyone to be making those kind of claims. Someone might’ve had incredible success in digital just a year ago and what made them successful could be useless or completely irrelevant today. And this is why I think storytelling is so important and relevant. The brands and ministries that tell the best stories, the most often, will win in an oral tradition culture. Look at the fastest growing brands over the last few years. Netflix, Tiktok, YouTube, and Disney. Shoot, this might get me in trouble, but Pharmaceutical brands have been in the limelight since the start of the pandemic as the world turned to the sector for COVID-19 tests and vaccines. They told a story and crafted a narrative around a virus over the last two years, and as a result, unsurprisingly, the sector has seen faster growth in the Brand Finance Global 500 over the last two years than any other sector. According to Brand Directory, the number of pharmaceutical brands in the ranking has doubled from four to eight, with brand value increasing by 94% to the tune of a $54.0 billion increase. Pfizer made $36 billion dollars on the COVID vaccine alone in 2021. They told a narrative, albeit a guilt marketing narrative, and the world ate it up to a $54 billion dollar increase in brand value. That’s not a political statement, I absolutely have compassion for everyone affected by the pandemic over the course of the last two years, but the narrative used by the pharmaceutical companies for their profit is a reality that we can’t ignore, and we need to learn from this.
Church, story is powerful. Whether it’s used for evil or righteous intentions, it has the power to sway minds, to shift mindset, to inspire and engage audiences to advocate for our ministries. Story was used to incredible effect by the early Church. If we want to be successful in the ever increasing digital world in which we live, we’ve got to get unstuck. We have to stop pursuing outdated marketing and communication trends that aren’t working, or that gives results and KPI’s that don’t matter. I want to be abundantly clear, I’m not suggesting that the Church should be pursuing the marketing tactics and business practices of the world. Are some of those practices relevant and applicable for ministry, absolutely. But as much as we want our Churches and ministries to function like a business, there are differences and nuances that need to be taken into consideration. That’s why this plea to testify of what God has done in real peoples lives is so important. We have to stop broadcasting in an oral tradition culture. We have to stop treating social platforms like they function as radio and tv did decades ago. We’ve got to start leveraging story and engaging with audiences where their attentions already lie. And I don’t see a better tool in the scriptures for engaging hearts and minds than storytelling. This isn’t about following marketing trends, or trying to be like the world. The world is simply using biblical principles, and it’s time the Church started using those same biblical principles. God knew from the beginning, rather He wired us from the beginning to engage with one another and the world around us using story. This isn’t a plea to follow a trend, it’s a plea to walk in our wiring. We’ll see you in the next one.
Relevant Resources:
