As I have a look at how influencing occurs lately on social media and podcasts, it looks as if content material is constructed in a few other ways. A technique is what I might name “story.” On this content material, an individual opens up their life and expertise in vivid element, describing what occurred to them, the way it affected them, and the way their expertise ought to form the understanding of others. This story method is usually visceral and emotional and is produced as uncooked and unfiltered testimony. Once I have interaction this type of content material, it hits me on an emotional stage and sometimes ends in larger empathy for the message being communicated.
The opposite method I see content material communicated is what I would name “stats.” This content material type is normally expressed with a excessive vitality, rapid-fire burst of knowledge and factoids, normally in sound chunk lengths. There’s an air of “let me deal with all of your objections earlier than you’ll be able to even consider them.” The specified impact seems to be to overwhelm opposition and forcefully persuade not simply with data, however with an authoritative tone that means pondering in any other case is silly.
The Medium and the That means
These are present types of the time-tested adage, “whoever controls the medium controls the which means.” Social media and podcast content material are constructed on this type of unidirectional communication. In truth, being unpersuaded by the presentation may be perceived as an indication of weak point. Story folks may say, “How will you deny my expertise after I’m telling it to you in uncooked, unfiltered element?” Stats folks may say, “How will you deny the info of a matter after I’ve laid them out so convincingly?” It’s attention-grabbing how totally different folks gravitate to both story or stats argumentation.
This “story vs. stats” standoff can happen in person-to-person interactions as properly. It occurs in our marriages: “I really feel such as you don’t care about what’s happening in my life”/“What do you imply—day by day I ask how your day went after I come house!” Or parenting teenagers: “I’ve the worst life ever!”/“Have a look at all the nice issues you will have in comparison with youngsters in poor nations!” It’s in these person-to-person interactions that the compelling story or the great stats struggle to personal the turf of dialog and battle.
You may say it is a persona factor, that some individuals are storytellers and a few individuals are stat presenters. Possibly. However I feel I personally can work each angles primarily based on what I need from one other individual. I’ll inform a narrative; I’ll marshal the stats—no matter offers me management in an interplay. I’ll even flip mid-script. If my story isn’t touchdown, I’ll launch a stat assault. If somebody is countering my info, I’ll make the difficulty private. It fits my needs to regulate the interpretation of my story.
Counseling Tales and Stats—A Higher Method
I additionally discover this dynamic at play in counseling. In attempting to assist others, we sometimes have interaction with the lived-in and lived-out self-understanding that they’ve constructed, shaping their view of themselves, their world, and finally, God. This view might have been formed by means of life experiences and the self-interpretation of these experiences, which emerge as a narrative. Or somebody might construct self-understanding on the scaffolding of concepts, ideas, and philosophies they’ve gathered alongside the life journey. We all know as biblical counselors that neither method is the way in which of reality. Affirming an individual’s story can’t be our objective if that self-understanding is marred by error and idolatry. Permitting somebody to carry on to the fallacy that their stats are chosen as a lot by heart-motivated private bias as by purpose or logic is main them away from a biblical understanding of the character of reality.
How can we assist people who find themselves dedicated to a “story or stats” dichotomy?
A really fundamental however important reality of biblical knowledge can serve us on this. In Proverbs 3:5-8, we learn,
Belief within the LORD with all of your coronary heart, and don’t lean by yourself understanding. In all of your methods acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not sensible in your personal eyes; concern the LORD, and switch away from evil. It is going to be therapeutic to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
This set of proverbs does a number of issues for us. First, it redirects self-understanding away from self-focus: belief IN THE LORD with all of your coronary heart. We are likely to belief our story or our stats because the central motif of our personhood. However whether or not you see your life as story or stats, finally, you aren’t a very powerful actor in or interpreter of your actuality.
Second, this knowledge curbs our pure impulse to belief no matter understanding we cobble collectively by means of life: “lean not by yourself understanding.” The truth that one thing makes sturdy sense to us doesn’t imply it may be leaned on with the total weight of our confidence. Individuals who lean on their understanding won’t stand when that understanding is inadequate for the trials of life.
Third, these proverbs warning us towards believing now we have figured issues out. Our default journey is alongside a crooked path, and if we observe that blindly, we are going to come to break. We’re much more determined for God to regrade our street than we expect. The lamp of God’s Phrase lights a straight path, and people who observe that path are the sensible on this world.
Fourth, this knowledge offers a larger supply of which means than both our personal story or our personal gathering of stats. “Be not sensible in your personal eyes; concern the Lord, flip away from evil.” We should reside with a larger sense of religious want and urgency than this world will ever say we’d like. There isn’t a time for, or worth in, establishing a view of self that fits my story or my stats. Acquiring knowledge is each a promise of the concern of the Lord (Prov. 1:7) and the full-time job of fearing the Lord (Prov. 4:7).
Lastly, a life searching for knowledge within the concern of the Lord is way extra refreshing than a lifetime of defending your self-definition by means of storytelling or stats-collecting. So, inform your story, arrange your stats, however belief within the Lord with all of your coronary heart.
Questions for Reflection
- Which tends to be extra persuasive for you, somebody telling their story or somebody sharing the stats?Do you tend in both route?
- Have you learnt the way to have interaction an individual’s story or an individual’s stats and assist them reinterpret their understanding alongside the trail of knowledge?
