How can it be that teens can watch a Lord of the Rings marathon without yawning but seem to fall asleep after the introduction of your talk? Why do they easily remember the plot of every Harry Potter movie but can’t remember what you said in your talk last week?
Simple: Because stories work. Stories pique our emotional brains, not our intellectual brains. We’re simply captivated by stories—not rationally analyzing what’s happening. They’re easier to follow than talks or lectures. Their structure is familiar. It’s a structure we experience as we live out the narratives of our own lives.
What if we used these principles and applied them to our talks? What if we made our whole talks more akin to stories instead of merely using a few stories as illustrations?
Here’s how listening to a standard talk works for students: The intellectual brain processes the information from the talk and decides what to do with the stimuli. The brain can’t simply ignore audio input; it has to decide to accept the information, reject it, file it away for future reference, or act on it right away (e.g., when a fire alarm sounds). When students tune out, their brains have decided to stop listening and reject the information presented. Only when the brain actually has received a message can it assign meaning to it. Students hear our words (our talks), translate them into meaning, which leads to a decision (what to do with the information) and ultimately action. This seems to be a rational process, and it would be if only our emotional brains didn’t get in the way.
The Emotional Brain and Why We Need It
Our decisions are more guided by our feelings (emotional brain) than by rational factors (intellectual brain). When we try to convince students of faith principles and we go about this in a rational way by presenting logical arguments and scientific proof, they will respond in the same way. In their minds, they will try to counter the arguments, find evidence for their point of view, etc. Or they’ll be bored already and tune out whatever you’re saying. For transformation, we need to engage the emotional brain: the limbic system, the part that deals with stories, emotions, colors and humor. Stories are the key to doing that.
Our brains love stories. They bypass the intellectual brain and go straight for the emotional brain. Our rational minds know it’s fiction—just a movie—but our old brain experiences a strong emotional reaction to what we see. This is called emotional transportation, and it’s why horror movies scare us silly; though we know the action isn’t real, our brains feel as if it is. In short, we’re captivated and invested emotionally.
Stories engage the emotional brain, which makes them so effective in getting students to listen; but that’s also because of their structure, which is far easier to follow than many talks.
Story Structure
Most movies have a three-act structure. The first act is the beginning, where we’re introduced to the characters, their goals and the conflict preventing them from achieving these goals. The second act—the biggest part of the movie—shows us how the characters try to overcome everything that stands in the way of reaching their goals—where the action happens. In the final act, we come to some kind of resolution.
Movies don’t overtly communicate their beginning-middle-end structure. There’s no flashy title on the screen that tells you when you move from one act to the next. Instead, the transitions from act to act, scene to scene, are done subtly. They keep you in what’s known as your fictional dream, your emotional transportation. They communicate their message without ever yanking us out of the story they spin for us.
However, most talks are structured in a logical way: introduction of the topic, main arguments, conclusion and application. We move from one point to the next by using signal words and phrases such as second, the third reason is, to summarize, etc. This is what we were taught to do in school and in our theological training. Yet this structure aims at the intellectual brain, not the heart.
What if we used the principles of story to empower our talks and aim more for the emotional brain?
Think about your talk as one whole—one story. It’s an analogy of course. Your talk isn’t an actual story as it doesn’t have the necessary elements of characters, dialogue, plot, etc.; but it helps to consider your sermon to be a story so you can apply story principles. So, your talk is a story with a three-act structure that you know is there but that stays hidden from the listeners, who should not be able to detect when you are transitioning from one part into the next. Your goal is to create a listening experience that takes your listeners by the hand and moves them through your talk without interrupting their emotional state.
Act I: Opening Lines
Kick off your talk with a story and a killer opening line. Opening lines pique interest, whet the appetite. They begin the story, and they get your students emotional brains ready to hear the meat of what you’re there to present. Capture the attention of your audience with an opening line that sparks curiosity, that builds suspense or introduces tension.
I once started a story about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with, “No matter how hard he tried, it never seemed to be good enough.” I aimed for tension from the start, leading students to wonder who he is and why he never felt he’d done well enough. In a talk about Joseph, I opened with, “Sure, what his brothers did was wrong, but can you blame them?” Again, there’s conflict in that very first sentence, making you wonder what was so wrong.
This is Act I, your beginning. Before you can move on to your Act II, you somehow have to link your opening story or illustration to your topic. What topic or emotions from your opening story do you want to stress? What itch do you need to address? Which aspect is the key thought you want listeners to hold on to in the rest of your talk? That’s where you focus.
Act II: The Body
After your opening story comes the hard task of transitioning into the middle of your sermon, the body. This is where many of us lose our students because we switch from story-mode to teaching-mode; and as a result, we lose them. So, stay in story-mode. How does that look?
Smooth Transitions
The first key is smooth transitions. The story structure stays hidden from the listener, so don’t announce it in any way. Use the same tone of voice as you did when telling your opening story and avoid signal words.
Scratch the Itch
More important is to determine in what emotional state you want your readers to be. This is not a continuum throughout the talk, of course, but rather a dynamic journey, moving from one emotion to the next. This emotional journey has everything to do with your listeners’ needs. Perceived needs are crucial in the brain’s decision whether to keep listening. If you can connect emotionally with felt needs and emotions, you will draw in your listeners.
In your prep, ask yourself what your listeners will feel about your topic and how you can tap into these emotions. If you’re speaking to students about the importance of reading the Bible, where does that create tension? Where does that itch? Teens may find the Bible boring, are frustrated because they can’t understand it, may be disappointed in themselves because they’ve tried to keep a routine and couldn’t stick with it. They don’t see the Bible as relevant, or don’t like being told what to do in general. All these issues constitute conflict, an itch. Addressing this itch in your body helps take down mental barriers and open students’ hearts for the truth.
In a talk titled “There’s Nothing Easy About Trust,” I started off with frustration. We’ve all had this deep frustration when you share a real problem with someone and they respond with, “You just have to trust God,” as if trusting is easy—or as if you aren’t trusting Him!
I used a few examples to connect over that frustration. Then I slowly moved from frustration into determination to find out how trust works. The Bible tells us to trust. We have many examples of trust. So, how do we do this? I kzept stressing that there’s nothing easy about trust, that it’s scary as can be (another itch). I leaned into that feeling of being afraid to trust and explored that. As I moved toward closing, I stressed that trust isn’t a feeling at all, but a decision. The ending was the feeling of resolve, which is the dissolution of the conflict and itch.
Keep It Causal
One key aspect of stories is they use causal logic: Actions trigger reactions, and there’s always a cause. Even when weird stuff happens (e.g., a boy who develops spider powers), there’s a reason (i.e., being bitten by a radioactive spider).
Your transitions and reasoning in the body of your sermon have to demonstrate the same causal logic, the concrete chain of cause and effect. In that talk on trust, I used this causal logic: Because people have betrayed our trust (cause), we find it hard to trust God (effect). If we get to know God, however (action), we’ll discover He is different (reaction), and trust will be easier for us (effect). When we trust God (cause), He will make our paths straight (effect).
Act III: The Climatic End
If you have said everything you needed to say about your topic, it’s time for the ending. In a movie, the purpose of that third act is to bring the story to a climax. All loose ends must be tied up here, and we get our preferably happy ending.
The ending of your talk, the slowly built-up climax in which you make your main point—at least emotionally—must be the logical outcome of everything you’ve said to that point. You’ve taken your listeners by their hands and guided them through your story. Now it’s time to reach the final destination and make them feel, know and do what you had planned all along. They want closure, so give it to them.
Like with an opening line, a closing line deserves your attention, as well. A brilliant closing line really can end your talk on a high note. If you’ve done it correctly, students will have been listening until your final word.
Storifying your messages is about engaging the emotional brain, connecting teens with a narrative that makes sense, and unleashing the power of story in your talk. And then? Then everyone lived happily ever after…
Rachel Blom has worked in youth ministry for more than 15 years in several countries. She’s a writer, speaker, blogger, walking encyclopedia of completely useless facts, and the author of the upcoming book Storify (Youth Cartel).
