How to Use Stories to Cut Through the Information Overload

by: VRcurator

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Individuals may represent much of the accomplishment of ministries at your church, but the real work of ministry is often done through teams. Whether a staff team comprised of full and part-time employees or a volunteer team comprised of various degrees of dedicated members, teams are the backbone of church ministry. And yet, most leaders at one time or another are frustrated by the lack of progress of the team toward accomplishing their assigned task.

THE QUICK SUMMARY –  The Orange Revolution by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

The Orange Revolution provides a simple and powerful step-by-step guide to taking your team to the breakthrough level, igniting their passion and vision to bring about accomplishing a shared vision. 

The Orange Revolution model begins with clear visualization and articulation of the team goal, challenges team members with clear commitments to the team and to each other, and wraps up with breakthrough results and sustained success.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

The people on your teams are overwhelmed with information, and in your attempt to help motivate them to move forward, you may be inadvertently contributing to the slowdown. Already confused and overloaded, they assume that your added request will only make thing worse.

Enter the story.

Stories are the most powerful delivery tool for information – more powerful and enduring than any other art form. In the land of complex reality, story is king. Story makes sense of chaos and gives people a plot. Stories can help people who are stuck become unstuck.

There are no guarantees that using story to motivate your team will come out the way you want. But story, on the average, works much better than telling your team “this is the way it’s going to be.”

Story is like a computer app you load into someone’s mind so they can play it using their own input. The best stories play over and over and create the outcomes that fit your goals and ensure that your team keeps moving forward.

Great leaders use story to express their passion and illustrate, illuminate, and inspire their team to greatness itself.

When you want to influence others, there is no tool more powerful than story.

Teams that are focused on wow results have a charming habit of telling stories that exemplify what they are trying to achieve.

Great teams create a narrative. As teams succeed, they tell their stories again and again. They are partly their history, but they also explain to others who they are and what they do.

Breakthrough teams tell stories frequently and with passion. It is a secret ingredient of their success. The power of their stories is in the specificity and vividness, which are the very elements that make them memorable. They get repeated – typically with the same enthusiasm in which they are told.

Stories are vital in helping individuals understand how world-class results are achieved and in making the possibility of doing so believable. Such tales have a way of perpetuating success. The listener retells the story, and more important, internalizes its message and becomes part of the story.

– Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, The Orange Revolution

A NEXT STEP

As you use stories with your teams, you will be using a mixture of credibility, evidence and data, and emotional appeal. You cannot persuade through logic alone, or even logic supported by your credibility. A leader uses stories to illustrate, illuminate, and inspire his team.

What story can you include in your next team meeting? Think about a story (either personal, about someone else, or related to your organization) that you can use in your next team meeting. Telling stories to your team – and then having them repeat them to others – is the virtual equivalent of taking people on a field trip. The use of story will enable them to experience your message at a much more profound level.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 2-3.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> > Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: SUMS Remix, Story, Storytelling, The Orange Revolution

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Be a Better Leader By Being Story Driven

by: VRcurator

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Storytelling embodies an approach that is well adapted to meet the deep challenges of leadership. Situations in which story impacts people across an organization include:

• Persuading them to adopt an unfamiliar new idea
• Charting a future course
• Attracting the best talent
• Instilling passion and discipline
• Aligning individuals to work together
• Calling everyone to continue believing in leadership through the unpredictable ups and downs

The underlying reason for the affinity between leadership and storytelling is simple: narrative, unlike abstraction and analysis, is inherently collaborative.

Storytelling helps leaders work with other individuals as co-participants, not merely as objects or underlings. Storytelling helps strengthen leaders’ connections with the world.

After all, isn’t this what all leaders need – a connection with people they are seeking to lead?

“The mistake people make is thinking the story is just about marketing. No, the story is the strategy. If you make your story better you make the strategy better.”

– Ben Horowitz

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Story Driven by Bernadette Jiwa

Every one of us—regardless of where we were born, how we were brought up, how many setbacks we’ve endured or privileges we’ve been afforded—has been conditioned to compete to win. Ironically, the people who create fulfilling lives and careers—the ones we respect, admire and try to emulate—choose an alternative path to success. They have a powerful sense of identity. They don’t worry about differentiating themselves from the competition or obsess about telling the right story. They tell the real story instead. Successful organizations and the people who create, build and lead them don’t feel the need to compete, because they know who they are and they’re not afraid to show us.

How about you?

What do you stand for?

Where are you headed and why?

What’s been the making of you?

What will make your career or company great?

You must be able to answer these questions if you want to build a great company, thriving entrepreneurial venture or fulfilling career. Whether you’re an individual or you’re representing an organization or a movement, a city or a country, Story Driven gives you a framework to help you consistently articulate, live and lead with your story. This book is about how to stop competing and start succeeding by being who you are, so you can do work you’re proud of and create the future you want to see.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Story is the emotion that makes your organization come to life in the eyes of your audience.

For most of human history, we communicated through the oral tradition. A person shared something with another person, and if it was interesting enough, they passed it on to a third person. And if it wasn’t, the message died then and there. It was survival of the fittest for messages.

In this environment, there’s one type of information that passed along most effectively: stories. Stories are memorable because they are emotionally resonant, and easy to take ownership of. The storyteller adopts the story in their own image, modifying it slightly, and passing it on. Storytelling arose not as a form of entertainment, but rather as a mechanism for communicating deeply held truths across societies. We don’t tell stories because we want to — we tell stories because they are essential.

The reason online social sharing, linking, and direct messaging so quickly became a core part of society is because it taps into an ancient need for humans to tell stories to each other, without an intermediary. People are once again passing on the information they see as most valuable, and discarding that which is not.

Organizations who are looking to reach their target audiences and connect with them need only look to the ancient form of the story to understand how best to engage people today. 

By failing to also see our narrative as part of our strategy, we’re missing the opportunity to get clear on our purpose, differentiate ourselves from the competition and create affinity with the right audience.

Before you write a line of code or a word of copy, before you apply for that promotion or plan your growth strategy, and before you create your next marketing campaign or send that email, you need to understand what’s driving your story. Where are the roots that will enable you to grow healthy branches that bear fruit? How will you show, not just tell? What promises are you intending to keep?

“Story” is frequently used as a tactic to attract the attention of our audience. We agonize for weeks over perfect taglines, choosing logo designs and articulating features and benefits, often without fully understanding how or even if those tactics (the things we spend most of our time doing) are helping us to get where we want to go.

The hardest part is not only working out the mission, vision, and values that are the foundation of your business, but also intentionally living them so you can achieve your goals. You have to begin by getting clear about why your business exists. The very act of questioning your purpose forces you to dig deeper. It invites you to clarity why you wanted to make that particular promise to those particular people in the first place and to create an action plan to deliver on it.

Clarity of intention is where your story starts. Whether it’s obvious to us or not, the businesses we are loyal to understand what they’re here to do.

When your business or organization is story driven, its aspirations and strategy are underpinned by a clear philosophy that deepens employee engagement and commitment, creates momentum, and drives innovation and customer loyalty, thus leading to to a solid plan for achieving success.

Having a story-driven strategy enables you to adapt in times of change because that your story is bigger than the scene that’s playing out in the moment.

Bernadette Jiwa, Story Driven

A NEXT STEP

As Auxano Navigators spend hundreds of hours each week serving churches across the country, they spend a lot of time helping churches find vision clarity. Much of that time, as you can imagine, is spent at the big picture level, not in the week-to-week details. It’s in the midst of slogging through the details of what announcements to make and what goes in the weekly bulletin and how all our activities get communicated that clarity is most needed.

In other words, once you have clarity in your understanding of God’s preferred future for your church, how do you make sure that clarity at the big picture level filter down to the details each week?

Auxano Founder Will Mancini thinks there are four things that you must know whenever you’re communicating in order to maintain clarity and craft effective communication.

Know your audience.

Any good communicator will tell you that you have to know your audience in order to communicate well. And while that’s certainly true, in the church, this carries another level of complexity. Each specific event or program that you want to communicate about may not apply to the entire church. Your first question should always be, “How can I get as close as possible to the primary audience?” Here’s what I mean: Let’s say your church is offering a series of classes for parents on raising kids with a strong faith foundation. Should you simply put something in the weekly bulletin and make an announcement? That’s not getting very close to your target audience, and you’re going to be communicating to people (singles, grandparents, etc.) to whom the communication does not apply. Instead, hand out a flyer regarding the classes to every parent as they pick up their kids from the children’s ministry on a Sunday morning. It would be best to schedule some extra workers that morning so they could have a short conversation with each parent about the class and its importance to parenting well. Now you’re communicating well. This kind of targeted, more personal interaction is much more effective than a scatter-shot announcement or bulletin blurb.

Know your message. 

You must, of course, be crystal clear about what you want to communicate. Apart from communicating the details clearly (what, when, where), you must always communicate the why. Why does this matter? And the answer to that question should always lead you right back to your vision. With clarity on your mission, values, strategy, and measures, you should leverage that clarity in all your week-to-week communication efforts. How does this specific event or program move us toward accomplishing our mission? Where does it fit within our strategy? If you don’t connect everything back to your vision, you will end up just communicating a disjointed calendar of events that have seemingly no connection to each other.

Know your context. 

Some people may call this politics or organizational history. You may want to argue and say, “That shouldn’t enter into how and what we communicate. If we’re doing what God has called us to do, then politics shouldn’t matter.” Maybe it would be easier to think of this not in terms of politics, but in terms of relationships. Who has a vested interest in what we’re communicating? Have we brought them into the loop? Have we gotten their input? If you proceed without asking these kinds of questions, it’s like obliviously strolling through a field of land mines. You want to communicate effectively, right? You want people to hear the true message, right? Why not remove any potential misunderstandings or hurt feelings before things get started? You actually have an opportunity to get buy-in from these key players before communicating more widely. So don’t think of it as bowing to organizational politics, think of it as intentional vision-casting and inviting people to be a part of moving the church forward. Trust me, you’ll be glad you took the time to do it right.

Know your place. 

This is a special note for those of you that help to craft church communication from a seat other than the lead pastor’s chair. You need to understand that although you may be responsible for putting together the communication plan for different church initiatives, you are not the lead pastor. So don’t try to be something you’re not. If you’ve put together a strategically beautiful plan (in your humble opinion) that your lead pastor doesn’t agree with, be willing to change it. Of course, make your case as to why the plan is solid, but in the end, always defer. This is the only way for the organization to work well in the long run. I’ve seen too many communications people that try to bring about organizational change through their role in ways that only end up hurting the church.

If you keep these four things in mind, you’ll craft communication that’s much more effective in generating movement toward accomplishing your church’s mission. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Stop and identify one leadership moment in the next five days in which you can live story-driven. Using Mancini’s four clarity pillars, answer these four questions as you prepare to lead with story:

• Who is my primary audience?
• What is my central message?
• Where are the landmines of context?
• How does my role impact this moment?

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 94-1, issued June 2018.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

Each issue SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> > Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Bernadette Jiwa, Leadership, SUMS Remix, Story, Story Driven

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Communicate Your Vision: Engage Everyone to Create Energy

by: VRcurator

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There is no more powerful engine driving an organization toward excellence and long-range success than an attractive, worthwhile, and achievable vision of the future, widely shared.

– Burt Nanus

The right vision for the future of an organization moves people to action, and because of their action, the organization evolves and makes process. Like a bicycle, an organization must continually move forward, or fall over. The role of vision in driving the organization forward is indispensable.

The vision’s power lies in its ability to grab the attention of those both inside and outside the organization and to focus that attention on a common dream – a sense of direction that both makes sense and provides direction.

To that end, your church’s vision cannot exist merely as words on a page or website, or in an impressive visual display in your church foyer.

Articulating your vision through consistent and powerful ideas is one of the toughest tasks of leadership.

SOLUTION #2: Engage everyone to create energy

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Lead with a Story, Paul Smith

Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated corporate storytellers. 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing strategic narratives. Procter & Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum.

The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success.

Lead with a Story contains both ready-to-use stories and how-to guidance for readers looking to craft their own. Designed for a wide variety of business challenges, the book shows how narrative can help:

• Define culture and values
• Engender creativity and innovation
• Foster collaboration and build relationships
• Provide coaching and feedback
• Lead change

Whether in a speech or a memo, communicated to one person or a thousand, storytelling is an essential skill for success. Complete with examples from companies like Kellogg’s, Merrill-Lynch, Procter & Gamble, National Car Rental, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, and more, this practical resource gives readers the guidance they need to deliver stories to stunning effect.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Good leaders are able to not only tell a good story, they are able to involve their audience in it. Your audience should be a part of the story, and play an active role as the story unfolds.

When you are trying to convince an audience of something, or to go along with your vision, you can share all the research and statistics you want. That will have some impact.

But if you really want to multiply that impact, and bring your audience along as part of the story, make sure they see themselves in the story.

Your audience needs to see itself in the future you describe.

Getting your audience to pay attention, of course, is just the first step. Now that your audience is receptive, it’s time to actually describe your vision. This is where storytelling really shines! After all, a vision is a picture of the future so inspiring it drives people to action – in other words, a story. But the story must be well crafted and personal.

Stories can be used to get your audience to sit up and pay attention to your vision. Stories can also actually explain what your vision of the future is. But sometimes a vision is so lofty or aggressive it comes across as an unachievable dream, not a realistic vision. If that’s the case with your vision, congratulations on having such a worthy idea! But if people don’t believe your vision will ever happen, they won’t be motivated to help you deliver it.

Any time you can actually bring your audience into the story, instead of just telling them a story, it magnifies the effectiveness of your message many times over. It takes the power of storytelling to an entirely new level.

Paul Smith, Lead with a Story

A NEXT STEP

Invite your team to be part of an exercise that involves dreaming, storytelling (written), and personal involvement.

Construct a series of headlines based on what you dream God will do through your church. Instruct your team that the headlines need to be able to be fleshed out as full stories with people, events, etc.

• What will be the most newsworthy happening?
• How will your church be different?
• How will God use your church to change your community?
• What personal role will you play?

Break your team into groups of three to four people, and use your Vision Frame (your mission, values, strategy, and measures) to guide your thinking.

Brainstorm a list of headlines you will read one year from now. After making the list, choose the group’s favorite three to share with the entire team.

Brainstorm a list of headlines you would like to read three years from now. Again, select the top three to share with the entire team.

Reflect on your personal part of each of the stories.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 84-2, released January 2018.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> > Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Lead With a Story, Paul Smith, SUMS Remix, Story, communicate vision

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Focus Your Stories on One Simple Truth

by: VRcurator

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How can using the power of life stories change your culture?

To help see others see change, the leader must understand how to unlock the imagination. The very act of imagination is connected to faith. The author of Hebrews writes, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). When a leader articulates, or provokes, a follower’s imagination, he or she is serving both God and the individual by exercising the muscle of faith.

Solution – Focus your stories on one simple truth

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley

Great stories capture and hold an audience’s attention from start to finish. Why should it be any different when you stand up to speak?

In Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley and Lane Jones offer a unique strategy for communicators seeking to deliver captivating and practical messages. In this highly creative presentation, the authors unpack seven concepts that will empower you to engage and impact your audience in a way that leaves them wanting more.

Whether you speak from the pulpit, podium, or the front of a classroom, you don’t need much more than blank stares and faraway looks to tell you you’re not connecting. Take heart before your audience takes leave! You can convey your message in the powerful, life-changing way it deserves to be told. An insightful, entertaining parable that’s an excellent guide for any speaker, Communicating for a Change takes a simple approach to delivering effectively.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

It’s a good idea to keep your vision stories simple. The primary reason for this is that the human capacity to absorb multiple elements isn’t unlimited. When you are communicating a story, keep in mind the limitation of your listeners’ working memory. For the story to be useful, it must be neither too detailed nor too general. The simpler your story is, the more likely that people will comprehend and remember it.

Every time I stand to communicate I want to take one simple truth and lodge it in the heart of the listener. I want them to know that one thing and know what to do with it.

Determine Your Goal – What are you after when you speak or teach? What is the win? Smarter people? Changed people? People with more confidence in God? Your approach to communicating needs to match your goal.

Pick a Point – Point refers to one of three things: an application, an insight, or a principle. With this approach, the point serves as the glue to hold the other parts together.

Create a Map – Follow a five-word outline, each representing a section of the message.

• ME (Orientation) – a dilemma the communicator has faced or is currently facing.
• WE (Identification) – common ground with your audience.
• GOD (Illumination) – transition to the text to discover what God says.
• YOU (Application) – challenge your audience to act on what they have just heard.
• WE (Inspiration) – close with several statements about what could happen if everybody embraced that particular truth.

Internalize the Message – you should be able to sit down at a table and communicate your message to an audience of two in a way that is both conversational and authentic.

Engage Your Audience – presentation trumps information when it comes to engaging the audience.

Find Your Voice – to develop an effective style you need to constantly ask yourself two questions:

• What works?
• What works for me?

Start All Over – when you get stuck, use these five questions to discover the one thing that the people God has entrusted to our care need to know.

• What do they need to know? INFORMATION
• Why do they need to know it? MOTIVATION
• What do they need to do? APPLICATION
• Why do they need to do it? INSPIRATION
• How can I help them remember? REITERATION

Andy Stanley, Communicating for a Change

A NEXT STEP

Think of a recent situation where you were stuck in the preparation of a presentation, sermon, or teaching element. Take this situation to your next leadership team meeting for a collaborative session.

On a chart tablet, list Andy Stanley’s five questions from the “Start All Over” section above. For each of the five questions, solicit answers from your team in a true brainstorming session (no judgments allowed).

After completing each of the five questions, go back through the lists and circle the three most valuable phrases and comments for each question.

As a group, decide on which single word or phrase is your team’s best choice, and underline it.

To complete the exercise and make it useful for both individuals and groups in the future, spend 30 minutes talking through the process of the individual and team choices. Note any applications for future use when you are stuck in your preparation, and apply those applications to help you move forward.

As leaders, we communicate in all we say and do. We may be entertaining at times, we inform much of the time, and occasionally we must be directing in what we say. But in all situations, we can inspire and connect with our audience.

Taken from SUMS Remix 29-2, published December 2016

This is part of a weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Andy Stanley, Communicating for a Change, SUMS Remix, Story, imagination

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How to Effectively Tell Your Church’s Story

by: VRcurator

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Below is a weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

>> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

With so many messages competing for people’s attention, how can we most effectively tell our church’s story?

Every day, your church stewards thousands of moments of truth. Every time a member talks to a neighbor, someone drives by the church facility, a ministry email goes out, a pastor’s business card is left on a desk, some interaction on behalf of the church has transpired. Every time these events happen, the church’s vision grows brighter or dims in the tiniest little increments.

The leader’s role is to crank up the wattage.

Solution – Tell your story in every environment with compelling consistency

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Unique, by Phil Cooke

Today’s culture is more connected than any time in history, but all of this connectivity comes with a price. We live in a world that’s become cluttered, distracted, and disrupted by social media, with the average person receiving as many as 5,000 messages a day in one form or another. If you’re a pastor, nonprofit leader, artist, filmmaker, entrepreneur, or creative professional in this hyper-connected, highly distracted world, how do you get your unique idea, project, or vision on the radar of the people who need to respond?

In Unique, Phil Cooke, a highly respected media producer and consultant, addresses both the challenges and the opportunities of branding and social media in the 21st century. If you have a vision or message to share with the world, Unique provides a blueprint to cut through the clutter, communicate your story, and impact your audience.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

To maximize your ability to connect, you must invest time, mental energy, and resources to really discover and articulate your uniqueness — your vision, your essence, your story.

Stories inspire and capture imagination. Stories connect on personal and emotional levels. They help us develop relational connections.

That’s why it is so important for your communication toolbox to say who you uniquely are— what differentiates your church from the crowd.

The combination of the right words with powerful imagery compels engagement, insight, and memorability.

Most churches haven’t developed their story and leveraged great design to share it. Don’t miss the opportunity to tell your church’s story with design so you can really extend your reach. Shouldn’t the church connect and build relationships in every way possible?

At its core, branding is simply the art of surrounding a product, organization, or person with a powerful and compelling story. At its most basic level, branding provides answers to the simple human need to differentiate one thing from another.

The goal of branding is to win the hearts and minds of the largest audience possible and imprint an indelible story around your vision.

The power of these stories and the hold they exert over our lives is remarkable, and many would say the power of story is embedded in our genetic makeup. From the ancient days of the Israelite storytellers who recited the epic chronicles of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the writers, preachers, and filmmakers of today, we are a story-driven people, and we use stories to make sense of life.

Stories work because we want to experience the emotions, feelings, and passions of others who have encountered the challenges we face each day.

During Jesus’ short time of ministry on earth, He had to teach a message that wouldn’t simply change people during His lifetime, but transform the world for ages to come. If you had faced that challenge, what would you have done?

Jesus did what many pastors in that position would probably consider a career killer: He started telling stories. Most of Jesus’ stories were just everyday people doing everyday things. They weren’t particularly exciting, romantic, or even thrilling.

Stories drill deeply into your brain and explode later with meaning. Sometimes the meaning comes when you least expect it. Stories impact audiences because each person interprets the story in light of his or her own personal situation and experience. As a result, the impact is far greater than a simple object lesson or teaching session.

In many cases, you can interchangeably use the words “brand,” “story,” “identity,” and, sometimes, “reputation.” Branding is about building trust and loyalty and extending your relationships far beyond a single transaction.

Stories are the central focus of the art of branding.

Phil Cooke, Unique

A NEXT STEP

 How well does your brand tell your story?

Here’s a question for you: What’s the Nike brand all about? If you said “Just Do It” you would be incorrect – that’s their tagline. Their brand is really their mission – “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.” (By the way, the * is further explained by Nike as “If you have a body you are an athlete.”)

To help understand how your brand tells your story, watch this video about Nike branding with your leadership team.

After watching the video, discuss these questions with your team:

• How much more important, and eternal, is the mandate of the church than a shoe company?
• How well defined and well lived, and resultantly effective, is our church at telling our story?
• Does our story create movement and reflect the heart of God for the church or is it just words on a website or worship service bulletin?

Many pastors tend to be skeptical of investing time and resources into working on statements of identity like mission or values or tag lines, especially when things around church “feel” like they are going well enough.

 When any organization lives their mission, the results are seen – and life change becomes possible. The marketing video from Nike sums up why, for them, people living out their mission is more important than people knowing their tagline. And shows how good they actually are at living it, better than most churches.

What are three stories of life change that capture the essence of your church’s brand? How does your church’s mission statement move beyond generic statements to reflect these examples of your unique calling?

With the Gospel at the center of everything we do, the church, by its nature, is a message-centric organization. Jesus, the greatest story-teller of all time knew, before science showed us, that people are simply hard-wired to respond to story and images. And today’s world is becoming ever-increasingly visual, with selfies, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Consider this: there are hundreds of little moments of truth – touchpoints of connectivity – that happen each day.

Each of these are opportunities to share the message of the gospel. Are you going to make them or miss them?

To learn more about telling your story, start a conversation with the Auxano team today.

Taken from SUMS Remix 26-2, published October 2015

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Tags: Phil Cooke, Story, Unique

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5 Ways to Share Your Compelling Story

by: Chris Rivers

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Have you ever gotten lost in a great story? Maybe it was a book you couldn’t put down, a movie that made you feel like you could take on the world, or a story told around a campfire. Stories have the power to make us laugh, comfort us in challenging circumstances, bring us to action, and help us see the world with new eyes.

Whether you know it or not, you are part of a story.

We are all writing some sort of story with our lives. If you are a church leader, you have the privilege of leading a piece of the story that Jesus is building through the Church. Your church’s story can have the power to inspire people who will dream with you, rally behind you, face the challenges of life with you, and fund your mission. It also has the power to influence the people around you to let their lives be a part of that story.

If you are not utilizing the story God has given you, you could be missing out on a vital tool God has given you to engage and connect the people around you. People connect with compelling stories.

A compelling story:

1. LEAVES AN IMPRESSION

Your story should be long enough to take the listener on a journey, but short enough to be memorable. When thinking through your story, you should consider a main theme that becomes clear through the details.

2. EVOKES EMOTION

This is a prime way to have people connect with your vision and let your story be another way to communicate your vision. Here’s a great example of a story from Musicbed that evokes emotion. Take a couple minutes to write down how you feel after you watch this one.

3. SHARES THE WINS AND LOSSES

What fruit has your church seen over the past years? What can you celebrate? When has God shown His faithfulness through difficult seasons and how did He bring you through them? For those who have been a part of your church for a while, this will serve as a chance to become reacquainted with where you have been together. For those who may be newer, it will help them feel part of the ministry without experiencing it firsthand.

4. IS FOR THE AUDIENCE

Think about who this story will impact and what details will be the most important in helping them take hold of your purpose. When writing a story, it can be too easy to tell the story that we want to tell, rather than the one that is most effective. Before sharing your story with your congregation, have someone you trust read it through and tell you what it specifically communicates to them.

5. ANTICIPATES THE FUTURE

The story of how God brought you from your beginning to where you are today is so important, but something is lost if you do not anticipate all that God has in store for your future. Here are some verses to think about in anticipating God’s plans for His children and the Church:

Jeremiah 29:11
Ephesians 3:20-21
Matthew 16:16-18
Philippians 1:6

TEST DRIVE

If you haven’t written your story, now is the time! Bring out those old journals, spend some time with the people who have been with you from the beginning and have supported you along the way, and go back to the beginning.

• Where was the first place you ever met?
• What was the dream God placed in your heart when you were called into ministry?
• How much have you grown from your first day?
• How has God used you in the community?
• Who are some specific people in your community who have been affected by your church?

If you have written your story in the past, maybe it’s time to update it.

Unless you are intentional about telling your story, it will be forgotten one day. Schedule a time to share your story with your people. This could be done through a Sunday message, a video produced by your creative team, through social media, or through a letter. The purpose of having a story is to tell it!

> Read more from Chris.

 Would you like to know how to tell a compelling story? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

Tags: Chris Rivers, Compelling Story, Story

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How to Utilize the Power of Story on Your Church’s Campus Facility

by: Tim Cool

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Over the past several years we have become acutely aware of the essence of “story.” We hear this term used in the church world and in business settings.   It has been used to prompt people to open up about their lives and life experiences… to tell their story. On a corporate level it is the interwoven thread used to identify the mission, vision, direction, and passion of organizations.

The reality is, we all have a story.   Some of these stories are sensational while others may seem mundane or routine. Others grip our emotions and pull on our heartstrings while transforming us into the story.   What has struck me lately is that everyone has a story to tell and that people are reading— taking in— those stories even when we are not aware.

We do not have to write a screenplay or book to tell our story. When we walk into a room full of people, you will start to read certain aspects of people’s stories, and they will start to read yours as well. They might not see the entire story, but they will see some pretty obvious chapters in that story.   The way you enter the room will tell the chapter of your story related to your self-confidence or possibly your physical attributes or limitations. The way you shake the hands of the other guests will convey yet another part of the story, as will the clothes you are wearing… and you may not have even said a word. In addition, the room itself tells a story.

Did you know that your church campus tells a story? Why Church Buildings Matter: The Story of Your Space offers a unique perspective on the importance of church buildings. These buildings are vastly more important than most understand. The church campus and the story of the people in the church go hand-in-hand and are interwoven into each other. We cannot neglect the power of story and how our church facilities communicate a story.

Church facilities and all of the things associated with “story” and “setting” will not save a person from a life of sin and frustration. But the lack of attention to these things can indeed be the road block to reaching those people that need   to hear the gospel message the most. Don’t minimize their impact. That would be a huge mistake.   “Story” is all around us, in virtually every aspect of our daily experiences, which means that our church and ministry facilities also tell a story. Here are a few important questions to ask about  your church facilities:

• What story are your facilities or campus telling?
• Are we intentional about the telling our story through our facilities?
• Is the story congruent with who we are, who we think we are, what we believe and value, and who we want to reach for Christ?

Why Church Buildings Matter explores each of these areas in more detail. I believe as we become more acutely aware of the impact of our ministries’ unique stories, and how they impact our guests and the people God has called us to reach in our community, the greater the impact we will have on fulfilling our calling.

Get Tim’s book here.

Read more from Tim here.

Tags: Physical space, Space, Story, Tim Cool

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7 Kinds of Stories Every Church Leader Should Master

by: Will Mancini

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All ministry is communication intensive. It follows that story-telling and understanding the nuances of story will help any leader in the daily ebb and flow of communication. Use these story types to do an inventory on your own “range” of utilizing of stories as a leader.

CREATION STORY

I am not referring to the first book of Scripture but to the genesis of the organization itself. If you are a pastor, you should know more about the creation story of your church than anyone on the planet. What are the circumstances—passions, problems, and people—surrounding how the church got started to begin with? Mastering the richness of the creation story will help in two major ways. First, it will hold insight into the unique culture of the church and therefore future decision-making and vision. Second, your mastery of the story itself will bring tremendous credibility with people when initiating change.

>>ACTION STEP: Write a one-page, 2-minute creation story talk. If you have any gaps in your knowledge interview people in your church until you know more than anyone else.

SIGNATURE STORY

A signature story relates to any milestones or hand-of-God moments after the creation story. Obviously a church with more history will have more signature stories. These accounts show off strengths of the church and God’s hand in it’s history. I look for signature stories when discerning a church’s Kingdom Concept (What can your church do better than 10,000 others). These stories reveal the values and mark the high-water line of God’s activity and unique journey for each church. Use the signature stories the same way as the creation story: celebrating God’s goodness, explaining decision-making and guiding change.

>>ACTION STEP: Make a list of 3-5 possible signatures stories in your church. Ask key leaders to do the same and make a master list of the top 5.

FOLKLORE

Folklore stories are simply ones that are worth being told and retold. While there may be overlap between the first two of the list, folklore often focuses on the life change journey of individuals. Even though everyone has special stories of God’s transforming work in their lives, folklore shows off, in brilliant detail, the mission or strategy, a value or life mark, from the church’s articulated DNA (Vision Frame). Folklore often embeds a moment of modeling—like repeated prayer, gospel conversation or invitation toward an unchurched friend—that reflects “the win” we are striving for as a congregation.  Imagine a church planter who sees a convert grow with unusual intentionality to become a key leader in the church. This story could model the pattern that we hope to see repeated over and over.

>>ACTION STEP: Identify 3 stories from individuals in your church that you know could never be shared too much. Ask another leader in your church to capture all of the details of the story in a 2-page, 5-minute summary.

HORIZON STORY

Now we turn our attention of story-telling to the future. Think of the horizon story as time-machine window where you tell people what God is going to do. It may have a lead in like, “What if…” or “Imagine…” Tell me a story of what the church will be like in one year. How about three years? When crafting this vision casting story, its important not to be presumptuous. To guard against that make sure you show what we call the “God smile,” that is, remind people that this is God’s idea not yours.

>>ACTION STEP: Prepare a 2-minute story to tell someone what your church will look like in one year. To give yourself freedom, don’t worry about sharing it with anyone— you may or may not. But practice thinking about the future feel of a story.

THE GOSPEL

The centerpiece of all story-telling is the Gospel. It is important to define every other story in relationship to the grand news of God’s intervention in our world and our lives through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. You may wonder, “This is a given, so why would you mention this as an organizational story.” First, I am surprised by how many congregations are stuck in a  shallow appreciation for the Gospel’s ongoing presence and power in daily life.  Second, as you master story as a leader, you won’t want to develop and practice the other story types to the neglect of the Gospel. Rather let the Gospel develop you as you integrate it into all story-telling.

>>ACTION STEP: Grab a copy of Center Church by Tim Keller and study the section on “Atonement Grammars.” This is one of the most helpful summaries I have ever seen.

TEACHABLE POINT OF VIEW

The last two kinds of stories have to do more with the personal life of the leader. A teachable point of view, a term coined by Noel Tichy in The Leadership Engine, is the story that surrounds a personal leadership learning. Informal leadership development happens best when an experienced leader, in relationship with other leaders can unpacks stories of why the do what they do. Where did this conviction come from? What led me to develop this skill? Why did I make what seemed to be a counter-intuitive decision? The more that you have thought about your leadership’s teachable point of views, the more often and intentional will be the transference of wisdom in your leadership culture.

>>ACTION STEP: Take 20 minutes and write down your top 10 learnings as a leader. Write down a few bullet points and begin to flesh out the story behind the learning.

CONVERSION STORY

The last story is the perhaps the most obvious, but I did not want it to go unstated. In my own leadership life, I have failed the most at rehearsing, in my leadership, the story of my own journey with God at its very beginning. Maybe that’s because it happened when I was in eighth grade. That seems pretty distant from the “important” leadership work of today. How many people on your leadership team know the details of how you trusted Jesus and how you grew in affection for the Gospel? Using your own conversation story as a leader is important for at least three reasons. First, it will keep you humble. Second, it’s a personal help to keep the Gospel at the center of all stories. Third, it will model for people the importance of sharing a personal testimony.

>>ACTION STEP: Create a one-page, 2-minute conversion story testimony. Practice sharing it with one person a week, asking the other person to share their conversion story.

Read more from Will here.

Tags: Folklore, Story, Will Mancini

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Jesus and His Kingdom is the Better Story Our World Needs Today

by: Logan Gentry

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Evangelism might be the most discussed, most intimidating, and least discussed practice in the American church. As our church just finished our sermon series through the Sermon on the Mount, I’ve been amazed by how Jesus evangelized through his message and his life.

It can be easy to view the Sermon on the Mount as directed simply to believers, but Jesus’s view was beyond the disciples sitting with him; it involved the non-believing, curious, and even the antagonistic crowd around him. He doesn’t supply a complete explanation of any of the topics he addresses. He spends two verses dealing with divorce, makes simple statements about how we should use our money, and provides a small insight on anger and lust being rooted in the heart.

In all of the issues Jesus addresses, he is presenting a better story, a better narrative to follow than the world offers. It truly is picture-perfect evangelism, declaring through “you have heard it said, but I say” statements that contrast the cultural narrative lived around us and the kingdom life he brings. This must guide us as we process how we have been evangelizing, and how we can move forward evangelizing and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.

THE GOOD NEWS

We must ask whether we truly believe that the gospel is good news in our lives, and if it is the prevailing narrative that we live for. If it’s not a better story, bringing greater peace, joy, and hope in the midst of whatever circumstances come, then how can we invite people to believe it as better for them?

When we follow Jesus and the life he offers, evangelism flows from a natural expression of the change we are continually experiencing.

For example, when I go see a basketball game with one of my son’s classmates’ dad, and we begin to talk about our kids, I am confronted by whether the gospel has been guiding my parenting. If it has been guiding my parenting, I can acknowledge with him my failures in disciplining without patience and love at every moment, but also explain how the gospel guides me in interacting with my son. I get to explain that I can affirm my love for my son rooted in him being my son, not in his performance.

I can also describe how my desire in correction is that my son would know the delight and joy in obedience rather than the destructive nature of sin as my he trusts Jesus and his parents. This presents a better story than our culture’s typical annoyance by kids’ rambunctiousness, disobedience, and anger in timeouts or discipline, and points to the responsibility of the parent to lovingly correct and teach a better way of life by correction and modeling. It also demonstrates and aims to highlight that this can only be done well through gospel motivation and empowerment by faith.

THE GOSPEL IS THE BETTER STORY

Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount sound impossible to follow at times, but thankfully he fulfilled all of the demands and challenges that he presented for us through his flawless life. His fulfillment is now imparted to us by faith in his death and resurrection through the Holy Spirit to empower us to live the better story so that it becomes a better and ever-increasing reality.

Jesus speaks to so many areas of our life, and provides a better way forward than the one typically based on life experiences, preferences, and at times, heritage. If we never stop and consider how Jesus calls us to live differently from the desires of our heart, to the private and public expression of our faith, we will not be able to share how the gospel transforms our approach to relationships, career, and even the religious devotion we are hoping our friends and family embrace. The call is to faith rather than religion, and only the gospel produces that in us.

THE BETTER STORY DEMONSTRATED

Jesus proclaimed the Sermon on the Mount, dropped the microphone, walked off, and lived it out. When we invite our neighbors to see the better story played out in the community of faith through parties, meals, and service to the neighborhood, our words have more power based upon the life that is formed through them.

This is where evangelism becomes easier and normal. You are already doing and being a part of environments in your faith community where evangelism can happen, but you’ve forgot to provide the invitation to those who don’t know the better story yet. Jesus invited the crowds to follow him as he lived what he taught, and in doing so, informs us that we get to evangelize by presenting a better story through everyday life.

My hope is that the church embraces Jesus’s words as the greatest story ever lived. I pray that we enjoy it, and through loving it, we live it out as a powerful proclamation to our friends, co-workers, and family.

EXAMPLES OF TELLING THE BETTER STORY

I thought I would provide a few real life questions and scenarios to help.

1. I met a pro-choice advocate asking if I supported women’s rights for abortion. They asked, “Are you against abortion?” Obviously, this is a potentially heated debate with a lot of emotions. I chose to answer like this: ”I believe there can be a better way. What if there was a community that would adopt, care for, and raise that child and the mother/father could be a part of their lives? This is God’s desire for the people of God, to assist families and care for any and every vulnerable child.”
2. After finding out I’m a pastor, I’ve been told multiple times, “So you believe I’m going to Hell.” Always a great conversation starter. One way to present the better story would be to say, “I believe you don’t have to go there. Christ took all the punishment that you or I deserve by dying on the cross. He provides a way for us to know him in relationship, to know true joy, and to experience Heaven now and to love him forever.”
3. An even more common occurrence that I’ve seen in my life and our community is that social events are for everyone, not just Christians. Show the joy of Christian community by inviting them to the party and demonstrating the same relationships, conversations, and care for others that you do in fellowship with Christians.

Jesus and his kingdom is the better story and better reality for our day. It’s yours by faith and offered to anyone who will receive it.

Tags: Evangelism, Logan Gentry, Story

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Good Organizations are Storytellers. Great Organizations are Storydoers.

by: Ty Montague

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Discussions about story and storytelling are pretty fashionable today. On the one hand, as a lifelong advocate for the power of story, I find this very encouraging. For all organizations, having a story and knowing that story are crucial steps to achieving success. On the other hand, I’m worried that too many organizations think that telling their story through advertising is enough. It’s not.

In fact, those that think this way do so at their own risk because there is a new kind of organization on the rise that uses story in a more powerful way — and they are run more efficiently and profitably as a result.

In my new book, True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business, I call these new organizations storydoing organizations because they advance their narrative through action, not communication. Storydoing organizations — Red Bull and TOMS shoes, for example — emphasize the creation of compelling and useful experiences — new products, new services, and new tools that advance their narrative by lighting up the medium of people. What I mean by this is that when people encounter a storydoing organization they often want to tell all their friends about it. Storydoing organizations create fierce loyalty and evangelism in their customers. Their stories are told primarily via word of mouth, and are amplified by social media tools.

So how do you know a storydoing organization when you see one? These are the primary characteristics:

1. They have a story
2. The story is about a larger ambition to make the world or people’s lives better
3. The story is understood and cared about by senior leadership outside of marketing
4. That story is being used to drive tangible action throughout the company: product development, HR policies, compensation, etc.
5. These actions add back up to a cohesive whole
6. Customers and partners are motivated to engage with the story and are actively using it to advance their own stories

Storydoing organizations have a feeling of authenticity and humanity about them that is lost in many traditional organizations today. It makes them magnetic.

Storydoing organizations are on to something very compelling. Storydoing can be learned. And once learned, it can be replicated and spread from one part of your organization to another.

Are you a storydoing organization? Here’s a tool that will help you discover that answer.

Read the original article by Ty Montague here.

Read more about storydoing here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Story, Storydoing, Ty Montague

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