Warning – this blog post is longer than the average – and it’s about attention. I dare you to read it all the way through.
When I was in my late teens I worked in a small Christian bookshop in my home town. It was a Saturday job, stacking shelves, serving customers, making coffee – surrounded by books. When you spend that amount of time around books, including everything from The Purpose Driven life through to Stong’s Extended Concordance to the Bible – you begin to know what you like when it comes to literature.
During these formative years of faith I began to attempt to absorb as much knowledge ABOUT God as I could. Who was he? Where was he? What did he want from me and how on earth was I going to live up to that? So I lapped up the works of Wesley, Edwards and the late and great John Stott – hoping that in and amongst those pages I would learn enough to develop a deep understanding of God’s plans and purposes for me and the world.
The problem is – that while theology is important. Right. True – it can sometimes be – well a little flat. Studying the conflicting views of transubstantiation make tickle some people’s fancy – but not really mine. For most people I meet that also seems to be the case. We desire emotion, narrative – story. And if you hang out in the New Testament for any length of time – you will find Jesus was pretty keen on it too.
As I travel the country meeting with pastors, teachers and theologians I seem to be seeing the same problem time and again – how do we get people to engage in church? How will we see the church grow? How do we get our young people to stay on past their teens? Questions as old the church itself no doubt, but today I think we cannot answer this question without story.
It is no surprise to some that our attention spans are shrinking – the average according to recent research by the BBC saw teenagers showing attention spans as short as 11 minutes, compared to the average of 20-26 minutes of the past 30 years. Social media and mobile technology is rebooting the brains of our young people (myself included) and when those little machines come back online their RAM is already overloaded by texts, emails, phone calls, tweets, status updates, adverts, blog posts and people in the street trying to corral them into donating to Children In Need (a worth cause but there has got to be a better way guys?).
So no wonder – with this social ADD rife in our youth population that holding that attention when they walk through the doors on a Sunday is a challenge.
This is why I think we need to return to storytelling – on and offline – if we have a chance in all of Christendom of getting people engaged in the message of Jesus.
Storytelling in a real-time world
If you take a look at any of the major social networks you can clearly see that the silicone valley elite are determined to usher in a “real-time web” – an internet where all things are accessed in real-time and where the word “archive” is sometimes delivered with a bitter tone. Whether you are scouring the “Stream” on Google+ of delving through your Facebook “News Feed” the emphasis is on “now” and the “live”.
The great thing about living in the real-time web world is that we be constantly in the know – but I think this constant focus on what is happening right now is training us out of being able to understand story, which requires reflection and imagination to speculate about what is coming.
We see this creeping into our interactions with all sorts of media, whether its monitoring #bbcqt during Question Time, focusing on the “most highlighted” book passages on the Kindle or constantly flicking between a speaker and the TwitterFall on the screen behind them. Our attention is being tested – and often we are the one wielding the whip.
Story telling in this world of constant distraction, particularly from the stage or pulpit means we need to drastically rethink the way we communicate – doctrine, theology and discipleship in the form of the sermon needs to move from being “delivered” or “preached”. We need stories that can be “told” and “experienced”.
Recently in our church our leader gave a talk on healing. He outlined how we see Jesus heal in the Bible. A model for healing, of laying on hand and praying in the power of God’s spirit. But do you know what the real kicker was? The bit that captured the hearts and minds of the people – when a young women from our Student Group got up and told the story of how her serious heart condition was healed through that very model of prayer. Of what she felt when she realised God had touched her life. Of the relief and fear and anger and then unbelief and joy and love of those who prayed for her. Of how the Doctor the following day couldn’t explain what happened and how he would have to take her of the heart donor list.
That’s a story. That’s what gets us hooked and coming back again and again and again.
If you have been inspired into telling more stories please check out a project by a friend of mine Richard Littledale, whose short Christmas story “The Littlest Star” is helping raise money for the charity Shooting Star Chase.
Great post James –
we need to get back to story telling, it’s what Jesus did (even when he was preaching).
Thanks for the link to #littleststar too!
I read it all the way through. But then I put punctuation in SMS, which my kids assure me proves what a dinosaur I am.
I agree that story is important. I would quibble on two points:
1: I don’t believe these “shrinking attention span” claims, at least not in the unqualified way such claims tend to be used. I really wish my son’s attention span when playing Dofus was limited to 11 minutes, but I sometimes get the impression it would stretch to 11 hours if we didn’t intervene. We may be less patient with talking heads – virtual or otherwise – but I think the younger generation is quite capable of obsession given the right target.
Second, I don’t think we need less theologians and more storytellers because theology is all about story – the biggest story within which all other stories find their place. Theology is often caricatured as being about details no-one cares about, but that’s a bit like the way “engineer” in Britain seems to mean “someone who fixes my car” rather than “someone who makes the entire modern world go round”. Theology at its best is about taking a step back and getting a larger view than “I don’t like this verse” or “I love my interpretation of this passage even though it makes no sense within what Christians have believed for the last twenty centuries”.
I think that’s true even of your example above. I’m working on a theological understanding of online sacraments. What I’m realising is that, far from being nit-picking details, what we believe about bread and wine actually reflects or possibly affects the fundamentals of how God deals with his creation. And that’s an issue at the very heart of the the Christian story. When the Word became flesh, was that just PR, or does God actually like matter? Are we authentically human in spite of our bodies or because of them? Is the end of the story disembodied souls or v2.0 bodies?
These are huge, fundamental questions. And it seems to me that the Bible – and therefore theologians who respect the Bible – answer that class of question through narrative. The biblical canon ends with a heavenly city, not a philosophical treatise.
So a big yes to “more story”, but good theology is needed to avoid losing the plot.
Hey Mark – I totally agree with you – the questions dealt with through theology (systematic or otherwise) are crucial to us understanding God. And it think you are also spot on about kids being able to obsess about stuff. The thing with obsession is usually that it comes out of place of desire rather than need = i.e I want to play Call of Duty for 4 hours this weekend – not that I need to. However gaming is a really interesting thing because although long sessions are common amongst young people – the actual depth of the interaction is quite fast paced and repetitive – meaning there is a lot of quick fire interactions going on.
Do you think your kids could get obsessed over reading War and Peace today? Just a question. And as for the title – well that was mostly just being provocactive
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my ranting and come back with such a measured response!
A great article, thanks for writing.
I think in many ways you’re right – the best theologians (Tom Wright comes to mind), tell the best stories, giving deep theological truths in narrative form (his “Virtue Reborn” is a great example of this). Jesus’ teaching is mainly in narrative and stories and parables, because they hook people and they give people something to remember. Almost certainly also why the majority of the Bible is in narrative form!
However, I wonder if there should be some caution – I’ve heard preachers who just tell “interesting stories”, where you come away amused, but only remember the story and not the point of it. But yes – more ‘theologian storytellers’ or ‘storyteller theologians’ would be a great boon to the church.
Thanks for taking the time to read the whole thing Tim.
I think you are right – some of the best theologians I know are also great story tellers – as I mention above, the likes of John Stott – a case in point.
I totally get where you are coming from about preachers who are all story and no doctrine – that it something to be cautious about. What I think I am calling for hear is for us to generally be more creative when it comes to bringing people the gospel – let’s keeping reviewing the format – which for the most part hasn’t truly changed in 2 millenia – but the generation that is coming up now need something fresh.
I think “On my way to church this morning” -type stories are the perfect example of form over substance. Bolting a funny story onto a deadly sermon doesn’t make sense on any level. The idea is surely that the core of the sermon is something that is in itself engaging, not that we need a narrative pill to make the theological medicine go down.
Wright is indeed a good example – he doesn’t make the story of, eg, First Century Israel exciting, he shows that the story was exciting already. That’s actually a less artificial approach than turning the First Century story into propositions and then trying to write another story to make the propositions palatable.
Hi James
First, it isn’t a long post.
Second, it’s a good post – are you aware of narrative critical studies of the gospels which begin to analyse the gospels and other books as narratives themselves; or of narrative theology which points out that the whole theological endeavour is shaped around God’s story and our interaction with that story? Lots of people in both of these fields would argue that humanity only understands stories and so everything we think is shaped by story narratives and plotlines and so on…So if our brains are naturally wired to stories, it seems sensible to do theology through story.
But where I differ is in your distinction between storytellers and theologians. That’s the wrong distinction to make. You may want to draw a distinction between theorists and practitioners, or particularists and generalists. But we don’t need less specialists in theology or any other walk of life (let’s have less physicists and more storytellers???). Theology is talk about God and is theology whether it is a bard telling a story; a group gathered around beer and curry; Rob Bell telling winsome stories and asking hard questions; or Tom Wright declaiming kingdom truths.
Let’s not dig a pit to throw the theologians in and then have a parade of storytellers dancing on top of it. Let’s acknowledge that we need all sorts – specialists, generalists, theorists, storytellers – so that we might just be able to catch a glimpse of the mighty God we serve.
And if that is defensive, sorry. But it’s not nice to read that you want less of the very kind of person God has called me to be. Was God wrong in his calling? Was I wrong in my listening? Am I not allowed to be me?
Pete
Hey Pete – not saying in a general sense that we need less theologians – they (you) are crucial to our pursuit of understanding God.
My point here is primarily that the emerging generation has a problem with church. They view it as a dogmatic and hostile environment, not one of creativity and engagement. Our content needs to be theologically sound, doctrinally correct and argumentatively robust – but it also needs to be creative, engaging and relevant.
You are a great example of someone who gets that – just wish there were more than did!
Yeh, tell it Pete! I get tired of people saying ‘less theology’ when that’s not what they mean, and perpetuating the bad image. Don’t be cheap just for the sake of a catchy title, James etal!
Otherwise – good post! Theology isn’t just stuff ‘about’, it’s lived experience too.
Thanks for taking the time to comment George. I totally agree that we don’t need less theology. But we do need less theologians that perpetuate the stereotype which I know a lot of people default to.
We need more theology if anything and creative, passionate and gifted storytellers to bring that theology (both historical and experiential) to the Church today.
We definitely need stories. Stories are fun, and interesting, and memorable, and persuasive. Theologians (and sociologists like me) should tell lots of stories (and we do).
But stories also have problems. Stories are great at posing questions and hints and provoking surprise, but they aren’t honestly very good at teaching. A story that teaches is called an infodump.
Stories are also hard to evaluate. The only way to challenge a story is to step back and analyse it – with theology (or logic, or science, etc). On their own, stories can persuasively point to almost anything – alien abduction, homeopathy, pyramid schemes. If we lose the ability to step back and find other ways of thinking, we’re entirely at the mercy of the best storyteller.
My 14 year-old is working through a 3″-thick compilation of Narnia books. She had a book of letters from WWI to read for school, and was initially unimpressed, but with a few pointers on how to get behind the letters to the story of the war and its effect on ordinary people she found, to her surprise, that it was quite compelling.
I agree that the church often does a terrible job of communicating with younger people, but I’m not sure we need much creativity with the story itself. The last couple of generations have had *less* exposure to the Christian narrative than any Western generation for centuries.
Rather than trying to turn the Bible into something else, I think that simply putting people in contact with what the Bible says has genuine novelty value today, even in many churches. I’ve tried this a few times in our own parish and, without any kind of spin or guidance, people’s jaws drop open as they realise there’s a whole world of meaning in the Bible that explanatory sermons had in some cases previously explained away.
Theology and story is not, of course, an “either or”. However, there is a time when theology must be wrapped in story to capture the heart. The exilic prophets did NOT evince any new theology – it was all well known from before the exile. However, what they did was to re-express that theology in a way which captured mind and heart. See a further explanation here:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stale-Bread-Handbook-Speaking-ebook/dp/B00653OXPY/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323374715&sr=1-2
Storytelling is all well and good, but there is a danger that concentrating on story may lead to a ‘dumbing-down’ of the subject matter and a subsequent distortion of the truth.
Be a storyteller, by all means, but make sure you are a theologian first!
Parallel names parallel thoughts.My family has been involved with the Aboriginal community in Australia since 1840. My great-great grandfather John Chivers came to Australia as a Primitive Methodist lay preacher with the idea of not only carving out a living for himself, but also converting the natives to Christianity. He soon gave up the idea as he realised that Aboriginal people had their own religion (Wandjinism), but to understand their religion you had to understand the stories that embodied it.In short, Aboriginal people believe in a non-interventionist God (Wandjina) who created the world as an act of imagination (the Dreaming) created the laws of nature and gave Man free will. Man therefore carries the Secret of Dreaming on behalf of all life forms and God’s only will is that human beings should care for the world and each other.In this sense then, Aboriginal religion is a humanist religion because it devotes no attention to pious worship, only how you act in the real world. Everything that happens is therefore due to human agency, either witting or unwitting. God does not cause shit to happen, it just happens because it has all been left up to us.Wandjina is therefore always drawn with eyes but no mouth. God sees everything, but says nothing. If anyone wants to know more go to my website anch check out my books. I have written the only books in the world that explain Aboriginal religion and the concepts of Spirit, Flesh and Skin. We have spent the last 200 years trying to pretend Aborigianal people had no religion and so herded them on to Missions and made them worship the white man’s God.If only we had listened to their stories properly, rather than judging them to be fanciful pagan tales of a primitive child-like people.