{"id":51,"date":"2014-06-20T13:15:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T13:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2014-08-11T21:18:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T21:18:56","slug":"the-power-of-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-power-of-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stories are powerful!\u00a0 Embedded in story is the ability to touch another soul.\u00a0 Story goes beyond communicating facts at a purely intellectual level, rather, story communicates by touching the intellect, emotions and the soul of another.\u00a0 For myself, most of my upbringing was filled with story.\u00a0 My dad, the great fisherman, would at least once a week take my brother and I fishing to the Susquehanna River.\u00a0 While fishing we would here great tales of the fish previous caught and more importantly the monster which inevitably got away.\u00a0 Some were more than likely true, while yet others were simply tales.\u00a0 Either way, they were compelling and captured our full attention.\u00a0 I remember one evening while fishing my dad telling us about the great Agnes flood of 1972.\u00a0 Just as we passed under the great stone railroad bridge in our boat, my dad pointed up and said, \u201cIn the flood of 1972, the water level raised to a point that was 30 feet above the bridge.\u201d \u00a0Engineers, in attempts to save the \u201coldest, longest, stone bridge in the world\u201d, decided to place a 100 locomotives<\/strong> and another 200 full train cars on top the bridge prior to flooding.\u00a0 Their goal was to secure the bridge by weighting it down.\u00a0 Two days later the water peaked 30 ft. above the rail cars.\u00a0 Not till the water receded did they know if there plan had worked.\u00a0 Just as my dad was telling the story, a train whistle blew.\u00a0 Well, you know the end of the story.<\/p>\n

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This past week while reading\u00a0 Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, I was struck by the rivals similar awareness of each person having an unusual talent.\u00a0 Lincoln in particular faced longer odds then his counterparts, yet had an uncanny ability for storytelling.\u00a0 This storytelling bloomed and was refined at Knob Creek farm as Lincoln grew up located along the Cumberland trail.\u00a0 In his raise to greatness story would propel him to be one of the greatest leaders ever to be recognized.\u00a0 The following are three concepts which emerged in regards to story while reading about Lincoln\u2019s longing to rise.<\/p>\n

Three Concepts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sovereign Beginnings\u2026\u00a0 <\/strong>Exceptional story telling doesn\u2019t just happen.\u00a0 It takes years of refinement.\u00a0 Sitting at the feet of other great story tellers, refines one\u2019s ability to tell story.\u00a0 Lincoln refined his story telling by listening to the journeyman coming off the Cumberland Trail.\u00a0 It was later in life that Lincoln realized the power of story.\u00a0 Once realizing this strength, he was then able to rest on his sovereign beginnings and training as a child.<\/p>\n

A Deeper Influence\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0 Story provides the opportunity to connect on a deeper level with those listening.\u00a0 A good story moves beyond the facts, capturing a listener by engaging the emotion and the soul.\u00a0 When one hears a story, they automatically place themselves into the situation.\u00a0 Once captured, the individual no longer processes information from mere fact, but rather from a positional embodiment.\u00a0 They are now in the story, or for you as the speaker, now in your message.<\/p>\n

A Gift to Steward\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0 Stories are powerful.\u00a0 So powerful, that it is a gift which should be stewarded and used with care.\u00a0 If story has the ability to shape, capture and change another, then it must used with wisdom.\u00a0 Embedded into story is the need to be honest and truthful.\u00a0 Some who have been known as great story tellers, often feel the need to embellish, expand or gently manipulate the facts.\u00a0 Story tellers must be wise in learning how to steward their gifts while maintaining integrity and character in their craft.<\/p>\n

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As we passed under the bridge that day, \u201cI asked my dad why the bridge was so important?\u201d\u00a0 He looked at me and said, \u201cBecause it\u2019s one of the bridges Abraham Lincoln passed over, while riding the train to make the Gettysburg address<\/strong>!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stories are powerful!\u00a0 Embedded in story is the ability to touch another soul.\u00a0 Story goes beyond communicating facts at a purely intellectual level, rather, story communicates by touching the intellect, emotions and the soul of another.\u00a0 For myself, most of my upbringing was filled with story.\u00a0 My dad, the great fisherman, would at least once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,27],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-goodwin","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1366,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/1366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}