I’ve been using the term “narrative” recently, and since Friday is generally for Futuristics, this seems a good time to expound on the meaning of the term.
No event happens in isolation. If something happens, something caused it: whether riots, hurricanes, the shocking revelation of a politician’s moral failure, or a church planting movement somewhere unexpected. The challenge to the believability of an event is that we don’t know and/or can’t imagine the cause.
1. What is the narrative?
Since no event happens in isolation, we can also say that the cause of a specific event doesn’t happen in isolation either. If B leads to C, you can be sure that A leads to B. To further the complexity: a single event could have multiple causes which come together. For example, consider the Arab Spring: what gave rise to it? Was it Facebook? was it the economy? Was it the rise in mobile phones? Was it corruption? Simply eliminating one cause is not enough to stop the events from happening.
Once A leads to B, and B leads to C, then you have a bit of momentum and it seems much easier for C to lead to D. You start heading down a path, and it becomes a “trend”–which simply means a journey with some momentum behind it.
Let’s consider an example. John is going to take a short-term mission trip, leaving his home in Atlanta and going for several months to China. When John is just “considering” the trip, he is less likely to actually do it. Once he begins talking to a few close friends, he has become more public about it. His friends will ask him later whether he is still thinking about going. When he actually sends out a fundraising letter or starts meeting with people to ask for their support, he has even more momentum. The first few donations gives him more still. Each step “closes off” the don’t-do-it path and enables the do-it path, providing both resources and accountability.
You’re probably thinking, “this seems obvious.” It is, when you think about it. The narrative, then, is simply the “story” of the event, the trendline in which the event is placed. It is all of the things that led up to and caused the event–but also where the next part of the story is going.
Sometimes the “true” narrative is difficult to see. We can, on occasion, get wrapped up in a deceptive narrative, a surface narrative, that tries or purports to explain what’s going on, and miss the reality. There have been several false narratives around the Arab Spring in Egypt, for example. This is one reason it’s important to deeply investigate and consider every angle–even angles that you might not initially agree with.
2. Why is the narrative important?
That the event happened is easy to tell. The cause of the event is rather more difficult to ascertain. The complete narrative will probably never be known in full–but at least some parts might be. Understanding the narrative helps us to know where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. Narratives and trends are always more important than events.
We react to events. We cannot change the fact that something happened (unless you happen to have a telephone booth handy). On the other hand, we can engage trends. We can do things which change where the event is headed.
3. Why is the narrative important to the church?
The church, as we are told time and again, is not the building–it’s the people. People are impacted by more than one narrative. People in the church aren’t “outside” the stream of the narratives in the world. They are affected by trends in marriage, in getting jobs, in political realities.
Egypt, for example, is presently feeling three narratives: the silent stability-seekers, the entrepreneurial migrators, and the voice-raisers. These three trends will impact the church as well. Should the church be silent? How should the church react to its youngest, brightest members going off to Europe to seek jobs? Should the church stand up as part of the protests? With whom should they stand?
Understanding these narratives helps us to gauge their impact on the church. This is the primary impact: a narrative can empower or suppress a particular niche group’s ability to write a narrative that impacts others. To have influence. To help set the tone and the trend toward the future–either toward God’s blessings, or away from them.
So as we journal specific events, we will always seek to place them in the context of a narrative. When we write regional trend pieces, we are laboring to document the narrative. The reason is simple. If we know the narrative, we can potentially identify “points of investment” (to use Rudolf K.’s phrase to me): a point at which we can invest time, energy, resources, influence, words and potentially “twist the plot” and change the direction of the narrative.
You can be the wrinkle in time: the plot twist. But only if you know the full direction of the story!
{ 0 comments… add one now }