PART 5 – EXPLORING THE EMOTIONS
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Chapter 23 - ADVERTISING OUR EMOTIONS
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Advertisers have appreciated, for a long time, that triggering an emotional response from the audience is a vital component of any successful marketing campaign. U.K. retailer John Lewis, for instance, have run a very successful Christmas advertising campaign since 2007, which ignores the hard sell, and instead tells heart-warming stories. Their Christmas ads are now eagerly anticipated, and the 2015 ad, which featured a child sending a Christmas present to a rather lonely man-on-the-moon, was referenced 23,000 times on social media within just two hours of being released.
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According to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, marketing which relies on emotional content performs twice as well as campaigns based around rational thinking.
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The same principle applies to stories or videos that “go viral” on the internet. Stories that are awe-inspiring, amusing, or funny are much more likely to be shared than other types of emotional content, but the fear/anxiety factor can also bring a high level of response. A brief look at YouTube favourites will reveal a morbid interest in stuff like unexplained events, UFOs and conspiracy theories.
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It’s also true that we remember past events in our own lives that trigger strong emotional reactions, whether the emotions are positive or negative. My very first memory is of my mother feeding me biscuits that had been dunked in her tea. I remember feeling disgusted by the soggy texture, and would have much preferred a nice crisp biscuit that I could have crunched between my toothless gums! The memory obviously had a huge impact on my life, as I still have an aversion to soggy food, and prefer, for instance, crunchy breakfast cereal and crispy bacon. And I always drink coffee rather than tea! That example shows that the emotional response we have to the stories or events that we remember can have a lasting impact on our lives and even change our behaviour.
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Our western, analytical response to learning often affects the way we look at the stories of the Bible. So often we will listen attentively to the Sunday sermon, maybe derive some doctrinal or theological application, and then store the information away somewhere in our left hemisphere for future reference. Our response is too analytical, to cerebral, and consequently may have little impact on our heart response. On Monday morning we go back to our regular daily routine and nothing has changed.
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We can reflect on the stories we have studied so far, and note how many times the emotional impact of the events experienced dramatically change the lives of those involved…
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The man who was delivered from the “legion” of evil spirits was dramatically changed by Jesus’ intervention and moved to travel the towns of the Decapolis sharing the Good News of Jesus’ power to heal and to save.
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Ezekiel was moved to wonder and worship by his visions, and strengthened for the difficult ministry God had prepared for him.
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Naomi was healed and restored from her grief experience by God’s intervention, and Ruth’s sacrificial commitment, and was able to move on to a new life, and new blessings, as carer and nourisher of her new grandson.
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Joseph was lifted up, spiritually as well as politically, by God’s transforming power, and was able to put behind him the trials and traumas of his past life and settle down to his new role with the assurance that God was with him in the land where he was an exile.
All these examples (and so many more) are illustrations of the way God wants to transform our lives and change us emotionally, spiritually, practically, so that we can serve him with our whole heart, soul and mind. But for that to happen, we need to allow the stories of the Bible to move us emotionally – “truly, madly, deeply” – as well as intellectually.
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About 2002-3, my wife and I were invited to run some storying workshops in Khartoum. Unexpectedly, we ended up running a seminar for several young men who had fled the fighting in Dharfur, and were all making a living driving tuk-tuks around the city. “Joseph is just like us”, they said, after we had finished working through the Joseph story. “We have been badly treated by our brothers. We are exiles from our homeland, and separated from our families, just like Joseph. But now we know that God will never forget us, he will always look after us, and we can find new purpose and new hope in this situation where God has put us.”
What a truly amazing response! It was a great blessing to us to see how the story had spoken so powerfully to them, and how their identification with Joseph’s experience gave them a new faith in God and new hope for the future.
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So let’s move on to the next episode of the Joseph story and see what we can learn from following the emotional roller-coaster of Joseph’s brothers’ journeys into Egypt, to buy food for their family.
