Storytelling in my daily life

I have been pondering how storytelling is present daily in my life. I don't listen to NPR (or at least, not for the story shows; only for the news while commuting), don't listen to books on tape, and don't even generate wild tales of my own life. When I was in college, I tried to turn my adventures in to epic stories, but seem to lack follow-through. I do, though, attend church, and while a sermon is not the same as a story, the pastor uses stories to illustrate points in the sermon.

Today, our pastor began the sermon with a few short stories (maybe 45 seconds long each) about children's prayers and their assumptions in their lives. He then preached on the topic of prayer, but continued using stories to illustrate his point. Our pastor always uses sports analogies (which I usually tune out), but today, he used a You Tube video to illustrate the way Little League baseball players' attitudes and outcomes change when they were "in the Big Leagues" (part of an every-day Improv program).



The storytelling elements that seemed evident were the use of props (the PowerPoint and the video), the hook to listen to the story, and the modulation of voice.