Roger Schank, Yale University Dean of Psychology, gave a lecture in 1989 at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, titled "Story Based Reasoning". He stated that intelligence and communication is primarily centered around the telling and referencing of well known stories. He then continued the lecture as a series of stories.
Stories reform and reframe our memories. There is no other better way to affect the world short of performing miracles, which themselves are a story about God's love for us. Jesus modeled this precisely during his earthly ministry.
A captivating story is simply the pronouncement of the "ordinary extraordinary", the stream of little miracles that compose the fabric of our lives, but are commonly ignored in their magnificence.