Making Disciples of Oral Learners
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
From the time of the Gutenberg Bible, Christianity “has walked on literate feet” and has directly or indirectly required literacy of others. However, 70% of all people in the world are oral communicators • those who can’t, don’t, or won’t learn through literate means. Four billion in our world are at risk of a Christless eternity unless literate Christians make significant changes in evangelism, discipleship, leader training and church planting.
Making disciples of oral learners means using communication forms that are familiar within the culture: stories, proverbs, drama, songs, chants, and poetry. Literate approaches rely on lists, outlines, word studies, apologetics and theological jargon. These literate methods are largely ineffective among two-thirds of the world’s peoples. Of necessity, making disciples of oral learners depends on communicating God’s word with varied cultures in relevant ways. Only then will the gospel be able to reach to “the uttermost parts of the earth.”
Key Issues for the Church to Address:
Five aspects of making disciples of oral learners in the context of the Great Commission must be considered vital to “finishing the task”:
Make the word of God available to unreached peoples using appropriate oral strategies.
The church is commanded by Christ to “make disciples of all peoples” which certainly includes the vast majority of the yet unreached oral learners. Providing an “oral Bible” allows God’s word to be produced accurately from memory for the purpose of re-telling. The “oral Bible” is the singular key to unlocking Church Planting Movements among unreached people groups. However, that “oral Bible” must penetrate the people group to its worldview level belief system. Only then will a Bible become meaningful and useful. The only Bible that will be effective during the lifetime of the vast majority of unreached people is an “oral Bible,” probably best presented in narrative form. It is important for the church to understand that a written version of Scripture does not even exist for the majority of languages. Even if literacy were achieved, the Bible would still not exist in some 4,000 languages (see further in Chapter 2 below).
Use oral communication patterns which allow the whole community to hear clearly in their mother tongue, to understand, respond and reproduce the message of the gospel.
Literate church leaders and their missionaries should master new ways of preaching and teaching. Effective ministries among those with an oral learning preference will use communication forms already in place within their own culture. If the gospel is to spread freely and rapidly within an unreached people group, strategists working in that group must do their best to avoid methodology that hinders oral peoples from winning and discipling their own families, friends and others. Training models will be most effective when they take orality into consideration. Churches will then begin to see training and new leaders emerge from within the oral peoples. These leaders will facilitate church-planting movements to rapidly disciple and equip leaders for the new churches as leaders are raised up by the Holy Spirit.
Avoid syncretism by making disciples of oral learners using oral means.
If the church is going to avoid syncretism, then the gospel needs to be communicated in the mother tongue of the people we are trying to reach. Both evangelistic as well as discipleship materials cannot be generic but will need to be developed with the worldview of the target people. The stories chosen and the manner in which they are communicated will have to transform the worldview of those who are seeing or hearing the stories. A recorded oral Bible will help serve as a standard to ensure the transmission of the stories remains accurate. These methods will help ensure the church remains true to the historic beliefs of Christianity and does not mix traditional beliefs in their doctrines or practices.
Equip relational-narrative communicators to make disciples.
Oral strategies provide multiple ways for effectively engaging a people group to readily involve oral communicators in efforts to reach their own people group and others with the gospel. Storying is one reproducible evangelistic and church-planting approach – new believers can readily share the gospel, plant new churches and disciple new believers in the same way that they themselves were reached and discipled.
Increase Effectiveness among Secondary Oral Learners.
Oral strategies are also necessary in reaching people whose orality is tied to electronic media. They may be able to read well, but get most of the important information in their lives through stories and music coming through radio, television, film, Internet and other electronic means. We need oral strategies focused on this segment of the world population, too.
How Orality Works on the Local Level
While a storying strategy seems to be one that is particularly appropriate with unreached people groups, many established churches, especially in relational cultures, have found significant benefits to the chronological storying approach.
In Evangelism: One missionary couple cautiously entered a West Africa Muslim village. My husband and I asked permission of the village chief to live among the people in order to learn more about them. After living among the people, we asked the chief for permission to share God’s word in the village. He gave us permission to do whatever we wanted. We did not discuss the religion of Christianity or talk about ‘the Christian way.’ We never discussed Islam, Muhammad or the Quran or the differences between Christianity and Islam. We were there to teach God’s word under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We chose to use only the storying method, to teach the stories of the Bible chronologically and bring out the truths the people needed to know in order to understand the gospel. They began storying in small groups throughout the village and distributed storying cassettes to those who asked. The Imam used some of the stories in his sermons and gave his people permission to listen to the stories. During the next year 20 individuals became followers of Jesus.
In Discipleship: The Puinave people were re-discipled when missionaries discovered syncretism. Although the Puinave had become culturally “Christian” in the 1950s, they mixed magic with Christian do’s and don’ts. Many misunderstandings resulted from using the trade language, Spanish. When New Tribes missionaries spent seven years learning the difficult Puinave language in the 1970s, they were surprised at the actual beliefs held among the people. At first, the missionaries tried teaching the Bible using traditional teaching methods. The Puinave nodded their agreement, but obviously missed many of the key points. It was only through a chronological presentation of God’s word, Old Testament and on to the Gospels, story by story, that they were able to vividly portray the holy nature and character of God, the sinful condition of man, the grip that Satan has on this world and the redeeming solution to man’s predicament found in Jesus Christ. Later, the village elder observed, “I came just this close from going to hell…” holding up his thumb and forefinger. In 1998, New Tribes Mission made this story into a movie titled Now We See Clearly.
In Church Leader Training: In a north African Muslim-dominated country, 17 young men (many of whom could barely read and write and some not at all) underwent a two-year leader training program using chronological Bible storying. At the end of two years, students mastered approximately 135 biblical stories in their correct chronological order, spanning from Genesis to Revelation. They were able to tell the stories, compose from one to five songs for each story and enact dramas about each of the stories. A seminary professor gave them a six-hour oral exam. They demonstrated the ability to answer questions about both the facts and theology of the stories and showed an excellent grasp of the gospel message, the nature of God and their new life in Christ. The students quickly and skilfully referred to the stories to answer a variety of theological questions.
In Church Planting: In South America, Jeremy, an IMB worker, joined a larger team that included Wycliffe translation workers. Working with stories adapted from a neighbouring language, Jeremy instilled vision for the storying process in two mother tongue storyers and coached them through learning the stories and telling them to others. Jeremy’s two-year involvement has been a significant contributing factor toward a church-planting movement that now has resulted in as many as 20% of the people group becoming believers. In the two years since Jeremy’s departure, storyers continue to go to new, unreached villages up and down the river, telling the stories and evangelizing.
These are but a few ways that oral strategies are facilitating God’s redemptive work among oral peoples on many continents.
Conclusions, Challenge, and Recommendations
The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization included “Making Disciples of Oral Learners” as an Issue Group for the first time in 2004. An estimated 90% of the world’s Christian workers work among oral peoples using literate communication styles. Orality issues raise an urgent cry for effectiveness.
What a challenge! Yet, more than four billion people in our world need a customized strategy delivered in a culturally appropriate manner in order for them to hear, understand, respond to, and reproduce. The church today must embrace oral communicators as partners–together making disciples of all peoples to the glory of God! . . .
