Missions: Reaching Non-literate Peoples

"What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. (Mark 4:30-34 NIV) Listen at BibleGateway.com.

How Salvation Came to Villages in Asia

Village literacy among this people group was found to be 0.08%. The Santal people [of South Asia] have no written history and do not rely on written documents for evidence or for credibility. They rely on what the elders have decided or what the elders say. A Christian outreach effort went to a Santal village and met Marandi, a man who had never been to school. They presented the gospel using oral methods, including stories, visual aids, dramas, songs, dances, and testimonies. Marandi trusted Christ and shared his testimony with his family, who also believed and were baptized. He then went to other relatives and shared his new faith with them, using many of the same oral methods. They also believed and were baptized. He then formed a team of believers, all oral communicators, who went to neighbouring villages using the same combination of stories, dramas, songs, etc. People in those villages accepted Christ, too. Those new believers formed their own teams and they went to yet other villages, still using the same basic strategies that had been introduced in the beginning. Many Santal people believed and they then formed their own outreach teams. The movement continues today among the Santal people.

This story is quoted is from the chapter, “Reproducibility, Reproducibility, Reproducibility” in ION’s online book Making Disciples of Oral Learners.

Who Are The Oral Majority?

“Seventy percent of the world’s people today can’t, don’t, or won’t read…”—Avery Willis, International Orality Network (ION)

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus and his band of disciples proclaimed a revolutionary message through stories, parables, and proverbs. Although few members of the early church could read or write, the message of the gospel took root, owing partly to its method of proclamation. Today, a number of mission leaders are calling for a return to Jesus' oral method of communicating. The majority of the world's people, they say, won't be reached any other way…

…nearly 90 percent of the world's Christian workers serve among auditory learners and often use inappropriate, literacy-based communication styles…

Since the printing of the Gutenberg Bible,… Western Christianity "has walked on literate feet," indirectly requiring literacy for evangelism and discipleship. Yet more than 4 billion of the world's people are oral learners. According to the 2004 Lausanne paper "Making Disciples of Oral Learners," nearly 90 percent of the world's Christian workers serve among auditory learners and often use inappropriate, literacy-based communication styles…

Outreach Methods for Oral Learners

Reaching the oral majority for Christ requires communicating in forms familiar to oral cultures, such as stories, proverbs, drama, songs, chants, and poetry… Morgan Jackson, international director of Hosanna/Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH), affirms that, ideally, “orality never moves people away from literacy—it moves them to literacy.”

Reaching the oral majority for Christ requires communicating in forms familiar to oral cultures, such as stories, proverbs, drama, songs, chants, and poetry…

Working with Wycliffe and national Bible societies, Jackson’s ministry records and distributes Scripture readings around the world. After hearing the Scriptures, many listeners immediately want to read the Bible themselves, Jackson says.

Scripture Listening Groups & The JESUS Film Project

Last year, FCBH joined the JESUS Film Project to test an outreach program in 28 languages. Following more than 4,000 showings of the JESUS film, local volunteers trained by FCBH led weekly Scripture-listening and discussion groups. The results surpassed all expectations. In Nigeria 10,000 people made decisions for Christ, and 7,900 joined listening groups. Six months later, 42 of the groups had become churches. “Before, when you showed the JESUS film in some places,” Jackson says, “people came to Christ, but you could come back six months later and nothing would exist.”

It can take time to train cross-cultural workers in oral techniques, which require a greater appreciation for the concrete. Trans World Radio’s training courses contrast how oral and literate learners think.

“When we’re taught to read and write, one of our first lesions in literacy is categorizing shapes into circles, triangles, and squares,” media services officer Tom Tatlow says. “But an oral person would say, ‘That’s a wheel, a pie, or a box…’”

Following more than 4,000 showings of the JESUS film, local volunteers trained by FCBH led weekly Scripture-listening and discussion groups. The results surpassed all expectations.

While orality may make headlines in the West, its strategies aren’t novel for majority-world Christians, says Scott Moreau, editor of Evangelical Missions Quarterly and chair of Wheaton Graduate School’s intercultural studies department. Moreau points to the explosion of the church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the last 50 years.

“We might be reinventing a wheel that they’ve been using a long time,” he says. “But it’s exciting that we’re discovering for ourselves what’s going on and using it to the kingdom’s advantage.”

This excerpt is quoted from CT’s article, “Winning the Oral Majority” by Dawn Herzog Jewell. Click here to learn more about the newly formed International Orality Network (ION), a partnership of 22 mission agencies including the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board (IMB), Youth With a Mission (YWAM), Trans World Radio, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Orality at Home—Biblical Relevancy in Postmodern Culture

Mark Galli interviewed Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky about his views on evangelical theology in Christianity Today. In his book, The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism, and Wesleyanism, Witherington makes a positive argument for how biblical interpretation should be done in an increasingly postmodern setting.

Q. In the book, your theological critique is made on the way to discussing a larger concern.

A. I think part of the problem is that we are still doing theology in an Enlightenment frame of mind, as if it were a string of ideas that we should logically link together, and once we’ve produced a nice logical circle, then we’re home free. The truth is that life is a lot messier than that, and the Bible is more about stories than the history of ideas that are embedded in the stories.

Q. Many would argue that while that may be true of the Old Testament books of history, the Gospels, or Acts of the Apostles, it’s not true of Paul—the didactic teacher par excellence.

A. That view of Paul is a travesty. It treats Paul’s letters as if they were theological treatises, which they certainly are not. Paul is operating out of his storied world. He is theologizing and ethicizing into particular situations. His letters are not an abstract collection of eternal principles that we can then link. He’s a pastor preaching, if you will, proclaiming, persuading his audiences on particular points. The question is: What was he theologizing out of? And the answer is: his storied world—in particular, the story of Jesus Christ. “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you,” he says to the Corinthians, “except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” These are not abstract ideas. He’s talking about historical events and their theological and ethical significance. So the root of the matter is story.

I think the oral dimension of the biblical world, very much connected to storytelling, is a crucial dimension and is a key to understanding the theology in those texts.

When Paul thinks about sin and the fall, he thinks about Adam. When he thinks about he law, he thinks about the story of Moses. When he thinks about faith, he thinks about the story of Abraham. And, obviously, when he thinks about salvation, he thinks about the story of Jesus. So these big-ticket theological ideas are grounded in stories…

The Bible was not written in a text-oriented culture but for an oral culture. So these documents were meant to be heard. When you read them out loud in Greek, you notice alliteration and poetry and all kinds of things going on that are totally lost in translation. I think the oral dimension of the biblical world, very much connected to storytelling, is a crucial dimension and is a key to understanding the theology in those texts.

Q. Perhaps in a postmodern culture—where image and story are more important than text and didactic argument—the Bible is more relevant than ever.

A. Exactly. In the 21st century, we’re moving increasingly in a postmodern direction. We have a new opportunity to re-engage the biblical text, which is trying to present word pictures and stories to a world that wants not just answers to its questions, but also its imagination fired up. That’s what this visual dimension of the text does.

Do you consider yourself an oral learner? Are your children?

Photo Credits: bonbongirl, YEHUDACO, Kevin, GoBot, saimens, thejulietfiles (Flickr)

Bookmark This