Reaching Oral Learners - Testimony from E3 Partners

Here at Trinity International Baptist Mission, we are giving a lot of thought and prayer towards the issue of orality and its implications for how we carry out the work of the Kingdom in our context.  The question on my heart for my team is, "Can we all become well-equipped as Bible storytellers?"  To this end, we are looking at developing a plan to get us there.  How about you and your church or mission team?  Have you given this subject any thought?  Below is a pretty compelling video introducing and testifying to the way the Lord is using orality strategies in mission.

Orality Strategies- Great resource!

Today, I just want to recommend a resource to those of you that are utilizing a storying approach to sharing Biblical truth in your evangelism and discipleship. Orality Strategies is a "go to" site for me because it contains tons of information, resources, case studies, videos, storying sets and more.

I was just using it today as I was trying to choose stories for a 10 Commandments series that I am teaching. I enjoyed seeing the many different themes that have been used to create story sets. Take a look and I'm sure you'll find some very useful stuff.

Orality Strategies

Noah in Cross-Cultural Context (Pt.4): How does the Story Sound to Them?

Well, back to my reflections on preaching Noah cross-culturally at TriEak Parmeshwar Mandali (TPM), the Nepali-speaking church that I pastor in the Chicago area.  This is part 4, if you’re counting.

 

If you remember, I preached through Noah over the course of 2 Sundays.  We used improvisational drama to aid our story-telling during the first week.  However, I knew that we would need to do a quick recounting of the story during the second Sunday as well.  I want to share today how we did that and a couple considerations.

I began my preparation by looking at the Chronological Bible Storying version of the Noah story in Nepali that has been produced by Orality Strategies.  At first, I thought I would simply play the MP3 of this story for the congregation as a quick way to review the narrative.  However, as I looked at the Orality Strategies (OS) version of the story, I noticed some potential trouble spots.

The first is that the OS version doesn’t say anything about Noah’s faith.  I understand that this is in keeping with the Genesis version of the story.  However, I think that a fuller Biblical understanding of Noah requires us to at least mention Noah’s faith (Heb. 11:7).  Plus, I feel the concept of faith needs to be emphasized as much as possible.  This is perhaps not a concern particular to Nepalis, Hindus, or South Asians; but it is easy for me to imagine someone listening to the Noah story for the first time and assuming that Noah was chosen because of his sinlessness. 

To remedy this, I edited the text of the OS Noah story to include a sentence that (translated from Nepali) goes something like this, “In that generation there was one man who had faith in God’s name. His name was Noah.”

The second issue revolved around the issue of “eating blood.” You may not remember, but towards the end of the Noah account in Genesis, God grants that Noah can eat animals just as he had previously been able to eat plants.  However, God gives him the command that he shouldn’t eat meat with its “lifeblood still in it” (Gen. 9:4).  Interestingly enough, the composers of the OS version of the Noah story decided that in summarizing four chapters of Biblical text that it was important to include this command.  Well, they’ve not actually included the command, but interpreted it as, “When you kill them for food, do not eat their blood.”

Believe it or not, this can pose a significant problem in your Bible storying to Bhutanese and Nepali peoples.   The subject of eating blood is actually a point of tension and controversy between Nepali Christians and Hindus.  Some Hindus use blood to make a kind of soup in generally believe that it is good for your health.  On the other hand, I’ve heard Christians claim that this is a Satanic practice that one must give up in order to follow Jesus.  Knowing that this controversy was real, I decided to remove the line about not eating blood from the summary we used.  I felt that, in all likelihood, if I left it in, that would be the only issue people wanted to focus on and we would miss the larger and more significant points of the Biblical story.  I thought it better to save the “eating blood” controversy for another time.

So, my revised version of the Noah story is here.  Please note that I’m not revising the Bible, I’m revising a summary of Noah’s story for chronological Bible storying.  If you don’t know the difference between storying and reading the Bible outloud, I suggest taking a look at this site.

Let me close by articulating clearly an important lesson in all this.  As you communicate the story of the Scripture to your friends from other cultures, take time to carefully and prayerfully consider how the story will sound to them. This will be challenging to do, but it is essential.  It isn’t always a bad thing for the Biblical story you share to be heard differently that you expect or for certain themes to resonate with your audience in surprising ways.  However, you want to be careful that God’s word and spiritual truth are not being lost in translation. 

A friend of mine once told me of an experience he had of sharing about the “Parable of the Sower” in an African agricultural context.  He spoke of the seeds falling on different kinds of soils and producing different results.  The women who were listening completely missed the point of the story, “Well, isn’t that just what happens when you send a man to sow the seeds? He’ll never be careful, just throwing seeds all over the place!”

What Should Be our Priorities in Making Disciples of All Nations

Okay, I want to be simple here. First, super grateful for your prayers. I thought there would be no way for me to finish this paper - to stay awake. I even got in bed.  But as I started reading, my energy was renewed. Twenty pages finished. The paper?

"World Evangelization in the 21st Century: Prioritizing the Essential Elements of the Great Commission" by Paul Eshleman on behalf of the Lausanne Strategy Working Group (LSWG).

The paper is simple and crucial. It seeks to say to the Global Church, "As we look at the work of mission in the world today, here are the things that should be our top priorities." It is specific, Biblical, and compelling.  I read it with the eyes of a pastor, church planter, missionary, and ministry leader.  If you find yourself occupying one of those roles, read this paper.  If you are a disciple of Jesus concerned about the Great Commission, read it.

There is a lot I could say here and there in response to the LSWG paper.  However, I want to limit my comments to several specific questions that came to my mind as I thought through these priorities and specific calls.  I kept asking how this related to Trinity International Baptist Mission.  What is God saying to us?  I am expecting God to speak in powerful ways to me and to my context of ministry.  So, it is important that I bring my ministry and every component of it to the table.  I challenge you to do the same with your church or ministry as you read the LSWG paper.  Here are the questions I am beginning to ask (note: TIBM refers to Trinity International Baptist Mission and all our related ministries):

1. Can TIBM recruit and deploy one team tasked to produce an "Oral Story Bible" for one of the 2,252 language groups that still do not have one verse of Scripture in their language?

2. Can TIBM drastically increase our intentional and strategic distribution and use of the Scripture?

3. Can TIBM recruit and deploy one full-time worker to go to one of the 2,365 people groups (with populations over 5,000) that are totally unengaged with the Gospel?

4. Can TIBM launch a new ministry focused on reaching out to members of a major religious group that we aren't currently engaging?

5. Can I effectively teach effective Bible storying and narrative preaching to those I lead and mentor?

6. Can the entire TIBM team get trained in orality ministry?

7. Can TIBM start more churches where there are actual needs?

8. Can TIBM become a "house of prayer for the nations" - developing a 24/7 missional prayer ministry?

9. Can TIBM form new boundary-crossing partnerships that result in extending God's Kingdom?

10. Can TIBM become for faithfully mobilized in compassion ministry?

11. Can TIBM be renewed and refilled by the Holy Spirit?

12. Can TIBM become more effective and intentional in mobilizing followers of Christ to pray, give, and go for God's global mission?

13. Can TIBM become thoroughly and constantly informed as to the status of God's mission in the world?  Can we increase our access to and use of resources like Christian World Encyclopedia, Operation World, Ethnologue, Joshua Project, People Groups, and more?

14. Can TIBM conduct regular research and produce reliable results that are helpful to the Body of Christ?

And that's it. I am particularly looking forward to the plenary session on this topic and the interaction around the tables.  Let's pray that God will give us very clear direction.