More than half the people worldwide have a strong preference for oral communication. Reading takes a minor role, if any at all, in the ways they gather and share the information needed to live their daily lives.
In many countries the percentage of such nonliterate people is actually increasing because literacy efforts are not keeping pace with population growth, and because most oral communicators see no reason for learning to read.
Learning to tell biblical stories also equips every person in the church to share God’s Word, regardless of their level of schooling. As a result, believers are no longer entirely dependent on a trained specialist such as a pastor to learn, understand and proclaim the Word of God.
And yet, think about this: the church's activities revolve almost entirely around literate methods -- a printed Bible, hymnbooks, printed sermon notes, printed study materials and other literature. Those who are unable to read are largely excluded from participating in the life of the church. Could we teach them all to read? Not in our lifetime or theirs. Becoming literate in a non-literate culture is very difficult. For an adult to learn to read at an elementary level takes at least three years, and to begin to think in literate patterns requires as much as eight years of schooling.
Oral communicators understand best when things are taught in concrete ways related to that which is already familiar to them. Surprisingly, the Bible is uniquely suited for communicating with such oral peoples. Jesus was a master at this; he told stories about shepherds, fishing, agriculture and rich people and poor people, so his hearers were able to understand the spiritual truths that paralleled these stories.
Learning to tell biblical stories also equips every person in the church to share God’s Word, regardless of their level of schooling. As a result, believers are no longer entirely dependent on a trained specialist such as a pastor to learn, understand and proclaim the Word of God. This empowers the local church because multiple voices are proclaiming God's Word instead of only the paid professional worker.
My experience in oral contexts has shown that storytelling is a far more effective way of relaying Bible knowledge than methods that grew from print technology. After observing this over the past two decades, I’ve concluded that it is impossible to overstate the impact that a Bible story can have for a person in a non-literate culture.
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