Sharing the Gospel through Storying

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

God has been really gracious to us in our preparation for this trip. This is a new venture for Watermark and we really have very little idea of what to expect once we get on the ground in Asela. We began making plans several months ago for things we thought would be effective or helpful, but have prayed along the way for God to reveal ways we can be most effective for Him. He has been gracious in answering those prayers.

Our biggest turning point came in talking with a pastor in San Diego who has led several trips with E3 to this area of Ethiopia. He shared with us a technique that they have found to be the most beneficial in their outreach to the Oromo called storying.

Traditionally, E3 has encouraged their teams to use the Evangecube, a great tool with pictures that help tell the story of the gospel. However, as we learned, this tool can be offensive to a largely Muslim crowd because their tradition says that they should not have any images of any of their prophets, Jesus being one. So, E3 and members of their team have worked to help teams craft biblical stories to share orally. Again, this is part of their culture. Everything they teach or learn, they do through storytelling. They do not teach or learn the way we do through inductive reasoning, arguments, or three-point outlines. They also are less likely to argue with a story.

So, we've been working with our teams to share their own story of grace, but then to pair that with a "God story" that they internalize and share. Our kids teams are also using this same technique to teach kids, sharing stories of Jesus, and the evenings should allow for us to gather villagers under a tree somewhere and just share stories.

What this will do for our team is really cause us to rely on the truth of Hebrews 4:12 and the power of the Spirit to reveal himself through these stories. If you look at the stories Jesus told, he often ended with the phrase, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." That's exactly what we will do. We will share the story of Abraham and Isaac, for instance, ask if they'd like us to share it again, and then ask if one of them can repeat the story back to us. Then we'll ask about 5 questions (i.e. What did you like about the story? What didn't you like about the story? What did the story teach you about God? What did the story teach you about people? What did you learn in this story that you would like to put into practice?) and pray like crazy that people will hear the truth of God's Word.

This will be a great stretching experience for our Westernized minds and the temptation to present our argument will be there for sure. But as you pray for our team and for the Oromo people, pray that God would reveal himself to them through these stories, that we will be sensitive to the Spirit's leading as we share these stories, and that we would be patient to wait on the fruit of our time, realizing that we may be there merely to plant the seed and others will come along to reap the harvest.