Oral Bible Storying as a Tool for Evangelism and Discipleship

One of the best tools we discovered last year shortly before our trips to Ethiopia was this concept of Oral Storying, or story-telling as a means of evangelism and discipleship in non-Western cultures. Story-telling is the principle means by which people in the majority of the world learn everything from farming to leadership to directions to the neighbor's house. Ironically, if you read through the gospels, you see Jesus using this as his primary means of teaching and training for the crowds as well as the disciples.

Recently, the Lausanne Movement (http://www.lausanne.org/), "a worldwide movement that mobilizes evangelical leaders to collaborate for world evangelization" has posted some thoughts on the value and necessity of this strategy for reaching the unreached people groups of the world. Here are 3 recent posts on this topic.

Oral Bible Storytelling -- Why This and Why Now?

http://conversation.lausanne.org/resources/detail/10042

Oral Bible Storying Part II

http://conversation.lausanne.org/conversations/detail/10217

Bible Storying as Entry, Presence, and Exit Strategy

http://conversation.lausanne.org/resources/detail/10112

Ramping up for Ethiopia in 2010

That long silence you've heard here on the blog is us preparing yet another two teams for a great week of ministry in Ethiopia. We have spent the past several months casting the vision for these trips, sorting through applications and interviews, prayerfully selecting our teams, and now training those teams both for a week of ministry in Ethiopia and for ongoing lifetime ministry here in Dallas or wherever the Lord may take us.

Tonight, our teams begin a portion of our training where we meet for 5 weeks to do some specific heart and head work in preparation for our trips. Namely, we'll be working on developing our personal story of grace, learning to effectively use the Evangecube, and discovering how to implement the art form of oral storytelling as a means to engage with the hearts of the people of Ethiopia.

Please be praying for our teams as we begin to make these preparations for a trip that is just over two months away now. Can't wait!