Orality - hearing the stories

There is a man called Vijay who speaks a minority language in Northern India. He recently graduated, along with 22 others, who spoke a total of eight different languages, from a training workshop for storytellers sponsored by the New India Evangeslistic Association, (facilitated by The Seed Company part of Wycliffe Bible Translators). They were taught how to share the Bible from Creation to Christ through stories in their mother tongue.

The success was significant. Ten months after the workshops started, mother tongue Scriptures were available to 65 million people in the form of Biblically accurate, culturally relevant, oral stories. In three of the languages these stories represent access to Scripture for the very first time.

The International Orality Network (ION) has joined together with over 100 mission organizations and denominations. They are experiencing increased effectiveness using oral strategies to bring the Scriptures to the very ends of the earth. For example after training 50 non literate Christians in India how to share Scriptures using stories, those Christians went on to lead 4,607 people to Jesus (a six fold increase over previous methods) and planted 198 churches (a 20 fold increase).

Avery Willis