What is Storying?
Pastor Dinanath of India tells his story of ministry among his people:
I was saved from a Hindu family in 1995 through a cross-cultural missionary. I had a desire to learn more about the word of God and I shared this with the missionary. The missionary sent me to Bible College in 1996. I finished my two years of theological study and came back to my village in 1998. I started sharing the good news in the way I learnt it the Bible College. To my surprise my people were not able to understand my message. A few people accepted the Lord after much labour. I continued to preach the gospel, but there were little results. I was discouraged and confused and did not know what to do.
But then Pastor Dinanath's story takes a major turn:
In 1999 I attended a seminar where I learnt how to communicate the gospel using different oral methods. I understood the problem in my communication as I was mostly using a lecture method of printed books, which I learnt in the Bible College. After the seminar I went to the village but this time I changed my way of communication. I started using a storytelling method in my native language. I used gospel songs and the traditional music of my people. This time the people in the villages began to understand the gospel in a better way. As a result of it people began to come in large numbers. Many accepted Christ and took baptism. There was one church with few baptized members in 1999 when I attened the seminar. But now in 2004, in sixyears we have 75 churches with 1350 baptized members and 100 more people are ready for baptism. *
The gospel is being taken and proclaimed to many people around the world, but they aren't hearing it. Nearly 70% of the world's population are oral learners either by necessity or by choice. To bring them an understanding of God, we need to communicate in their way.
The Basics of Storying **
Chronological Bible Storying is characterized by these fingerprints–
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Storying is chosen because it is the primary communic
ation means of the people group.
- Storying is based entirely on the Bible. The saying “Get people in the Word and the Word into people” holds true. Bible storying isn't coming up with allegories, or parables, or fictional narrative means of communicating what's in the Bible. Extra-biblical stories can be told in the dialog that follows, but the Bible story itself is set apart for their hearing.
- Storying has follow-up and dialog. Listeners need to process the details they've heard and interact with the story. No abstract concepts are presented, but they take the story in their minds and play with it to figure out the meaning.
- Storying is chronological and sequential. You can only tell the
stories in proper sequence because listeners become participants as the events unfold. One of the more difficult things for us to learn as westerners is that we should never “look ahead” to what's coming. When telling a story, we can only relate past events to present ones. Skipping ahead and rearranging things brings confusion.
- Stories are chosen based upon universal truths to be communicated. The dna of evangelism, follow-up, and discipleship is crucial. Stories should major on the majors.
- Stories are chosen based upon identified bridges and barriers in the people group's worldview. For example, a thread running through one people group's world-view is the fact that promises are never kept, so presenting the redemptive theme of God as the ultimate promise keeper seen from Genesis to Revelation hits a core felt need and connects with them, even though that theme might not be the one we'd initially think of. Or, in anoth
er people group, how do you present the redemptive theme of sacrifice for sin where animals are revered as gods and sacrifice is taboo?
- Storying is narrative with minimal to no exposition. Exposition includes teachings, points in an outline, concepts, principles, or steps in a process. Stories are alive and invite the listener towards God.
- No challenge to receive Christ is given until the listeners hear the whole story.
- Storying is internalized in a cultural way. After the story is shared, often a song will be created by one of the listeners, or a dance, or a chant. Literates want notes on a piece of paper to take away – most of us would flip if in our Bible studies or church services we were asked to come up with a ditty about the lesson just done. But most cultures have their own native way of internalizing their history, their education…and their beliefs. Have you noticed how natural this is? How many two-year olds can sing “Jesus Loves Me” but can't tell
you John 3:16?
- Storying is structured so listeners learn to share the oral Bible they have been given with others. It has become a part of them. They will remember word for word every detail in the story and can take this internal Bible and share it better than we can. Bible storying turns listeners into a walking library. A proverb goes “When a bushman dies, a whole library is lost!”
Characteristics of Oral and Print Communicators **
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Oral Communicators Learn by Hearing… |
Print Communicators Learn by seeing... |
| Oral Communicators Learn by Observing and Imitating…
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Print Communicators Learn by Reading, Studying, Analyzing… |
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Oral Communicators Think and Talk About Events, not Words…
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Print Communicators Talk About Words, Concepts, Principles… |
Oral Communicators Use Stories to Package Information… |
Print Communicators Manage Knowledge in Categories and Store It in Print… |
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Oral Communicators Memorize Information Handed Down from the Past… |
Print Communicators Seek to Discover New Information… |
Oral Communicators Value Tradition… |
Print Communicators Value Novelty… |
A Not-So-New Way of Ministry
Recently a friend was asked a great question. “Is this oral ministry method just taking what has been done for years and stamping it with ‘new and improved'?”
Well, yes and no. Oral storying for gaining religious insight has been around for centuries. It's cultural, organic, and effective. In the Bible, in the Old Testament, the Israelites were constantly hearing their history. In New Testament times, literacy was only about 5%. Jesus and the disciples constantly taught using oral principles. So orality isn't a new thing we're stumbling upon to reach people with.
Yet, at the same time, it is a “new” methodology for us to embrace in ministry. For the past twenty years or so, an increased use of chronological Bible storying has been happening, having various looks to how it is done. As the impact on people groups is seen and nationals are saying "This makes sense! This is how we do life," the use of storying is increasing, as missions is becoming more comfortable looking outside the box.
The OneStory partnership that is riding this growing wave in missions is unique in that for the first time two things are happening. First, the training of teams and nationals is being done totally by oral means. May not seem like a huge step, but imagine going through months of training in your church and never being given a notebook, seeing a PowerPoint, using a computer, or opening a book? Second, the partners are bringing Bible translation expertise to insure accuracy. As stories are being crafted by the field missionaries and mother-tongue storytellers, they are “checked” before they are told.
What does this actually look like? What's the template followed? By design, there is no template. If you open your Bible, you are seeing the story before you that is being shared. The stories are shared with two considerations – the world view held and the best way of presenting it to a culture. So if you were to go to a small Amazon village, sit with an Asian family for dinner, or talk with the leaders of a Middle Eastern town, you might hear some of the same stories, but you might hear different stories as well. Each Bible story set has to be "heard" in a way that connects with the world view of the people.
Does storying work?
Among many of the people groups we are working with, something is happening as people are getting in the Word and the Word is getting into people. Several of our teams are working among more restrictive access people groups, so we can't share specifics from their locations. We can share one story from the Amazon region. A U.S. church took on the partnership with OneStory to bring the oral Bible to the Asheninka people over a year's time.
"Recently the New Testament was translated into our language but the number of believers was small and they were struggling. But then the Bible was brought to us in the form of stories. That matched our culture's preferred oral learning style. A set o
f 65 stories, pres-enting the message of the Bible from Creation to John's Revelation, was translated and began spreading throughout the Asheninka people. Then a spiritual movement began and within months 20% of the Asheninka were following Jesus."
Ruben, church leader among
the Asheninka people of Peru
* Quoted from p. 2, Making Disciples of Oral Learners , International Orality Network/Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 2005.
** Adapted from presentation on orality by Steve Evans.