Silver Bullets

I appreciated the way that Discipleship Journal Online News advertised a new series of discipleship materials: "A proven way to establish, equip, and train disciples" (2:7 Series). Too often, a publisher or church leader or missionary will say something like "the proven way to establish..." as if it is the only way to do something. But DJ, in the wording of their ad, "a proven way...", has recognized a truth — there are few silver bullets in life, there are only a very few times when it is appropriate to say, "This is **the** way, there is no other effective way to....", or even to say, "This is **the** best way...."

Outside of Jesus as "the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me", I'm not sure what else I would nail down and say, "This is the only way to do something".

In our organization, storying (i.e., oral) T4T (training for trainers), or S-T4T, is the latest, greatest method for evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development. (Another resource for S-T4T is this site.) Fortunately, no one is saying that S-T4T is the **only** way to do this. I recently had a conversation with a missionary who has been in his place of service for less than 3 years. He was lamenting the deemphasis on literacy and the current focus on orality. I reminded him that the vast majority of Africans (as well as many, many Americans, especially the younger generations) are oral-preference learners — it has nothing to do with whether or not they can read, it's a question of how do they learn. However, I also reminded him that the key is to know the people with whom one works and to select methods that are most appropriate for that people group. And, the reality is that one really needs to select the method that is most appropriate for a given individual.

• Are there methods or programs that you have seen or heard touted as "the only/best way" to do something?

For the Kingdom,

Bob A

Orality in Your Tool Kit

Oral or literate methods -- which is most appropriate and most effective in communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa? While I don't intend to try to answer that question in this post, I do want to point out a couple of resources.

When our organization began talking about orality several years ago, there was some misunderstanding of the purpose. Some assumed that one would only use oral methods with illiterate people. Not true. The terms orality and literate refer to learning styles, not the ability to read. There are many, many people who have very high reading skills but are still oral learners. (I wish there was a better term for non-oral methods rather than literate -- I think the term itself leads to huge misunderstandings.) Steve Evans says that stories enter the heart and affect change and that's precisely what we hope happens when we share the Gospel.

While I'm quite sure there are many resources available, here are a couple of websites that might serve as a starting point for learning about orality:

Lausanne Movement Conversation on Orality -- blog by Steve Evans
Oral Strategies -- resource website hosted by IMB

• Do you have stories of how oral methods effected change when other methods did not?
• What other orality resources do you know about?

For the Kingdom,
Bob A