What Do You Think, Mr. Guttenberg?

The world of missions is just now waking up to the fact that oral learners are the bull’s eye at the center of completing the Great Commission. There are four billion oral learners in the cross-hairs of redemptive history at the beginning of the twenty-first century. What are you, your church and your mission agency doing to hit the bull’s eye?

If the term “oral learner” is unfamiliar to you let me offer a simple definition. By oral learners we mean those people who learn best and whose lives are most likely to be transformed when information comes to them through oral, not literate, means. Oral learners transmit their beliefs, heritage and values by means of stories, drama, songs and proverbs. They have built their customs, culture and social fabric around storytelling.

What does this mean for us as we endeavor to fulfill the Great Commission? We must start asking questions such as: How in the world do we share the word of God with people who can’t, don’t or won’t read? Or with those who don’t write? Or with those who may not even have a written language?