Orality and Gospel Advance

Imagine yourself seated at a wonderful restaurant. The kind with tablecloths. Behind you is a door leading outside, but you put that out of sight while the food keeps coming and coming. It is wonderful, healthy, and just what you need! Oh, you wish others could enjoy it, too. Meanwhile, outside the door right behind you are people who have settled for meals that are not healthy and downright toxic. Why keep the good stuff to yourself?

That’s where our church is today. We are blessed, but keep it to ourselves. Some zealous among us invite people to come inside because they can’t take the nutrition elsewhere. Meanwhile, our world dies around us, bloated on bad choices, without ever receiving the Gospel. And a large part of the reason is that followers of Jesus cannot convey the Gospel in the way that others prefer to understand it.

At least half of all Americans struggle with literacy and reading comprehension skills, but 60% to 70% of all Americans have an oral learning and communications preference. God has wired us all for oral methods like stories, dramas, idioms/ proverbs, movies, documentaries, poetry, dance, chants, art and less abstract cultural forms.

Now is the time to use proven oral methods in America starving for Good News!