How Do You Share The Gospel With People Who Cannot Or Will Not Read?

By Guy Piersall
Special to ASSIST News Service


ASHVILLE, NC (ANS) -- The answer to the above question is by attending the International Orality Network conference meeting at Ridgecrest near Ashville, North Carolina Sept 12-15 to learn. Come and learn how to share through storytelling with the four billion people in the world who are oral learners.

A typical family who are being reached in this unique way

The ION network offers insight/coaching, training and resources to help you and your church or mission agency to connect and communicate with oral learners. Go to www.oralbible.com for more information.



History of the International Orality Network

The International Orality Network (ION) is dedicated to the mission to radically influence the way oral preferenced communicators are evangelized and discipled in every people group. It serves to bring awareness and understanding of orality and oral preferenced communicators and connects mission organizations, churches, people who are reaching oral communicators, especially unreached people groups, to training resources as well as strategies that incorporate oral communication art forms, including various ways to implement storying programs.

Most of ION's work is the outflow its task forces because they form the heart of the ION movement. Over the first five years they have grown to include: Prayer (serving as an undergirding foundation),
Music and the Arts, Secondary Orality (serving literate people who prefer and extensively use oral communication forms), USA and World consultations and training with churches, missions, and conferences, research on orality and oral communicators, theological education, women's and children's issues in orality, and more.

In 2005, ION and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) jointly published Making Disciples of Oral Learners, a book written by the working group at the 2004 LCWE consultation in Thailand. In 2007, an updated second printing of 10.000 copies was published. In the meantime the book has been translated in Korean (2007), and in Traditional and Simplified Chinese (4000 copies each, 2009) with French, Russian, Spanish and Arabic being readied for distribution in 2010.

Starting in 2005, annual consultations have met throughout the United States. Over the years, thousands of people, representing well over 400 ministries, churches, colleges, universities, seminaries, and other organizations have participated in the consultations and partner events.

The circle of partners has also grown to include Audio Scripture Ministries, Bible Storytelling Project, E3 Partners, Global Recordings Network (GRN), Heart Sounds International - a division of Operation Mobilization, International Council of Ethnodoxologists (ICE), Joni and Friends, King's Commission Ministries, MegaVoice International, NG2 International, New Directions International, SIL, story4all, T4Global, The Navigators, and many other organizations.

In recognition of the importance of visual media as a means of reaching oral learners, the Visual Story Network (VSN) was formed in 2008 to focus on the strategic use of films in ministry and works with ION.

In 2009, the Innovation in Missions Award of The Missions Exchange was given to The International Orality Network in context of four specific values The Missions Exchange want to champion and celebrate as an association: excellence, innovation, partnership, and finishing well.

The orality movement was also a strategic priority component of the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in October 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa.

The history and development of ION comes because of the visionary leadership and valuable contribution of many individuals and organizations who serve Christ. God has used the unselfish labors of many stewards to build a network that seeks to influence Christians to make disciples of oral learners. Dr. Avery Willis provided the initial leadership and vision for ION as Executive Director until his death in 2010. Following Avery's death Samuel Chiang became Executive Director and Rick Brekelbaum became the U.S. Coordinator.

Guy Piersall can be reached by e-mail at: guy4grnusa@yahoo.com