Oral Methods
Cambodians in general and Kuy in particular are oral people. The
Kuy people have an extremely low rate of literacy. So, developing oral
strategies is an important component to our ministry. We feel that Bible Story
telling will be a very effective way to get the good news to these people.
Everyone loves a story! And there are great stories in the Bible. Also,
telling a story requires no books, materials, videos and equipment nor even
much training. It is very easily transferable from one person to the next.
Many of the world’s peoples come from oral cultures. They learn by
observation, participation and verbal communication, not by reading. Even
people who can read often prefer to learn in those same ways. For further
information on orality, see the International Orality Network site at
http://oralbible.com.
Tom is part of the leadership of the Orality Network here in Cambodia.
The network is bringing together missionaries and national church workers to
share oral methods and resources. It serves as a catalyst to inform and
encourage others to re-think their methods of evangelism and teaching here in
Cambodia
One tool that the network is now promoting is an 80 minute video called
“God’s Story.” This video has been translated into Khmer. It is a
chronological version of the Biblical narrative. To learn more go to
http://www.gods-story.org.
The Orality Network held its first meeting in Khmer language last month.
This meeting was very well attended, about 60 Cambodian Church Planters,
Christian workers and Bible School students attended. Dale Jones, a fellow MUP
missionary, taught the group on the need for oral methods in this culture and
the Biblical basis for oral methods. He then gave an example of one of the 14
stories from his evangelistic story set and had all of us practicing telling
the story in groups. CDs and tapes with the stories and booklets with the
written stories sold quickly. We hope that this will result in many of the
participants telling Bible stories in their churches, at preaching points and
in small groups in homes.
