EMQ » January–March 2020 » Volume 56 Issue 1
By Jerry Wiles
Approximately eighty percent of the world’s population are oral learners by necessity or preference. In 2000 a group of mission leaders came together to discuss the need to more effectively reach these communities of oral learners. The result was forming the Oral Bible Task Force, in collaboration with the Lausanne Movement. By 2004 this led to thirty organizations coming together to form the International Orality Network (ION). Today organizations affiliated with ION work together to make God’s Word accessible to oral communicators.
Since its launch, more than two thousand organizations have participated in the network. ION has provided a voice to the issue of orality in its collaborative relationships with other networks. As this influence has spread, a broader Orality Movement has formed among many more organizations and individuals who have begun to see orality as a critical issue they need to understand and incorporate into their ministries. This article will focus primarily on the role of the network, lessons learned, and how it is benefiting organizations and individuals involved in a wide variety of Kingdom advancing efforts.
Lessons from the Early Church and the Global South
One of the things the network is doing well is raising awareness of the need to use oral art forms and the multiple concepts, principle, and practices of orality. The Orality Movement is also helping church and mission leaders in the global north to think more like the global south and early church mental models. One of the greatest challenges has been overcoming some modern, western, post-Reformation traditions of the Church.
There has been an amazing amount of collaborative learning and partnering generated primarily through the network’s conferences, consultations, and training events. The website (orality.net) has been a tool for sharing a wide variety of resources including articles, journals, case studies, information on training events, methods and strategies. The Lord is using all these efforts and activities to assist, serve, and support its member organizations and individuals, as well as the global church.
The Power of Multiplication
An observation we’ve made over the years is that member organizations are often affiliated with several other associations, alliances or networks. One example is Living Water International (LWI). In addition to ION, LWI is a member of a number of other groups, including the Accord Network and the Millennium Water Alliance. LWI is a thought leader in the Orality Movement. Through its various network affiliations, LWI has been able to help several other organizations launch orality training programs. Other organizations within ION have had similar reproducing and multiplying impact.
Many other ION organizations are successfully injecting orality into the veins of other networks, associations, alliances, and even denominations. Some of those include the Global CHE Network, the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication, the Christian Leadership Alliance, Artists in Christian Testimony International, the Business as Mission Movements, National Religious Broadcasters, as well as the Lausanne Movement and World Evangelical Alliance.
Strategic Resource Leveraging
God’s Kingdom work is being done differently in many ways as a result of the awareness, collaborative relationships, and partnering taking place through ION. The concepts of strategic influence or resource leveraging, and force multiplying (we like the term Trimtab effect) are some of the features that’s making orality spread. There are other ways of thinking about the Kingdom principles Jesus talked about using the mustard seed and yeast, of how little things can have big impact.
Some of the unique features that are making ION and the Orality Movement so impactful is helping church and mission leaders think differently about what it will take to complete the Great Commission. Simply considering the ways most unreached people normally communicate, learn, and process information is often an eye-opening experience for many. ION is helping pastors, missionaries, and mission leaders to think about how oral learner methods and strategies help the development of rapidly reproducing church planting and disciple making movements
Cross-Cutting Themes of Orality
As leaders begin to think more in terms of small, simple, and reproducible, they begin to discover the cross-cutting themes of orality. The ever-increasing community of learning and practice opens up orality applications in areas such as addressing ethnic conflict, racial reconciliation, trauma therapy, community development, public health, hygiene educations, leadership development and many others. Of course, the more obvious applications are evangelism, disciple making, and church planting.
ION continues to grow primarily because orality is universally applicable. Anyone involved with communicating, training, or behavior change can benefit from receiving some orality training. In fact, there is now a growing recognition that oral methods and strategies are not just for those who cannot read or write. Many literate and well-educated people are oral preference learners.
Orality training and oral strategies are also beneficial in other areas. Churches use them to build better relationships within local congregations and to promote unity among church leaders within a region. In the corporate world, business leaders are finding oral methods useful in improving relationships and creating a healthier corporate culture. Workplace ministries are using story groups or discussion groups around the life, teaching, and Spirit of Jesus to catalyze disciple making cell groups.
Collective Wisdom and Experience
One of the factors that’s helped ION become what it is today is collective learning and wisdom. Today we harness that wisdom through sub-categories or special interest groups. We call them gateways. They are the seven affinity areas or gateways around which we associate together to learn and collaborate, defined generally by discipline or sphere of influence. These seven are storying, focused outreach, development, arts and culture, media, education, and research and innovation. They may be active at a local, national, regional, and international level to allow anyone, anywhere, to engage with making disciples of oral learners.
Foundation of Prayer
Recognizing the spiritual nature of what we are about, the role of prayer and trusting God cannot be minimized. Many of the developments over the years can be attributed to God’s divine intervention. When like-minded followers of Jesus come together, pray and exchange ideas and strategies, trusting relationships are developed and lasting partnerships result.
Connecting with prayer movements and networks have been a part of ION’s DNA. Not only is the ION prayer team actively engaged with all events, conferences, and gatherings, but they also have weekly conference call prayer times. Reaching out to other prayer ministries and networks is also a vital part of prayer and awareness efforts.
When I think about the mobilization of prayer within ION and for orality, I’m reminded of what Peter Wagner said at a conference in 1995, “I’m happy to report that the prayer movement is out of control!”
The Value of Mentoring Networks
Networks are important. The birth of many spontaneous mentoring and partnering relationships that have happened through our network has caused us to recognize the hand of God over our work. When I think of the spontaneous expansion of the Orality Movement, I’m reminded of a comment a friend made to me years ago. He said, “What we seek to control and maintain will shrink and diminish, but what we share and give away will grow, reproduce and multiply.”
Networks of networks and ever-increasing partnerships and strategic alliances seem to be what God is up to these days. Some of my mentors in the 1970s and 1980s were Ian Thomas, Norman Grubb, Bertha Smith, and Manley Beasley. Manley Beasley used to say our main challenge is to “find out what God is up to and get in on it.” Henry Blackaby shared with me several years ago how Bertha Smith and Manley Beasley had influenced him. He put it another way and said we should “Identify the activity of God and join Him.”
Getting Involved
Many people discover ION and the Orality Movement through articles published by Mission Network News, Assist News Service (assistnews.net), and other media outlets, ministries, and mission groups. Individuals and organization often begin their involvement with ION by attending a conference, consultation, orality training workshop/seminar, or some other event. Others get connected through relationships with those in various ION gateways or other orality interest groups. Information about our events or other ways to be involved with ION can be found on our websites orality.net and oralitycanada.com, or on the website of organizations within the network (i.e. water.cc/orality).
In our hearts, I think we all would like to be part of a movement of God that can’t be explained in terms of human ingenuity or manmade plans and strategies. Plans, strategies, systems, and structures are important, but it is the Spirit of God that makes them all effective and fruitful for the Kingdom’s sake. The story of the growth and development of the International Orality Network is one example of this. It is a wonderful testimony of how God works by bringing many different individuals and organizations together to advance His Kingdom work around the world.
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Jerry Wiles (jerrywiles@water.cc) is the North America Regional Director of International Orality Network and President Emeritus of Living Water International. He is an author and radio program producer and has been a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows and traveled extensively as a public speaker. Jerry is an Air Force veteran, a former pastor and university administrator.
