Reaching the Oral Majority

YWAM partnership reaches the unreached through storytelling


In February 2006 the Chronological Bible Storying Partnership, formerly called EPIC Partners International, finalized a name change to "OneStory Partnership." These meetings took place at U of N Kona, Hawaii.

In the world today, there are three billion people without Bibles, 2,700 people groups with no written language, and two billion unevangelized people living in oral cultures. The goal of OneStory is to create an Oral Bible, a set of 40 - 50 chronological Bible stories that communicate the heart of the gospel to those who have never heard of Jesus and have no written language.

YWAM has teamed up with Campus Crusade for Christ International, International Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Wycliffe International, and TransWorld Radio to form the OneStory partnership, a global partnership using Bible story telling among the unreached.

There are currently 55 OneStory workers in 31 language projects in three continents. Forty more projects are planned to start this year in Thailand, China, West Africa, East Africa, and North Africa.

A YWAMer is developing a training set for Korean missionaries, and two YWAM teams are preparing to begin projects this fall in Chinese minority languages. YWAM has a special invitation to start four projects with Wycliffe in Papua New Guinea, and is looking for eight workers for this cluster.

From the mountains of Nepal, to the banks of the Amazon River, to a woman's sewing group in Morocco, and a McDonalds in China, YWAMers have been sharing the gospel through Bible storying.

For YWAMers who are interested in ministering among oral people groups but cannot commit to a full OneStory project, YWAM OneStory has developed Chronological Bible Storying seminars to offer tools to communicate God's Word with greater effectiveness.

The goals of the seminars include providing a better understanding of how oral communicators think and prefer learning, basic worldview and cultural considerations in choosing Bible stories, methods for crafting stories with mother tongue speakers, and how to lead a story session for immediate replication and application.

Also, long-time YWAMer Bryan Thompson has recently launched a web site and podcast at www.story4all.com. This site contains resources and discussion about "how Bible storytelling can make disciples of the world's four billion oral learners."

For more information about OneStory projects and seminars, please visit www.ywamonestory.org or e-mail askus@ywamonestory.org.

--by Debbie Lundberg
International YWAMer, June-Sept 2006. Topics: