I recently attended The International Orality Network's mini-global consultation on theological education in Hong Kong. While it sounds boring… I know! I know! It actually was quite fascinating. Much of the work in church and mission today is transmitted through the means of reading and lectures. No doubt, these means are important. However, we have a problem! The vast majority of the world (more than half) are oral preference learners.
That's right. Most people learn and come to a place of deep change and transformation through personal interaction and stories that transform their lives. The whole purpose of this mini-congress was to gather those of us involved in theological education as a catalyst and breeding ground to change our ways of teaching so that the majority of the world can experience the hope of Jesus Christ.
A3 is right in the thick of this. Yes, most of the pastors who participate in A3's unique leader development process are literate. However, their preference for learning is through stories and collaboration. I recently wrote an article (part of a laboratory for the International Orality Network) on this scenario.
My first month with A2, I attended a session in Cambodia which was powerful. I was so impressed by all the facts and figures that the faculty member from North America shared. His lectures were inspiring. He even told great stories. However, when I asked the national director from Phnom Penh how the week went, he shared: "Not so good." As I enquired further, he said the personal times of interaction and learning were fantastic but they weren't stimulated through the lectures shared all week.
Rather, the learning occurred off-site and as he explained the reality dawned on me. I was with the pastors as they played ping pong between the sessions. When jet-lag overcame me (plus I'm a morning person), the pastors stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking about the theme of the week. I could tell from the interactions over ping pong and from the ruckus I heard while sleeping that the pastors were digging in and learning from one another. They were telling stores from their contexts and sharing lessons from their own background, experience and church life. Here is where the real transformation occurred. It wasn't from the cool powerpoint presentation, the compelling data being shared, or even the lectures that week that stimulated the learning. No, it was in the dynamic interaction between the pastors and in the stories they shared with one another.
Thus, A3 is at its best when we facilitate this type of learning: communities that interact and share stories with one another of powerful life change and transformed nations. The International Orality Network has it spot on as they try to spur us toward the importance of this type of learning community. Our friends at First Fruit, Inc. that did some research on this have highlighted this so well: "Non-Readers on the Rise… The Church, particularly in the West, must rediscover story-based communication – whether spoken, in images, or in text. … Communicating with substance, truth, and clarity will help others filter through the overload of information."
Fortunately, much of the time, A3 gets this right… How do you do with sharing of stories, of bringing life change, of making a difference in your family, neighborhood, church or region?
I'd love to hear from you. --
