The World of Orality
[layerslider id="1"]
“Didn’t I tell you, that you would see the glory of God if you just believed?” - Jesus
During my second term on the field I asked, “What is the most effective way to share the Gospel with the Shandi people?” We gathered for our annual partnership meetings with the various field workers involved with the Shandi. When I asked this question the discussion quickly moved to literate presentations of the Gospel. But, none of these presentations were considered “effective”. We simply did not have any fruit from our labors, and we were losing hope as we continued to meet what we thought was resistance.
Some time later, we were introduced to the “world of orality”. As we understood more about oral communicators, we quickly concluded the Shandi were among the oral majority. Even though they were literate in the trade language of post-Soviet Central Asia, they preferred to engage in oral communication in their mother tongue, the Shandi language.
As we lived among them, we saw indications of their preference for orality:
For the first time in many years, our Shandi friends were engaging with the Word of God. One of my friends, Migarbi, said that he used to “run away” when someone would talk to him about Isa, Jesus Christ. Talking about Jesus was too controversial for him. Migarbi, being a nominal Muslim, was aware that Jesus was not their final and most important Prophet. But he really didn’t understand who Jesus was. When we first began going through stories together, Migarbi refused to call Jesus the Son of God. To Migarbi, Isa was just another prophet, and certainly not as important as Mohamed. But the stories began to impact his own world view. We worked through 20 stories together, spanning the Old and New Testaments, with a majority of our stories focused on the life of Jesus Christ. After working through these stories over many months, Migarbi’s perspective was much different. Now, he willingly shares these stories with friends, family, and neighbors.
In the story of the Raising of Lazarus, Jesus tells Martha, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see the glory of God if you just believe?” One day our storying group discussed this story and my friend Migarbi was asked by another Shandi man: “Who is Jesus?” Migarbi replied, “Jesus is the ‘spiritual’ Son of God… He is more than a prophet. He does things that prophets didn’t do: calming storms, healing the sick, casting out demons, and, as we heard in this story, He raises the dead. He even rose from the dead Himself!” At a later time, Migarbi and the first man, who had also been discussing the stories with us, both acknowledged that Jesus had come to save people from their sins. They both realized they need to decide if Jesus will be their own Lord and Savior. May it be!
- The Shandi don’t keep a calendar; they memorize the important dates in their lives.
- The Shandi don’t keep task lists; they remember what needs to be done.
- Shandi women don’t keep a book of recipes; they have learned their meals by heart from repeated practice in the company of their mothers, aunts, sisters and friends.
- Shandi men model life skills to their sons: farming, maintenance, business, etc.
- The Shandi love song, poetry, dance, drama and stories. Songs would frequently be shared at birthdays and other gathers.
- The Shandi pass on important information from one generation to the next through oral communication.
For the first time in many years, our Shandi friends were engaging with the Word of God. One of my friends, Migarbi, said that he used to “run away” when someone would talk to him about Isa, Jesus Christ. Talking about Jesus was too controversial for him. Migarbi, being a nominal Muslim, was aware that Jesus was not their final and most important Prophet. But he really didn’t understand who Jesus was. When we first began going through stories together, Migarbi refused to call Jesus the Son of God. To Migarbi, Isa was just another prophet, and certainly not as important as Mohamed. But the stories began to impact his own world view. We worked through 20 stories together, spanning the Old and New Testaments, with a majority of our stories focused on the life of Jesus Christ. After working through these stories over many months, Migarbi’s perspective was much different. Now, he willingly shares these stories with friends, family, and neighbors.
In the story of the Raising of Lazarus, Jesus tells Martha, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see the glory of God if you just believe?” One day our storying group discussed this story and my friend Migarbi was asked by another Shandi man: “Who is Jesus?” Migarbi replied, “Jesus is the ‘spiritual’ Son of God… He is more than a prophet. He does things that prophets didn’t do: calming storms, healing the sick, casting out demons, and, as we heard in this story, He raises the dead. He even rose from the dead Himself!” At a later time, Migarbi and the first man, who had also been discussing the stories with us, both acknowledged that Jesus had come to save people from their sins. They both realized they need to decide if Jesus will be their own Lord and Savior. May it be!
What Is Orality?
"Orality" refers to reliance upon the spoken word, rather than written word, for communication. Orality is an ancient phenomenon that continues to the present. Before writing was developed, cultures passed along their cultural traditions, history, identity, and religion, by using stories, proverbs, poems, songs, riddles. These are all oral art forms; that is, they are spoken, sung or chanted. They were (and still are) often woven into ceremonies, dramas and rites of passage.
Purely oral societies pass along everything that matters from one generation to another without putting anything into writing. They rely on the spoken word including its sung and chanted forms. More at Orality Strategies