Consider the example of Jesus. He taught using the common heart language of the people, rather than the trade language. Jesus spoke in the format that the common people understood such as stories, parables and proverbs. The people who heard were able to understand and apply them, bringing about transformed lives. By communicating in the heart language and using the methods that are common in the culture, we can minimize the danger of syncretism and heresy.

A second key element in reducing syncretism is to develop discipling resources that are worldview specific. Generic discipleship materials are insufficient. Certainly there are biblical essentials that every new Christian needs to know, such as prayer, worship, witness, fellowship and ministry. These practices, however, should fit the local culture under the leadership of the Holy Spirit rather than the practices of the host culture of the missionary. Kraft points out that syncretism occurs when the evangelizers impose their cultural values on the new Christians and fail to separate the evangelizers' own culture adequately from the biblical message.19 If a certain set of discipleship materials worked well with a people group or segment of society, it is because the materials were meaningful to that worldview. The fact that they served so well among one people should serve as a caution that they will not likely meet needs as effectively in a different cultural setting.

The best discipling resource among oral communicators is not a printed booklet but an obedient Christian. Oral communicators learn by observing. Discipleship involves the disciple spending time with the more mature believer learning by following his or her example. The teaching is conducted more by watching and doing rather than just learning facts. Discipling oral learners would best follow the biblical models such as Elijah, Jesus, and Paul. For example, Paul tells the Philippian believers, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice" (Phil. 4:9 NIV). The goal would be that the disciple would immediately become a discipler. As Paul told Timothy, ". . . the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others" (2 Tim. 2:2 NIV).

A third key element in discipling oral learners in order to limit syncretism is to recognize the importance of stories in transforming a person's worldview. N. T. Wright says that stories constitute the core of every culture's worldview. (See the diagram below.) A culture houses its central convictions in its fundamental narrative, whether its narrative is implicit or explicit. The ancient mythologies that we find in cultures around the world are explicit examples of this. Those stories answer four fundamental worldview questions: Who am I? Where am I? What has gone wrong? What can be done about it? Every culture uses stories to tell us what it means to be human, what kind of world we live in, why there is suffering and pain, and what, if anything, we can do to deal with that suffering and pain. Christianity has its own distinctive answers to those worldview questions. In order to influence the worldviews of disciples, we need to tell biblical stories that offer alternative answers to the fundamental worldview questions. The Bible answers these questions with special vividness and power in the opening chapters of Genesis.20 That is one reason it is so important to include Old Testament stories in discipling. Furthermore, when we tell biblical stories chronologically, we are offering a powerful alternative worldview from the very beginning of our presentation. Biblical stories, and the view of the world embedded in them, can replace or refine the cultural stories and the worldview embedded in them.

19 Charles Kraft, "Culture, Worldview and Contextualization," 390.

20 What God has done to deal with the problem of sin is revealed much more fully in the Gospels and Epistles, of course, but there are references to God's redemptive plan in the early stories in Genesis.