Rick Durst, academic dean at Golden Gate Seminary in California, agrees. "To be a 'storyteller' is no longer a euphemism for someone with a loose grip on truth," he said. "The storyteller is becoming again the person of wisdom who knows the 'good telling stories' that make and maintain community and meaning." Durst refers to well-known Christian author Leonard Sweet, who sees pastors as "story doctors," who use the "truthing" of biblical stories to heal the dysfunctional stories confining and confounding people's lives, concluding that ministry to the emerging generation will be magnified to the degree that narrative is applied.44

How do we get started? First, we need to pray that God will show us how to be more effective. We need to ask for ways to turn what have been barriers into bridges. Second, we need to be observant of what is already proven in how to communicate with literate people who have at least some preference for learning orally. For example, many graduate programs in business administration use case study discussions to teach essential leadership principles. As another example, many of the most effective evangelistic speakers and pastors use stories to illustrate their message points. Dallas Theological Seminary professor Howard Hendricks is quoted as saying that such illustrations are the windows to the soul. As a third example, many who teach the Bible in small groups have discovered that a way to understanding is for the student to see specifically how a Bible truth looks when it is applied. If the leader is able to share his or her own experience (story) with how this works, learning is greatly accelerated.

Summarizing this second point, we already know a lot about using oral methods with people who are literate. We just need to surface what we know and become more intentional in using it.

Finally, we must proactively experiment with new ways to be even better in communicating with secondary oral learners. One such experiment is being done in Orlando, Florida, by Campus Crusade for Christ. A group of Christian college students are being taught how to do follow-up and discipleship using storying versus using written materials. Four types of stories are being used by the disciplers:

• God's stories (narratives from Scripture)
• Their stories (stories of the discipler's own experience with God)
• Others' stories (stories from other people's lives and video clips from movies and TV programs)
• Disciples' stories (immediate practical applications of biblical truth so that the new disciple can develop his or her own stories that can be used to minister to others, thus promoting spiritual multiplication)

Similar models are being launched with executives and professionals, as well as with new Christians in Sunday School classes.

These are but a beginning of the kinds of extensive and innovative efforts that will be necessary to learn how to use storying to connect better with secondary oral learners of all educational and socioeconomic levels. As lessons are learned, they need to be shared freely to further accelerate the learning process in how to be more effective.

We possess knowledge of the greatest story ever told. We increasingly understand how to communicate that knowledge better with the two-thirds of the population of earth who will receive it best through storying and other oral means. In recent years we have begun to see that storying can greatly increase effectiveness even with literate people, including college students and business and professional people.

Our call to action is simple: Let's do everything we can to set aside any tendencies we might have to ignore or not utilize this fact, and let's pray and take advantage of every effective method so that, in the spirit of the apostle Paul, "by all possible means we might save some."

44 Jones, 27.