Discipling oral learners

PALM (Preparing Arab-world Leaders for Ministry) has been serving the Arab church for nearly thirty years by developing culturally appropriate discipleship resources and leadership training. In response to a request from Arab church leaders, an orality version of the discipleship courses was launched in early 2016 in order to broaden the impact of biblical teaching in their fellowships.

A key method of outreach

Lausanne Movement research suggests that 80%ⁱ of the world’s population, that’s about 5.7 billionⁱⁱ people, are oral-preference learners – depending on verbal means to receive, process, remember and pass on information. And more than half of them are among the unreached.

With this in mind it is no surprise that demand for PALM orality courses has increased over the past few years. The programme is now available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, using oral techniques for oral learners in the Arab world. It has also expanded to encourage believers from other Muslim-majority countries – especially where there are no historic churches. The orality programme has been particularly successful where literacy levels are low and orality is the only option.

Enabling spiritual growth

Excitingly, some of those who have been trained on a PALM orality course are now themselves training others. Abe*, a pastor serving in a west African country, recently shared this snapshot with PALM’s Orality Co-ordinator.

The Lord is at work! Orality has helped us significantly in ministry. As I have been putting the training into practice, I am seeing tremendous fruit. We have 5 non-literate groups and 6 literate groups in the area.

Memorisation helps a lot of believers who are not literate. Using the orality method allows participants to retain the Word of God. People who could not memorise even one Bible verse before can do so now, thanks to the illustrations, objects, and different methods that you taught us. We do the lessons together, and afterwards we record each Bible passage on a smartphone. I work with some of the groups, and they, in turn, work with other groups. They are all growing spiritually in many ways, and they are sharing what they are learning with others. Many have talked about how they are displaying the love of Jesus at home. And many other people are testifying to the changes in their lives.

A surge in demand

PALM orality groups can be found among believers from a Muslim background in at least nine countries in North and West Africa, with a number of the groups becoming churches and appointing elders. More requests for training have been received than can be responded to, including requests from Pioneers teams in other parts of the world. So PALM leaders are requesting prayer for discernment as they reflect on what ministry will look like in a post-COVID world, and are seeking to make wise decisions as to which trainings to commit to.

The format of the training is being considered carefully too. Although many areas of ministry opportunity are unlikely to be safe to travel to because of COVID, online training is a real challenge because of low literacy, widespread poverty and poor internet connection.

Pray that God’s Word goes deep

The Psalmist encourages us to ‘hide God’s word in our hearts’ (Psalm 119:11) that we might grow, fight temptation and be helped in our witness. As new believers take part in these orality groups each lesson ends with a challenge to tell someone the story they have memorised and put it into practice in their own lives. At the beginning of the next lesson, they are invited to report back.

Please join us in praying for believers from a Muslim background to understand, retain and apply the biblical truths they are learning. Pray too that the number of people involved in the PALM orality groups continues to multiply.

*Name has been changed.
i https://lausanne.org/networks/issues/orality 
ii https://lausanne.org/content/orality-an-infographic