Because of the orality of many emerging pastors of new house churches, I have concern for equipping and empowering these leaders to be competent to feed their people spiritually. In places where rapid church growth is taking place many of the new leaders have limited literacy and little or no theological training. They need a basic method and skill to feed their sheep.

During the years I was teaching Bible Storying and working in South Asia I was often asked to preach in churches. Many of these churches were in rural areas where education was minimal and the people lived in an oral world. So instead of a traditional expositional message, or even a simplified one, I chose to use story sermons. Sometimes the message was an extended story that used a first story to provide background or relationships, then the main story with its teaching and followed by a post-story that provided closure or consequences. Other times the Bible stories were my points. In many situations I chose to use just a simple parable or ministry story of Jesus.

In one small house church in Bangalore that came out of response to a daily radio program the people crowded into the pastor’s tiny house each evening for worship after listening to the radio program. The pastor, or I should say church leader, was a simple man, a cobbler by trade. He had no idea how to preach. I’m sure that in some way he was being blessed by the radio speakers. So when he would ask me to preach for his people I always used a very simple story sermon that even the children could understand. I did this for the people’s understanding and as a model for the pastor. In other churches with literate and theologically trained pastors I also used story sermons as a model for them that would speak clearly to their people. When visiting the same churches again people would tell me they remembered the Bible stories I told when I visited before.

Since retirement from the field I continue to think about those pastors and their flocks who need simple messages preached so they can understand and remember. The message today is to missionaries and literate pastors to be mindful of the orality of people in the new churches. And also to be modeling for the emerging oral pastors what they could do even without extensive theological education or literacy. In God’s time I pray that pastors can be literate and have access to some theological education to help them prepare messages that will feed their people.

A friend of mine has been teaching literate pastors Bible stories for over a decade now. The pastors have in turn been teaching the stories to their people—preaching the stories and using them in ministry. The reports from the pastors tell of response to the stories coupled with God’s blessing and healing as well as the many who through the stories have put their faith in Jesus and are asking for baptism.

While in India two years ago I learned of an elderly pastor of a new house church who is nonliterate. Children read the Bible stories over and over to him until the pastor learns the story well enough to retell it. Then he tells it several times to his congregation until they, too, learn the story and can repeat it back to him. After teaching a bit from the story the pastor sends his flock out to tell the story to their neighbors and the community. In this way he not only is teaching them spiritually, but is helping to start new house churches.

So story sermons are models for these emerging oral leaders and do-able for them to feed their sheep.