STRATEGIES 2 for Oral Cultures - Training

"Whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother." — Mark 3:35 · NKJV

The stories are already bearing fruit

STRATEGIES 2 for Oral Cultures begins where the first training ended: with storytellers. Participants arrive already telling Bible stories in their communities. The training opens with the stories themselves: a storytelling gathering where participants tell the chronological Bible stories they have learned, and testimonies of what God has done through them.

Then the training turns to its center: the 8 Steps of Obedience — eight especially important steps of hearing and doing God's Word for new believers, drawn from Jesus' own answer to the question, who is My family? Every step is taught the oral way: a memory verse, a Bible story told and retold until the whole group carries it, and open dialogue — no books required.

The 8 Steps of Obedience

Each step is planted through its own Bible story and Scripture memory verse:

1. Repent — turning from destructive ways to life-giving ways
2. Be baptized — death and resurrection to new life with Jesus
3. Join God's family — hearing and doing God's Word makes us family
4. Pray — conversation with God: asking, listening, forgiving
5. Give — it is more blessed to give than to receive
6. Love your neighbor — the love that changes hearts, which fear cannot
7. Testify — when we taste how good Jesus is, we tell others
8. Take the Lord's Supper — remembering our Lord together

Story, memory, dialogue — and testimony

The whole training runs on the methods learned in the first course. Every step opens with a question discussed in pairs and small groups. Every story is told through the 7 Steps of Bible Storytelling & Dialogue and retold by participants until it is learned well. Testimonies are woven throughout — because the stories are already bearing fruit, and the room needs to hear it. The training closes with certificates and sending.

Typical format: a 4-day intensive. Scheduling is shaped to the local community.

For storytellers ready to make disciples

This training is for those who have completed STRATEGIES 1 for Oral Cultures and are telling Bible stories in their communities. It equips storytellers to plant a complete discipleship foundation among new believers — entirely through story, memory, and dialogue, so that everything received can be passed on by heart.

"Those who cannot read or write are now able to proclaim the Word of God. Especially the women — before they could not do this. Without this training, this mother would just stay in church, receive the collection basket, and pray over it. But now she goes and shares the Word of God, and people recognize it." Bishop P — Sub-Sahara Africa