Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Department

Seminary

First Advisor

Stephanie Hurd, DMin

Second Advisor

William Westfall, DMin

Third Advisor

MaryKate Morse, PhD

Abstract

The Turkana people of Kenya are primarily oral learners, processing information in oral ways. Oral learners are completely reliant on what they hear, see, and experience because they cannot or choose not to read.1 Missionaries from highly literate western cultures unwittingly burdened these oral learners with literacy dependent teaching methods and discipleship practices. This has particularly left Turkana Christian leaders with few options for deepening their own Christian spirituality or leading others in discipleship. Additionally, a cultural disconnect between western spiritual categories taught by the missionaries and Turkana spiritual categories have left several Turkana spiritual needs unmet. The Turkana Christians clearly need a culturally appropriate oral education by missionaries instead of the current systems. These systems created a crippling deficit in Turkana Christian spiritual formation and discipleship practices. This deficit creates an opportunity to design a discipleship model that will meet the culturally specific needs among the Turkana people, equipping and empowering them to make disciples and grow spiritually. This model includes: small community discipleship and accountability groups, oral telling of Bible stories connected to the overarching story of the Bible, robust discussion around the story told, applications discovered with the guiding of the Holy Spirit, and the use of culturally appropriate oral arts to help participants remember and share what they have learned.

1. W. J. Moon, "Fad or Renaissance? Misconceptions of the Orality Movement," International Bulletin of Mission Research 40, no. 1 (2016): 12, https://doi.org/10.1177/2396939315625979

Download

Included in

Christianity Commons

Share

COinS