The global missions data ecosystem tracks languages, Bible translation status, people-group identifiers, and evangelical presence with respected precision, yet it of-ten overlooks whether a people group is high-orality-reliant, learning and communicating what matters through story, song, proverb, and conversation rather than text. The most-cited estimates place high-orality-reliant people at 62% to 80% of the world’s population, a spread of roughly 1.5 billion people. Official literacy statistics misrepresent the problem by counting incomplete data rather than functional engagement, and most Christian workers default to literate communication tools and styles. The gap is widening as AI tools, trained on digital script, underserve oral communities. Building on ION’s Global Orality Research Project and the newly developed Global Orality Mapping Project (GOMAP), the article proposes a shared orality classification, a reusable assessment instrument, a field in existing schemas, and attribution rules, reframing the gap as a stewardship issue.
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Lara is a Mission Information Worker who encourages mission leaders to support information and collaboration so they can serve more wisely around the world. She’s worked with Finishing The Task and serves the CMIW and Harvest Information Standards, while sharing as a co-catalyst with the Lausanne Movement, connecting people in Research & Strategic Information across the global mission community.
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