Mozambique, Africa - Robert and Karis Koehn, AIM missionaries in Mozambique, use "Storying" as a major technique in presenting God’s Word. While Storytelling has always been a method of presenting the gospel, it seems there is a resurgence in recent years.

The Koehns explain that Africans are rooted into oral cultures and traditions in contrast to the Western world’s emphasis on reasoning and debating. They say, "Oral [cultural] people live the story as you tell it. They interact with it and are able to make application very easily.

To illustrate they cite a recent instance, when, at the conclusion of a story explaining about the spirits and the fall of Satan, an African gentleman stood up and spoke. He explained that each year he had summoned the spirits of his ancestors to ask them to bless his crop for that year. He went on to say, with conviction, that he never realized that he was actually consulting with demons. He would never again seek their help.

The Koehns remarked, "We’re convinced he probably would not have understood so clearly if he had heard a "Western-type" sermon on three reasons you must not consult your ancestral spirits."

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