Kit, and I once attended a seminar led by two men and one woman. The men both spoke impressively. The woman didn’t. She did nearly everything speakers are taught to avoid. She rambled, lost her place in her own notes, looked at the ceiling, and even talked to herself while speaking. But this lady touched the audience’s hearts. How? She told story after story. I can’t remember a single thing either man said. But I still remember her stories.

Jesus also told story after story, which we call “parables.” Who can forget Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan? This powerful, clear lesson speaks to us from a vastly different culture and across the centuries. The power of stories is why Jesus used so many. Stories can enable us to communicate God’s truth in a clear, relevant manner. They inspire hope and change lives by speaking to the heart. Our own personal stories, mistakes made, and lessons learned, provide contemporary examples.

In addition to personal stories, fictional stories have a valuable place not only by entertaining but in speaking truths to people’s hearts. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath communicated the plight of desperate people in the depression and led to labor reform. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle resulted in safe food. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin hastened the end of slavery. Novels can also carry readers to times and places otherwise impossible. Novels have tutored me in factual details, but more importantly in the human heart.

Therefore in a four-year project equal in effort to getting a university degree, Kit and I have learned how to write passably and have created four wholesome and thought-provoking novels. Please look at them. Novels by Kit and Drew

Drew Coons