How the companion books Stone Thrower and Witnesses came to be…

One day, I came across one of those familiar Gospel stories…

Jesus healing a man with a withered hand.

Yes, the healing created an outrage. But my mind went somewhere a little more personal.

What was his name? Where was he from? What did he do for a living? And what happened to the man afterward?

Being the storyteller that I am, I set out to tell his story.

After that, I began thinking about the Centurion who oversaw Jesus's crucifixion. What did he see? What went through his mind as the events unfolded? Did his exclamation, “Surely this was the Son of God,” fall on deaf ears and stone hearts?

And what about after?

I decided to explore him too. That story became one of the seeds of Stone Thrower, fifteen stories about overlooked people in the Bible.

That became my writer’s perspective.

Micro instead of macro.

Not only the great sweep of the Gospel story, but the person standing just beyond the center of it.

Who were they before?

More importantly, how were they afterward?

Well, my readers began asking for more. They wanted stories that went deeper into the person’s heart. They also wanted questions they could use in book clubs, Bible studies, and reader groups.

That led to Witnesses, nine new stories from the margins of the Gospels, along with a Conversation Guide and an in-depth Reader’s Discussion Guide.

The two books are companions: twenty-four stories about the ordinary people who were there.

Next time, I’ll tell you about the wise-guy fish who saw everything.