How to Write a Christian Biography

Every good life deserves to be written about. A perfect way to honor a Christian man or woman who has been a blessing to your life is to craft a biography that will share this person's life with others. Being an author of such Christian writing is probably easier than you would think, especially if you choose to use a writing template to guide your text.

Establish a purpose before writing. Christian biographies are written to satisfy a wide variety of needs. Some are written as profiles of praise, while others are produced as exercises of objective historical research. Frequently, autobiographies are confessional in nature, regardless of whether or not they are written by Christians. Lastly, many Christian biographies serve an evangelical purpose, to inspire others to adopt Christian values.

Refer to a biography writing template. If you are writing a biography for the first time, referring to a writing template will help you to save time. A template will supply a basic outline of sections & chapters of the biography, and can either be saved in a word processing file for an author to customize or can be used as a reference document to kick start inspiration. Alternatively, a writer may browse fully written biographies and make notes in hopes of manually extracting a workable template.

Discuss themes central to the Christian experience. Common themes addressed in a Christian biography include an account of a moment of conversion, accounts of adversities faced in the life of the biography's subject and the subject's relationship with the community. Most readers will expect these issues to be addressed.

Include accurate scriptural references. At the author's discretion, these biblical sources may be cited in one of 3 ways: 1.) within the text of the biography; 2.) below the text, in footnotes; or 3.) collectively, at the end of the text. Researching quotes in the Bible is simple to do online, with free search engines such as BibleGateway or the Christ Notes Bible search.

Visit a Christian writing forum for constructive criticism and support. Meeting with others who write from a Christian background provides an opportunity to share ideas, and to give & receive encouragement. At the ChristianWriters forum, registered users are able to access the Writers' Workshops (after making 5 posts in the General Discussions forums). Relating with others will often serve to add extra dimension to your work, providing the potential for new facts to be shared for inclusion in the biography.