SWT: Introduction
In this blog, I intend to collect and analyze the stories that have framed and informed the Church of God, a pentecostal Christian denomination originating in the mountains of western North Carolina as the Nineteenth century melted into the Twentieth. My family worshipped in this denomination. My father was a Church of God minister for all of his adult life and my mother a minister's wife. I was the oldest of five preacher's kids (PKs) who were born into and grew up in this faith family. The stories of the Church of God have framed my understanding of the world and shaped my trajectory through it. I think that understanding those stories will help me understand myself and will help me write the novel that I'm writing about the rise of the Church of God in middle Georgia during the Twentieth century. The avatars of my family figure prominently. I should, then, begin by exploring my narrative theory. What is it about narratives that makes them so important? Of course, as a st