What is Urban Christian Fiction?

Urban Christian Fiction is a genre of emotional, vivid and conflicting stories that mixes God, faith and the urban church. It does not purposely exclude violence or sex from its story line, but weaves it into the plot based upon its relevance. It closely resembles Urban Fiction or Street Lit except, God is the center of the character’s lives. Urban Christian Fiction usually portrays characters of African or Latino depicting urban culture.

Two Main Elements of UCF

Raw Honesty – characters do not water down their feelings as it pertains to God, themselves, or the people in the church; however, blasphemy is not acceptable.

Drama – UCF would not be what it is if the story did not involve a little “drama” in the church. Drama in the church is real people doing real things while serving a real forgiving God. In short, the characters don’t always do it right and sometimes they get caught doing it wrong.

Urban Christian Fiction does not hide sin or cover it up. It exposes the sins, the faults and the shortcomings of its characters while exposing the world to an all powerful God.

Characteristics of Urban Christian Fiction

• It is unpredictable, gritty and raw

• Protagonist experience some form of “church hurt” and tries to discover a way to get over it with the help of God

• Protagonist does not always resolve his/her problems in a cookie cutter manner

• Forgiveness of hurt is real and raw, sometimes not forgiven easily

• Church scandal is eminent and unavoidable – it adds the element of drama to each story.

• The protagonist has an intimate relationship with God. God is the center of the protagonist’s heart. He or she lives, moves and breathes their relationship with God.

Urban Christian Fiction speaks to the inner soul of the reader that longs for answers to forsaken questions. These life-changing and thought provoking stories leave the reader saying, “Thank God I’m not in this by myself.”


Wanza Leftwich is the Gospel Writer. To receive free tips on writing Urban Christian Fiction go to http://www.thegospelwriter.blogspot.com