Keeping the Ink Wet
Preachers, worship leaders, and actors are all trying to do one thing: make the words on the page come alive, making the texts of their respective authors “flesh” in real time and space. To do it successfully takes a mixture of natural talent, skills training, and lots of rehearsal. It’s the work of communication, and the purpose is always to invite the audience or congregation into an experience of some mix of truth, beauty, hope, and reconciliation. Performers take years training in the skills needed. Ministers, unfortunately, often receive very little help or support in developing their own unique way of taking what is inside them—their faith and questions, their love and wisdom—and using that depth to open the living word of God. This book offers a journey through the wisdom and practice of theater for their benefit. A script, after all, is just a starting point. It is neither a play nor an act of worship until it has a body with breath to give it life. Each of us is that body, called to play with the Author to find meaning in the words. Consider this an invitation to come and play!
About the Author
Kevin Yell is a minister, playwright, performer, and director with a passion for blending creativity, faith, and storytelling to transform worship and spiritual growth. Originally from the United Kingdom, Kevin now serves as a minister with the independent American Catholic Church, where he brings his unique perspective to congregations and communities.
Kevin’s journey weaves together a lifelong love of the arts and a deep commitment to ministry. As the author of Acts of Salvation (2001) and numerous plays, including Vexilla Regis, Gate 13, Entanglement, and Can’t Say I Do, he explores the intersections of faith, identity, and human connection. His upcoming book, Keeping the Ink Wet, invites preachers and worship leaders to learn from the wisdom of theater, offering tools to bring the living word of God to life with authenticity, creativity, and joy.
Kevin believes worship is not just a ritual—it’s an act of play, collaboration, and discovery. Through his writing and ministry, he inspires individuals and communities to engage with faith in new and meaningful ways, making worship a vibrant, transformative experience for all.
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Book Synopsis
Stories are vital to our identity and growth, our safety and well-being. We are all telling a story every day through our choice of clothes, the care (or not) of our living spaces, our use of language, and the way we spend our money and time. Everything we do out of our free will tends to conform to the story we are trying to tell the world, and usually ourselves too, about who we are. We cannot avoid it. It’s a habit we have learned and honed from birth.
As humans we are involved in many journeys within our life, each with its own beginning and end, not just the “Big” journey of life. The kindergartener becomes a sixth grader and “graduates”, but two or three months later they start again as a newbie seventh grader in middle school. The Freshman in High School or College, the “new hire” on day one of a job, a first date; all these “new beginnings” start a journey of various lengths which, eventually, end. Each journey, short or long, results in us being changed.
Within all these sometimes over-lapping stories we are making choices and responding to the choices of others. It has been likened to the popular board game “Chutes and Ladders”, as it’s known in the US, (or “Snakes and Ladders” as it’s known in the UK and elsewhere.) Some (we hope most) of our stories lift us up, but life usually brings some “chutes” or “snakes” too. We, however, are not an impersonal plastic token, to be moved around by fate. We are each a person with an inner, personal journey not just the public, outer one.
This book is for those who believe that the story we continually re-create as we age matters, especially as we strive to become more fully human, more fully alive, and more fully an agent of compassion and understanding in the world. It involves becoming more aware of our unconscious habits, values, and any “Childhood Survival Techniques” which we still use but are no longer needed. In it we will explore the five steps we can take every time we come to moments of major transition in our lives: Remembering, Understanding, Integrating, Reinventing, and Celebrating.
It is for those who want to explore what it might be like to become more uniquely and fully human, more uniquely and fully “you,” while still being in relationship to the world around us and our inherent call to work for the Common Good.
As humans we are involved in many journeys within our life, each with its own beginning and end, not just the “Big” journey of life!