What Must You Do to Write for Koinonia?

An overview of our publication and link to the application form

What is Koinonia?

Koinonia (pronounced coin-uh-KNEE-uh) is a Greek word meaning “Christian fellowship, sharing, partnership, and community.”

As a publication, we seek to build an online community of writers who love Jesus and want to join with Him in obedience to the Great Commission by sharing the Good News through our words.

Apply to write for us by accessing the form linked further below. Be sure to read our guidelines first to ensure you’re able to follow them completely.

What do we publish?

We publish high-quality stories following the guiding principle of Ephesians 4:29 (NIV):

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Stories should promote (or at least not hinder) readers’ mental, emotional, physical, and/or spiritual health. We will not publish anything that could be considered a rant against any individual and/or group of people, especially in the absence of any constructive takeaway message.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. (Philippians 4:8, NIV)

This publication expects submissions to adhere to a biblical worldview. Our editors believe the Bible is without error and authoritative. All scripture is authoritative (not just some of it).

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16–17, ESV)

Stories should also fit into one of these categories (and must be tagged with at least one of these required TOPICS). We will publish fiction and poetry, as long as it fits into a listed category.

• Christianity — We love to read about what God is teaching you. Share your Bible studies, reflections on biblical passages or sermon notes, personal testimonies, etc. We also feature a monthly Scripture Prompt for which all writers are invited to submit a post.
• Creativity & Writing Tips— Tips or techniques, processes or products, ideas or inspiration… We are all creative beings created in the image of our Creator. If you’ve got the answers to our questions, don’t keep them secret. Share!
• Health — What has God shown you about how to stay healthy — mentally, physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually?
• Relationships—We all have relationships with other people (and with God). Share your stories on prayer, friendship, love, marriage, parenting, interactions on the job, with your family of origin or your extended or adopted family… even your relationship with your pet could apply here. The possibilities are pretty much limitless.
• Morning — The Morning Devotions section was introduced in 2022. It features short-form content that doesn’t exceed 150 words total. You can find our special style guidelines here.

We recommend that all our writers be members of Medium’s Partner Program. To gain more followers, write more and write well. We will also help you grow your following. Don’t delay applying to write for us though!!!

Submission rules — boring stuff, but it’s important

By submitting to Koinonia, you agree to comply with ALL our rules and requirements. Writers whose submissions are repeatedly rejected for rule violations may be removed from the publication.

1. ALL submissions must follow our Style and Formatting Guidelines. Find them here.
2. All submissions must comply with Medium’s Rules and Ad-Free Policy. Stories behind the paywall must also comply with Medium’s Content and Curation Guidelines.
3. We only accept unpublished drafts. Stories published outside of Medium (like your website) are welcome to be submitted as unpublished drafts, but posts already published on Medium are not accepted (see #4 below). The only exception to this is if you have published the story on your own (not in another publication) within the previous 24 hours (yes, we can tell). At some point, we all accidentally hit “publish” before we’ve selected the intended publication.
4. Do not submit a copy of a story published elsewhere on Medium. This violates Medium’s rule on Duplicate Content. In other words, you cannot have the same story posted in two places on Medium. Period.
5. All submissions must be family friendly. This means no detailed descriptions of sex, drug usage, or criminal activity. You can mention it if it’s critical to the story (some stories of our lives before Christ have some dark moments), but please don’t dwell on it. Our readers are smart enough to fill in the blanks for themselves. Also, no swearing — not even “light” swearing. When in doubt, go ahead and submit, but please note the editors reserve the right to change any such language as we deem appropriate for our audience.
6. We allow ONLY TWO (2) links to other Medium posts or your website or a published book in your footer. Use your About page to describe yourself, not every post footer.
7. We do not allow submissions whose sole intent is to sell or promote a book, blog, service, or product. If you really love something, and it fits in with one of our categories (see above), you can tell us about it — but tell us WHY you love it and why you think we would love it too. Remember, we want to build our readers up, not waste their time with yet another ad.
8. We do not publish any posts that are heavily political. As a publication, we acknowledge Jesus as our King and ruler. More often than not, man-made politics cause division and harm. As stated above, we wish to avoid anything that could be harmful to others.
9. Stories that call out public figures and their errors will be rejected, unless there’s a strong takeaway. Never include that person’s name in the title (clickbait).
10. All submissions must be in English. You are expected to fully edit any story before submitting to ensure it is as free from error as possible. Grammarly and Hemingway are excellent free tools you can use to help with this. Please, if English is not your first language, have a native English speaker read over and correct your story before submitting.
11. You retain all rights to your story and may remove it from Koinonia if you choose. However, we ask that you keep your submission with us for at least 30 days, and that you make no major changes to it once it has been published. If you habitually remove your stories from our publication, we may remove you as a writer.

How do you become a Koinonia writer?

You’ve made it this far, and you still want to write for Koinonia? Wow, that’s impressive!

Please note, we accept writers who already have at least three stories published on Medium (and one of those MUST tell how you got to know Jesus or share something about your intimate knowledge of or relationship with Him). Our application requires that you submit a direct link to a piece published on MEDIUM about your faith.

Fill out and submit the following Google form: (You should hear back from us within 10–14 days. Our vetting team and editors are ALL volunteers!)

How do you submit a draft?

Once you’re a Koinonia writer, you must follow Medium’s process for adding a draft to a publication. All submissions must be made through this process.

• Review our format guidelines and publishing rules prior to clicking that final “Submit to publication” button.
• We accept and publish only one submission per writer per day.
• We receive multiple submissions each day, and we manually evaluate each one. It can take up to 24 hours for us to do this. Please note that our editors do not publish on Sundays.
• If we feel a submission is not yet ready for publication, we’ll leave a private note (and possibly more than one) explaining why. (Watch your email inbox or Medium notifications for such notes.) After you address all issues mentioned in the notes, your story may be published. Editor notes are marked by asterisks throughout your submitted draft.

Do you have questions?

If you have questions about anything, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Thank you so much for your interest in writing for Koinonia. We look forward to being in fellowship with you!

Apply to write for us here