About the Episode

In the latest Craft & Character Podcast episode, preacher and author of How (Not) to Save the World, Hosanna Wong, unpacks how poetry has influenced her preaching. Growing up in San Francisco, Hosanna competed in various underground slam poetry contests and she learned the art of storytelling, the rhythmic patterns within sentences, and how to speak truth using the fewest words possible. She talks candidly about what the transition was like moving from spoken word artist to preaching regularly at her church and around the world.

Who is Hosanna Wong?

Hosanna Wong is an international speaker, bestselling author, and spoken word artist sharing captivating stories of a powerful God with churches, conferences, prisons, and events around the world. She is passionate about empowering this generation to know who they are, boldly live out their purpose, and reveal God’s love to the people right next to them.

Born and raised on the streets of San Francisco, her sermons, books & spoken word pieces share her first-hand experiences with loss, hope, and redemption, and her innermost desires to see lives healed and restored by the power of Jesus.

Hosanna is the Teaching Pastor at EastLake Church in the San Diego area and an itinerant speaker at churches around the country. She is also the Executive Director of Calvary Street Ministries, an outreach on the streets of San Francisco, and appears on TBN’s daily show Better Together. She has released two spoken word albums Maps, Boots, & Other Ways We Get There, and Figless, and is the author of I Have a New Name, and Superadded. Her new best-selling book, How (Not) to Save the World is available now!

When not on the road, she and her husband Guy, a pastor at EastLake Church, can be found serving with various ministries equipping the local and global church, as well as watching basketball, grilling chicken wings, and gardening in their backyard.