… according to me, of course!
I’m sitting here doing page layout on My Life Story by Becky Lynn Black. As I was doing that, I read small portions. I don’t read much while I’m doing page layout. What the text says is less important than how it will look, so my brain is in a different mode. I was both appreciating portions of the book that I did read, and asking myself a question: If you didn’t know Dave Black, and just received this manuscript cold, would you have published it? I’ll answer that later.
In glancing at a page in layout, I saw this:
… what I found in these Bible majors were men who were as spiritually shallow,
vain, and frivolous as the rest of civilization!
She’s talking about the men
at a Bible college, a place she hoped to find a husband. (We’re too early in the layout for me to tell you what page that quote will be on.)
Over the course of the day, I’ve worked on publicity for a philosophy text, I’ve worked on the cover for a book on preparing sermons, and I’ve followed up on items on several other titles under preparation. If my schedule holds, later today I’ll be reading a manuscript on process theology, and laying out a study guide to a book about the Lord’s prayer. The authors of this material vary a great deal in their theological perspectives. Some would consider these differences to be among the essentials of the faith. What is it that attracts me to these manuscripts? I work for myself. (Well, I think God might well challenge me on that, but though I try, I don’t want to claim divine inspiration for my actions.) I don’t have to publish anything I don’t want to.
Here’s the answer:
Oh, I put that one twice.
I think that if we are truly committed to Jesus Christ and passionate about following him and serving him, he will find a way to teach us.
What will never work is apathy.
That’s the biggest divide. Those who really care and those who don’t.
I want to publish the people who really care. I want to find the readers who really care. I want to help them care more. I want to help myself to care more and be more effective. It’s never enough!
To answer the question I asked myself, I have no doubt that the answer is yes. I think this is a manuscript that too many editors would look at and say, “Who was Becky Lynn Black?” In the pages of the manuscript I would have found the answer, had I not already known. You can find it too.
Of course, as a publisher, I want you to buy the book. Take that as given. But what I really hope you’ll do is share your testimony. Tell people what God has done in your life. Place that task above all the theological debates. I don’t mean that you need to compromise your principles. People who are truly committed don’t do that. But make your primary story be about Jesus Christ in your life. I think you’ll find that story does more than anything else.
Eddie Arthur comments with a link and provides some valuable advice. I grew up with my parents on long term missions, and have been on a number of short term missions myself, and this resonates.
I am frequently amazed by our authors at Energion Publications. I suppose that other editors and owners are likewise amazed, but I think we have a very special group. Just the other day I received notice from an author that he had signed his contract, but that he wanted to donate his royalties to our literature fund, a fund we use to send books overseas or to people who can’t afford them. I hadn’t asked. In fact, I don’t ask for funds to support that project. We’re not a non-profit. It’s just one of the ways we try to give back.
The thing that impresses me most about our authors, however, is the way they live what they believe. I don’t know of any of our authors who doesn’t in some way embody the books they have written. When I hear what they are actually doing, it’s what I would expect based on what they wrote in their books. And that’s a great thing.
Way back when … well, actually in 2010 … we were contacted by a potential new author who had a story to tell. I like books that tell a story, particularly when that story is a testimony. This was Renee Crosby and her life and vision had been changed by a seminary assignment. She had been asked to serve a certain number of hours in the community as part of an assignment. She spent that time in a soup kitchen. Now as the book will tell you, Renee had become extremely busy in church. She was an active Christian. But that activity was generally in church. When she reluctantly went out to complete her assignment, she encountered Jesus in a new way, right there in the soup kitchen.
So she wrote her book Soup Kitchen for the Soul to invite other people to this same discovery. I was hooked immediately. I have frequently visited churches that are busy, filled with active members. But if you review their church bulletin or newsletter, the vast majority of what they do is designed to serve the members. It’s people in the church doing things for people in the church. Now there’s nothing wrong with that. People in the church should be doing things for one another, caring for one another, building one another up. But we should also be “provoking one another to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24), and those good deeds should serve those outside the church as well.
This is a book with a great message. It deserves to be read much more than it has. It deserves to be studied.
But Renee is now experiencing the next phase of her testimony. As she explains in the video below, she is in treatment for breast cancer. But she’s not taking it lying down. Instead, she’s trying even more to provoke others to love and good deeds.
We’re also going to donate 5% of our proceeds in addition to what Renee donates as our way of supporting her in this endeavor. In addition, the book is now 30% off with the use of the pink30 coupon. To use that coupon, you need to enter the coupon code on your shopping cart on checkout from Energion Direct. If you need some more help with the coupon, you’ll find it here.
When it rains it pours, so I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about mission lately, and here’s another one that raises some very interesting points. (HT: Kouyanet).
Having served on and led short-term mission teams, grown up with long-term missionary parents, and served on mission committees, I find that a great deal of this resonates with me. Read it all and give it serious consideration. This is to be a series. I intend to follow it.
One thing that strikes me is that minor changes in the details are not the solution to the various problems (see Of Resources and Mission Priorities and Worship, Service, and Mission). Our problem is that we don’t view ourselves as on a mission in the first place. We view the church as a way to provide a moral education to our children, a place for networking, and in some cases a route to salvation.
Perhaps our committees, agencies, and denominations lack a sense of mission because our members lack a sense of mission. Perhaps that lack of a sense of mission comes from a lack of understanding the basic gospel message.
T. E. Hanna (discovered via Facebook) has a guest post by Dana Bruxvoort titled Why the Gospel Without Justice Isn’t the Gospel. While the title caught my attention, phrases like “filling in the holes in my gospel” and “doing nothing was no longer an option.”
Missions not optional? Let’s spread that idea far and wide!
Dave Black responded to my previous post on the United Methodist Church by referring to some thoughts he has had on his own denomination. I want to quote them here, since Dave’s blog doesn’t make linking to a particular entry possible.
7:55 AM Noted Methodist blogger Henry Neufeld ponders the question, How to cure the UMC? He asks:
How much time needs to go into preserving the organization? Is such time well spent? Those are questions that concern me these days.
For what it’s worth, Henry, I once pondered a similar question regarding my own denomination. The bottom of the bottom line for me?
I came away from the convention with a new realization that a Great Commission resurgence will not begin at the denominational level. It will end there. A Great Commission commitment must begin in our homes and marriages, and then in our local churches, each one of them. This is clearly the pattern of the book of Acts. The church at Antioch, the world’s first missional church, is proof of that.
I hope that all of this gets sorted out at the denomination level (and I predict that it will, eventually). But even if it doesn’t, there is nothing to keep me and my local church from doing all we can to help advance God’s kingdom on earth. (From Dave Black Online)
I have found that the concerns of people who are seeking to be servants and missionaries in different denominations are remarkably similar. We have some doctrinal differences, but we struggle with issues of getting the church active. I believe that if we get people studying the Bible, praying, and seeking the unity of the Spirit, doctrinal differences will tend to fade to the background. They’ll either be found to be non-essential or we’ll discover where we each need to change. I think we can be very patient with “erring brethren.” After all, we are ourselves erring brethren, almost by definition!
What I must keep in focus is simply this: God hasn’t called me to solve all the problems of the church. He hasn’t called me to make sure everyone else is fulfilling the great commission. He has called me to be transformed by looking to Him, and to fulfil my call to service.
I don’t mean that I can “be the church” alone. Rather, I can do a much better job of being part of the body if I’m spending more time correcting my own manifold flaws than I spend trying to correct those of others. Much more time, in fact!
From Allan R. Bevere (author of The Politics of Witness):
[W]e Christians in America need to ponder the reality that while we were arguing over eating chicken sandwiches this past week, that there were people in many parts of the world who were, at the very same time, hoping only for a morsel of daily bread.
