My First Present This Year

After five years of study, a year of writing and finalization of editing, I am now excited to say that I have received advance copies of my book (In, Not Of - Christian Relevance in 21st Century America) and can announce that the book is available in stores.  Clicking on the picture to the right will link to the Barnes & Noble website, and the book is also available through Amazon.com and can be obtained through any major book seller and Christian Bookstore.

I hope this book will be an encouragement to believers and an effective challenge to skeptics as it provides a brief but extensive overview of apologetic arguments for the existence of God, the God of the Bible as the One True God, and the authority of scripture and the divinity of Christ.  I hope it will be a challenge to believers and skeptics alike as it discusses at length the disconnect between an overwhelming ascription to Christianity in the United States and an equally overwhelming prevalence of non-Christian behavior actually lived out.  I hope it will be thought-provoking to all as it develops the Christian worldview as it relates to four essential topics of our day in comparison with other possible belief systems and incorporating current events and the arts.

In any case, it is a present come a few days early for me as I was able to put my hands on the fruit of that labor and see the physical manifestation of what the Holy Spirit had coalesced in my mind over many years of study and internal wrestling with many ideas.  I hope that God is glorified in the work, that all who are meant to read the book will find it both an encouragement and a challenge, and that the Lord will see fit to bless me with other topics on which to write as this experience has been one of the most trying yet rewarding of my relatively short life.

Testimony of Grace

As I mentioned yesterday, I have just finished writing a book.  My files have been submitted to the publisher and I now await the front cover design, some recommendations for editing and a review of my final galley before going ahead with production and distribution.  It is a very exciting time.  The full book title is In, Not Of - Christian Relevance in 21st Century America.  I'll discuss the content in the next few days, but I thought it would appropriate to put into writing a testimony of God's grace in bringing the work to fruition.

At our Men's Retreat this past weekend a brother shared a definition of grace that I have been thinking about since.  He said grace could be defined as the desire and ability to do what is pleasing to God.  It's pretty good.  We don't by nature tend toward things that announce our inability to please God and do what is right.  Our bent is more toward autonomy and independence from God (acknowledging our ability to take care of things ourselves).  So, God's grace as the desire and ability to do what pleases God would be a God-given return to our originally designed state of being.  In my life, the process of completing this book has been God operating in His strength to infuse the desire and ability to please Him in a written work.  The process began in 2005 when many things changed in my family.  My wife and I had our 2nd child (2nd son, Nathan) in December.  At the same time, I changed my place of work from Greensboro to Burlington, from a consulting engineering firm (which was a great company where I had a great position) to the family business (which is a great company where I have a great position).  We also moved our membership from one great church family to another.  During this time, I began regular personal devotions in the book of Colossians.  In chapter one verses 16 and 17, Jesus is described as being before all things, that by Him all things were created, and in Him all things are held together.  I thought about those verses for a long time and felt compelled to investigate the notion that if those verses were really true then the "fingerprint" of Christ (His influence and imprint) should be on any topic under the sun.  For the next five years I read everything I could get my hands on and thought about newspaper articles and blog topics; really searching to see if those who believed the Bible was Truth had something meaningful to say.

In late October, early November, 2010 I felt compelled to compile all these ideas in a book.  More than a compulsion (although I couldn't escape the desire to take on the task) it was a coalescing of the book in my mind.  I can't say the idea wasn't there at all one minute and in full form the next, but when I did feel there was nothing I could do but capitulate and sit down to write I knew the organization and content from beginning to end.  It took just under a year to complete the writing and review.  It truly has been God's grace, Him placing in me the desire and ability to see this thing through.  I have always been one for math and science since I come from an engineering background, so reading and writing and any topic dealing with the humanities or social sciences has been nothing more than an impediment to me.  Interesting the God would choose to arrest my life for more than 5 years in that which I deemed unimportant.

I'll get into the content next time, but the book is arranged like a building construction project.  It begins with the foundation (an apologetic for belief in the God of the Bible), then the structure (what it means to be a Christian in the United States of America in the 21st Century) and finally the secondary framing or fascia (practical matters for Christians like media/entertainment, environment, government and love).  It has been a tremendous blessing personally and will hopefully be a challenge and encouragement to others of the desire and ability to please God that a Holy and personal Father places in His children for His good purposes.