Sept 30, 2020 marks the publication of the Paperback and Kindle version of my fourth book. A book that I had not intended to ever write. So why spend most of this past year writing another book? I really didn’t plan to. I thought that “On Playing the Back Nine” would close down that part of my life quite nicely. Except, I missed it. Writing, that is.
Like many of my male friends, I could take refuge in my workshop. If I had one. And if I had tools to put in it. But my workshop is my desk, surrounded by bookshelves, and facing outward through a wonderful bay window, the better to survey the world. The only tools at my disposal are words. But wasn’t it Tom Stoppard who wrote, “If you get the right words in the right order, you can nudge the world?”
But why sermons? Why not a memoir? Why not a theological commentary on world events? Why not a textbook for preachers on sermon construction? Good questions, all four. But I keep hearing from readers who say, “We like what you’re doing. So give us another.” As concerns a memoir, I think that my previous books have been sufficiently self-revelatory. As concerns world events, I have never backed away from addressing them, which has been moderately risky, given that my heart has always bled a little to the left. And as concerns a primer for young preachers, what most of my colleagues would rather have is a slew of stories they can steal rather than a textbook of techniques they can employ. So, to them, I say (quoting an old spiritual), “Steal Away,” with or without formal attribution.
These sermons also address the concern expressed by the woman who screamed at one of my colleagues while steaming out the door (as he was trying to get her to say what she wanted him to do differently in his sermon)
“Just take my life seriously.”
And in this latest book, I have tried to do just that.
This could not have happened without Lindsay Hinz who, over the last year, served as editor, marketing consultant and most importantly friend.
Special thanks also to my long-time friend, Brent Slay who wrote the Foreword, Rachel Fast Billups Scott Chrostek whose endorsements can be found on the back cover, and to Bob Hill, Dale Warnke, Wesley Brun, Meredith Wende Mills, and Amy Lee Brun Terhune for their willingness to write endorsements for the book.
