Write today's worries in sand. Chisel yesterday's victories in stone.
You don't impress the officials at NASA with a paper airplane. You don't boast about your crayon sketches in the presence of Picasso. You don't claim equality with Einstein because you can write 'H20.' And you don't boast about your goodness in the presence of the Perfect.
I don't have any desire to retire in the sense of not doing anything. Because as long as the Lord gives me strength I want to keep writing and keep preaching. I love what I do.
I remember enjoying writing those, theres two clues of a gift: you enjoy doing it and people enjoy you doing it.
Through the years, I have always enjoyed anything Chuck Swindoll has written. When I first got into writing Chuck's books really modeled a style of writing that I thought was accessible to people and yet still biblical. I wanted to do that.
All I did was collect a few of the questions I've been asked through the years, write up a brief response and put them in this publication. As a pastor, you get asked questions and receive emails. Many of them I had answered, but just in conversation. So we kind of re-crafted the question and answered it. It turned out to be an interesting exercise. I hope it's encouraging for people.
I co-pastor now, so I preach six months, then another guy preaches six months. So that's really why I'm preparing for January, because I'll finish in June; then I'll be writing and doing other projects for the rest of the year.
We get a lot of unsolicited manuscripts here. Im not even a publisher, but we get several a week. I dont read them, but I do glance through some of them, and some people dont need to be writing, they have something else.
I think you could say every pastor is writing this book, Max on Life; for many it just never gets published. All I did was collect a few of the questions I've been asked through the years, write up a brief response and put them in this publication.
I think that I speak a lot like I write.
I think you could say every pastor is writing this book [ Max on Life]; for many it just never gets published.
My parents, they were good, godly people, but they never said, You need to write.
I have learned that my assignment is to write books for people who do not like to read books. I really try to connect with people who are not given to spending a lot of time with an open book. Pay day to me is when somebody comes up to me and says, "I never read books but I read yours." I have a heart for that person.
If you get a lot of good feedback from people, thats a sign that you have a strength or gift in writing, if not ... try singing.
I think that the Holy Spirit works through the pastors of the church. It helps me avoid the trap of writing to the reading market. It helps me stay a pastor first, because they have no agenda; they are not thinking: "This would this be a good book someday." They're thinking: "How this will help Bob and Suzy who are going through a tough marriage? What series can encourage them?" And so I really bow to their preference.
I noticed people would read these short articles I was assigned to write for our church bulletin and they would say, Boy, thats good stuff. I got letters from people around the country saying, Thats really good. And I thought, Is it really?
I never told anybody I wanted to write, I kind of fell into it backwards.
I think theres just this mystique of writing a book that appeals to people. A person has to really check their motives and say, Am I really being called by God to do this? Or is this just something that would look neat in my funeral? I dont mean to be harsh but I think a person really needs to, so they wont be disappointed.
Listen carefully to the feedback your readers give you. Dont write unless people want you to write, a lot of people write just because they want to write.
I was never really lead by [my parents] and didnt sense any leading from the Lord to go into writing.
I really enjoyed reading the writings of Fredrick Buechner, I havent read anything by him in probably a decade but about 20 years ago I read four or five books of his and it helped me.
I didn't want to just write stories that were entertaining. Nor did I want to be so scholarly that people couldn't digest it.
How my relationship with my parents influenced my writing, really not at all. My dad was a mechanic, my mom a nurse.
I don't have any desire to retire in the sense of not doing anything. As long as the Lord gives me strength I want to keep writing and keep preaching.
All my books come out of sermons, and I'm really a pastor who writes rather than a writer who pastors.
