More of an invitation than an article this week. (And if you’ve already read this invitation on the Matthias Media enews earlier this week, and signed up to The Payneful Truth, you don’t need to read this again!)
I often catch myself when I come across a book with my name on the cover. I pick it up and read a paragraph and think, “Did I write this? Surely it was someone else. Me, write books? Ridiculous.”
On the other hand, I also find myself regretting the books I never got around to writing.
For example, somehow, in over three decades of producing Christian resources for Matthias Media, I didn’t ever think to write an evangelistic book based on Two Ways to Live. Don’t ask me why. Like most things I regret in life, I think I got distracted. For 35 years.
It’s a book we undoubtedly need. We always need fresh evangelistic books, and one based on Two Ways to Live seems a blindingly obvious option. Perhaps that’s why I never thought to do it.
Well I think it’s time.
Over the next couple of months, I’m going to try to write a shortish, eight-part evangelistic book based around Two Ways to Live—an introduction, a conclusion, and a chapter for each of the six boxes.
And if you’re willing, I’d like you to help me write it—in three ways.
I’m going to send out each chapter as I write it here at The Payneful Truth, starting with the introduction later this week. That first one will go to everyone on the whole list, but after that I’ll keep sending out chapters most weeks as part of the regular weekly newsletter that partners/subscribers get. So your first job (if you’d like to help) is to become a partner and be part of the readership that forces me to write something every week and press ‘send’. You’ve no idea how valuable that is! (See below for how to sign up on a free trial.)
Secondly, and most significantly, your task would be to give me honest feedback and ideas on each of the chapters. These will be first drafts, and the whole purpose of a first draft is to generate the much-better second draft. So I won’t be at all bothered when you tear my first draft to shreds—quite pleased in fact—and I’ll be delighted by the fresh ideas you generate that help make this book as good as it can be. It would be wonderful if, in our collective wisdom, we could come up with a resource that we’d be confident to give to our non-Christian friends and family.
Thirdly, if in God’s kindness a good quality gospel book does emerge from this process, I’d love you to actually give it to all your non-Christian friends and family! (As I plan to do with mine.)
To join in on this project, you’ll need to become a weekly subscriber. That usually costs $7 a month (or $70 a year). But since you’ll be doing me a favour and helping write this book, there’s a 90-day free trial available. You can hang around for the duration of this project, and drop back onto the free list after that if you’d like to. (Or stay on!)
What do you think?
Shall we write a book?
Let's write a book