Hello, Churchthink friends.  Thanks so much for being a part of my ongoing experiment in how to communicate basic, family, foundational truths through articles and podcasts here at www.churchthink.com.  There are a total of 66 articles and audio resources posted on this website.  It means a lot that you have visited, subscribed, or bookmarked us as a resource for your journey with Jesus, especially as leaders in the family of God.

I am feeling a bit retrospective today.

I think this is partially because I just completed a major milestone in my personal ministry life this morning:  I submitted my first Churchthink series book to the printers!  Yes. It is true, in some ways I have used the discipline of writing big articles here as a proving and training ground to prepare me for book writing. This website is more than a trial run effort, for sure, because it is in itself a great and growing resource for Kingdom understanding and healthy leadership development; but I don’t mind confessing that it has taken a lot of personal work and commitment to the task of writing to prepare me to take on a full book project.

As I reflect on book writing I would say that it is a lot like recording an album.  Writing a 10,000 word article are like recording a song.  Anything less than that, for me, is playing a ditty on the porch.  As a point of information, my fresh articles on Churchthink for the next season will be ditties.  I am going to intersperse these small offerings with large chunks of my book, in linear order, along with the audio recordings of each section…all for FREE.  In other words by staying connected here through email or RSS, beginning this next post, you can receive my entire print and audio book for free over a period of months.  Feel the love?  Tell your friends so they can feel it, too.

I figure the smaller blog posts will allow me to keep my present heart and mind alive in these conversations we have been having together, and the bigger posts from my book will allow us both to enjoy the fruit of my labors on the book over the last several months.  The book is titled TOM and the Goldfish Bowl and it will be available for physical orders at our store at www.entertheworshipcircle.com before Thanksgiving, and then at big retailers like Amazon in late December or early January.  The ebook will also release a little closer to Christmas.

Some exciting news!  Jack Taylor, a man I have great personal respect for and someone many of you already know and love, has written the foreword of the book!  I will close this post by sharing his foreword with you, and don’t forget to visit his website at www.coffeewithjack.com for some excellent reading and encouragements from him.

Foreword to TOM and the Goldfish Bowl

I love allegory for several reasons. It is, as this remarkable work, often couched in fiction.

Allegory approaches through the back door when the front door is shut and sometimes locked, and by dressing up controversial truth in acceptable garb allegory may find the reader open to areas of discussion that otherwise would be avoided. In allegory one may speak hard truths so disguised as to cause the observer to lay aside defensiveness and be open to truths heretofore refused. This is just such an allegory, and just such a book.

We are good at picking up a book, reading a few chapter headings, observing the brief biography of the author, looking at the names of the endorsers, seeking for a few theological buzzwords and making a decision to lay it down because it violates some “lightly held” religious tradition. EITHER THIS BOOK WILL DEFY SUCH AN EXERCISE OR BREAK IT UP IN THE MIDST OF THE PROCESS.

Allegory can be entirely fictional and lacking in purpose or it may revolve around a truth so mighty, so indispensable to our lives, so indescribable that it sends the reader on a life-altering saga. There is no doubt in my mind that TOM and the Goldfish Bowl is the latter.

Never has the Christian world been offered so much information on the Kingdom of God and, while it is welcome, it can be overwhelming if not confusing. This work will emerge, in my opinion, among the most clarifying offerings on the delicate discussion of the Church, the Kingdom of God and the traditions of men. To the open and searching heart it will encourage us to believe that it is all right to lighten up and, with tongue in cheek, have an honest and “ouchy” look at our funny, religious selves.

Ben Pasley is a binary genius (look it up), funny, loose and loaded with good sense. Is there such a word as trinary or quadrinary? If so, that too may describe Ben.

Thanks Ben, for a novel, pertinent, and a fetching trip into a field of truth that not only challenges our practice of faith, but  also helps our sense of humor as we consider our sometimes laughable religious positions. You have moved us to be daring dreamers of approaching seasons when we will abandon sad and senseless traditions and take up the banners of praise and worship. Because you have helped us see Him as He is, we can more excitedly worship, walk and serve Him as we ought.

I feel somewhat guilty about having detained you from the excitement of what’s ahead in this welcome and exciting work.  But humor me, I’ve enjoyed looking it over. Now, for goodness sake get on with it!

Jack Taylor, President
Dimensions Ministries
Melbourne, Florida
November 10, 2009