Timothy's Thoughts

W hen you write a book, or do anything creative, you have this idea that your readers will “get it”. Then the reviews come in and they aren’t what you expected. It isn’t going to be the next bestseller. The people you thought would read it aren’t reading it and those who are don’t have anything good to say. I figure there are two reasons for this type of situation. One is that you failed in your job as an author. Your writing is terrible, but you aren’t willing to admit it. If that is the problem, there’s nothing I can do for you. No one can help you. The other reason is that you connected with the wrong audience. I’ve noticed this with free Kindle books. People will download the book because it is free, but then they’ll complain because it isn’t a book that they want to read. They’ll claim the author can’t write, but in fact it is more likely that the author just wasn’t writing for them. As an example, consider the Dick and Jane books. They were great material if you were trying ...

I haven't been writing lately. I published a book near the end of last year and then one in January of this year. I thought that would take the (self-impossed) pressure off, since I already had one done so early this year, but I really thought I would complete another or two. But here we are near the end of the year and I'm not sure I'll be able to complete another this year. I've got a non-fiction book well under way, but it needs a lot of work. I have a novel started, but after having let it set, I've decided that my approach is all wrong. I love the concept and the one sentence description is one that would make me want to pick it up and read it, but I've struggled with it for a number of reasons. One reason may be that I've attempted to make the wrong person the point of view character. Making the events that occur problematic for the character I chose may make him unlikeable. It might look like he is choosing his job over his daughter. I believe I ca...

W hen I wrote Church Website Design: A step-by-step approach , one of the topics I didn't cover was that of a secure website. Since my primary focus was people who were new to church website development, I tried to walk the straighter path. Most churches don't need a secure website because most churches are providing nothing but publicly available information. When all you are doing is providing information like when your church meets, what programs you have, what events are on the calendar, etc. it doesn't make sense to pay the extra money required for a secure website. But that's not to say that no church ever needs a secure website. I am currently in the process of implementing a secure website for our church. You may be wondering why a church needs a secure website. I our case, it is because we want a means for our Awana staff to access certain information about our clubbers through the Internet. None of it is financial in nature and it is doubtful that anything w...

S ome Christian authors have the idea that they should be trying to win the lost with their novels. There are other views that I believe are equally valid, but I want to focus on this one view today. The reason I want to focus on it is because even though this is a noble view, this is an area in which Christian authors tend to fail. I've heard authors tell of people who came to know Christ after reading one of their books. I'm glad that happens once in a while, but it quite rare. And when we look at the number of Amish books in the Christian Fiction market these days, I can't help but think it is more rare than ever. Even though the Amish are distant cousins of the Baptists, in that they come from that line in church history that was never part of the Catholic church, they left their roots and teach works for salvation. I question the ability of books that glorify the lifestyle of the Amish to point people to the truth. But I could be wrong. The Bible does say that the Law ...

S ome people are critical of Gideon for laying out the fleece. After all, the Lord had already told Gideon that he'd delivered Israel's enemies into his hand. They say that Gideon should have believed the Lord when the Angel of the Lord caused fire to come from the rock and consume the meal Gideon had prepared. Perhaps Gideon did doubt the Lord more than he should have, but it seems interesting to me that Gideon waited until after he had called 32,000 men to battle before he laid out the fleece. I don't know about you, but I know I wouldn't call 32,000 men to battle against a people without number if I didn't have some faith. I don't think the fleece was about a lack of confidence in God as much as Gideon lacked confidence in himself. He was ready to go fight, but he wasn't sure that he was the right man to be leading these men. The Lord assured Gideon of that by giving Gideon the sign he asked for. The Lord never told Gideon he shouldn't have asked fo...

I fear the importance of the church is in decline among Christians. As I was writing yesterday's post, I began to think about why there are so many people who want to call things that are not done as the agent of their local church ministry. I think that part of it has to do with people putting so little value on the church. Many people see the church as all Christians, even though the word that is translated as church in the Bible means "an assembly". This thinking, I believe, makes many people view the church much like what they view Wal-mart. People will typically go to the same Wal-mart every week or so. They may have special ties to the people who work there, but they understand that their local Wal-mart is owned by a much larger company based in Arkansas. If they happen to be running around town and see another Wal-mart, they might stop there instead. As far as they are concerned Wal-mart is Wal-mart. Every Wal-mart provides similar products and services. That'...

H ere's an interesting question: Is Christian writing a ministry? I've heard people talk about writing as a ministry, though I've never thought of my books in that way. I've been involved in other things that I thought were ministry, including our church's website, which involves a great deal of writing, but I've never seen my novels in that way. Nor do I consider this blog a ministry, though I often write about some of the same things I write about for the church website. For a while, it didn't make sense. I began to question whether it was a matter of opinion. But it turns out that it isn't. It turns out that the distinction I made between this blog and the church website is correct, even though they are similar. In the course of responding to the topic on another blog, I looked up the term ministry and minister . Though many authors call their writing ministry because they see it as something they are doing for God, that is an incorrect understan...