Part of a series of interviews with experienced Christian writers—of academic and popular theology, fiction, and those writing for a non-Christian audience.
How did you decide to take writing more seriously? Did someone encourage you to do so?
My first degree was in English so I was always vaguely in the literary world, but as a consumer rather than producer. I would love to have had a gift for fiction or poetry, but have neither. Any literary outlet was going to have to be in non-fiction. Prior to being co-opted for full-time ministry, I’d have perhaps moved into journalism or teaching of some sort.
In 2001 (at which point I was well and truly on the full-time ministry track), I wrote a short article and sent it to The Briefing.[1] They published it, which was a little confidence boost. I later had a part-time job at Matthias Media whilst at College. This gave me an insight into how the whole publishing process worked, including the value of editors.
Despite all that, I’m not sure I’d have ever ventured to write a book except that, in 2011, I found an email (unaccountably in my spam folder) from Tony Panye at Matthias Media. He noted that I was speaking about union with Christ at an upcoming conference. The topic was something they’d wanted to tackle and he wanted to know if I would consider writing something in the wake of the conference. That invitation, and its implicit vote of confidence, was what got me over the line.
How do you think about your explicitly Christian writing? As a ministry? A hobby? A vocation? A side hustle?
Yes, I do have a day-job pastoring a growing church, so writing is a side hustle. It does have some hobby-like qualities. I sometimes say to my wife that writing is my “shed”—the place I go to to tinker with objects, to make things. In ministry, nothing is ever complete. There’s no point at which all demands are met, all stakeholders happy, all programmes working as well as you’d like. For some pastors, going into a shed to turn a piece of wood into a bookshelf or coffee table is a way of seeing something actually get completed. For me, writing is like that. It’s one thing in my life that satisfies whatever there is of a craftsman in me.
It is also part of my vocation. Most of my writing is either in church history (my academic discipline), contemporary culture, or popular-level theology. All of these flow directly or indirectly from my work as a pastor.
I think of my writing as somewhere on a Venn diagram between being a pastor, an academic, and an author. I don’t think my academic gifts are conspicuous enough to warrant full-time research. Nor would I want to write full-time or be a full-time “thought leader” or “influencer” (ew!). I am a working pastor with a somewhat academic bent, an interest in seeing the gospel flourish in our cultural context, and a love of literature. That’s the little space in which I do my writing.
How do you think about your less-explicitly Christian writing, whether fiction or non-fiction? A hobby? Part of the cultural mandate? Cultural engagement? Pre-evangelism?
In my case all my less-explicitly Christian writing has a cultural engagement or pre-evangelism angle. It’s either academic work in church history, or writing for secular publications on cultural matters normally related to Christian faith in society. Even though the platforms and content are quite different, in my mind the relationship is seamless. I’ve written about Clive James, abortion, Australian history (also here and here), films such as The Trip, artists such as Sufjan Stevens. But all of it is from the preacher’s cutting-room floor. They’ve all come from the overflow of the task a preacher faces every Sunday: how to communicate the God’s word to someone who does not yet believe.
Where do your ideas and inspiration come from?
There are authors I idolise for their style. As a non-fiction writer, my heros are Clive James, Manning Clark, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and H. L. Mencken. These authors all pour a literary sensibility into their non-fiction. They are often writing about other writers, but go out of their way to make their own writing beautiful. I love that.
There are pastor–writers who, for me, are models of occupying that space between academy, church, and writing books. John Stott, John Dickson, N. T. Wright, Paul Barnett, Doug Wilson, and Michael Jensen are some examples of people who occupy this terrority with great skill. I always feel like you can see the difference when writers allow their pastoral experience to shape their written work and vice versa.
And in terms of the ideas themselves, almost all of them come out of pastoral and evangelistic ministry. They arise from either sermon series I have given, pastoral-theological problems I have wanted to pay attention to, or evangelistic roadblocks I’ve come up against.
Patrick White talks about a novelist’s mind being like the desk drawer in a seamstress’s sowing room—full of knick-knacks they’ve not thrown away in case they prove useful later. My head is a bit like that. I think most writers’ heads are. Constantly collecting, rarely throwing anything away lest it prove useful later.
Do you have any advice for those starting to seek publication? What insights can you give into the mysterious publication process?
My advice would be to write first and then find your publisher. The alternative is to pitch ideas, secure a publisher, and then write the book you promised them. But I think, if you know what you want to write, get it written and worry about the publisher later.
How do you think and feel about getting feedback and editorial input? Has that changed over time?
All good writing is rewriting. In my own process I give myself permission to write a Terrible First Draft, replete with typos, spelling mistakes and notes-to-self (“Check Greek”, “Is this right?”, “Find actual quote”). The second time over is turning that Terrible First Draft into something closer to coherent prose. But it’s only on the third draft that it begins to be something I’m actually happy with. All good writing is rewriting. Which is to say, writing is editing.
Even at the point where I’m happy (or happy enough) with what’s on the page, it then goes to friends, other writers, experts, and so on. And then, with a good editor, you get a whole bunch of feedback, advice, and suggested changes. I think you really have to embrace this. I’m guessing that any single page of a book I’ve written will have gone through three or four major drafts, past maybe five pairs of critical eyes, and one close reading by an editor. The only chance a piece of prose has of feeling effortless to the reader is a bunch of effort on the part of the writer and a robust editorial process.
So, my advice to writers would be to embrace and not be precious about the editorial process. In the small amount of editorial work I’ve done, I’ve noticed a pattern: the least gifted writers are the hardest to give feedback to, and those who are in the strongest command of their craft are most open to feedback.
What are your coping strategies for rejections, or not hearing back from people you share your work with—whether editors or friends and family?
Diversify your risk. Send your work to enough friends and publishers that the inevitable rejections or experiences of not hearing back get offset with a healthy round of responses.
Is it difficult for you to promote yourself and your work?
The worst. I have no idea how to do it. And (as the kids say) I feel the ick every time I try. It’s easy to try and pass this off as humility, but in fact it’s a form of vainity. Modesty and humility are related but not exactly the same. Modesty has to do with the calculations you make about how you come across in the world, and its dark side is vanity. I suspect those of us who struggle with the promotional side of things are vain—more worried about how people will perceive us than whether or not our work will find an audience. We’re worried that any promotion will come across as gauche or desperate. We need to grow up. If we honestly think what we’ve written will be a help to the cause of Christ, we should stare down our vainity and get it out there.
What are particular temptations for writers? What are some strategies to resist them?
Perfectionism is the enemy of getting started. It’s crucial to turn off your inner editor and give yourself permission to write badly. Being precious about feedback is another enemy. You have to learn to get your writing out under the eyes of people who will find fault with it. The nature of writing, unlike teaching in a classroom, is that you’re not there with your reader to course-correct their understanding in real time. What you’ve written on the page really does have to communicate what you intended without you being there to say, “But what I mean was…” So if a reader is saying “This is not clear”, or “Did you mean…?” it’s arrogant to assume that the fault lies with your reader.
How can friends support Christian writers?
Writing is a lonely experience. Sermons and lectures get instant feedback. With writing, you send it out into the world and then it’s silence. A little note of thanks to the author of something that you’ve benefitted from is a lovely thing.
How can ministry leaders support Christian writers?
We’ve become good in Australia at identifying and building a pathway for preachers, evangelists, and pastors. I wonder if we could apply similar processes to authors? If we identify that gifting in someone, could we encourage them, support them, and provide opportunities for them in the way we would for preachers and teachers?
What do you recommend to those who want to work on their writing?
There are the obvious things—read a lot, find stylists you admire and ask “How do they do it?”, read good style guides and books on writing. But I think there’s no substitute for actually writing. And writing is not a zero-sum game. The choice isn’t Anna Karenina or nothing. Pay attention to how you craft your emails, consider keeping a journal, have a go at turning an idea, a sermon, a book review into good written prose. Set modest goals. I aim to write 250 words every working day. It’s not much. But it builds over time. You can get a book written in a year at that rate. If you want to write, write! Only ever reading about writing, or thinking about the book you’d like to write, is like trying to learn how to ride a bike in a classroom. There’s no substitute for doing it.
[1] A magazine published by Matthias Media from 1988 to 2014.
