The Hills of Vincere Ridge
In our culture today, how can a Christian learn to balance true conviction with love and compassion? I often wondered what that balance would look like. Then, one day, several years ago, I was watching a weekly TV show. This particular episode featured a lesbian couple whose adopted son had disappeared. During the episode, it was unclear if the boy had simply run away, been abducted, or if one of the parents was involved in foul play. As expected, Hollywood included a "Christian" character who showed little compassion for the couple's plight. I could not help but think (yet again) that Hollywood only knows how to paint evangelical Christians as one-dimensional (read "intolerant") hate-mongers.
Not that long after watching this episode, I saw a news story where a group of "Christians" from a church in the Midwest were lining the street during the funeral procession of a homosexual who had passed away. The news camera focused in on the posters these church members were waving in the air. None of them contained anything remotely close to displaying Christ's love. After these two experiences, I started engaging in conversation with fellow Christians about the seemingly contradictory nature of conviction and compassion, hating the sin while loving the sinner, and accepting people where they are yet not being content with them staying there. How do we balance such things? It seemed an impossible task.
All of these things were churning in my heart and mind when June 26, 2015, arrived. On that day, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the U.S., and everything that had been going on in my heart and mind became front page news. The news was filled with stories of conflict between supporters and opponents of gay marriage. It seemed all yelling and no talking, all soundbites and no substance. All combativeness and no connectedness. I instantly thought, "There has to be a better way." This led to much prayer...and the idea for The Hills of Vincere Ridge. Twenty months later, in March of 2017, I released the book.
The Umbora Chronicles Part 1 -- Nascent
Two of the greatest weapons Christians have at their disposal are love and prayer, yet they seem so underused. But what if they weren't?
A while back a pastor of mine told a story of his time as a missionary in Guatemala. He was traveling with his wife and young children in a very remote part of the Guatemalan highlands to share the gospel to an indigenous tribe that few outsiders had ever visited. In the middle of nowhere, high on a mountain pass, his car struck a boulder that had slid down the side of the mountain. The large rock had pushed in the front side of the car so that metal was scraping against the tire. To drive farther risked the tire being punctured, yet to walk for help would mean leaving his wife and young children alone while he wandered for who knows how long.
The family decided the best thing that they could do was pray. They gathered around their vehicle and beseeched the Lord for help. Not five minutes later, a man came walking around the bend in the road...with a crowbar slung over his shoulder! Using the crowbar, the man pried the frame away from the tire, allowing my pastor and his family to safely travel on. Meanwhile, without more than a few words, the man continued down the road and disappeared in the distance. Driving on, it would take hours to reach the first village. Had that man really walked from that far away? My pastor is convinced Hebrews 13:2 came to life -- prayer is powerful, and God sent an angel in response.
Later on, my church went through a series on "spiritual battles," which we so often attempt to fight in our own way and with our own strength. But spiritual battles must be fought with spiritual weapons -- Prayer, God's Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit. While listening, I thought, "I could write a (nonfiction) book about that." But it didn't take long to see that had been done a thousand times already.
Then I remembered my pastor's story. Story. Yes, the power of story. A story that could connect with both teens and adults. A story that wrestled with many of the same questions for teens that I wanted The Three Kingdoms to answer, yet also teach those of all ages that spiritual battles are being waged all around us and
they need to be fought with spiritual weapons. Further, if I could title the first book Nascent and get a host of people to ask, "What in the world does that mean?" Then that's two birds with one stone.
The Three Kingdoms Trilogy
After nineteen years in full-time Christian ministry—as a pastor and as a writer and editor of children's and youth ministry curriculum—I believed the Lord was directing me down a new path: teaching Social Studies in a public high school. I already had a Masters in Christian Education. However, the Pennsylvania public school system was not keen on recognizing that degree! So in 2019, I enrolled at a local college about twenty minutes away and entered their Masters in Secondary Education program (instantly becoming, by far, the oldest person in my cohort.) I should have known that would be the case because when I went for my student ID, the young lady behind the counter told me I was in the wrong place. Professors, she informed me, have their ID photos taken elsewhere!
During a Reading course I was taking as part of this program, I discovered the content in most teen (YA) books is very "eye-opening." These books, all of them recommended for use in high school classrooms, were rife with sexual situations of every kind. Foul language was pervasive throughout, along with disrespect for authority figures, extreme violence, and other troubling content that often carried little or no consequence for the characters. After being introduced to book after book with these content issues, I decided then and there I was going to write something I could recommend and supply to my classes that would be the exact opposite.
It would teach history while remaining grounded in timeless moral truths. It would contain young characters grappling with the common issues of teens today such as -- who am I really, what does the future hold, and how can I become the person I am meant to be? My book could help teens answer these questions without the excess that many books targeting young adults contain.
I set out to write a compelling story with compelling characters, rooted in history, but filled with enough fantasy to keep teens interested and engaged—especially teen boys, who generally have the lowest reading scores in America. Thus, The Three Kingdoms was born. I had actually finished the first two books and had started the third by the time I graduated and realized that God had different plans than I expected. Nevertheless, the Lord used my initial motivation to push me to complete a trilogy that teaches important lessons without the unnecessary excesses of many YA titles.