Kingdom Pen magazine

We at Kingdom Pen are here to announce that our upcoming issue (May/June) will include an exclusive interview with Daniel Schwabauer.

Daniel Schwabauer is an award-winning author, teacher, and creator of the One Year Adventure Novel, the Amazing Gospel, Amazing True Life Stories and College Boot Camp.

His professional work includes stage plays, radio scripts, short stories, newspaper columns, comic books and scripting for the PBS animated series Auto-B-Good. His young adult novels, Runt the Brave and Runt the Hunted, have received numerous awards, including the 2005 Ben Franklin Award and the 2008 Eric Hoffer Award. He graduated from Kansas University’s Masters program in Creative Writing in 1995. He lives in Olathe, Kansas with his wife and daughter.

Here are previews of a few of the questions Kingdom Pen asked Mr. Schwabauer:

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By: Anna Pendleton – a Kingdom Pen subscriber

Every person has their own perspective on any area of life that they find themselves facing. The word and the meaning of the word “perspective”, in and of itself, is not a good or a bad thing; it is simply the way we see life. Our worldview or the spectacles through which we view life, if you will.

Everything we do or say is influenced by the way we think/our perspective. And that means that having the right perspective is one of the most important things we will ever do/have in this life…and it will transfer over into the next.

It is true that we need the right perspective/worldview for everything in life, but we are here to talk about writing, so I’ll focus specifically on that.

The Bible tells us that our purpose on earth is to glorify Christ and spread the gospel. That’s a/the simple Biblical perspective right there. And you could end it there by agreeing with it and saying that you will make sure to keep that in the back of your mind as you go about your life, and more specifically, your writing. But here’s the problem. We’re not supposed to keep that in the back of our minds…we’re supposed to keep that in the forefront of our minds. It should be in front of us every single day to the point that when we sit down to write we don’t even have to think about including things that honor and glorify Christ and/or spread the gospel. It should come from us naturally and freely without hesitation or fear.

One question I’ve noticed being asked a lot among the writing circle (and especially the young writing circle) is something like, “If I make sure to have good morals and reflect Biblical principles, do I have to mention Christ and/or the Bible specifically? As long as it’s Biblical, it’s okay, right?”

In other words…can we be more vague and just kind of…slip God into things? I mean…we’re trying to reach the lost through this, right? Spread the gospel? No unsaved person is going to pick up a book, knowing that it’s full of “preaching”, and actually read it. If we talk about God, nobody will buy our books. So it’s better for people to get the Biblical values and Christ-like principles than for them to get nothing. Right? Wrong.

First of all…why would we even put those things in our work apart from Christ? We are not called to go out into the world and make a bunch of “good people”. We are called to make disciples. And you can’t make disciples without them knowing specifically about God and believing in Him. Giving people Biblical morals without giving them Christ is like giving someone a fishing pole and tackle box in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It’s pointless and will end up being more harmful in the end for those people. You will hurt them by making them satisfied with the fact that they are “good, moral people”. The Bible tells us that we will be known by our works, but that our works can not save us. Only Christ can and we will give people a false sense of security by making them think that they are good enough because of their “good principles”. Of course we can’t change if a man is called by God or not. That happens between Christ and a man’s heart. But we can make sure we do all we can with and as the tools God has made us for His purpose.

Another issue that comes up often is that we love to write and we love people reading what we write. Doesn’t sound like an issue, right? Well, it’s not! That’s a great thing. Writing is a beautiful, wonderful gift that God gives to some people and there’s nothing wrong with loving it and wanting others to love what we do…until we become willing to compromise in order to get people to love what we do. If we are concerned that we won’t get published or that, if we do get published, people won’t read our work because of Christ, we may get tempted to just write and hope Christ fits in. Or, as I mentioned earlier, to slip Him in through good morals and principles.

But when/if you’re tempted to do this, just remember…when God sent His only Son to earth He didn’t send Him here for a field trip, hoping that He might be able to fit saving man into the plans. He sent Him here specifically for us. To live, die, be raised from the dead and return Home to His Father. There was nothing hidden about His mission, both when He was alive during His ministry and when He was hanging on the cross, bleeding and dying for us. Just as His mission was clear…so should ours be.

When Christ was dying on the cross…straining and gasping for his last breath while his hands and feet were pierced and his body beaten and slashed…He wasn’t “slipping us in”. He didn’t go through everything He did in life just hoping our salvation would work its way in. He did everything He did because He loves us and loves the Father. If we are true children of Christ we will love Him and we will love Him more than what we do (writing), therefore…we will not only be willing to have Him as a major part of what we write, but we will want to have Him as the driving force behind it. Writing for and about Christ is not a task…it is a privilege and honor.

It is true that we write through the views of other people–our characters. Maybe those peoples’ worldviews aren’t about Christ. That’s fine for now. But ours is. We are still the author, we are in control and it’s important to make sure that our worldview is not hurt or messed with (or even falsely portrayed) at all for the sake of getting out a “good book” that people will buy. Because anything apart from Christ cannot really and truly be “good”. And since we are the authors and the minds behind or inside the minds of our characters, our worldview will come out in one way or another through our characters. Our names will be on our work…and since we are Christians, the name of Christ will also be on it. There’s enough confusion about Christianity in the world…let’s make sure we don’t add to that by making Christ a vague, background moral or principle. Let’s clear a few things up through our work. Bring Christ to the front instead of pushing Him to the back…don’t just reflect Him. Project Him.

And how do we do this? By viewing everything through the proper perspective. As I said earlier…our purpose on earth is to glorify Christ and spread the gospel. That is the perspective we must view and work our writing through. We need to be looking at our work through this worldview if we want to effectively fulfill our purpose.

So, next time you sit down to write, ask yourself, who are you living for? Who are you writing for? Man? Or Christ? And are you willing to take a few risks to make sure Christ receives the honor and glory He deserves and the true gospel is sent clearly? What will really matter when this earth ends? The popularity of our work in the world? Or the eternal glory of Christ?

by Eli King

Is it just me, or have we forgotten that we are at war? When’s the last time you felt like you were locked in combat with the enemy for the glory of God? Caught in a choke hold with a struggle against temptation, sin, wrong feelings or just apathy? Maybe it’s not been long. I know it hasn’t been long for me since I had to fight these things. But is that war? The first thing that I notice about all of the examples above is that each of them are defensive in nature. Is that not a problem? Do you fight a war on the defensive?

You do if you never want to win it. A defensive war is a war that never ends. A war in which no progress is made. As long as there is evil in this world (and until the end of the world, trust me, there will be) there will be attacks. There will be war. But are we to fight this war on the steady defensive, hiding behind our walls of protection and security and hurling demons off of them as they climb the ladders?

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound much like Chazak Amats to me. The war for the kingdom is a war of aggression. Fighting on the defensive is not fighting. It’s defending. The best that will do for you is maintain the status quo, and that’s simply not enough. This war we are called to fight has to be a war of assault. Christians were never called to be pacifistic. The truth is that the truth hurts. The truth cuts. The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword. We are not called to live on the defensive, holding the fort the best we can until Christ returns. We are called to be on the offensive, fighting with great courage against the enemy. Driving him back, destroying his lines, tearing down his strong towers and taking out his citadels. Claiming ground for Christ. Not burying the coin He left us, but multiplying it.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:5: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (ESV, emphasis mine). I call this “Code 105″. The command of God to locate and destroy these lies that are being raised against the truth of Christ. And believe me, we haven’t got to do much to locate them. They’re everywhere, poisoning our culture.

What does all this have to do with Kingdom Pen? By striving to write for Christ, you just walked into a nuclear war. Welcome to the war zone. You have all the necessary protection equipment against the radioactive lies of the enemy ready and waiting for you in the pages of Scripture. But there are no bunkers. There are no lead-lined holes to hide in from the rockets. You won’t be killed, but if you don’t fight back, you will be hurt. Casualties will be taken.

As authors, it’s time we stopped fighting on the defensive. Writing “clean” books that have a safe moral tacked on the end of them with virtuous characters and a word or two about Jesus is writing on the defensive. It’s pleading with the devil to give us some space. I’d like to name some specific books that do this, because I’m getting frustrated just thinking about it, but I’m not going to. The point is that if you write a book that does no more to proclaim God’s truth than to present clean pages and characters who mind their manners, you’ve just fought on the defensive. You’ve written one book against the thousands of filthy novels out there. But here’s why that’s defensive. Those novels out there that I mentioned? They’re accomplishing considerably more than just weaving stories full of foul content. They’re presenting lies to the readers. They’re advancing the cause of the devil, and tearing down the truth of Christ as fast as they can.

To write on the offensive, we have to write books that destroy lies. Lies are of the devil (John 8:44b). God hates lies (Proverbs 12:22), and God is truth (John 14:6). To write a book for Christ that engages the enemy on our terms and defeats the darkness, the story must actively engage a lie and destroy it with the truth of God as defined by scripture. This is not an option. We are called to do this. We are called to fight this enemy. To display Amats — this heavenly audacity. To take these lies that our culture is wallowing in, to shred them to pieces and use story to show them for what they really are — perversions and distortions designed to lead the world away from the truth that can set them free.

I should mention here that there is a difference between destroying lies and destroying people. We’re not about destroying people — we’re about reaching people. But we must destroy lies by spreading the truth in love. We don’t have to beg the devil for a little clean space somewhere in the world of novels to entertain ourselves with. We don’t have to play nice and be polite with him. We have the power to fight this war on God’s terms, according to God’s rules and the devil can’t do a thing about it.

You don’t have to look far to find a lie. All the way from abortion to legalism, we’ve got plenty to keep us busy. The devil cannot create anything, therefor each lie represents a citadel of truth that has been captured, twisted and displayed as darkness. We should be recapturing those citadels. Taking ground. Driving back.

Will we?

By: Nathalie Knowles - a Kingdom Pen subscriber

I don’t know when it was I first read The Lord of the Rings. I do remember when my dad read me The Hobbit: I sat on his lap and tried to peek at the book to see what came next. I saw the movies at a fairly young age, and later confessed to my parents that I kept my eyes open during the scary parts. I loved the heroism and chivalry, the vivid tapestry of the tales. But all the time, a vague something lurked in the back of the picture. There was a feeling of something ‘more’, like there was a part of the story I didn’t know. Then, it must be three years ago now, my parents bought me The Silmarillion, and Middle-earth sprang to life.

I devoured the legends of the First Age, the power and tragedy of the elves in the years of their glory. Fire flooded my veins as the forces of good battled against the dark legions of evil. And something stirred inside me every time a hero died. They did die, too, generation after generation, sacrificing their lives in the hope that one day, Middle-earth might be free of the evil that plagued her.

In the same way, Christians have died, generation after generation, sacrificing their lives in the hope that one day, their children might be free of the evils that plagued them. They gave us things like the freedom to worship, and the Bible in English. Today, missionaries around the globe do the very same thing. In this world we can’t peek ahead, we can’t even close our eyes during the scary parts, but we can understand the ‘more’. Let’s make our lives worth reading about for the generation to come. When our children’s children close the book, maybe something will stir inside of them too. The writer of Ecclesiastes states, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccl. 1:9 ESV)  I pray that this new year, this generation, will be worth repeating.

by Reagan Ramm

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What does it mean to write for Christ?

You may be saying, Okay, I know I should write for Christ, but I don’t want my story to be religious. I don’t want to have God everywhere.

Well that’s okay, because God is so much more than religion. You don’t have to name God in your writing to write for him. In fact, depending on your audience, it may be best to leave the name of God out of your writing. Because of the negative connotations religion and God has in our culture today, simply talking about God in your novel or piece of writing can alienate your audience.

What? I’m confused.

God is so big, He’s everywhere and anywhere at any given time. We can write for Christ without blatantly coming out and talking about God or using His name in our writing. To write for God, we merely need to do one thing: Glorify Him. To glorify God, we need to reflect His character.

We reflect God’s character in two ways: Quality and Content.

Our writing needs to be of the best possible quality. We need to write well, and do our best. God is perfect, so to reflect God, we need to get our writing as close to perfect as we can. Of course, we will never be able to attain perfection, and getting frustrated with our work will not help things. Sometimes, the only way we can get better, is to let ourselves write poorly. Practice is the only way we can get better. So we don’t have to be perfect to reflect God. We just have to do our best, and always strive to get better, never resting on our laurels. That honors God.
We also reflect God in our writing by demonstrating His truth.

What is God’s truth, and how do we demonstrate it?

God’s truth is truth. Anything that is true is of God. Therefore, by writing about and displaying truth, we are writing for Christ.

What does this look like?

This can take many forms, but it all comes down to having a moral that demonstrates a truth about God.
For example, Love. Love is often displayed in novels, and in our culture, as a feeling. I feel this, and I feel that. And the other person feels this about me. Love has come to reflect a very selfish idea. The idea that Love is about, “how much pleasure can I get out of this relationship or the other person?” Love is about consuming, or so says the world. Writing for Christ could mean showing what Love really is, what God says Love is. What does God say Love is? John 3:16 describes it very well. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” What does this verse say about Love? It says that Love is an action. A decision to will the good of another. God loved us so much that He would sacrifice His only son for us. UNselfishness, not selfishness. That’s the complete opposite view of the world. So by writing a novel about a hero who loves others by acting for their benefit, or by sacrificing for them, you are showing God’s truth, and thereby, writing for Christ.

Another example is truth itself. In our Postmodern world, many people are denying that objective truth even exists. People like to say, “well that’s true for you, but that’s not true for me.” Objective truth exists, it’s God’s truth. So by writing a story with a moral showing that truth is truth, regardless of what people believe, you are writing for Christ.

By writing stories displaying Hope, Joy, Courage, Perseverance, Humility, Faith, Altruism, Peace, Mercy, Grace, etc. we are writing for Christ because we are reflecting the character of God. We may include or we may not include God in our writing, by name, but by displaying his truths and saying, “this is true,” we are putting God in our writing, and we are writing for Christ.

Also, if we strive to write for Christ, we will not be writing alone. If we abandon ourselves to God, then He can use us for His glory. He will guide us as we craft and develop our stories.

If you think about it, there are infinite ways to write for Christ and to glorify God. By writing for God, glory will not only be brought to Him, but we will be taking part in the spreading of God’s kingdom on earth. We can spread truth, and free the culture from its pervasive lies.

Writing for Christ is truly a noble pursuit.

Writing for Christ = Glorifying Him = Reflecting His character = Doing our best to demonstrate His truth.

Okay, I’m a Christian, but does everything I write have to be for Christ?

Yes, it does. That doesn’t mean you have to include God in everything you write, but your writing has to glorify Christ. But that’s not a very nice way to put it is it? A better way to say it would be you get to write for Christ.

Huh?

Many people think Christianity is just getting to Heaven when you die…but it’s actually about getting there before you die.

What? That doesn’t make any sense? I can’t dance with angels on clouds, and I definitely don’t know how to play the harp (if that’s your idea of heaven then you may want to re-examine things). This is not what I’m talking about though. I am talking about the “Kingdom of Heaven” or the “Kingdom of God,” which is different than “Heaven” the place. Heaven is a part of the kingdom, but it’s not the whole kingdom. The kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is done. God’s realm of influence.

Now, you may be thinking, “What has this got to do with writing? And why do I have, get to write for Christ only? Why can’t I get to write for other reasons? Do I have to learn how to play the harp?” This has everything to do with writing, and no, you don’t have to learn the harp, unless you really want to. What have you got against harps?

God is at work in the world. What is He working at? He is advancing His kingdom, gradually taking more and more ground. It’s a conspiracy you see, a divine conspiracy. “It is God’s plan to intervene in human history…now.”1

That’s great, God has a conspiracy against the world…can I go write my story about desperate vampires now? It expresses me.

Well…you can go write that story now if you want, but you’ll be missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. You’ll be missing out on the chance to be a co-conspirator with Christ!

(I’m not saying a story with vampires can’t glorify Christ. It would just be very difficult…and it would have to be different than the rest of mainstream vampire stories).

If you think about it, we all have kingdoms of our own. We have realms of influence, things we can control, exercise our power over, and exert our will upon. Maybe you’re a good piano player, and you can control the piano to do your will, which is to make music. Maybe the refrigerator is within your domain, and you regularly exercise your control over it. Maybe the harp is not yet within the borders of your kingdom, but you are planning to conquer it very soon. And maybe you have a computer that lies within your kingdom. A computer, on which, you construct and weave marvelous works of writing. We, as Christians, should be turning our kingdoms over to God. We should be conforming our wishes, our will, to the wishes, and the will of God. There should be no distinctions between our kingdom, and God’s kingdom. In other words, everything we do should be for God. The greatest opposition to this goal is…the self.

We want things for ourselves. We want to glorify ourselves first, rather than God. We have it backwards. We need to glorify Him first, then we will be glorified also. As it says in Colossians 3:4, “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”

We need to give everything we have to God, including writing. We need to take part in the “divine conspiracy.” God has allowed us to participate with Him in advancing His kingdom. We get to take part. God could just do it all on His own, but He wants to let us help, so that we can be glorified with Him. If we write for Christ, we are taking part in the divine conspiracy. We are advancing the Kingdom of God. We are living in the Kingdom of God, right now! That’s what’s so beautiful about living for Christ today, rather than tomorrow. Why wait to live in the Kingdom of God? We don’t have to wait until we’re dead. This is the whole point of life. If Christianity is just about getting into Heaven when we die, then what’s the point of life? Why are we here at all?

So write for Christ. Not only do you have to write for Christ (He is the awesome creator of the universe) but you get to write for Christ. It is an amazing privilege and an honor to live for Christ. By writing for God, you are working side-by-side with Christ, advancing His kingdom, and extending the borders of God’s will. What greater honor is there than being a co-laborer with the King?  There is none.

During a live interview hosted by Classical Conversations’ founder Leigh Bortins, Kingdom Pen asked N.D.Wilson, “What advice do you have for young writers who want to get published?”

Here’s what he said:

“This is one of those things where I can give everyone the magic bullet, or give everyone the trick that will make it happen, and then like all good magic bullets it’s not actually that easy. So, the way to get your books published is to make them very, very good. That’s what it comes down to. [laughs] Get really good – which is another way of saying control what you can control, and don’t worry about what you can’t.

“What can you control? You can control the words on the page in front of you. You can control how hard you work to improve in your prose craft, in your description, in your character work and dialogue. You can go through exercises. You can write whole novels and throw them away, and start on the next one. Really try to get good, until you can walk through a Barnes & Noble, and without arrogance say, “Here’s this book, here’s this award-winner, here’s this one,” and not out of any cockiness or arrogance, actually just say honestly, “I think I’m as good as these people in my craft. I am as good or better.”

“Then the publishers actually do want to find you. They want good books. It’s their job to find good books and to print them. There are so many people trying to get published, because it’s a fun job.  There are so many people pursuing it, literally hundreds of thousands of people trying to do this every year. The best and only way that you can try to insure success is by making sure that you are getting better every time you sit down to write. God has made the world in such a way that he who is excellent in his work will stand before kings. Cream will rise. I’m really grateful, by the way, that my first attempts at novel writing weren’t published. I’m really happy about that!

“Shape it, work on it, grind on it. Love criticism; embrace criticism. Every time someone criticizes your stuff, and criticizes it harshly and rigorously, you get better: either because they’re right, and you need to learn to listen to them and then go and make changes, or you get better because they’re wrong and you have to think through why they’re wrong, and what it is about your book that does actually account for that criticism. So get good!

“I would say I’m really grateful for the path I took. New St. Andrew’s College was the best preparation I could have possibly been given to go on and write professionally. If I had gone somewhere to get an undergrad in creative writing, I wouldn’t have gained nearly the advantage that I was given. I’m grateful for that because it was really accidental; it wasn’t like I planned it that way.

“Also, read other stuff. You know, when you read, read, read, hopefully if you read my stuff (like Dragon’s Tooth), you’ll see things you like, things you’d like to imitate, and you’ll also see things that you’ll say, “Yeah, I know that’s not for me. That’s not my taste.” Or, “I would do that differently.” But never turn your brain off when you’re reading. Never turn it off and just receive. Always think like an author and a creator, even when you’re actually a consumer.”

Listen to the full interview here:

For more from N.D. Wilson, check out his website and blog, and find his books online here.