To help authors market their books and and to help create greater awareness, we occasionally feature winning stories submitted to our 50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading Awards Contest on this blog. The journey to success is often a long one. We hope the stories of successful authors will provide some encouragement and help others overcome the challenges they face. This story was submitted by David Broderick.
Christian Author David Broderick
SETTING THE SCENE
My first book “The Christ-Centered Life: Deep Calls to Deep” was the next step of a life journey that began many years ago when I was teaching Christ-centered material in the church in Glasgow where I was a member, and in wider meetings where I was known. This teaching was well received by many people and was used by God as he transformed people’s lives; but, by definition, it reached out to only a small number of people.
In 2003, I became pastor of a church in Edinburgh, and this was my first pastorate. I used the Christ-centered material very extensively in sermons and teaching in services, house groups and other church related meetings. My teaching was able to reach more people than before, but it was still only able to reach only a relatively small number of people.
My time as pastor in that church ended in 2012 and, during the months that followed, an idea began to take root in me about publishing a book. Later that same year I began the process to self-publish a part of my Christ-centered material, and so I started work on transforming my teaching notes into a book.
DEPTH IS NEEDED
In May 2013, my first book was published by Westbow Press. Writing the book was a big challenge for me, since it was hard work turning my teaching notes into a readable book. The reward was that it expanded my fruitfulness in ministry far beyond one church, one city, or even one region.
I published it because I knew that many sincere Christians were frustrated and that many Christians were abandoning churches. Why was this so? It was because their Christian lives seemed to be shallow, and there was no depth in their relationships, no depth in their experience, and no depth in their understanding. Church was shallow.
I had been well aware in publishing the book that there were already thousands of Christian books on the market: Christian books for men, Christian books for women, Christian books covering everything from prayer, marriage, forgiveness, Christian leadership; indeed, the list was endless. That is precisely why my book had to have real depth and a new worldview.
That is why my book showed people how to begin or to continue in their own journey of Christ-centeredness. It guided them in how to live from a Christ-centered perspective. Since the content of the book was grounded in my own personal experience, it was not a book of mere theory.
THE CONTENT
The book’s opening section contains personal information, personal experience and something of the story of my own journey into Christ-centeredness. I was honest in telling that story because I wanted people to know that I was real, and that the book was not a mere flight of fantasy.
The book takes a fresh and radical look at the growing years from birth to adulthood. Also, a new perspective is brought to the Law of God, the “Lord’s Prayer”, the fall, prayer in its many forms, marriage, leadership and the gospels. The book is deep, hence the subtitle of “Deep Calls to Deep”, and it is not a book that can easily be read quickly.
NEW FOUNDATIONS
In publishing the book, I felt it was very important for its content to build a solid foundation on which a journey into Christ-centeredness could be based. This meant tackling head on controversial issues like, for example, women in leadership, but at the same time ensuring that the book’s perspective was solidly based in Scripture, not merely in our culture or our tradition.
In order to build a true foundation, false foundations had to be swept away, and I had to that in a positive way. It was not appropriate simply to demolish something without replacing it with a different thing of higher value. The overall tone of the book, therefore, had to be one of construction rather than deconstruction.
QUESTIONS
Nevertheless, the book asks some pertinent questions, such as: Why are we content to remain as we are in experiencing the person of Christ, while we do not accept such stagnation in any other areas of our lives? In the physical world in which we live, when children stop growing or healing, all the alarm bells start ringing.
Why, then, do we accept a church culture in which it is the norm for Christians to remain stagnant, neither growing nor healing, and yet no alarm bells are ringing? Why are alarm bells not ringing for those people whose relationship with Christ has not grown or matured over years or even decades? Where is the depth?
THE CALL TO DEPTH
The Christ-centered life is for those Christians who hunger and thirst for a deeper experience of Christ than they have already known. The starting point of the book is simple. It is that heaven is the presence of Christ, a presence that can be experienced right here, right now.
The book begins a journey of Christ-centeredness and it leads readers to the goal of intimacy with Christ as it traces a path that is deep and real. It makes the path to Christ-centeredness available to everyone, right here, right now. Christ is for now, not just for heaven.
This book is, in fact, the revelation that Jesus the Christ really is the very center of everything, that it is around him that everything revolves and is focused, and that everything testifies about him and points to him, whether it realizes it or not. Such a revelation calls us to explore and know God, even as we are known.
IN CONCLUSION
It has been said that Christians know as much of Christ as they want to. For that to be true, those Christians must know how to know more of Christ. If they do not know how to do the deeper knowing of Christ, it is unrealistic to expect them to do it.
This book shows how Christ can be known in deeper and greater measure. It shows that Christ-centeredness is for everyone. It is the plain language story of my own life journey into Christ-centeredness, and it can be the beginning of your journey.
Find out more about David’s books by visiting his website, http://www.thechrist-centeredlife.com.