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Thimblerig’s Ark is Free, Feb 3 & 4!
In honor of yesterday’s most important holiday Groundhog’s Day (why isn’t it a day off, Mr. Trump? That should have been your first executive order!), we’re pleased to announce that Thimblerig’s Ark will be free for download on February 3 and 4!
The second book in the series is nearing completion, and so you want to make sure you grab the first book while you still can. And tell your friends!
You already know about Noah. Just wait until you read the animal’s story.
—
Thimblerig is a little groundhog with big problems.
He’s a loner con-artist who’s losing his mojo; the wild dogs who run the forest harass him at every turn; he’s having vivid nightmares of apocalyptic floods; and worst of all, he believes he sees unicorns when everyone knows unicorns are only the stuff of legend.
But what one animal might call a problem, Thimblerig calls an opportunity.
In a moment of inspiration, he comes up with the ultimate con: persuade as many suckers as he can that a world-ending flood is coming; the fabled unicorns have told him where the only safe place will be; and only he can lead them to safety.
All for a reasonable price, of course.
When the flood really does come, Thimblerig has a choice: either save the ones who trusted him, or lose everything.
And that’s when he discovers that his problems have only just begun.
Young Writer Chronicles: Students Around the World Discover a Love for Writing
I was pleased and honored to be asked to write an article for the National Novel Writing Month about my experiences as an international educator taking students through NaNoWriMo. Here is an excerpt from that article, with the link to the whole article at the bottom of the page.
Young Writer Chronicles: Students Around the World Discover a Love for Writing
by Nate Fleming
I fell into NaNoWriMo backwards, through Script Frenzy, a program sponsored by the nonprofit behind NaNo from 2007 to 2012. In Script Frenzy, a writer would write the first draft of a screenplay over the month of April. At that time, I had aspirations to be a screenwriter, even going so far as to take a screenwriting course in Hollywood over the summer of 2007 to help me down this path.
My biggest obstacle to a screenwriting career was geography. That summer I’d come to Hollywood from my wife’s home country of Kazakhstan, where I was teaching in an international school. Central Asia is not exactly the best place for a writer to live if he wants to break into Hollywood, is it? So, on the advice of a screenwriter friend, I turned to NaNoWriMo. If I couldn’t be in Hollywood to sell my screenplay idea, perhaps I could write a novel, and that novel could sell itself! In 2008, I decided to set aside November to work on making my screenplay into a novel.
Although I didn’t finish the novel that year, I enjoyed NaNoWriMo so much that in 2009, I decided to try and see if I could fit NaNoWriMo’s Young Writer’s Program into my international school’s curriculum. That year, with the approval of my administration, I piloted taking a valiant class of fifth graders through the month of writing, and it was maddening, exhilarating, insane, and immensely rewarding.
My eyes were opened as I saw students who had previously struggled to write a paragraph effortlessly filling pages and pages of a first draft. It also unlocked writing in other classes across the curriculum, and writing was coming easier for these students in history, science, and literature classes. It was revolutionary! The doors had been opened, and my students suddenly believed that they could write! It was almost magical!
To read the rest of the story, go here.
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist • Preview Chapter 2
They made it to the ark, but the danger has not passed.
Someone on board the ark is not what they seem, and Thimblerig discovers that there are plans afoot to steal the Seed of Asarata, the key to life after the flood. Now, to save the seed and the future, he and his company of animals will have to steal it first, right out from under the noses of Noah, the humans, and the wild dogs who protect it.
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist
For a preview of chapter 1, read here.
Chapter 2
“C’mon Bunco, get me out of here!”
Soapy, the copper-furred orangutan, held onto the bamboo bars of his cage and watched hopelessly at the pygmy elephant standing outside pulled futilely at the twine tied around the bars with her trunk. The two were founding members of Thimblerig’s company of animals, and two of the other con artists who had made it onboard the ark after encountering the unicorn.
“I’m working on it, Soapy!” The pygmy elephant grunted. “You’re supposed to be the pickpocket. Can’t you do anything?”
“It’s tied too tight!” Soapy slapped the bars and flopped down on the floor of the cage. “This is so wrong! I didn’t do anything!”
A flurry of white feathers flew past the pen, circled above, and landed on the top.
“Morning, all,” Shi Lau said. The white duck, also a member of Thimblerig’s company of animals, moved aside so that a midnight-black raven could land beside him, and he almost tumbled off as the room shifted, a regular occurrence as the enormous ark was being continually tossed around by the massive storm outside like a toy boat in a puddle.
“Morning, Shi Lau,” Big Bunco said, sitting down and wiping her brow with her trunk. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Yonah,” Shi Lau answered, turning to the raven. “He came for some figs. Yonah, say hello to the mammals.”
“Hello, mammals,” the raven squawked, waving a wing.
“What’s the word?” Shi Lau asked. “Soapy still complaining?”
“Complaining? I’m standing up for my rights!” Soapy countered. “I don’t deserve this!”
The duck poked his head through the bars and laughed. “Quit your griping, Soapy! You got caught in the bird section and you lost your privileges. Don’t you know actions have consequences?”
“Oh, shut your bill, Shi Lau!” Soapy snapped back at the duck, taking a swipe at the billed face, but the duck yanked his head back out before he could be hit.
“Hey, don’t be angry at me,” Shi Lau said. “Be angry at the doves. They ratted you out to Kid Duffy.”
“Don’t remind me,” Soapy said. “Dirty fink wild dog.”
“As if they didn’t mess things up enough in the forest,” Shi Lau said disgustingly, hopping off the pen and sailing down to the ark floor beside Big Bunco. “Lousy wild dogs.”
Before the flood, the wild dogs had been the undisputed leaders of the forest, but they had been anything but benevolent. Ruling over the other animals with fear and intimidation, they had kept everyone firmly under their paws. When the flood came and washed everything away, everyone had expected that life would be different, but they were still being ruled by Kid Duffy, the only surviving male wild dog.
It seemed like nothing had changed.
“I was just trying to make a trade!” Soapy shot back.
“Yeah, Duffy’s not big on black markets,” Shi Lau answered. “He likes things organized.”
“At least he let you be down here with us,” Big Bunco said cheerfully. “He could have stuck you back up with the rest of the apes.”
“Who would he get to carry me up there? The doves?” Soapy grumbled. “And since when are you such an optimist?”
“What’s wrong with being optimistic?” Big Bunco said. “Things could be a lot worse, you know!”
“How could it be worse?” Soapy asked, slapping the bars right behind Big Bunco’s head. “I’m stuck in a cage!”
“For starters, you could be stuck outside the ark!” Bunco said, standing up and facing the ape. “I don’t remember you being that great a swimmer!”
As if to underline her statement, the storm made the ark shift again, throwing everyone out of balance. Ignoring the sensation, the two friends glared at each other through the bars, the tension was as thick as the heavy rain constantly falling outside.
“So where’s Sheila?” Shi Lau finally asked, referring to the ever-idealistic kangaroo who was usually around. “I’m surprised she’s not here making you feel even worse.”
“Oh she was here, alright,” Soapy said. He flopped back down again, an orange-fur heap on a bed of yellow straw. “She told me not to be upset, but to…”
“Trust the unicorn!” they all said at once.
“Tabitha and Mullins took her to check on Elbridge,” Big Bunco said, returning her attention to the stubborn knot of twine that kept Soapy encaged. “But I think they were just trying to give Soapy some relief.”
“At least somebody cares…” Soapy complained.
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” a familiar voice said, and they all turned to see Thimblerig step out of a shadowy recess in the wall.
“Ha, ha.” Soapy replied, brightening up. “You better have something to make me feel better.”
“Yeah, where are the figs?” Shi Lau asked, flapping down to the floor beside Thimblerig, trying to poke his bill into the pouch slung over Thimblerig’s shoulder. “We’re getting tired of the grub they keep giving us up in the aviary.” The duck pulled back suddenly, an unpleasant, wrinkled look on his face. “What’s that smell!”
“It’s nothing!” Thimblerig said, pushing the duck away. He plopped down, his back against Soapy’s cage, pulled the empty bag over his head, and tossed it to the floor. “I struck out.”
“Again?” Shi Lau squawked. “I thought you said you could take those reptiles for a bagful!”
“I could, and I still can,” Thimblerig muttered, in no mood to be grilled on his failed con.
“If the figs on Asarata were coulda’s, then all the forest would go hungry,” Shi Lau replied, shaking his head and looking back up at the raven. “Sorry, Yonah. No figs.”
“No worries,” The raven answered, obviously disappointed, but also relieved that he didn’t have to stick around. “I’m going to take off. Don’t want to end up in a cage! See you later, mammals!”
Thimblerig watched the raven flap away, and then turned to the duck.
“Bringing strangers down here for figs? Seriously?” he asked.
“What?” Shi Lau said. “He’s a good egg!”
Everyone groaned, and Thimblerig sat back against the cage, pulled a piece of straw from the floor and started sucking on it.
Over the course of their journey to the ark, the duck had been a constant thorn in Thimblerig’s paw, complaining and doubting him every step of the way. Of course, he’d been right that Thimblerig was a no good con-artist, and the fact that he’d figured him out was probably what bothered Thimblerig the most.
He had been a con. One of the best in the forest, no doubt, and from the start he had intended to take the little company of animals for every fig he could get his paws on, but Thimblerig’s attitude towards them – including the duck – had changed.
The unicorn had seen to that.
“Maybe the raven’s fine, but I think we’re best off just sticking with each other,” Thimblerig said. “Better the wild dog you know then the one that you don’t.”
“Speaking of wild dogs, Thimblerig, can you talk to Kid Duffy? Talk him into springing me?” Soapy’s doleful eyes peered through the bamboo cage. “You were a leader, so maybe he’d listen to you.”
“He’s still a wild dog,” Thimblerig huffed. “He won’t listen to anyone.”
“Except the humans,” Big Bunco said.
At the naming of the humans, everyone grew quiet and nervous, as if by mentioning them one would appear.
The humans.
They walked on two legs, had little fur of their own, and were incapable of communication beyond grunts and making unintelligible sounds. Yet, it seemed that they were the ones who had built the ark, and they were undoubtedly the ones who were in charge.
“Forget the humans, and forget Duffy, we don’t need them,” Thimblerig finally said, standing. “We don’t need anyone.”
“Where you going?” Big Bunco asked as Thimblerig turned to go.
“I have no idea,” Thimblerig said, his voice weary. “So I guess I’ll go lie down.”
The other animals watched with concern as Thimblerig trudged down the big animal-filled room heading towards his own little pen.
—
Big Bunco found Thimblerig laying on the straw in small pen, staring up at the glowing firegems dotting the rough wooden rafters above. She had to hold onto the wooden slats of the pen with her trunk to keep from being knocked down as the ark rode the massive waves outside, but the groundhog didn’t seem to be bothered it in the least.
“A fig for your thoughts,” she said, sitting down beside him, glad to be lower to the floor where she was less prone to nausea.
“It didn’t bother me, Bunc,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “It hurt my pride a bit, but not really.”
“What didn’t bother you?” she probed gently.
“Blowing the game down in the reptile room,” he said, shifting on his bed of hay. “Can you believe it? I blew a game with an easy mark, and it didn’t bother me.”
“You seemed bothered when you came back up,” she said.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t about that.” Thimblerig sat up, resting his weight on one arm while he looked at his friend. “Ever since what happened out there, nothing’s been the same. My priorities are all out of whack. I’m not the same since before… him.”
Big Bunco nodded. She’d been feeling the same way. Before the flood she’d been content with her comfortable life as a grifter. But her interaction with the believers and her encounter with the unicorn on the road to the ark had her questioning everything. Her priorities, her hopes, her plans – none of those things seemed to matter any more.
“I’m thinking about leaving it all behind,” Thimblerig said, immediately getting Big Bunco’s attention again. He lay back down on the hay and resumed his staring at the ceiling. “The whole racket. I think I’m done.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Done with what?
“Being a con,” he answered. “The whole bit.”
“You’re going straight?” she asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“Yeah, I think I am,” he replied, his voice getting stronger. “I just have this feeling that it’s not supposed to be my life anymore, that Tannier Isa wants me to do something different, but I’m just not sure what.”
Big Bunco felt like she’d just been knocked in the head with an oversized tree trunk. Thimblerig the groundhog, going straight? Was that even possible? She wanted to laugh, to tell him that animals like them couldn’t just change, no more than a zebra making the switch from stripes to spots.
But she couldn’t, because as much as she might deny it, she’d felt it in herself.
She didn’t know if any of them had really changed, or if it was just being trapped on a giant hollowed-out tree trunk in the middle of a world-destroying flood, but she had a strong urge to avoid the topic. She needed to get away.
“That’s great, ‘rig, really,” Big Bunco said, standing, trying to keep her voice from shaking. The ark pitched from the stern, nearly knocking her back down, but Thimblerig jumped up to steady her. “Will I ever get used to being on the water?” she laughed, feeling shaky in more ways than one.
“We won’t be here forever,” he answered. “The unicorn has a new life waiting for us on the other side of the storm. Trust me.”
For a moment, Big Bunco felt swept up in the fervency of Thimblerig’s words. Could it be true? She realized with a mixture of horror and amazement that she actually did trust him, and the truth of that trust gutted her. After all, the first rule of being a con was: trust no one.
“I’ll see you later, ‘rig,” she said, breaking from him and moving towards the opening of his pen. “Got to go help Soapy break out of his cage.”
“Hey, Bunco?” Thimblerig stopped her. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to the others. Not yet, at least.”
“Sure, ‘rig, whatever you say,” she replied. He smiled and gave her a quick wave, and then settled back down onto the hay.
She shook her head as she wandered away from the groundhog and back towards her friends. She had some thinking of her own to do.
—
Look for another excerpt in the coming weeks.
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist will be released on May 1, 2015.
Want to read Thimblerig’s Ark before the sequel is released? Get your copy by clicking on the cover below!
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist • Preview Chapter
They made it to the ark, but the danger has not passed.
Someone on board the ark is not what they seem, and Thimblerig discovers that there are plans afoot to steal the Seed of Asarata, the key to life after the flood. Now, to save the seed and the future, he and his company of animals will have to steal it first, right out from under the noses of Noah, the humans, and the wild dogs who protect it.
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist
Chapter 1
“What do you say, pal? You in, or you out?”
Thimblerig the groundhog stared across the makeshift table, trying to read the emotionless eyes of the big green iguana, a feat which was extremely difficult. But Thimblerig didn’t have the luxury of being picky these days.
These days. Just a couple of weeks earlier, the days had been a lot less complicated. Back then, Thimblerig had been a simple grifter, plying his trade under the enormous branches of Asarata, the Queen of the Jungle, the great fig tree.
And then he met Tannier Isa, the supposedly mythological unicorn king, and everything changed.
It all happened so quickly, too. One moment, he had been minding his own business, playing his modest shell game for the few figs it could win him, trying to keep his prime spot by the base of the tree, and the next moment he was the leader of a small group of animals, running for their lives from the wild dogs who ran the forest.
And craziest thing of all? He’d gone from mocking the feeble-minded suckers who claimed to believe in unicorns to being a die-hard, certified (or certifiable?) believer himself. Not just one of them, but a leader of a whole group of them.
It had only been a week since he and his little group of believers had scrambled onboard the ark just before the decimating waters had struck. Now he spent his time trying not to think about the world’s destruction happening on the other side of the wooden walls, and getting used to being tossed around like a cub as the ark navigated waves as large as mountains.
And so Thimblerig stole away from his pen in the mammal section and snuck down to the reptiles in attempt to avoid thinking about all of that. And to see if he could win a few figs.
Old habits die hard, after all.
Thimblerig’s nose wrinkled as a terrible smell wafted by. The reptiles had been given a large room deep in the bowels of the great ark so that they could be cool and enjoy the darkness, but unfortunately, the ark had been engineered so that all of the animal waste slid down empty pipes and made its way to the very bottom, a level below the room in which he stood.
How can the reptiles stand it? Thimblerig thought. Maybe their noses work differently than everyone else’s?
“Just give me a minute,” the iguana answered, pulling the groundhog back to the game. He stared down at the three shells sitting on the small rough plank of wood before him. Thimblerig knew exactly what the iguana thought, exactly where he thought the pea sat, and he also knew that it didn’t really matter, because the pea sat exactly where Thimblerig wanted it to sit.
That is, tucked safely under a claw on his right paw.
“Ask for a minute, and I’ll give you two,” Thimblerig, the consummate showman, called for all to hear. “So that your guess may be right and true.”
He looked up at his reptilian audience. Many stared down from their perches on the beams above, some watched while clinging to the walls. It gratified Thimblerig to see so many pairs of glowing eyes looking with curiosity down at his game out of the darkness. If he could get used to the smell, he could really clean up in a room like this, a room filled with gullible believers, unaccustomed to the con. I could get away with anything down here, he thought. No humans, no Kid Duffy, no nobody.
Thimblerig gulped. No nobody indeed, just a room full of animals who – in the wild – would enjoy having a plump groundhog for breakfast. They can’t eat me on the ark, he reminded himself. It’s against the rules.
But as an animal who had made his living breaking the rules, this thought didn’t necessarily make Thimblerig feel any better.
“Alright, I’m in,” the iguana finally said. He reached his snout into a little pouch around his neck, pulled out a dried fig, and dropped it on the table beside the shells. “It’s on the right.”
Thimblerig had rehearsed it a thousand times. “Are you sure?” he asked, crestfallen. “You don’t want to pick the middle one?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” the iguana replied.
“Not the one on the left?” Thimblerig asked.
“I said I’m sure!” the iguana spat, impatient.
Good, good, Thimblerig thought. Emotions lead to mistakes.
“Well, I’m not so sure,” Thimblerig goaded. “I’ll see your fig, and raise you one.” Thimblerig reached into his pouch, pulled out two of his dried figs, and set them down carefully beside the iguana’s lone fig. And then he smiled.
The iguana stared at Thimblerig, either sizing him up or imagining him as breakfast. Thimblerig did his best to lizard-stare the iguana back, not permitting himself to be sized.
Finally, the lizard’s tongue flicked, and Thimblerig knew he had him.
The iguana was pulling out another fig when a screeching voice pierced the darkness of the reptile area.
“Lagar!?!”
A female iguana came stomping through the crowd, scattering reptiles to the left and right on her way to Thimblerig’s makeshift table. Seeing Lagar with his head in his fig bag, the table with figs on it, and a groundhog standing before it all, the female immediately knew what going on.
“You’re betting? Losing all our figs to a furback?”
Lagar slowly drew his head out of the bag, revealing a face full of emotion: Fear.
“No, it’s not like that…” he muttered, with trembling voice.
How humiliating, Thimblerig thought, suddenly glad he didn’t have a mate.
“It’s not like that,” she mocked, moving up so close to the male iguana that her flickering tongue lashed Lagar’s face like a little wet slaps. “We get two figs a day, and you’re dropping them on the table like they grow on trees!”
“Well, they do,” Thimblerig said. And if he had been capable of reaching into the air and pulling words back into his mouth, he would have done it.
“What did you say?” she said, turning to the groundhog. Over the female’s head, he saw that Lagar was shaking his head, ever so slightly. A warning?
“I just said that figs do grow on trees,” Thimblerig stammered, not enjoying being the target of that withering iguana gaze. “Fig trees, to be exact.”
The female hopped up on the table and stuck her big, green, scaly face right into his smaller furry one. “And do you see any fig trees, furback?” she hissed.
“Um, no,” Thimblerig admitted.
“Then take your rotten figs and your rotten games and get out of here before I call that wild dog to come down and take care of you!”
With a final flick of the tongue, she leapt off the table, scooped the figs into her bag, and pushed her emasculated mate off into the darkness, followed by the rest of the reptiles.
It was only after they’d gone, and Thimblerig was able to breathe again, that he realized that she’d just made off with his two figs as well as her mate’s. Alone with the darkness and the stench, the only light coming from the glowing firegems embedded into the walls, Thimblerig packed up his shells and kicked the wooden board aside.
Yeah, the unicorn had definitely messed up the groundhog’s mojo, and then some. The crazy part was that there was a time when having one of his games self-destruct so spectacularly would have decimated him, but now he wasn’t so bothered by it.
Maybe it’s time to try a new line of work, Thimblerig thought, turning and heading up the ramp back towards the other mammals in the levels above.
—
Look for another excerpt in the coming weeks.
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist will be released on May 1, 2015.
Want to read Thimblerig’s Ark before the sequel is released? Get your copy by clicking on the cover below!
Nanowrimo • You Are The Hero Of This Story
This is a pep talk I wrote for the 2015 Nanowrimo Young Writer’s Program. It was originally published on the Young Writer’s Program website.
—
You’re staring at the blinking cursor on your screen, doubtful that you will make your daily word-count goal.
Again.
“Why did I ever decide to do this?” you mutter under your breath. “This month was destined to end in failure!”
The cursor keeps on blinking.
Mocking you.
It’s that sentence. The Worst Sentence Ever Written. The sentence you’ve been monkeying around with for the past hour. You need to change it, but taking the time to change won’t help you reach your goal, and you’re already far behind in your daily word-count.
Your story is going nowhere. The characters are all one dimensional caricatures. The plot’s a dud, and the themes are non-existent, and…
…why did you think you could ever write a novel in the first place?
You slam your laptop shut and cry out in misery, “The mountain’s too tall, the forces arrayed against me too strong, and all hope is lost!”
But wait.
This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? You’ve seen this before, somewhere…
Frodo and Sam, emotionally and physically spent, edging their way up the rocky slope of Mt. Doom, the top of the mountain visible but unreachable under the burden of the ring…
Harry Potter, trapped in the besieged halls of Hogwarts, surrounded by the dark forces of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, desperate to figure out the location of the final Horcrux…
Lucy and Susan, holding onto one another in the bitter pre-dawn coldness, crying over the dead body of the great lion, knowing that all of their hopes died with him…
And then, it hits you. This is your dark night of the soul.
NaNoWriMo is your hero’s journey, you are the hero, and this is your point of decision. Do you turn back in defeat, or do you press ahead?
But it’s not just that. You’re also the writer, which means that this is your story.
You control the valiant champions fighting for good and the shadowy forces of evil. One side will win or lose at your beck and call.
This is your story.
It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, if your dialogue is believable, or even if it is well-written. What matters is that you finish.
And Hero, you are almost there.
With that knowledge, you are free to re-open your laptop and write, because this is your story.
And you are the only one who can tell it.
—
Nate’s novel, Thimblerig’s Ark, is available for a free Kindle download from November 19 until November 23 (PST) in celebration of NaNoWriMo. Go download and enjoy!
Thimblerig’s Ark 2: The Ark Heist, is being written this month during NaNoWriMo, and will be published in Spring 2016.
Happy May the 4th from Thimblerig the groundhog!
In honor of this auspicious occasion, Thimblerig will be making a special book-related announcement in just a few days.
Hang tight for a good word from your favorite groundhog!
Author Nate Fleming visits the QSI International School of Zhuhai
It was a great experience, being with all the young writers at QSI International School of Zhuhai in February. They were great listeners and even better writers! Thimblerig has new fans on the Pearl Delta!
What’s Wrong with Christian Media?
Media cloud, VLADGRIN / Shutterstock.com
Lifeway Research recently released a study that examined the use of Christian media. The results showed that the vast majority of Christian media is consumed by – hold onto your hats for this, folks – Christians.
Christian Media Barely Reaching Beyond the Faithful
This doesn’t come as a surprise. Media will typically be consumed by the target audience, and in this case, why would a person who is not a Christian care to listen to a Christian podcast? Why would they be interested in reading a book about Christianity? Why would they spend their time watching Christian television programs?
It seems like the logical thing to do here is to circle the wagons. After all, if the Christian family is consuming most Christian media, then we should just keep creating media for the family! This is how business works, isn’t it? You identify your target audience, and then push your product for that audience.
Given, the study does show that some of our media is being consumed by people outside the church – like a positive form of collateral damage – but we should count those people as frosting on the cake and keep on doing what we do when we do what we do.
But hold on, hit the brakes, stop the engines, turn off the lights… there’s a slight problem with all that.
Did Jesus tell his disciples in Matthew 28:19 to “go back into the church, close the doors, and make disciples”?
No. Of course not. He said “Go into all the world…” Go. Get out of your comfort zone. Stop naval gazing and get out into the world where people need the message of hope that we find in the story of Jesus.
Christian media should deal with finding the lost, and not just massaging the found. What are the “Christianese” words for this? Witnessing? Sharing? Evangelizing? We’re supposed to be engaging with the world outside of the church, not just circling our wagons to protect the women and children.
Look at it this way. Imagine your church supports a missionary family living in some foreign country. The missionary family comes home on furlough, and visits your church to share about the progress of their work in this foreign country.
The missionary husband sets up a powerpoint presentation in the fellowship hall after the pot-luck dinner, and starts showing slides of the family’s work.
“We’re so grateful to be serving in our host country, and blessed to be able to share our work with you today.”
The missionary smiles and turns to the screen.
“In this picture, we’re having some missionary neighbors over for dinner. We like to have other missionaries over for dinner regularly. This next picture shows us at our bi-weekly Bible study with some other missionary families. Oh, you’ll love this one – it’s a picture of us worshipping on Sunday morning at our church, which is only for missionaries. Hmm…. this is our neighbor who isn’t a missionary… I’m not sure how that picture got in there. Ah, here! This next picture is better – it’s our missionary office, where we work with other missionaries. Finally, here’s a picture of our kids going to their missionary-kid school. It’s missionary run, taught, and attended. They just love it there.”
That missionary probably wouldn’t be supported by the church for much longer.
So, we want our missionaries to engage with the culture around them, but for some reason, we seem to be perfectly comfortable that Christian media is only reaching other Christians.
And Christian media isn’t even doing that very well!
Take Christian movies for example – one of the categories where the results were considered the most encouraging. The Lifeway study shows that four out of ten people said that they watched a Christian movie in the last year.
Four out of ten? That’s pretty amazing!
Well, it seems like an encouraging number until you remember that eighty-three percent of the American population identifies as Christian.
Eight out of ten people consider themselves Christian, and four out of ten people watched a Christian movie last year.
Let that sink in. Less than half the Christian population of America watched at least one Christian movie last year.
So, what does this all mean? Should we shutter all the Christian bookstores? Boycott Chris Tomlin concerts? Send Phil Vischer snarky letters for hosting a podcast with a Christian point of view?
No. Of course not. (Although sending Vischer snarky letters about his ukelele might be warranted…) There’s nothing wrong with producing media for ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with producing media for small segments of ourselves. People do that every day, all over the world, in all walks of life.
But as Christians, we shouldn’t be content with that.
So, if you are a person interested in Christian media and interested in changing those statistics reported by Lifeway Research, here are 6 (+2) things that Christian media must do better to catch the attention of those people who normally wouldn’t care.
1. Be Professional.
If something is good in media, it’s not because it is good by accident, or because someone prayed for it to be good and God miraculously made it so. Things are good in media because professionals have been hired to make them good. Christian film producers have finally started to realize this, raising enough money to enable them to hire pros to help shoot their films, and the result? Christian films are finally starting to look like well-shot films. People in the world outside the church respect professionalism.
2. Be Excellent.
Maybe this is a part of being professional, but if you’re involved in Christian media, then you shouldn’t cut corners. If you’re a self-published writer, then revise, revise, revise. Give yourself time to do the best you can possibly do with your efforts. Want to be a filmmaker? Cut your teeth on shorts before moving to features. Watch a LOT of movies – and not only Christian made movies. Read scripts. No matter what area of media you feel drawn to, take the time to become excellent. Say what you will about the world, but the world appreciates and is drawn to excellence.
3. Be Creative.
This is where we often drop the ball with Christian media. In our rush to get our message out, we tell sloppy stories. We create one-dimensional characters. We allow our faith to handcuff us, which is not why we have our faith. “It was for freedom you were set free…” Remember? That includes the freedom to be creative. Try to look at the world in a different way, in a real and authentic way. Especially when you consider those people who believe differently than you do. We call God the Creator, not just because he created everything, but because He is also so incredibly creative. Go, and do likewise, because people outside the church are attracted to true creativity.
4. Be Intelligent.
We’ve all seen the near-constant parade of apparently unintelligent Christians in media. People hosting programs who have trouble putting together intelligible sentences; faith-based scripts that seem not well thought-through or properly edited; embarrassingly discourteous or rude commenters on the internet; self-published novels that are so plotless and pointless that they make one wish that self-publishing were as hard and expensive as it used to be.
Our reputation for being unintelligent has been well earned by these things and much more. Write intelligently, direct intelligently, comment intelligently, create intelligently. God may use the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, but that doesn’t mean we should aim to be fools. Christians in media are the front lines for changing the intelligence perception with the media they create.
5. Be Ingenious.
Christian media is known for trying to take something the world has done and recreate it in a faith-friendly way. The world gives us 50 Shades of Grey, Christian media reacts with Old Fashioned. There’s a good article about this on Vox, written by Brandon Ambrosino. I’d also recommend the article he cites by Alissa Wilkinson.
The point is that Christians in media need to be ingenious. We should lead rather than follow, set the standard rather than chasing after the latest fad or trend. We should aim to take the world by surprise with our ingenious and unique creations.
6. Be Honest.
Finally, one of the best weapons we have at our disposal as Christians in media is honesty. As we interact with people who aren’t in the faith, they should see this about us – as we interact with the media, they should notice this about us. As we write, direct, act, talk, sing, produce, film, record, edit, draw, or whatever it is we do, people should recognize it in us.
They should talk about it behind our backs.
And if they do? That’s okay. We should have nothing to hide, and no reason to hide. We don’t have to pretend to have it all together, because we know that we don’t. We don’t have to act like our families are perfect, because we know that they aren’t. We don’t have to act like we have all the answers, because we know that we don’t. And that’s okay.
What we do have is Jesus.
And if you’ll pardon my brief use of Christainese, we have his forgiveness, his mercy, and his grace. And He gives us the ability to live openly, transparently, and honestly – in life and in the media we create.
And that is how we will impact the world.
And now the (bonus +2).
1. Drop the Secret Language.
Christianese – the secret language of Christianity. The moment you fall into using the secret language, you lose potential interest from people who don’t speak it. If your Christian media is inundated with Christianese, you need to make some changes, or you might as well just create your media in Klingon for all the good it will do you.
To find out more about Christianese, go to the Dictionary of Christianese, or read a good article about it here. And then cut it out.
2. Give the End Times a Rest.
What do we know? Jesus will return. How? When? We have no real idea – just theories and interpretations. That means that our Rapture books and movies are just the Christian versions of The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Road, or any of the other dystopsian end-of-the-world stories you want to pick. And they’re not nearly as compelling, well told, or well made.
Can we just give it a rest for a while?
Please?
(Actually, having said that, a Christian dystopsian story that absolutely nothing to do with the Rapture or the anti-Christ could be a really interesting read.)
An Inspirational Quote about Thimblerig’s Ark
Thimblerig's Ark 