Before I moved to Colorado Springs, I was a Youth and Family minister at a church in Plymouth, MN. One of my responsibilities was to create a newsletter that went out to people who were not members of our church but had been asked to be on our mailing list.
Every month I would write an article to be included in the newsletter that shared God’s Word in some fashion, typically taking a topic in the news and developing a Christian message around it. While those articles never took a position on current events, I was able to use news reports as a metaphor for how Christ interacts in our lives.
I found I liked the challenge of converting a current news piece into something that anyone, regardless of their opinion on the event, could benefit from. This, for me, was the challenge of writing.
I became involved in the Draft Ben Carson for President movement in 2015. I would write political pieces in support of Carson for placement in online news or for conservative news websites, and I would occasionally send letters to the editor in our local newspapers. I enjoyed writing in support of Ben Carson, and, when he dropped out of the race, I continued to write articles that supported conservative efforts. As things became more polarized, though, it became harder and harder to find outlets that would publish my commentary because it would try to see both sides of any issue and wouldn't write contentiously. I wanted to try to elevate the discussion, and it seemed that wasn't where most media outlets were headed.
So, I've decided to base my writing off of, not real news events, but fictitious ones that I think still help folks to wrestle with important ideas, without slamming doors on any one particular viewpoint.
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