New: Biker Preacher and Other Stories

 New Release! My collection of Christian fiction featuring 11 stories is now live. 

Amazon: Kindle Unlimited, E-Book, Paperback (affiliate link)

Biker Preacher and Other Stories: 

A collection of Christian fiction.

From the sawdust trail of a small town camp meeting to the healing thermal springs high in the Pyrenees, author Lyndon Perry takes his readers on a journey of hope, forgiveness, and reconciliation - with a bit of humor along the way - via eleven short stories that showcase the writer's Christian values and world view. (Affiliate link to Amazon.)

New Release from Tule Fog Press

Excited about this announcement - I just edited and published Revathi Selwyn's Biblical novel, Ruth: A Journey to Faith. With this novel, I'm launching a new line of books at Tule Fog Press - Christian fiction. I hope to add two more titles to this category this year.

Amazon Link (affiliate)

From the Back Cover...

Ruth is a Princess of Moab. Naomi, her mother-in-law from Israel, shares with her the love of Yahweh. Naomi’s God and people become Ruth’s God and people. As Ruth learns to trust in the God of Creation, the Lord honors her faithfulness. Her journey to faith in Yahweh is rewarded, and she becomes an ancestor to kings!

About the Book

This creative imagining of Ruth’s story is based on Biblical history and the truth of Scripture (especially as found in the Book of Ruth). Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons move to Moab due to severe famine in Israel. Ruth meets Mahlon and marries into the Israelite family. Naomi loses her sons and, in bitterness, decides to return to Israel. Ruth is determined to cross the Jordan and follow her mother-in-law to a new life.

In the city of Bethlehem, Ruth meets Boaz in the barley fields. He becomes her kinsman redeemer. She marries him and becomes the ancestor to the kings of Israel. Ruth has come a long way from being a little princess of Moab. She enjoys her final days spending time with her great-grandson, David, teaching him to play the tambourine and to worship the God of Israel.

About the Author

Revathi Selwyn is a family practitioner, poet, and author. She loves writing and her books are fun to read. She’s written a series of short stories that encourage children to be kind to one another, to animals, and to nature. In Created for a Purpose, her stories emphasize that God has a purpose for everything He has created.

Titles within this children’s series include Josh-Posh, Little Hug-Me and the Avocado; Josh-Posh, Little Hug-Me and Izzy Busy; and Josh-Posh, Little Hug-Me and the Spotted Dove. Her first children’s book was published in 2014, Tsip the Little Sparrow.

Revathi lives in Hyderabad, India, with her husband; they have two grown children. She loves nature, birds, and animals. Her favorite pets are her two labs, Amy and Teddy. She also enjoys writing poetry and has posted several of her poems online. You can find all her books here on Amazon.

The Themes of Advent - Faith

The Themes of Advent – Faith

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent and the theme for the second candle we light during our worship today is faith.

I think last year we assigned the theme peace to the second week – but it doesn’t particularly matter. The great virtues of hope, faith, joy, peace, and love are all present every week during the Advent Season.

Another name for this candle is the Bethlehem Candle, and so I’d like to tie the theme of faith with Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem in anticipation of our Lord’s birth

Using an acrostic of the word FAITH, here are some thoughts on how we might demonstrate the faith of the Holy Couple in our lives today.

The Second Sunday of Advent

FAITH

F – Follow. When the Holy Spirit prompts us to act, we should follow God's direction. Like Mary and Joseph who accepted the miraculous event that was about to occur in their lives, we should be open to God's leading.

A – Adventure. When we're open to God's call, it will definitely be an adventure. Another word might be 'assignment.' When we accept a divine assignment, we're guaranteed, like the Holy Couple, an amazing journey.

I – Immanuel. Why? Because "God is with us" - the meaning of the Hebrew word, Immanuel. (Emmanuel is the same word, coming from the Greek.) Jesus promised never to leave us or forsake us. He's always with us.

T – Trust. Therefore, we can trust him. Trust is another word for faith, to believe 'into' the person we're following. We can trust God to lead us in His paths which are always good and right.

H – Honor. In response, we honor God with our lives of worship, our gifts of time and resources, our devotion. Like Mary who sang her Magnificat, we return honor and praise to the Creator and Savior of the universe.

Have a wonderful second Sunday of Advent. How will you be celebrating the Season?

The Candle of Hope

Wanted to follow up on yesterday's post about the beginning of Advent. At worship today, we lit the Candle of Hope, sometimes called the Prophecy Candle. 

(Traditions vary and I'm not too worried about getting the weeks 'exactly right' - it's the heart at worship that counts, I believe).

Anyway, today marks the beginning of the new year for Christian worship, the first Sunday of Advent.

My goal is to follow the liturgical calendar as much as possible this coming year, reading from the Book of Common Prayer and other resources.

Each day and each week, there are themes to contemplate and scriptures to read. I think it's going to be a wonderful adventure. Seasonal pun intended.

Today as a church, we focused on hope. As believers, we hold that true hope was made manifest - revealed for the first time in tangible form - at the manger in Bethlehem. 

Have you ever thought about why God announced the Good News of Christ’s birth to shepherds watching their flocks in the hills surrounding that small town?

Was it because they knew what an unblemished lamb truly looked like? Did God, in his grace and mercy, give them, some of the lowliest people in society, the opportunity to see the real, eternal unblemished Lamb who would redeem the world and make everything right?

This Advent season, God has revealed to us this same Lamb. (Which the prophet John, who was the forerunner to the Messiah, recognized!) 

As we anticipate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, let us recognize that he is our Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The hope of all people. God bless you this season.

Why not let the virus run its course?

Why not let the virus run its course?

This post is now available on my blog, Fwd: Thoughts.

Litmus Test Questions

I pastor a small church.

Small churches want visitors. Heck, we want more than visitors, we want people who will show up and stick. Stickers, that's what we want.

But not just any sticker. There's a category of folks I will gladly pass on to the next church they visit.

I call them litmus test people.

See, every now and then we get folks who drop in for worship or bible study, but afterward they have a list of topics they want to cover with me.

Or I'll get an email or phone call from someone with a bunch of questions about what we believe.

Litmus test questions. And no matter how we answer them, we always fail the test.

That's the nature of such questions. Bottom line, the person posing litmus test questions is almost always looking for ways to disqualify you from their list.

* Do you believe in a literal six-day creation?
* How old is the earth? Was Noah's flood universal?
* Are you a premillennialist? A pre-trib premillennialist?
* Do you preach from the King James? Aren't all other translations hereritical?
* What do you believe about women in ministry? Is the husband the head of the wife?
* What are we going to do about all these gays and transgender marches and such?
* And on and on it goes.

This is where I'll probably lose a good chunk of you.

My answer to these questions is that I can't answer them. Not in five minutes anyway. Which is more time than what the person asking me is actually willing to give me.

By and large, litmust test people want a thirty second response that mimics their predetermined correct answer. The moment I go off script...WRONG!

It's like I'm on the Gong Show and got the boot.

So I don't even try anymore. I usually cut straight to the heart of the matter: "You know, I appreciate your questions, but our church probably isn't for you."

Don't even address their questions. Why? Because they aren't interested in answers or nuance or discussion. They want to disqualify you. I save them the hassle.

Now, that being said, we do want visitors who turn into stickers. And over the past few months we've had a few of those types of folks join us at Faith Renewal. And they are a joy!

They are a joy because they show up wanting to worship. They show up wanting to know Jesus better. They show up knowing we are all broken but believe broken together in a faith community is better than broken alone.

Sure, they have questions. And questions are great. But they also know there are sometimes no easy answers. That when we work on the answers together we get to know God better, better than when we come to church with everything already figured out.

So if you're a litmus test person, know that you are welcome at our church. But also figure we might not be the kind of church you're looking for. We have answers, sure. Jesus is the way, the truth, the life.

But we want to be worshipers first. Laying aside our own agendas so we can submit to God's.

See you at worship this Sunday? If not, there's another church just down the street...

(Note: image is from pixabay, chapel-2980025_640, used by permission.)

Fresh Start for Your Hurting Heart

My father-in-law has written a new book on healing the hurts of the heart.



Heart - the center of our beings, the core of who we are. We may think and reason with our minds, but with our hearts, we live!

Heart - that complex blending of our emotions, mind, will, spirit, values, virtues and desires. The looking glass through which we see and define life; the determiner of our beliefs and actions.

Hearts, however, also have a tremendous capacity to be wounded and broken. Our hearts can be beaten down by the judgments, hatred, bitterness and anger of others.

In Fresh Start for Your Hurting Heart, you will learn how your heart has been broken by the lies with which it has been assaulted. You will learn that no matter what road you’ve traveled, no matter what wounds your heart has received, the same God that made your heart can, and wants to, heal your heart!