The question most often heard over the years is, how and when did you start writing?

My writing began in the year 2003 after capitulating to the many people prodding me to record the unveiling of God’s vision for Pleasant Street Baptist Church in Westerly, RI; too many to be deemed coincidental. The other reason for my writing was internal and had to do with my spiritual journey.

In 1986 I was called to pastor The Pleasant Street Baptist Church in Westerly, RI all the while sensing that a condition that had existed in the contemporary church for many years was steadily growing worse. I am referring to the loss of vitality and fervor, and the fact that the Church has lost direction in meeting the needs of people: lost, hungry, hurting, and powerless people in particular. As I saw what was happening around me, I also became aware of something happening inside me. This surfaced several years ago when I was experiencing one of those periods of spiritual dryness, we all encounter. Deep within my spirit, I knew I had yet many unanswered questions. Despite my leadership in the church, despite the ministry, I knew in my heart I had to do something. I wanted to know Jesus in a more personal way. I wanted to have real peace inside. I no longer wanted to do things just because I felt they were right. I desired to know the Lord’s will for me and to have the courage to follow His divine direction.

In the fall of 1998, our church invited neighboring churches to witness and participate in a critically important tradition, the Ordination of New Deacons. It was a grand occasion with many guests from sister churches in attendance and it was a standing room only. Surely, we had other glorious events as fulfilling as this one, but there was something about this event that still stands out in my memory. On the program were two Deacons from a sister church in New London, CT. and as they were departing, I accompanied them to their car, thanking them for coming and sharing with them the reason for the excitement and change in Pleasant Street was a series of nocturnal visits I received from God. I simply said, “I am trying to follow God’s will for the church.” They marveled at what they had witnessed and one said to me. “You are writing all of these things down, aren’t you?” Almost in concert, the other deacon said, “Pastor, you ought to be writing a book.” At this point, I was often struggling just to write my weekly sermons. Writing down my encounters with God or writing a book was the furthest thing from my mind. I appreciated receiving God’s knowledge and wisdom in the morning hours, but I took it as simply a gift of God’s gracious favor.

A few years later in the fall of 2000, due to a pending merger with a foreign utility in England, my tenure as a director on the board of New England Electric System, a public holding company was nearing an end. The system directors were invited to a farewell dinner in Hampton Court Castle Warwick, United Kingdom, and at the dinner table, I ended up sitting beside the wife of a board member whose husband was an administrator in higher education in the Massachusetts school system. After exchanging pleasantries, she asked me what I did. I proceeded to share with her my former years as a businessman in the kitchen industry now because of a vision from God I was pastor of a small but burgeoning church in Westerly, RI. I shared about the number of youth we had and of the miracles I had witnessed and how God had provided housing for homeless people and gifts for needy families. I was careful to note that my limited role was clear. I was simply to cast God’s vision and he had done the rest.

The woman had a look of wonder on her face as if captivated by my ramblings. And the next thing she was startling. She shifted slightly in her seat, put her hand on my wrist, and looked into my eyes. “Are you writing these things down?” she said. “You should be writing a book.” Immediately the conversation I’d had with my two deacon friends resurfaced, and I realized why my nocturnal visits from God had increased. He had been trying to get my attention. Again, I had missed it. On my return to Westerly, the first thing I did was place two legal pads and some ballpoint pens by my bed, so as not to make the same mistake. I started writing down the words and revelations that came to me in the middle of the night. The folders I put my notes in contained his words, but I still did not know what to do with them. I had no idea how to write a book, and I was not anxious to find out. For a while, I failed to realize that a book could have a far more reaching impact than a sermon delivered to a few hundred people in the local church.

I then realized I had to put the words delivered to me in the middle of the night in some other form so I started writing my first book in 2003, Can These Bones Live? Since then I have just completed my tenth book (2022) of a Learning Library with the divine mandate through the Spirit’s revelation to keep the words clear and simple so that all may come to understanding. Hence, each book is to tell the gospel story so that a young person or older adult can find the same transforming power in its words