Grace Writers

After David Pratt, the “small groups pastor” at our church, encouraged me – and my wife, Carol, and our daughter, Suzanne, prodded me – I decided to start a church “writers group.”

I majored in art education and minored in English in college but didn’t write much until I was 50 years old and began submitting articles and letters to the editor of our local newspaper, “The Pilot” of Southern Pines, N.C. I next worked for almost four years, in the early 2000s, as a part-time religion reporter for “The Pilot.“

A few years ago, I attended a writers’ workshop led by Marlene Bagnull, a Christian author. She used this verse as a theme: “And the Lord said to me, ‘Write my answer on a billboard, large and clear, so that anyone can read it at a glance and rush to tell the others’” (Habakkuk 2:2).

In her book, “Write His Answer,” Bagnull says, “I believe God is calling us to write his answer. It’s time to boldly step out in faith and to write the words that need to be written – powerful words, winsome words, anointed words that will come only by allowing him to speak to our own hearts.”

Bagnull says she once gave the Lord excuses as to why she might not succeed in writing to honor him. She says she felt God answered her with these words: “Write out of your life experiences. Make yourself transparent and vulnerable so others can see what I have done, and am doing, in your life.” She adds, “I began to write about my life as a wife and mother…I sensed the most difficult things for me to share could be the very words someone else needed to read.”

I recently helped launch Grace Writers Group for our church, Grace Church in Southern Pines, N.C. The church holds two Sunday morning services and often sees over 1200 people attend those combined services. On two Sundays, Pastor Pratt let me host a recruiting table that stood alongside nearly 60 other small-group tables. About 11 people signed up for our group.

Six people gathered for our first meeting on September 15, 2010. (We meet on Wednesdays from 7:00-8:30 p.m.) Linda Martin, a lady in her fifties, wrote about our first class, saying, “I started the class on writing last night (Wednesday). Who would have thought I would be in a writing class – me, the person who’s been told many times to ‘write my story’ over the years and who has resisted each time…I have a hunch Steve’s gotten into more than he’s bargained for.”

I was not sure what I had “bargained for,” but I have been blessed by powerful writings produced by group members.

George Hunt, 77, is an Air Force veteran and a member of our group. He worked 30 years for Hughes Aircraft and now serves as the director of the Moore County (N.C.) Veterans Office. He touched hearts when he read to our group a writing called “A Day I Won’t Forget.” Here is his story, which is appropriate for Veterans Day (November 11):

“It was a hot July morning in 1944, and my father was in the Army somewhere in France. I was ten years old. My two younger brothers and I had decided to go swimming with our cousins in the creek near our Grandpa’s. We were having a great time splashing and playing in the water.

“Around noontime, I heard a car coming down the dirt road from the direction of Pinehurst, N.C. It was very unusual, with gas rationing, to see a car that far out in the country. Then I saw the TAXI sign on the side of the car, and my heart dropped, for a TAXI meant a death notice from the government, and there were only two houses on our road.

“I called the others and ran for home, hoping and praying that it wasn’t for our house. But when I got home, the driver had already delivered the telegram, which turned out to be about my father. All it said was he had been seriously wounded in France. That was all we knew for several months. No one knew if he was alive or dead. My mother went to the Red Cross to try and get some word, and they were unable to find out anything for us. Finally, a letter came from my father from a hospital in England. He was on his way home. What a great day that was. After months of no news, Dad was coming home.”

You will find more Grace Writers Group stories at www.gracewritersgroup.blogspot.com.