For today’s entry in the Friday Five interview series, we catch up with Mark Buchanan.
Mark Buchanan is an author, professor, and blogger. His latest book is Your Church Is Too Safe.
Today we chat with Mark about transitions, taking risks, and seasons of life.
You’ve recently moved out of the pastorate into a teaching position. What has this new season of life brought you?
Time. The rhythms of academic life are dramatically different from the pastorate. Here, things start, and 3 months later they stop. In between are long stretches of breathing room. In pastoral ministry, there is no end point, no finish line: nothing really concludes. And here, if you have a bad class, they all disperse after 3 months. In the pastorate, if you have a bad congregation—do I need to finish that sentence?
I’m enjoying this new rhythm—luxuriating in it, really. The extra time means: I’m home most evenings, have more time to write and travel, spend more time with family and friends, get more exercise, and feel more relaxed in general. I better stop with that, lest I tempt my former brethren toward the sin of envy.
It has also brought a shift in the nature of my influence. My influence is both diminished and enhanced. In the pastorate, I influenced hundreds of people weekly. Here, I have small classes, made up of students who are burdened with course work and distracted by a multitude of demands and who, for the most part, don’t see much beyond the horizon of the next assignment. So in that sense, my influence has shrunk. I’ve lost the opportunity to incite riots. In the pulpit, you can light fires. In the classroom, you can explain techniques for lighting fires. Big difference. But this is the upside: most of these students will form the next generation of church leadership. I get a few years to mess with their heads—teach them how to incite riots, train them how to light fires. That, maybe, could add up to a revolution. Here’s hoping.
C.S. Lewis’ quote, “God is not safe, but he is good” has really impacted your life and ministry, resulting in two books Your God is Too Safe and Your Church is Too Safe. Seems like you are calling Christians to a more adventurous, radical kind of Christianity.
My deepest regret, after 24 years in pastoral ministry, is that I didn’t take more risks (and I took a lot). Even so, I hugged the shore too close. I fussed over trivialities too much. I fretted about budgets too many nights. I placated the disgruntled and catered to the whiners too often. “Everywhere Paul went, they started riots, Everywhere I went, they serve tea” (Anonymous). I deeply believe—I more feisty and sassy about this than ever—that unless Christians start raiding the devil’s lair, we’ll never turn the world on its head. I want to be a prophetic voice for that.
I loved Spiritual Rhythms. I don’t think I ever read a book on the seasons of life. Why don’t Christians often think of their journeys in seasons?
I think most of us—mea culpa—have unthinkingly endorsed a spirituality of busyness and giddiness: the person who does the most and smiles the most loves Jesus the most. That puts it crassly, but I don’t think unfairly. As a pastor, I spent a lot of time trying to whip people into greater “levels” of commitment, meaning getting them to do more. But, as I document in Spiritual Rhythm, grief interrupted me. The loss of a dear friend sabotaged all my well-laid schemes, and suddenly I was plunged into a winter of the heart. I could barely get out of bed. I had zero motivation. Sundays seemed to me frivolous and clamorous. Was this a failure to love Jesus—or a failure of his love for me? That’s when the awareness dawned on me: Jesus measured spiritual maturity by fruit. And fruit implies seasons. And though we only harvest fruit in one season, we need all four to produce it. Winter is as necessary to bearing fruit—to deep spiritual maturity—as spring or summer is. I think most Christians miss this—and the seasonality of the heart in general—because the idea that darkness, sadness, stillness, and unproductivity might be a necessary condition for bearing fruit collides with our reigning paradigm, the spirituality of busyness and giddiness.
What is your writing rhythm? Are you an early morning writer, a late-night writer?
I write almost everything I produce—books, blogs, or articles—in a 4–5 hour block every Friday. I awake around 6:30 AM. I exercise, shower, eat, make coffee, read 2 chapters of Scripture and a few pages each of theology and history. Then, around 9 AM, I fire up the computer, and buckle down. I usually write until 2:00 PM (with a brief lunch break around 12:30). I try to finish shorter magazine pieces (under 1000 words) in a single sitting. Longer pieces, in two. When I’m working on a book, I don’t grant myself permission to leave until I’ve produced a minimum of 1500 words. Most trade books are 65,000 words. At the rate of 1500 words a week, I need 43 weeks to complete a book—roughly 10 months.
I do, however, block out two to three 5 day writing blitzes when I’m moving toward a book deadline—at least one just to write, two if needed, and one just to edit the complete manuscript. For the writing marathons, I write 12-14 hours each day, and require of myself a minimum of 4000 words a day—so I can write roughly a third of a book in one 5-day block. In the editing marathon, I typically edit about 10 hours a day.
What one piece of advice would you give to emerging writers?
Set aside at least 3 hours each week—in a single block, or stretched over three days, or whatever—during a part of the day when you’re most attentive and creative, and write whether you feel like it or not, whether you’ll get paid or not, whether it’s for your eyes only (and God’s) or for tens of thousands. Give yourself a word quota for each sitting. Treat writing like you would any other job—something you said you’d do, so you do it. Expect all first drafts to be awful. Be surprised, thankful, and suspicious if they seem otherwise.
And keep writing.
Daniel Darling is vice-president of communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Activist Faith.
