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The Steve Laube Agency

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Home » Archives for Dan Balow

Dan Balow

It’s a Mad, Mad World

By Dan Balowon September 13, 2023
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If you have been part of this blog community for any length of time, you are bound to run across a history lesson. Today is one of those days.

Sixty-five years ago was quite a time in the United States.

On September 12, 1958, the United States Supreme Court ordered the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, to integrate racially. It was one of many civil rights-related court and legal actions in the 1950s.

In response to the decision, Democrat Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock public high schools for one year, rather than allow integration to continue, affecting 3,665 black and white students. It is known in Arkansas as “The Lost Year.”

A week later, on September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry, a 42-year-old black woman, stabbed Martin Luther King, Jr., while he signed copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom at Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem, New York.

Curry stabbed King with a seven-inch, steel letter opener, driving the blade into the upper left side of his chest. A quick-thinking medical worker didn’t remove the blade, knowing it would likely kill him. King was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he underwent more than two hours of surgery to repair the wound. Doctors said, “Had Dr. King sneezed or coughed, the weapon would have penetrated the aorta. He was just a sneeze away from death.”

Ms. Curry was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and unfit to stand trial. She spent the next 56 years in various psychiatric and nursing facilities before she died in 2015, only a few months shy of her 99th birthday.

King was assassinated in Memphis less than ten years later.

We live in an angry world that has been angry for a very long time. Recent political events didn’t create it. Sin did, and it has been present for only a short time less than people have been around.

How should Christian writers address this world? Maybe 2 Corinthians chapter five explains it best:

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us (2 Corinthians 5:16-20, NIV).

“Ambassador” is an appropriate word to describe Christian writers.

In diplomacy, ambassadors reflect the policies of those they represent. They don’t make policy; they see to it that the policies and plans of those they represent are carried out.

Maybe you have heard a pastor or teacher give an example of how to make Scripture come alive by inserting your name into the text. I think the same works for professions.

God has committed to Christian writers the message of reconciliation. Writers are Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through them.

Knowing this lightens the burden for those who think changing lives is up to their words and creativity, rather than the Kingdom they represent and the God they serve.

 

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Category: Historical

The Heavenly Minded Author

By Dan Balowon August 30, 2023
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Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., was quite a guy. A prominent, influential physician and writer, his friends included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was born in 1809 and died in 1894. His son was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who fought in some of the bloodiest battles of the …

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Category: Career, Christian, Theology

Impossible Books

By Dan Balowon August 16, 2023
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There are a lot of hard things in life. Some are downright impossible. Entrepreneur and media guru Patrick Bet-David says the ten hardest things in life are: Getting Married Parenting Becoming an entrepreneur Keeping your health Overcoming addiction The loss of a loved one Leaving people behind Handling success Trusting others Massive failure Many say the most difficult thing to do in all sports …

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Category: Inspiration, The Writing Life, Theology, Trends

The Ephesians 4 Author

By Dan Balowon August 2, 2023
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While many writers set out writing for the sake of writing, without much thought to an endgame, Christian writers have biblical foundations in their lives and work, which affect how they do things. Today I will look at one chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians as a possible roadmap to being the kind of author that reflects Christ in what you do. In the first three chapters of Ephesians, the …

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Category: Career, Christian, Encouragement, Inspiration, The Writing Life, Theology

Perspective Is Everything

By Dan Balowon July 19, 2023
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While I’ve never been able to figure out the use of it, I still remember the math class in high school where the teacher tried to explain the difference between the base-ten numbering that we use every day and other systems that use a different base. For instance, a base-seven numbering system only uses numbers 0-6, which means the number 225 in base-ten is 441 in base-seven. Confused? A search …

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Category: The Writing Life

Adopting an Author (Not in a Legal Sense)

By Dan Balowon July 5, 2023
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Most authors find the promotion part of publishing a book at best challenging and, at worse, a necessary evil. Some authors enjoy it, seeing it as an important part of getting a book noticed and into the hands of readers. The antidote to this entire platform thing is to first think about readers and those you will influence through your work. It’s a borderline magic potion to enjoying the …

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Category: Book Review, Personal

Bestselling Books in 1988

By Dan Balowon June 20, 2023
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Today is a look back thirty-five years to the books selling well in 1988. This type of information helps put the present in perspective. Best-selling titles in the broader book market can often indicate what society, in general, is thinking (and reading) at the time. Looking at Christian books during a certain period should also show something about the church. Doing so is another reminder that …

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Category: Book Business

Worst-Case Scenario Survival Guide for Authors

By Dan Balowon June 6, 2023
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In 1999, Chronicle Books published the first in a series of rather unique books, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook; and it sold ten million copies, launching a multimedia franchise. Over a dozen books followed, as well as games, TV series, and other merchandise. Authors Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht built the books around extreme, need-based topics, like how to jump from a moving train …

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Category: Humor, The Writing Life

Voices of Experience: Why Mature Christian Writers Are Important

By Dan Balowon May 25, 2023
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This is the sixth and final in a series of posts on various types of writers worth giving our attention to. Those with military and missionary service in their backgrounds, young writers, creative writers, and humble writers can each contribute to the conversation within the church as they each have valuable perspectives. Many writers are a combination of these types, and today’s focus can also be …

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Category: The Writing Life, Theology

The Never-Ending Stories

By Dan Balowon May 17, 2023
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One of the reasons Christian authors can run out of things to write about is they write only from personal experience. Personal experiences are finite, and you are bound to run out of material. Your personal experiences give you one thing that can be used to write a hundred books: a perspective on God and living the Christian life, not only the actual things to write about. So, Christian writers …

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Category: Book Business, The Writing Life, Theology
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