continued from 2/2/04 post…
So John Mark and I met at Waffle House to talk about what we’d write about the book’s topic: baptism. I came prepared with a ball point and a syrupy napkin to write my thoughts on. John Mark had a full outline. We used his outline, not my napkin, to start the 18 month process of writing the book. I suggested we call the book Down in the River to Pray to capture a word-play based on the wildly successful song by Allison Krauss from the Cohen brothers movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? John Mark added the sub-title, Revisioning Baptism as God’s Transforming Work.
We met again to develop chapter titles and divvy up the writing by chapters. But we wouldn’t simply write our chapters and plug them in…our work interlaced like a woven basket. We carefully read, commented on, edited one another’s work. We sent drafts to our publisher, Leonard Allen, and he made excellent suggestions along the way from which we re-wrote and edited extensively.
The book was released October 2003 and is just now hitting some bookstores and conferences. John Mark and I will be speaking at Abilene Christian University Bible lectures February 23-26 and Pepperdine University Bible lectures May 4-6.
More about Down in the River to Pray: Revisioning Baptism as God’s Transforming Work click here
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