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Announcing My New Book: Relationship Advice from Pastors with Large Churches

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Happy April 1st! It’s time to announce my latest book release:

Anyone can write a book these days about marriage and dating relationships, and that’s why my latest book collects the reliable, anecdote-based wisdom of the most trustworthy relationship experts in the church today: Pastors with Large Churches (PLCs). My latest release is a collection of their BEST biblical wisdom:

Relationship Advice from Pastors with Large Churches

Pastors with large churches have training in the time tested ancient relationship teachings from the Old and New Testaments that makes them far more reliable than “experts” with secular PhD’s.

And don’t sleep on pastors who have a counseling elective piled on with their Master of Divinity degrees! Who knows WHAT PLCs can share with couples based on that, let alone how much more expertise they’ve gained when giving relationship advice!

Add in the incredible anecdotes gained from a relationship of their own, whether that’s courting, dating, engagement, marriage, or a really great endorsement from a popular preacher, and you’ve got a pile of personal stories ready to be applied far and wide. That’s incredible expertise when paired with tried and true biblical relationship advice dating back to the tribes of Israel and the early church!

Names and fashion may have changed over millennia, but the expertise of a PLC with a smoking hot wife hasn’t.

We trust these PLCs to apply the Bible on Sunday mornings. When they preach on a passage that addresses relationships, we’re more than ready to trust what they say from the pulpit.

In ministry, size is everything. If their church is bigger than yours, why not trust their relationship advice in print as well?

Order Relationship Advice from Pastors with Large Churches

Real Books by Ed Cyzewski

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

The Expertise Crisis of American Christianity

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

While I was working as a freelance editor primarily for Christian clients, a pastor set up a meeting to discuss his book project idea. He arranged a video call with several other people from his team, which was a first for me. I could see he meant business.

Most pastors, especially the male ones, come to me about publishing a book that’s based on a sermon series. The combined power of a few people patting them on the back, saying it was great, and the romanticism of publishing a book propelled them to reach out.

With that in mind, I was surprised when this pastor said he wanted to write a book on marriage. My first thought was, “Uh, oh.” My second thought was, “Well, let’s see where this goes.”

I started by asking if he had expertise in marriage counseling, such as specific training and dedicated experience in that area. He didn’t have that.

Realizing that he was not exactly enthusiastic about my question, I felt obliged to ask another question that he was even less enthusiastic about.

“Do you know an expert on marriage you could write the book with?”

The call didn’t last too much longer after that, and I never heard from him again.

I can’t blame this pastor for thinking he could write a book about marriage. The Christian system of expertise, whether in churches, publishing, or media in general, is deeply broken.

Pastors are expected to be experts on many different things, even though most of them only have a generalist Master of Divinity Degree. They can perhaps claim modest expertise when interpreting a collection of ancient documents that date back 2,000 years or more.

That’s hardly the sort of expertise called for when giving marriage advice.

And yet, pastors who are married and occasionally advise married couples based on a class or two in seminary may think that experience combined with their “authority” for interpreting the Bible makes the cut.

They presume they can apply the Bible to relationships today despite the challenges of applying ancient texts, that required head coverings for women and regulated slavery, to the modern world.  Congregations often accept anecdote driven advice based on ancient texts in sermons without batting an eye, so why would a book be any different?

In too many cases, books promoted by the Christian publishing industry aren’t any different from the anecdote-driven, suspect interpretations delivered on Sunday mornings. A pastor, who is regarded as an expert by a congregation, whether or not that is actually warranted, can slip right into the role of an expert in the publishing world provided he (it’s typically a he, at least) can demonstrate a large enough following to guarantee a good print run.

Sometimes, even this flimsy anecdote-driven expertise isn’t required if the author has a large enough platform.

Exhibit A for this would be Joshua Harris, the darling of the homeschooling movement and purity culture who wrote a wildly popular dating book without actually practicing the advice he gave in the book. The platform bestowed by conservative Christians guaranteed robust book sales, and thus no one worried about his lack of expertise or even his lack of any experience at all.

More recently, Elizabeth Elliot has been highly scrutinized for sharing dating and marriage advice while living in a controlling, emotionally abusive marriage. The tragedy of Elliot’s personal life was compounded by the ways she passed on terrible advice to women who were suffering in similar or worse relationships.

All the while, the Christian publishing and conference industry concerned itself only with her robust book and ticket sales. Did anyone pause to ask whether a former missionary with a murdered husband had the expertise required to guide young people in their dating choices, personal holiness, or marriages?

Elliot had a compelling story that was certainly worth telling, but she wasn’t an expert in dating or marriage. Yet, the Christian publishing and media industry leveraged her compelling story into a massive money-maker fueled by Elliot’s personal anecdotes and biblical interpretations.

Pastors and Christian authors can do many good things for us, but few are marriage, relationships, or dating experts. There are Christians who have dedicated themselves to these specific topics and are far more likely to give us valuable and useful advice.

These Christians with psychology or other related degrees may not have the generalist training in biblical interpretation that an MDiv provides a pastor. However, they won’t make the tragic mistake of turning their personal experiences into wider experiences for others to imitate. They can spot toxic relationship trends, real warning signs in a marriage, or healthy practices to nurture in a relationship.

Our expertise in American Christianity is often tied to position and social platform and relies heavily on anecdotes, (sometimes) a flimsy master’s degree, and (often) suspect biblical interpretations.

If I sound too harsh in calling this an expertise crisis, take note that the books by Elliot and Harris remain on sale to this day despite their expertise being shot full of holes. In American Christianity, profit and influence can fill in all the expertise a public figure lacks.

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

Photo by NATHAN MULLET on Unsplash

Have We Counted the Cost of Making Churches Safe Spaces?

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski
Lonely reflection on Christian church

Author Rachel Held Evans rightly received standing ovations when she said, “What if the church was a place where everyone was safe but no one was comfortable?”

Heaven help you, though, if you have the nerve to do the very things that will make the church a safe, uncomfortable space.

Perhaps some have been too quick to applaud the desire for safety without realizing that oftentimes uncomfortable actions are required to make the church a safe space.

Do we want safety?

Yes!

Do we want to be uncomfortable in the church?

Absolutely not!

Do we want to make the church a safe place at the expense of our comfort?

That unfortunately sounds like a really big ask in a lot situations.

If we are serious about having safe churches, we need to have uncomfortable conversations that put relationships in uncomfortable spaces and hold leaders accountable in ways that make everyone uncomfortable.

Making the church a safe space requires learning difficult truths that we’d rather not face. We have to hear heart-breaking stories and accept that our community isn’t as safe as we assume.

Making the church a safe space could mean asking people to become more cautious and to scrutinize situations more than they may prefer.

Making the church a safe space means reassessing what we thought of certain leaders and even how we perceive ourselves. Have we been deceived by leaders and even played a role in enabling them in some ways?

If enough lay leaders or influential people in a church resist having difficult conversations, then rumors and gossip replace clear communication, wounds never heal, and trust dies.

When people fail to speak openly and honestly with each other in Christian community, then we have failed to create a safe church. A safe church MUST give people space to say, “I’ve been hurt by this behavior/situation.” And when they share that, they MUST be taken seriously regardless of who has been accused of misconduct, whether that’s a clergy member, lay leader, or member of the congregation.

Any congregation that avoids discomfort is an unsafe space. Perhaps nothing bad will happen over time, but that is only thanks to chance and not to the active practice of genuine, loving community where all are valued and cared for.

A congregation that avoids discomfort and turns away from difficult conversations will accept its members so long as they don’t rock the boat and call into question the people, such as clergy, who are more valued than they are.

The church that values comfort above difficult conversations makes certain people expendable and sets clear limits around what one must do in order to belong to the community.

The uncomfortable Christian community is willing to bear one another’s burdens, to move themselves among the unsettled, and to hear what is unwelcome. People are the precious living stones of our communities who are all beloved by God.

No one is more valuable than anyone else in a safe, uncomfortable Christian community because the length of your membership, amount you tithe, or leadership role means nothing compared to our place in God’s family as loved children.

The pursuit of a safe church means sacrificing our desire for a comfortable church. I don’t think we are capable of making such a sacrifice unless we have counted the cost of belonging to a loving community where comfort takes a back seat to the safety of everyone.

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

What Remains of Our Faith When All Else Crumbles

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Over the past eight months, and really the past two years, I’ve been through a difficult situation with several Christians that has pushed me to my limits. The wrongs have been subtle at times, but the accumulated impact has hurt me and plenty of others.

At this point, I won’t share the details of my experience at this time, but I need to mention it because it shut down any plans I had for writing in 2023. When an author, who is also a long-time blogger, feels unable to write, that’s worth explaining.

I’ve invested a lot of time into developing a daily contemplative prayer practice, as well as other spiritual practices like the Examen or centering prayer. While going through the worst of this situation, it has been my daily prayer practice that has, in part, sustained me. 

When a situation is so difficult that it’s hard to find words, it’s extremely comforting to have a daily practice that doesn’t rely on words. The Examen offers an opportunity to draw my attention elsewhere, while centering prayer is a silent practice of openness to God.

These practices offer stability when everything else starts crumbling down as fellow Christians dramatically let us down. I know I’m not alone here.

I’ve read about plenty of deconversions and deconstruction over scandals involving negligent clergy, congregations, denominations, seminaries, charities, and who knows what other groups of Christians. Such experiences can bring a crisis of faith to those harmed by them.

At this point in my life, I’m no longer surprised by Christians behaving badly. Although, it’s deeply distressing to see the pain and wounds caused by these situations, I can hardly blame people for tapping out.

If they’ve been wounded by such experiences, then avoiding Christianity may feel like the safest thing they can do!

The beauty of contemplative practice for me has been the emphasis on the practice itself, the quiet seeking of God in solitude. Yes, some may teach practices and offer guidance in the particulars, but everything is ideally taught with humility and open hands, welcoming diverse experiences and outcomes.

There isn’t too much room, at least that I’ve seen, to insert a personal agenda into a practice that encourages quiet, personal intimacy with God.

Silent contemplative prayer is hardly the reaction we’d expect from folks preaching about the end times or imagined government persecution of Christians in America.

When I see Christians acting contrary to what we believe and practice to the detriment of others, I can return to the centering thought of God’s love for all. I can’t control how others act. I can’t even stop myself from feeling crushing disappointment at times. Yet, I can choose to be still and physically silent even when my racing mind is giving my prayer word or the Jesus Prayer a run for their money.

So much of what I would have considered “Christianity” is quite fragile. Some of the things we come to rely on and associate with our faith can be disrupted by someone’s or a group’s poor choices.

There is a good chance that our institutions, leaders, and congregations will let us down in some way.

The simplicity of Christian prayer, especially silent prayer before a loving God, offers stability that no one can take away from us. There surely are plenty of things to think over, even to deconstruct, but when all depends on the loving presence of God in the midst of silence, our weary minds can find rest even when the foundations appear to be crumbling beneath us, and we run out of words to say.

Announcing My New Book: The Divine Endorsement

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

The Divine Endorsement: How to Seek and Find the Only Influencer That Matters

My new book shares simple steps any Christian author can use to gain the influence of the only one who truly matters.

There is a crisis of influence in American Christian book publishing.

Pastors and Christian authors routinely rely on the influence of fellow, fallible leaders who rarely even read their books to provide a blessed assurance that a book is worth a reader’s time.

How can we know for sure if a pastor’s book on the principles of Christian marriage is trustworthy?

He may not have any training in marriage counseling or psychology to speak of, but if he can confirm that his book has been endorsed by an all-knowing deity, then no one can doubt the value (and sincerity) of his book.

But how exactly can a Christian author “get” a divine endorsement?

Getting a divine endorsement is as simple as “seeking” it.

Yes, seek, and ye shall find!

Throughout the 250 pages of my thoroughly researched book, I share exactly how you can do this deceptively simple 10-step process to gain a clear, ringing divine endorsement for your next book.

Do you hate sending emails to potential endorsers?

Now you don’t have to! Prayer is WAY better than email.

Do you worry that your endorsers aren’t even reading your book?

That’s not a problem with an all-knowing deity!

Rather than spending your time networking, buttering up fellow authors, and calling in one favor after another, you can spend more of your valuable time on social media doing what really matters: stirring up controversy to sell books.

At the end of the day, Christian publishing is all about sharing the message of the Good News. There’s no better way to kick off a strong marketing campaign for this life-changing message than leveraging the most powerful endorsement from the world’s ultimate influencer.

Do you want to influence more people than the sand on the shore?

Then it’s time to stop wasting your time seeking influence among men and women. Go straight to the top. My new book can show you the way.

Order The Divine Endorsement Today

Real Books by Ed Cyzewski

We Know Less Than We Think, So Why Not Emphasize Love?

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

How often have I changed my mind about a religious belief I once considered essential?

I doubt that I could count that high. My shift from a regimented theology with an all-controlling God to a free-will-based world with a loving yet powerful God has been enough to make my head spin.

Don’t even get me started on leaving behind the rapture or how reading Jewish Apocalyptic literature changed how I read the book of Revelation.

It’s not that I’ve entirely changed religions here. I’ve always been a “Christian.” Yet, the type of Christian I am and the things I believe and prioritize have shifted enough that it feels like a completely different religion.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Trying to figure out a mysterious God sure gets tricky, and only my pride keeps me optimistically thinking, “OK, now I’ve got this figured out!”

I imagine that Jesus isn’t surprised either, and it feels like he tried to warn us that getting into the finer details of God would be a giant FAIL.

There were a few moments in seminary when I read dense theology books and wondered why Jesus told so many simple yet mysterious parables. Something didn’t feel quite right, even though I went along with the program.

When Jesus gave his disciples commands, he kept the list almost insultingly short. It’s as if he implied, “I know you’re in over your heads. Let’s keep this short and simple.”

Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

With all that I have sought to learn and couldn’t, with all that I have changed my mind over, and with all that I thought I had figured out and didn’t, two straightforward commands have never changed.

Those two simple commands supposedly unlock the path toward every other act of obedience. In other words, it’s impossible to love your neighbor and break another commandment. If you have loved, you have been obedient.

So much has changed in what I believe and practice, but if I’m going to take Jesus seriously, it sure seems like these are marginal matters that hardly touch on what’s most important to him. Loving God and loving my neighbor stand firm in place regardless of what I do with the other parts of the Bible.  

If it’s guaranteed that I’m going to get quite a lot wrong about God and how I interpret the Bible. Even though I think I’m “less wrong” today than I was in the past, that hardly justifies placing the pursuit of answers over the pursuit of love.

If love is the greatest command, then I have a much simpler and more accurate way of measuring whether I’m living in the way of Jesus. Letting two simple commands guide my life can be humbling, and perhaps that’s why it’s sometimes so hard to get out of my own way and love.

There’s a good chance I have much more in common with those who believe differently and yet love generously. Maybe I should start acting like that’s true.

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

Books by Ed Cyzewski

Jesus Heals What We Ignore

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

The following sermon was shared on June 19, 2022 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Murray, KY on Luke 8:26-39.

I have a confession to make to you. It’s not scandalous, but it’s the sort of thing that some may be ashamed to admit.

I assure you, I’m not ashamed in the least, even if some certainly would be.

Here it is: I’m a sucker for catch-phrase comedy. I can’t get enough of those predictable one-liners in comedy shows.

There are Arrested Development’s gold standards:

“I’ve made a teeny, tiny HUGE mistake.” And “There’s always money in the banana stand!”

There’s the catch-phrase parody from the more obscure Rickey Gervais comedy series Extras:

“Are you having a laugh?”

In dating myself a good bit, one of the best-known catch-phrase comedy one-liners from my childhood belongs to Saturday Night Live’s Church Lady skit where the church lady piously highlighted a quote, unquote “scandal” and then remarked with a smirk:

“Could it be… Satan?”

That parody of Christians highlights one of our culture’s two extremes regarding spiritual, especially demonic matters.

On the one hand, there are the Christians like the Church Lady who find Satan’s fingerprints on every temptation, trial, or setback.

Others deny any possibility of Satan’s influence in the world and tend to explain away demon possession in the Bible as misdiagnosed mental illness. Some commentary writers even go in this direction.

There are a lot of things in today’s reading that can make us uncomfortable, and perhaps demon possession is but one of several things on that list.

We can also talk about racism and nationalism, as well as valuing financial security more than people and God. We’ll get to them in a minute, but since this story hinges on what happens to a demon-possessed man, let’s talk about demon possession for a moment.

In a church like this, some of us likely grew up hearing a lot about demons, the devil’s schemes, influence, and even a hockey team called The New Jersey Devils. The devil came up a lot for us, and it’s safe to say that many of the actions, motives, and disruptions that Christians blamed on the devil or demons were more likely the result of living in a world where people have free will, people hurt each other, and sometimes bad things just happen.

It’s also likely that some of us grew up not hearing much about demons and the devil, or because we grew up hearing so many questionable assertions about them, we’ve started ignoring them. Must we think about demons and spiritual battles?

Because Jesus shows up in this land where he was not welcome to solve a problem that no one wanted to deal with, we must show up as well.

Here’s the thing about Jesus’ spiritual battles with demons in the Bible: we know them when we see them. Sure, we could come up with more scientifically palatable explanations for these passages, but today’s reading makes that feel like a stretch.

Maybe there are some occasions when someone comes under the influence of a demonic spirit, and the power of Jesus is required to intervene for their liberty.

A story from my college years comes to mind. During my Junior year at a Christian University, I served as a Discipleship Coordinator (or DC), organizing small groups and prayer meetings on my floor.

One of my fellow DC’s, I’ll call her Sonya, probably one of the most respected leaders among us, shared her testimony during one of our retreats, and it went in a direction that no one expected. A year or so back, Sonya had been hanging out with some of her friends and was in a terrible, angry mood.

As she grew more belligerent and confrontational with her friends, one guy, who had no experience with such things, sensed something terribly wrong with Sonya. He prayed for her, and at one point, he prayed in the name of Jesus for an evil spirit to leave her.

Now, this is when things get crazy.

Sonya says that this voice came from her that wasn’t her own. It was an incredibly loud, terrifying bellowing and screaming that went on for far too long. Her friends continued to pray for her, and eventually, she stopped screaming and felt at peace.

There is a world of difference between a situation like that and the person who attributes a personal difficulty to the devil or a pop culture song to “demonic influence.” Just as Sonya’s friend, who knew nothing of demon possession, recognized something wasn’t right and required prayer, Jesus could see that there was something in this Gerasene outcast that required his intervention.

More importantly for us, it’s striking to see just how terrified the demons were of Jesus. Even when just about everyone doubted Jesus, the demons correctly identified him as God’s Son! They expected to be tormented by him.

How odd it is that even though these demons tormented this man, Jesus didn’t torture the demons as they’d expected. I don’t know how they thought it would help them to relocate into a herd of pigs and jump off a cliff, but Jesus let them pick their poison. It’s a puzzling detail that only drives home just how unequal the demons are to Jesus.

They are the ones begging his permission to act. It’s not even a remotely close confrontation.

Shortly after the demons sent the pigs over the cliff, the man appears restored to his right mind, gets dressed, and quietly sits at the feet of Jesus. Maybe everything will be great now that Jesus has solved this big problem!

Unfortunately, by solving one problem, Jesus created another for the people in the Gerasenes region. It turned out that having the power to heal a man and kill a herd of pigs simultaneously makes you unpopular. Killing the pigs more or less canceled out the good deed for the people in this town.

The people had already written off this man. He was a problem they were only too willing to ignore. Sure, he posed a threat, but he wasn’t going around killing entire herds of pigs.

These weren’t pet pigs rented out for church events. They were a source of financial security for someone. They were putting food on the table. We may even imagine that the loss of this herd could have been a significant economic catastrophe for someone. It could be the equivalent of casting out a demon today, but then the demon sets someone’s small business on fire.

Time and time again, Jesus drives a wedge between us and our possessions and finances. He forces us to consider whether we value other people, even those who appear to be a beyond hope. Would we want Jesus to stick around if he set us back financially to the same extent while helping someone?

That’s an element to this story that haunts me perhaps even more than the demonic aspect.

And then, there are the racial and national elements to this story. Jesus was a Jew who considered pigs unclean. He landed in a Gentile area. So it’s not hard to imagine these Gentiles thinking, “Well, of course, this Jewish miracle worker will kill our pigs! What else will he take from us? He must hate our way of life.”

The fear generated through racism and nationalism that obscures the humanity of others poisons our ability to love. This was a highly charged racial and national moment. Just a few generations before this event, Greek rulers in Israel had banned worship at the temple and even killed many Jews who continued to follow their customs and laws. No love was lost between the Jewish people and their Greek neighbors in a Gentile region like this.

The Gerasenes likely rejected Jesus partly because they couldn’t help interpreting his actions through the limits of their racial and nationalist lenses.

Even the liberated man’s fate may hinge partly on the racial and nationalist elements in this story. This man had lived among tombs in a Gentile region with pigs all over the place. Those would have been three strikes against him, to say nothing of him being possessed by a demon. So, that’s four strikes.

This man had the perfect resume if you wanted to make someone appear cursed and unreliable to Jewish people. I wonder if Jesus expected the Jewish people to reject his testimony. No one in Israel, where Jesus planned to minister, would know if his story checked out. Could they trust him?

Yet, among this man’s Gerasene people, they could verify who he was. They had seen him and heard the stories from people they trusted. Even if some had lost a great deal financially and entertained suspicions of a Jewish miracle worker, no one could deny that this man had experienced a great miracle.

His testimony counted for something among his people as he gave glory to God and credited Jesus with his miracle. To the man’s credit, he obeyed Jesus, turning his story of trauma, pain, and rejection into a testimony of healing and restoration.

While God does not cause our pain and suffering, I have seen time and time again how those healed by God in a specific area of their lives have served others in meaningful ways by sharing their healing journeys with others.

In closing, this Gospel reading challenges us to consider our attachment to the status quo, financial security, and the convenience of ignoring the big problems around us. We can look at suffering people and ask what keeps us from showing compassion to them or believing that we can share spiritual or material relief with them.

It’s also noteworthy that today is June 19th, which is known as Juneteenth in America and is now a Federal holiday. It was the day in 1865 when word reached the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War was over and slavery was abolished.

Even in a pervasively Christian region, enslavers turned away from the inconvenient prospect of emancipation. They put liberation off until Federal representatives and soldiers made reality beyond dispute.

Educators Opal Lee and DeForest Soaries write about Juneteenth in the Washington Post:

“From the start, this holiday inspired Black Americans to celebrate overcoming the injustices of the past and take steps to pursue a more just future. And if our national history proves anything, it’s this: The more people who get involved in that work, the faster and better it goes. Just look at the civil rights movement, which inspired and then transformed our nation.”

It’s always been tempting to turn a blind eye to the suffering around us and to avoid the hard work of liberation.

As we sit here and imagine ourselves sitting next to Jesus as he pulls away from the shores of the Gerasenes, I have a few questions for us to ponder. I encourage you to meditate on the one that speaks most directly to your heart:

What is Jesus telling us to stop ignoring today?

Where have our priorities distracted us from what Jesus would have us do?

How can we seek God’s healing in an area of hopelessness?

How could the undisputed power of Jesus over evil spirits give us greater peace and confidence?

These are just a few of the challenging questions today’s reading prompts. If reflecting on them leaves us feeling challenged or even uncomfortable, then we have likely given God’s Spirit something extremely useful in our lives that can also bring many blessings to others.

Amen.

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

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I Had Doubts about Drawing My Book Cover

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski
The book cover and the original oil pastel on the desk I made.

My new book, Creative Renewal: An Invitation to Start Making Stuff and to Stop Clicking Stuff, is now available. Today, I’m sharing part of a chapter about my high-stakes aim to design my own cover.

I wanted to walk the talk of this book by creating my cover, ideally using oil pastels. It felt like a high-risk, high-reward way to introduce readers to this book and embody what creative renewal could be in practice.

I’ve invested a good bit of time into oil pastels, and they have fast become a favorite activity in the evening, on the weekend, or on vacation. I’ve never been able to find formal instruction in our town and would never consider myself professional. Oil pastels are just a much-loved hobby for me right now that brings a lot of joy into my life.

Putting one of my works on the front cover isn’t a declaration that I’ve arrived as a professional artist. It’s an affirmation that I take my creative practices seriously, and I hope you can do the same. Putting a piece of art on the cover that I created as a hobby highlights the work I’ve put into a part of my life that falls under the “leisure” category.

Of course, once I committed to such a project, I was overcome with doubts. My family usually sees most of my works, and the general public can check out a few dozen on social media. In my early days with oil pastels, I put some of my “better” drawings on social media and later regretted putting such terrible works up. Putting one of my projects on the cover felt like a big step and commitment.

Even more perplexing, I’ve been trying to shift toward more impressionistic oil pastel landscapes. It’s tricky to blend the colors just right to get some of those oil painting effects, textures, and color blends.

There’s always a temptation to bind myself to only the colors I can see on the reference photo instead of venturing into a broader range of shades. Veering into more splashy blends of colors that build up on the paper or expanding the color and value range feels like I could be venturing into a disaster of splattered colors.

As is typical for landscapes, I first laid down a rough outline of the basic features, including the clouds, trees, and river, including a few rocks in the foreground that I positioned a bit more in a prominent position. Then I filled in the sky and clouds to get them as close to finished as possible, alternating between a light gray and dark blue shade for the darker shadows. I’m not an expert at clouds, but they turned out well enough. The real challenge awaited along the line of trees.

Trees can perplex me because they often have vibrant colors popping out of them, but they’ll look like a mangled mass of dots or lumps if I don’t get the shadows around those colors just right. I’ve done plenty of oil pastel tutorials where the instructors filled in the different shades of their trees, and though I’d followed their every stroke carefully, their results couldn’t have been further from my own.

When it comes to oil pastels, some of the lighter colors have a hard time standing out when placed on top of the darker ones. That means it’s often ideal to start a tree with the lighter colors first. Even the brightest red or orange tree in a subject photo isn’t purely red or orange. There may be shades of yellow or even a hint of green as the leaves shift from summer to fall.

Drawing lines of trees with oil pastels is where precision goes to die, and more impressionistic representations of reality kick in. Danger lurks in such detailed tree lines, and I often imagined dropping my oil pastel into the trash can.

I gave myself one shot at the cover. Whatever happened would happen. I’m an amateur oil pastel artist who pursues a weekend hobby. I’m not issuing a rallying call for creating professional artwork for sale in galleries. I’m just a guy who loves creative projects and encourages others to give them a shot because I’ve found them beneficial and restorative.

Having an amateur bit of artwork on the cover is the point, but I didn’t want it to look like hot garbage. I poured over that glowing tree line, mixing in shades of yellow, orange, red, burgundy, green, and brown. Each bright tree stood out on its own before I dared to fill in anything darker around it or add shades to the branches and clumps of leaves.

Once I felt safe with the trees, I had to figure out the rocks and water. There’s a lot of dark purple mixed into the swirling bits of water and rocks as I tried to give the foreground a bit of depth and texture. The dark grey of the stones started to dominate, so I layered like crazy to soften those dark smudges. Of course, some shaded bits called for dark gray blobs, so I had to add lumps of dark gray without making them “look” like dark gray smudges.

When I was pretty close to being done, I sheepishly brought the drawing down to my wife for critique. I can trust her to be honest or at least praise the tiny little bits that are good—which is code for the rest of it looking like hot garbage.

“Oh!” she said as if shocked that I could have done this drawing.

“Look at those rocks! They really look like rocks in the water!”

She was very clearly surprised, and she couldn’t hide it in the moment. Apparently, it helped to take my time on this. The pure terror of putting this drawing on the book cover “no matter what” helped me do a better job on that oil pastel. It certainly eclipsed the absolute disasters I’d made in the previous weeks. 

The more I think about giving an oil pastel drawing to someone or displaying it on something like a book cover, the harder it is to decide when it’s “done.” If I’m making something to hang up in my office for a little while, it’s not a big deal to find a tiny dot of paper that I hadn’t fully covered with pastel. But my gosh, if the oil pastel is for someone else, I practically stick my nose on the paper to make sure every stroke is PERFECT.

Well, maybe not perfect. Impressionistic oil pastels make “perfect” hard to nail down. I just want things to look like they belong and don’t look out of place.

The higher the stakes, the harder it is to finish something. Sometimes I’ll just leave a lineup of supposedly done oil pastels on a shelf in my office so I can tinker with them a bit should something stand out.

Once I stick this oil pastel drawing on the cover of my book, there’s no tinkering. Dabbing oil pastels on a matte book cover isn’t going to work out great.

My one comfort as an independent author is that many people will likely purchase this book on Kindle, so they’ll only see a tiny black and white postage-stamp-sized version of this cover. That’s one medium where I’m sure my limited oil pastel hobby abilities can thrive.

The joy of creativity is for everyone.

Creative Renewal helps you move past the fears and doubts that block your creative hopes and dreams, inviting you to explore your creative interests and unleash your creative expressions.

It’s on sale for release week!

Order Creative Renewal in Print or Kindle

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

How Can We Get Better at Resting?

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

If you had asked me what I did for breaks about six or seven years ago, I likely would have mentioned using my smartphone or tablet to check social media or to read articles. I even used phrases like, “I’m taking a break on social media” for many years.

That is, I wasn’t taking a break from social media on those occasions. I was taking a break from working on my computer and switching to social media for all of my break.

I swapped one screen for another. Then, fear, anger, anxiety, or despair rushed through my mind as I scrolled down further and further or clicked through one article and then another.

What did I want during these social media “breaks”? I have no clue.

If I was looking for a bit of relaxation, peace, or rest, I wasn’t finding it through the apps on my phone. I suspect that it was so hard to stop swiping and scrolling because I hadn’t found whatever I was craving.

Words like restoration and renewal come pretty close to what I’m after when I take a break. I want to feel better and to have enough stamina to finish what I’m doing that day, whether that’s working on a writing project or caring for my kids.

Does scrolling through news stories or social media posts bring renewal?

I may leave some of that scrolling with more information, but there’s a good chance I’m going to feel worse. Even if I break even with a little more information and no additional sadness, I rarely feel “better.”

Using my phone isn’t a break. Reading the news isn’t a break. Those things are fine by themselves. We should seek to be informed about the world, educated about the challenges of our times, and connected with people who are important to us.

Connection on social media is not a bad thing at all. However, that digital form of connection is rarely restful or restorative.

There is a major difference between the quality of the rest I have while working on an art or woodworking project and the “rest” of scrolling through social media or news stories that often leave me emotional and distracted.

Benefitting from the Most Basic Creative Act

It’s not going too far to say that scribbling on some paper for fifteen minutes, balling it up, and throwing it in a trash can is more restful than spending fifteen minutes scrolling through social media.

Follow along with the absurdity of this for a moment.

If you’re going to scribble on a piece of paper, you need to figure out a few things that could make it somewhat interesting:

  • What kind of paper will you scribble on?
  • What will you scribble with? Pen? Pencil? Marker?
  • Will you scribble on only one piece of paper or several?
  • How will you dispose of your scribbled paper? Will you ball it up rapidly or fold it into a particular design?
  • Will you walk across the room to the trash can and drop it in, or will you take a basketball-style shot from far away?

That list of options is absurd, but it shows how many possibilities emerge when you commit yourself to even the most basic creative act with pencil and paper.

Imagine how much better your break could be if you tried a creative project that you really love?

We Need to Be Told to Rest

It’s telling that God had to command his people to rest as one of the Ten Commandments. Whatever you think of the Old Testament laws, the command for Sabbath rest is a win for humanity.

If God knows us best as the Creator of the world, then God’s command for rest at least one day per week strikes me as worth noting. God knew we’d be bad at resting, so we needed to be told exactly what to do with our time on one day-a-week.

I wouldn’t be so bold as telling you to rest right now. That’s not my place.

Yet, I can tell you that I know I’ve been quite bad as resting and taking breaks. I’ve needed to remember that the Sabbath is a command because I’d otherwise push myself to keep working or keeping my mind busy regardless of how bad it is for me.

Since I’m not an all-knowing deity, it’s far more constructive to share an invitation to rest with others. If I’m invited to rest, then I have an opportunity to consider enjoying something that may be good for me.

If I reject on an opportunity to rest, then I should evaluate my reasons and consider whether they’re valid. I’m more likely to find an invitation appealing because I’m being invited to do something I may enjoy or find beneficial.

Invitations are usually good. We receive invitations to parties, for instance, and most of us like parties—provided we like the people at the party.

My latest book frames rest and renewal as an invitation. I share how creative projects like art and woodworking became sources of restoration that have delivered many more benefits than I could hope to gain from the same old, same old on social media.

I still read the news and connect with people in limited ways on social media, but I’ve tried to cut distractions out of my time dedicated to rest and renewal. I share about the ways I have made more space for creativity throughout my day in my latest book:

Creative Renewal: An Invitation to Make Stuff and to Stop Clicking Stuff is on sale for $.99 on Kindle right now leading up to its release on May 17th.

There’s a good chance you may need to read how I overcame my resistance to creativity and found real joy and love for artistic pursuits that I never would have tried before. You may even like trying some of the creative projects I’ve enjoyed.

You‘re invited to make more space for rest and renewal, and creativity may be one of the best ways to actively make inner restoration a reality.

Creativity has been good for my soul, and it can be for you as well.

Learn More about Creative Renewal

Creative Renewal releases on May 17, 2022.

It’s on sale for $.99 on Kindle during pre-orders. Learn more about it here.

Pre-Order Creative Renewal

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

Simple Prayers That Anyone Can Learn

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Are you good at being quiet?

Are you unsure of what to say when you pray to God?

Can you remember one sentence at most?

Then I have good news for you: You’re going to be really at learning some simple prayers.

The Christian prayer tradition covers a lot of ground, including intercessions for others, prayers of thanksgiving and praise, and prayers for healing or restoration. There are simple prayers that Jesus himself taught us like the Our Father and longer prayers like Mary’s Magnificat.

Yet, there are plenty of simple prayers that any Christian can learn to do right now with very little training or memorizing. Although more experience practicing these prayers will make them easier to do and feel more natural, any beginner at prayer can start praying to God today by participating in a few simple prayer practices.

Christianity’s Tradition of Simple Prayer

The Christian prayer tradition of contemplative prayer teaches that the Spirit is present within us, and that God has already found us when we pray. We aren’t asking for God to show up or do something special because God is already here and has given us the Spirit.

Contemplative prayer helps us rest in what God has already given and increases our awareness of God. In fact, contemplative prayer is the work of God in us as we become present for God’s love. The methods of prayer help you receive what God has given to you.

Although there is a measure of effort in learning how to remain still or to increase your awareness of God in these simple prayer practices, you can’t make God more loving toward you or more present for you. Prayer is a practice, but it is also a pure gift from God.

Pray in Silence with Your Breath

One of the most common starting points for Christian prayer is a silent prayer that uses your breath. There are different teachings on this, so you may need to figure out which one works the best for you, but the basic concept is that you’re breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth at a calming rhythm.

You may inhale for four seconds and exhale for four seconds, or you may try holding your breath in-between the inhale and exhale. There are many different patterns for this kind of breathing.

For myself, I try to avoid overthinking it. I want to breathe in deeply to a point that feels comfortable and then make a cleansing exhale that can alleviate tension.

The idea is to use the pattern of breath to remove distractions from your mind so you can turn your attention to God. There’s no need to say anything as you breathe in and out. God is present, and that is enough when you pray in silent awareness of God.

Center Prayer with a Prayer Word

Although some use a rhythm of breathing to center their thoughts on God, others prefer to use a prayer word or phrase as a way to gently let go of thoughts and become more aware of God.

Generally speaking, you’re more likely to use a prayer word frequently when you begin centering prayer because your mind will likely run all over the place with thoughts. Using the prayer word in your mind should be a gentle, gracious process rather than a sign of “failing to pray.”

The prayer word or phrase helps you let go of distractions, but whether you are silent or focusing on the prayer word, the intention is the same. Your focus is on God’s love for you and God’s presence, and the prayer word is just a tool to help you maintain that intention while praying.

It’s typical to center prayer for about 20 minutes at a time. I’ve found that the simpler the prayer word, the better, using words such as Jesus, beloved, or loved.

Pray the Jesus Prayer

We’re getting a bit more “complex” with our prayers. Beyond silence or a single word, there’s the single sentence of the “Jesus Prayer” that has been used since the early days of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. This is the prayer of the tax collector who returned home righteous after making his confession to God:

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

There are different versions of the prayer, but the general idea is to use this prayer throughout your day as a way to remain aware of God’s mercy. This is a prayer that you can keep in mind while walking, driving, waiting in line, making dinner, cleaning up dinner, folding laundry, exercising, and so on.

While some have suggested that this isn’t a prayer with the same restful qualities as silent contemplation or centering prayer, I have found it very liberating from unhelpful rumination.

When my mind is stuck on something that causes worry, anger, or frustration, the Jesus Prayer is right there to lean on when my mind feels stuck. It brings me back to my own limitations and need for God’s mercy, while freeing me from downward spirals of negativity.

You can always combine this simple prayer with other approaches to prayer. For instance, you could use the Jesus Prayer for a few minutes as a way to clear your mind before centering prayer.

Although prayer can be challenging during a season of fasting or at a busy moment in life, I find it helpful to make a regular prayer practice out of at least one of these each day, such as beginning my day with centering prayer. Then, I can use the other methods, like a breath prayer or the Jesus Prayer, to become mindful of God throughout the day.

If Prayer Is Hard, Start Simple

There are plenty of other ways to pray, but if you aren’t sure where to begin with prayer or you’re frustrated by prayer challenges, starting simple is a good way to go.

As a final note, Thomas Keating, who played a major role in the revival of centering prayer among American Christians, wrote that the only way you can “fail” at centering prayer is by getting up and leaving the room. This is about as simple as it gets!

You can find a bit more about centering prayer in Thomas Keating’s book Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer.

Ed Cyzewski

I’m the author of Flee, Be Silent, Pray: Ancient Prayers for Anxious Christians, Reconnect: Spiritual Restoration from Digital Distraction, and other books. I write about prayer and spiritual restoration at http://www.edcyzewski.com.

Books by Ed on Prayer