We had two Christian authors at church Wednesday night. I went to Tim Wesemann's presentation. The topic was family devotions with your children. I don't have children. I'm still glad I went, because I didn't have family devotions growing up, and neither did anyone else I know. So I'm dealing today with people in their twenties and even in their thirties who don't know how to pray.

It's a good thing I learned how to pray when I was 23, so there's someone now, four years later, who can teach them, eh?

So my target ministry wasn't his target audience, but the frightening thing is it's not too different from ministering to your 8-year-old, because when you're ministering to someone who's 28, you're often starting from the same ground zero.

Give Tim Wesemann a look. I had the privelige of providing visuals for a skit he did, where he told Good Friday from Satan's perspective--he provided the script and acted it out; I provided an hour's worth of raging fire visual so we could cut to and from it every time he spoke. It worked--mostly because the fire we had didn't look warm and comforting like your fireplace. My dad, Mr. Pyrotechnics himself, would have been proud of me. I learned well.

So, Tim spoke, gloating and questioning, and I had weird fire up there, and it was eerie and creepy just like it was supposed to be. It made people really think about what Good Friday really was all about. And, of course, by the end of the service you knew what God had in mind in this whole thing. This was a Christian service, after all. But maybe, just maybe, there was someone sitting there for whom Easter is just a reason to wear something new to church who came to a new realization of what Christ's death was all about. At least that's what we were hoping.

Anyway, Tim's a fabulous writer, and in a book setting, he has the warmth and observational ability of a Max Lucado. His book Seasons Under the Son feels like a Lucado book with shorter chapters.

I'm currently reading Being a Good Dad When You Didn't Have One, where Tim tackles a specific issue. If you're struggling with that particular issue, you'll really appreciate that. (No, I'm not gonna be a dad anytime soon, but I want that book under my belt, both for when I am, and for when someone comes and asks me a question whose answer is in that book.)

I'll just say one last thing: Max Lucado was the second author who ever made me jealous. Let me explain. Virtually every book I've ever read, I could keep up with the author. I could figure out how the author put the book together. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was the first book that blew me away and put me in my place. Max Lucado's In the Eye of the Storm was the second.

I know what Fitzgerald had. He knew his generation intimately and lived a fast life that he was able to tell about.

It took longer for me to figure out what Lucado had. But I think I know now. I don't know Lucado but I can tell he's a nice guy. I do know Tim, and I hope I won't hurt his feelings, but neither of them is the writer Fitzgerald was. The quality the two of them have that I couldn't figure out five years ago is simple: To them, the reader is more than the $2 revenue payment they got when the reader bought the book.

It's that simple. And it makes all the difference.