Author Adrian Essigmann and Christian Writing

Title: How I became a writer Part XV As the pastor of Austinburg Baptist Church I have been tempted to quit three times.   The first time was during my third year when I thought I wasn’t cut out to be a pastor.   I cried out to the Lord on vacation and boy did he answer:)   BUT that is a story for another day.   The next time was about year nine, when I was discouraged with how things were going.   The worst was about year twelve or maybe thirteen.   I WAS leaving the church for sure and told my wife so.   I didn’t say a word to anyone at church about it at the time because I don’t believe in holding people emotionally hostage.   Pastors that tell their people they are considering quitting or close to quitting are making a foolish mistake, in my humble opinion.   I was very serious about quitting, though, and didn’t think anything would change my mind.   God was quiet about it, so I began to plan for when and how the resignat...

Title: How I became a writer Part XIV BBC ( Baptist Bible College now Clark Summit University ) was the doom of my soccer season when I played for Practical Bible College .  My brother Richard went to BBC and tried to join their soccer team.  That summer they sent him expectations and I picked it up off the table glancing at it... wow was it intimidating!  They had to be able to juggle the soccer ball with each limb area consecutively at least 50 times.  So, if I understood the “welcome to the team” paper, you had to be able to isolate each part of your body with perfect control.  (Or it meant that they had to juggle over 200 times touching each of those areas at least 50 times..the paper was kind of confusing.)  That was WAY beyond my skill level!  The most I’ve ever juggled the soccer ball was in the thirties and it required whatever body part was handy to keep things going.  They had multiple “All-American” players and seemed to ...

Title: A Pole Vault Story Autumn was ranked number one going into sectionals (indoor track class D pole vault) but we had been in this situation before and it hadn’t worked out for us.  In the outdoor track season of 2018, Autumn had come into D sectionals ranked number one.  One of her opponents PR’s the week before sectionals bringing her up to 8’3” but Autumn had a PR of 9’ that season and had been over 8’6” many times too, so things looked good.  What a battle that was!  There were a fair amount of good girls, knocking last years Sectional Champion into fifth place!  Autumn battled hard and came in second.  She lost by three inches.  It was the second time Autumn had come in second in a sectional contest where she was the high seed.  I tried to get her into State Qualifiers on the merit of her 9 foot vault at John Reed but she didn’t make the cut.  The weird thing is that she could have vaulted in A class (big school class) with that s...

How I became a writer Part XIII Chemistry.   When I was a kid, I watched those Disney Sunday night movies and one night they did a movie on a group of college kids with an invisibility formula.   I was inspired to do something sciency!!   That night I did my first chemistry experiment to get my own incredible concoction!   I got bottles out of the garbage, mixed into them some unlikely things (ketchup and Italian dressing, with water...I think) and left them on the work bench (that Grandma Lane had bought me for Christmas).   What was that supposed to do?   I have no idea, but I was horrified when Mom threw it away!!!!   She complained it started to smell!!   My career as a world famous scientist might have been cut short BUT I had another shot at glory in high school chemistry class.   I walked into class with visions of Dexter’s Lab in mind, but what I got was... ANOTHER MATH CLASS!!   AHHHHH!!!!!   I would have never pas...

Title: Being a Christian pulp writer What is a pulp fiction novel?   From the 1800s to the 1950s a popular kind of book was called a pulp, which meant that it was very cheap, almost disposable.   It was geared to be read by the masses but its primary demographic was teenage boys, lower middle class to solid middle class.   The pulps had exciting stories about detectives, Westerns, fantasy, science fiction, and other genres.   Why don’t they exist today?   Technological advances in printing and the rise of comic books greatly lowered the market for these books.   In some ways it is good the pulps died out.   Some pulps had racy covers and immoral content to boost sales, but overall what sold pulps was hyper masculinity.   For an author, it was considered a lower brow form of literature.   Famous authors who sold stories in pulps often did so under pseudonyms including famous authors Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft.   One of H.P....

Title: How I became a writer Part XII There were three jocks in my small Christian school (256 kids K - 12th).   I’m not talking about athletic people, we had a fair amount of those kids, I mean you looked at them and thought, “Now there is a jock!”   Jimmy Benem, Jimmy Fletcher, and Jimmy Spaulding, were the three guys who had the look of a high school quarterback or the star of the basketball team.   They were all nice but had that athletic alpha male thing going for them in team sports and the clothes they wore:)   Normally gym class diffused those three in such a way that made them just part of the team...a very skilled part of the team mind you but just part of the team.   Normally in gym class there were not epic struggles but just competition.   Well...sometimes hockey got a little too enthusiastic but otherwise it was all good...except for football.   I’ll never forget the day we played football! Someone suggested we divide up by cl...

Title: Valentines Special...How I met my wife and her impact on my writing...and life:) The journey to be a writer is not an easy one but having a wife with on that road makes it easier!   How did I get my wife?   Actually, I’m pretty sure she got me:) My first day of college I wore a gray suit with a hat.   “What you cry in disbelief?”   You wonder if I was an idiot!   I was just following the college dress code.   We were to wear dress clothes in the morning...sweater minimum.   If you weren’t wearing a sweater, you had on a suit and tie.   I was training to be a pastor and to be honest an old school pastor dresses up a lot!   I’m fairly old school and still wear a suit every Sunday morning.   One time my wife and I went to a small mega church and I was the only one in the service with a suit on...maybe even a tie:)   At my church I’m one of the few that do wear a suit and I’m fine with that.   When people are like,...