On Death Threats and Book Deals

A trying season

Eight months ago I signed a book contract. That same week a man threatened to kill me. And this was the beginning of what has been the most difficult eight months of ministry of my life.

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I went to middle and high school with this man. We were acquaintances, but didn’t run in the same circles. He was a too-cool-for-school skateboarder and I was a very-not-cool-nerd (before Big Nerd™ made that aesthetic fashionable). I was, however, a friend of someone who knew him.

Right around the time of graduation, something in him just snapped. He began to hear voices. He painted little red dots over the floor, walls, couch, and television of his family’s living room. His parents came home to find him speaking with a broom he had painted a face on and had impaled in a recliner. They committed him to a psych ward, but he promptly broke out and was found running down the freeway in nothing but a hospital gown, miles away. He let his hair and beard grow long and spent the next decade bouncing between jail, mental institutions, and living on the street. Most recently, he took up the habit of painting his face like the Joker, dying his hair green, and standing on street corners and near parks, leering at onlookers.

The last time I spoke to him in person was fourteen years ago. He was visiting a mutual friend of mine. No one was aware of just how unwell this young man was. He shifted nervously on the couch before fixing me with wild, wide eyes and told me that the spirit of Kurt Cobain resided in him. The last time I saw him was a few years ago while driving home. I pulled my car to a stop and there, on the corner, was a bedraggled man wearing clown makeup. He noticed me, pointed a finger, and began to scream.

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For reasons that I still do not understand, eight months ago, this man—whom I had not spoken to in over decade—took to his Facebook account and (tagging myself and my church) began posting about how I had sexually molested children and, if the police were not prepared to do something about it, he would hunt me down and murder me. He then began sending me numerous private messages detailing how he would do it, what it would be like, the weapons he would use, etc. When I failed to respond, he found my wife’s account and began to do the same to her.

The reason that I did not immediately respond was because at the time I was in a third-world country. Our church supports a small school and a group of missionaries in Central America and they had set up a series of teaching opportunities for me down there. I had made this trip several times before, but for some reason on this trip I became ill, contracting some jungle virus that reduces fragile Americans like myself to little raisins. I was too preoccupied with how to keep any organic matter that wasn’t internally bolted down from being violently expelled from my body to pay attention Messenger. But as we began the long flight home, I was flooded with a series of messages about what was happening. We called the police, and reported the messages to Facebook (who took forever to take the man’s post down). There was a warrant issued for his arrest and we were told if we ever saw him we could call the police and they would arrest him immediately.

But we never saw him. We still haven’t.

I know that there are people who receive death threats on the regular and have become used to it. But I am no J.K. Rowling or state Senator. Reading messages about how someone would meticulously end my life—even if the odds were low of it actually happening—was deeply unsettling, especially for my wife. He did not know where I lived, but he knew where I pastored, and flashes of him showing up on a Sunday morning in the middle of a service haunted my mind. We informed our church’s security team, and for about a month we lived on high-alert, and then settled into a surreal, new normal.

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Now, if you likewise are one of those people who don’t normally receive death threats, then consider what it would feel like for you. Imaginatively hold the prospect in your hand; roll it around, feel the weight of it.

And then—I’m sorry if this sounds melodramatic—consider that this has been the least concerning thing I have faced over the last eight months. It was only recently while someone was asking me about this past season that I even remembered that someone threatened to kill me. It has just been lost in shuffle under so many other emergencies that have demanded more from me. I feel somewhat bashful to talk about this, because it feels whiny and pitiful. I can picture my older brother rubbing his thumb and pointer-finger together, telling me he is playing the world’s smallest violin for the boohoo party I am throwing. But Paul felt free to share seasons of hardship in ministry to encourage others, as well as request prayer (2 Cor 1:8-11).¹ And that is what I want to do here.

It would be inappropriate for me to name what the various trials include, since they pertain to intimate details of the lives of members of my church. But more has been required of me as a leader than ever before—I feel wrung out, stretched to the limit, brought to what I thought was the end of myself, and then pushed further still. I have been writing periodically about this here, here, and here. But writing a book—what has been one of my wildest dreams for as long as I can remember—has looked very different than I anticipated. I pictured myself writing in peace, like Bilbo in the Shire, ideas dropping into my hand like ripe fruit. But it has felt more like an Alaskan crab fisherman keeping a diary: pitched side to side, scribbling while I can, frequently interrupted to bale water, and pull ideas up from frigid depths. I don’t know why. I trust God’s good plan, but do feel baffled.

There has been no common denominator across the various issues our church has faced in this last season, at least not something that has revealed a pattern that has led our elders to say, “Ah, that’s why all this is happening.” While confiding in an older, pastor-friend recently the whole of what the past eight months has entailed, he simply looked at me and said, “Oh my word…” and then just offered prayer because he could not think of what else to say.

I wrote that last paragraph a week ago and have spent more time thinking about it. There is a common denominator that I can think of, but it is not one of cause, but of response. One reason that this season has been so hard is my own fault. Some of it is just a need for a higher tolerance for pain. But, mostly I have banked far too much of my own happiness in calm seas, perfect circumstances, and everybody around me being happy. I burn an unhealthy amount of emotional energy ruminating on how to fix every problem. But some problems can’t be fixed, at least, not right away, and often not by me. I think I could cut my anxiety in half over the last eight months if I had a deeper trust in God’s providence and a deeper suspicion in my own ability to fix-it-all. And the anxiety that has hummed in the back of my mind all this time is: How are supposed to write a book that helps others if you can’t help them? If you want to be paralyzed, adopt a posture of perfectionism and walk into an imperfect world with waves of trouble that will swallow you whole. Paul writes that God’s purpose of seasons of woe and overwhelm are “to make us rely not on ourselves but on God,” (2 Cor 1:9), and that has been a comforting, if painful, exercise I have been learning. Sometimes, you have to be swallowed and tumbled around to learn: I cannot do this on my own.

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I have no delusions of grandeur. I don’t think the book I am writing will change the world. I know the statistics on no-name authors’ book sales. I am not undertaking this project because I think I will be a sensation, but because I believe that even modestly helpful endeavors are worthwhile. A guiding principle I live my life by is: I don’t have to be exceptional, but I can be helpful. I don’t have to change the world; I can change a few minds. This awareness has made me reluctant to draw a connection between this season and the book: as if Satan summoned the forces of hell to assault me and my church once I signed the contract. It feels megalomaniacal to survey the trials our church has endured over this last season and say, “This is really all about me.” But Satan is crafty, and God is wiser still. I know that what is happening in the lives of my church is not exclusively being affected by me writing a book. But I do know that God uses all things together for my good, and that suffering is the forge of wisdom. And I do know that Satan despises the kingdom of God. And if he cannot inflate my pride and ego through the accolades and applause my book most likely will not garner, he may scheme to so discourage me that I simply give up. But I take heart with the knowledge that my trials are not blind or meaningless and that if Satan is attempting to discourage me from finishing this book, all his attempts to foil God’s plans will do nothing but further them. Maybe my book will flop on the market, but God’s purposes won’t.

But if you have read this far, I would ask that you pray for me. That I may be faithful to my Lord in this season. That I be faithful to my wife and three boys. That I be faithful to my church and fellow elders. I may not be able to do everything, but I do want to do the little I can with faith that my God can do far more than all I can ask or think. And if the Lord would be so kind, that I may finish this book, endure through this season, and bless others with what I have written.

Thank you

1. 8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. - 2 Cor 1:8-11