Reality Calling has as its vision to,
.....provide resources for the Christian author, vetted books for readers, anointed materials to share with the Kingdom and the world, and a book review site with reviews from trusted reviewers.
Technical support and mentoring for Christian self-publishers is found in our companion site: The Skilled Workman. There you will also find Writing In InDesign Producing Books, the book on the best method to self-publish on a professional level.
Our twin focus is first to encourage authors to participate in the final harvest as we prepare for the Coming of our King. It’s a glorious time to be alive and the Lord is looking for authors to help Him save all possible before the Wrath which is to come falls on the Earth.
Second, we also need and serve readers, and commenters, both to help us stay on track, and to share these resources with their friends and acquaintances. As authors and creators, we must stay attached to the Head, Jesus, as well as the readers we serve. For having a call from God necessarily means we serve those we are given. Our readers are our flock with whom we are called minister. Jesus told us we will be held to account for everything we say [or write]. We take that seriously.
As a major part of this vision, I believe that the Kingdom needs more authors willing to lay it all on the line and share books containing the reality of the Christian life. We need books which go beyond mentions of church and vague faith statements. We really need books which share the reality of the power available to believers to bring love, joy, and healing to a world desperately needing hope. The darkness we see in the world today is but the birth pangs of the coming Kingdom on Earth. That’s our glorious hope. God, the Father of us all, is coming to live with us forever in an earth designed for us to share. Alleluia!
Evolving from this, David felt that authors needed to be encouraged and awarded for their efforts in writing according to what he outlined in the above paragraph. In conjunction with him, we have instigated the,
Reality Calling Christian Speculative Fiction Review Awards
There are five awards: (click on their title for more information)
The purpose of this post is to award an author whose book(s) I have reviewed recently that meets the previously mentioned criteria in his novels, but more specifically, the criteria developed by David for Christian Redemptive Speculative Fiction:
The basic redeeming portion of these books are characters who have been born of God, born from above, or reborn [as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3]. This is done realistically, the way it actually happens in our lives. The key criteria is that lives are transformed when they encounter and believe in a Savior. This transformation is explained by Paul in Romans 12: 1-2 and in Ephesians 4:17 & following. John discusses it in I John 3, explaining the righteousness expected of all believers.
This spiritual reality is just a normal part of the world view forming the background of the book. The basis of spiritual authority is found in God’s scriptures. God speaks to His people primarily through the scriptures. There is commonly a strong focus on baptism, usually by immersion. The believers in the book are led into a personal relationship with the Lord Messiah by scripture, circumstance, and experience. Wisdom and guidance are found in the Scriptures and in groups of believers who share experiences and knowledge under the guidance of elders or overseers.
After reading two of this author's novels recently, I was encouraged and uplifted by his inclusion of elements of the Redemptive Fiction criteria in his novels, therefore, I gladly award a Redemptive Fiction Award to:
D. I. Telbat
for his novels,
Dark Edge (Prequel to the COIL Series)
View my review here
In Dark Edge, Prequel to the COIL Series, Christian suspense by D.I. Telbat, we find an international thriller providing background to Corban Dowler and the COIL Organization.
CIA Agent Corban Dowler has refused a kill order, therefore he is sanctioned for assassination by the very agency he has worked with for years. As Corban runs for his life, he must cut all ties and even abandon his wife in order to keep her alive. His new relationship with Jesus Christ may cost him everything . . .
But Corban has a plan. He knows God's persecuted need his specialized skills, so he follows a lead to India, though poisonous clutches and a German hit squad are close behind. Disguised as a bearded Muslim weapons smuggler, Corban initiates a rescue in the midst of millions of Hindus participating in the Ganges River bathing festival.
CIA Agent Corban Dowler has refused a kill order, therefore he is sanctioned for assassination by the very agency he has worked with for years. As Corban runs for his life, he must cut all ties and even abandon his wife in order to keep her alive. His new relationship with Jesus Christ may cost him everything . . .
But Corban has a plan. He knows God's persecuted need his specialized skills, so he follows a lead to India, though poisonous clutches and a German hit squad are close behind. Disguised as a bearded Muslim weapons smuggler, Corban initiates a rescue in the midst of millions of Hindus participating in the Ganges River bathing festival.
We also meet first-recruit ex-Mossad Agent Chloe Azmaveth and her husband as they brainstorm with Corban about a new organization to serve God's people worldwide.
With Bonus Chapter One of Dark Liaison, Book One in the COIL Series, and cover art by Streetlight Graphics, Dark Edge will not disappoint as you follow the founder of COIL to the Edge of darkness. And we learn again, there is no redemption without sacrifice . . .
and
Dark Liaison (COIL Book 1)
View my review here
It is an age of prophetic strife when spiritual darkness collides with servants of the Cross. Christians worldwide are persecuted on a heightened level, and while no safety seems to exist, one man steps forward to lend a hand to the defenseless laborers.
Corban Dowler is an old-school spy. Six years ago, he accepted Christ's gift of salvation and then resigned from the morally compromising C.I.A. As Corban desires to fulfill God's Great Commission, he builds an organization called the Commission of International Laborers, (COIL), where he devotes his skills and resources to assist persecuted or kidnapped Christian servants in the most dangerous environments worldwide.
There are times in this age when Corban Dowler must hastily extract missionary families and Christian workers from danger zones before death steals them from their righteous work. For these operations, Corban has developed commando-style teams using non-lethal weapons to extract the threatened or persecuted servants of the Lord.
These covert multiethnic teams are ex-military or ex-CIA, and all believers in Christ.
Satan is every bit the adversary as he operates through his demonic workers of iniquity. They are set on claiming the lives of the righteous that stand for Truth. While COIL is working tirelessly to rescue Christians in need, Satan's followers are placing roadblocks, destroying, and kidnapping believers in Christ to thwart the efforts of COIL. The operatives find themselves prey to the very wickedness that they are committed to fight, and a battle between good and evil emerges.
With new cover by Streetlight Graphics, Dark Liaison is an 83,000-word Christian action-suspense novel of espionage and spiritual warfare. This Book One in the COIL Series contrasts the lives of satanic antagonists bent on hatred with the COIL laborers who protect the Christian men and women servants standing for righteousness. And we learn that…there is no redemption without sacrifice.
Praise the LORD! Thank you so much, Peter and David B! David Telbat is thrilled to receive this honor. May the Lord be glorified by the books, but also by your great service for Him and others!
ReplyDeleteDavid Telbat
and Dee