Now that I have read and reviewed his book, (my review can be found here) I wanted to explore more of this novel and the author as I was intrigued by the uniqueness of the spiritual warfare aspects described and the background of the author after reading of his bio at the end of the novel. What better way to do this, than through an interview?
I engaged C.A (Charles) for this interview, and here is what he has to say about himself and the complex world of the supernatural, Christian worldview of spiritual warfare.
Charles has much to say and this interview contains a lot of his testimony. It really does tie in well with the background to his novel. Please do not let the length of this interview deter you from reading it in its entirety. It is well worth it and you will be able to see the hand of God in his life. This is very encouraging, honours God and shows what a might God we serve.
Having said that, here we go!
Charles, it is great to have you drop by and put an end to my curiosity concerning your novel and yourself! I am really looking forward to this.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your background/testimony.
It’s hard to know really where to start when I describe where I come from. For those that know my story, I would be the last person on the list who would be “qualified” to write a fiction novel, especially one of the caliber of Call to Arms as you have described in your review. I was not an English nor a Creative Writing major. My degree is in Computer Science. I’m a math and science geek. I’m currently a substitute teacher at a local high school here in El Paso, Texas and I’m seeking to become a full time math teacher. Most people would expect me to be good at technical papers, not fiction. But when you give your life to Christ and tell him, “I don’t know what you want me to do, but I’m available. Use me as you want,” things tend to happen that surpass your wildest dreams.
When I said I was not qualified to write a novel, I really meant it. Growing up, I had all sorts of both physical and mental difficulties. I did not have reading comprehension until I was 12 years old. I could tell you what was on each page, but I could not tell you why it was there. But when I turned 12, it was like God turned a switch on, and it came fast. I wasn’t much of a reader until after I had already started writing. I did read, but I wasn’t voracious. I also had moderate physical difficulties. I could not do two things at once, like sitting upright and eating. My joint and leg structure had specialists tell me, when I was six, I would never run, have difficulty walking, and not to expect any improvement. God brought me through all that. When I was 15, I started fencing and that sport did wonders for my development to now, I am at least decent at just about every sport I try.
Spiritually, I was raised in a Christian home and when I was six years old, my parents took my family and I on our first mission trip. I’ll address more about that later. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savoir when I was seven, and I have never turned back. I also have a gift of spiritual discernment. As I’ve become more aware of the gift, I have been seeking to learn how to use it, but there were many times growing up where I would say something completely out of the blue, and that something would be exactly what needed to be done. I have a gift of a child-like faith that isn’t childish, where when God speaks, I believe it without question. There would be times where I would share something very profound that blows everyone away and when they ask me where I got that, I would respond with “God just told me that the other day.” I could easily go on and on about this.
Despite your physical and mental disabilities, God gave you a glimpse of what was to come. Wow!
What inspired you to get into writing?
As I mentioned above, writing a novel was not on my agenda or dream to-do-lists. Yet, despite that as I think back, I was a writer. I was constantly writing stories as a kid. For school, when we were told to write a story, my teachers would think 1-3 pages. Mine would be 15-20. I often had a journal where I would often write and re-write the same adventure story. But even though I was long-winded as a writer, I wasn’t a good story teller then. My main character was always me, I had no character arcs, and ultimately it ended up being one action scene followed by another. You could say I was trying to live out a dream of being a sword-fighting hero through writing.
Writing took a bit of a back seat when I started fencing. I no longer had a need to write about an epic sword fight. I was actually living it through the sport. But during the Summer and Autumn of 2005, the door to write opened again. I was part of an on-line forum with C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as the theme. And in anticipation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe coming to film, I would give a depiction of what the final battle scene could look like. And that was a hit in the forum. Also, a friend of mine and co-worker at the time was working a potential story and he asked me to write some of the battle/action scenes. So at this point, I was starting to see that people were liking what I was writing, a big step from anything I had written in the past.
The big turning point came in November, 2007. Another friend of mine had written the first draft of a fictional biography. He had taken his life testimony and wrote it in the context of a spiritual warfare, adventure novel. He also asked me for some feedback. So I read his draft and shortly afterwards, went over my comments with him. During this time, he suggested I try writing because he was so impressed with what I was telling him.
So I decided, “What the heck?” I gave it a go. This time, I purposed to take myself out of the story, do it in 3rd person (all my previous stuff was 1st person and as I’ve learned, this is not a good idea for a new writer), and make sure I had good character and story arcs. I set out for a medieval/fantasy thriller as a means to test the waters. I created a few characters, came up with a few locations, and completely made up the story as I went. In three months, I had 280 pages for over 160,000 words. And it was a decent first draft. I then sat on it for a month and as I started to look at the editing process, God told me to set it aside and start thinking of another writing project. A project that would end up as Call to Arms.
I love the way two seemingly unsimilar past times, fencing and writing, merged and became the spring board for you becoming a writer in your own right! Not just a coincidence, I believe!
What was the inspiration for writing Call to Arms?
As I wrote my medieval thriller, ideas for different story ideas kept popping into my head. I knew that I wanted a spiritual warfare novel to be my key story of all of them. I wanted that one to be my best work out of all of them. But I wanted more practice. I wanted to continue working this medieval thriller. I also wanted to do a story that would be a modern take on “What would happen if Zorro were to be needed to today?” I knew that my “brand” so to say would be adventure/sword fighting thrillers so I wanted to keep with that theme. I wanted more practice writing stories before I got to my spiritual warfare one. But after I had finished this first draft of my medieval story, God kept pointing me towards that spiritual warfare novel. So in April 2007, I started it. I wasn’t quite sure how to really get it going, but as I was in college at the time and I was walking to catch a bus to get to church, I got this image in my head. And it answered the question: “What would it look like to see someone in the spiritual realm be “born again”?” And I absolutely loved that image. I won’t spoil it here, but I took that image and I started working a story line around that image.
In this process, I took some of the stories I had heard and stories I had witnessed in regards to spiritual warfare and dealing with demons from while I was in the mission field and used the ideas from that as key plot points. I also remember watching one of the Harry Potter movies as I was preparing this novel. And I thought to myself, “This movie praises the use of the occult and unaware children could easily start dabbling into it, not knowing what truly lies behind.” So I wanted a story that would address the real nature of the occult.
As you mention in your review, Peter, I have strong, Christian characters. I mentioned growing up on the mission field and I frequently worked with strong Christian teenagers. We called them “Junior Staff”, teens that were mature in their faith, had plenty of experience through previous mission trips (many were annual repeaters or more), and were showing signs of leadership capabilities. I had seen some of these teens in action, and so I wanted to show that teenagers today could execute that mature, walk-the-walk, stand strong in the faith relationship with Christ. Perhaps my favourite character in Call to Arms is Zack Saxon. He is a fearless kid, almost reckless. He came about when I watched a couple of boys, only 9 and 10, fearlessly and almost recklessly witnessing to a homeless man apart from the main group.
All these factors came to play as I started writing. In just six weeks, I finished with 250 pages at 130K words.
Totally agree with you about Zack! He is also one of my favourite characters!
What was your goal for your readers? What kind of responses were you expecting?
My initial goal for this book was to raise awareness about spiritual warfare. I had seen too much of the church in general effectively be clueless about the battle we are in, let alone what the stakes are. As a Christian author, I wanted a story that would be more than just a fiction version of a sermon. I did not want my story to pull readers out to where I would essentially “preach” to them. Every Christian fiction novel needs to have quality substance that does teach practically how to help the reader out in their walk with Christ, but that should be done through the story, not through the author directly to the reader. I wanted a story that would show what happens when we try to stay on the sidelines and wait for God and Satan to “duke it out”. I wanted a story that shows that children are targeted by Satan early, but also that a child does not have to wait to be an adult to engage in the battle. I wanted readers to see that this stuff is real, so I used a few true encounters I had endured to demonstrate that. I do believe I met my goals.
I honestly did not know what kind of responses I should expect. I knew people liked reading my battle scenes but creating two complex story lines and weaving them together, I honestly did not know what to expect. What I got was far above and beyond what I imagined. All but universal praise for the story weaving, the character development, the action scenes, and the staying true to Biblical truths. I had a few people that did not care so much for the spiritual aspects but even then they were very impressed with the story structure and my writing ability.
Charles, having read A Call to Arms, I can honestly say you have exceeded your goals in this book, and you have also educated the reader in the reality of spiritual warfare. I believe that Christian Fiction should educate and edify the body of Christ and you have achieved this very successfully.
Now, describe your journey of becoming published. How did it help your relationship with Christ?
After I finished my first draft of Call to Arms, I let it sit for a while. I wanted to come back to it with a fresh mind. And as I came back to it, I realized I had material that was too dark and too descriptive for a young-adult reader, my target audience. I wanted to reach youth with this novel and as Charles Jackson, a friend of mine who wrote the endorsement, says: “It is a middle-school boy’s dream fantasy. “ But my first draft was truly what some authors like to call a vomit or barf draft. It was not good. It did not have good story structure. How I had crossed the two worlds was too unclear and not effective. Some scenes were a bit too unrealistic to follow. And other scenes went into material that my target audience should not be reading into the details I had revealed. And looking back, it was material no Christian publisher would have accepted. So I took a few characters I liked, a few key plot points I liked, and I scrapped the whole thing and started over again.
But that is part of the journey of a first-time author. I persevered and my second draft had much better material and a stronger story. I also revised how I described my two worlds to what is there now. But it still wasn’t done yet. I then had to re-write the whole back third of the novel again because of reorganizing a few scenes. But it was getting stronger and stronger.
At this point I was starting to explore how to get my work published. And I found a Christian publishing ‘pre-screening’ company called Writer’s Edge Service. Writer’s Edge Service will take the plot summary, first three chapters, and author info, and with detailed feedback, they will determine if a publisher would consider looking at a manuscript. After six revisions and editing phases, I submitted it to them and they loved it. My anonymous reviewer said “It was the best depiction of spiritual warfare for the everyday believer that I had ever read.” That’s part of what makes Call to Arms stand out from a lot of other spiritual warfare fiction novels. My characters, while spiritually mature, are believable and attainable for the average reader. The average reader can live their Christian walk similar to how my characters do.
So with that review, I immediately had contact from several publishers. But they were self-publishers and all of them required some money, money that I as a college student did not have. I was tempted but I had to wait and see. Through this though, I found out about an American Christian Fiction Writers Conference and I did have enough time and money to go during my Spring Break that year. So I went and it was good. Small, but good. During an appointment I had with Rene Gutteridge, she told me I needed to look for a real publisher because my work was good enough to not need to look at self-publishing. But I still did not know much about the publishing industry and how to separate out what was what.
Shortly after I got back from that conference, I received contact from Lighthouse Christian Publishing. I did not know they were self-publishing at the time and they charged a very low fee to cover initial costs: just $300. After praying about it, I decided to go for it. So I published this work under the title Battle Cry: Adventures in the Kingdom of Heaven. But after it was published, I soon saw two glaring issues. One, the cover was just a stencil sketch. I thought that was going to be used as a basis for a much better cover. The other issue was that they did not do the final editing job, the final fine tooth comb of spelling and grammar that I thought they were going to do. Both were due to my lack of understanding of the system. But that being said, my initial readers were able to get through all that and they could not believe what I had written. So I had quite a dilemma. I had an awesome story but with problems. And I wanted to write more. How could I continue to promote it, knowing the issues? God provided the answer shortly afterwards.
I got the opportunity to attend the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in Estes Park, Colorado. I had to wait four years, from when I first heard of it until I got to go, because it was always held during Finals Week in college. But I finally got the chance to go and there my eyes were opened. The CCWC is one of the biggest and best writers’ conferences in the US and I learned more than I could comprehend during that week. It was also there where I got the chance to meet with Ramona Tucker of OakTara Publishing. I learned that very rarely will publishers look at the same work that was self-published. But Ramona saw something in my manuscript and she wanted me to submit it, with a better editing job, some content changes, and with a title change. And in the next month, I did that. I fixed the spelling/grammar issues, tweaked a few scenes partly in anticipation of the second book in the trilogy, and changed the title to Call to Arms. OakTara loved the book, gave me one of the coolest cover designs I’ve ever seen, and it was released on May 1st 2014, just in time for me to return to the Colorado Christian Writers Conference for the 3rd time, but this time it would be as a speaker and the topic: spiritual warfare. I have now finished my trilogy for The Battle Cry Saga and am waiting on OakTara for determining when the best time to release them.
Seems to me that God was teaching you to be patient and to let Him pave the way for you to get Call to Arms published. You have certainly done that and now are reaping the benefits.
Your author bio says you grew up as a missionary kid. Where did you serve? For how long? With whom? How did this experience influence this book?
As I mentioned above, I grew up on the mission field. My parents joined with International Family Missions (IFM) when I was six years old, in 1990. My family was more in the support side, where we worked behind the scenes and were not directly doing the ministry as much as the teams themselves. IFM had a vision: to teach families how to do ministry as a family unit and it was here that I got to see many children of all ages (and adults) live and walk their faith. Many mission organizations either took teenagers or empty-nester parents. Rarely were kids allowed to go and handicapped people were rarely allowed to go. Partly because many of those short term trips involved work projects to go along with their Gospel sharing. But IFM was different. We hardly did work projects. We just did “visits in Jesus’ name”. We focused our ministry to Juarez, Mexico because it was so close to the US border and because it had the 3rd world culture to get the groups out of their comfort zone. El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico are literally sister cities. The only thing that separates them is a river, which happens to be an international border. El Paso/Juarez is the largest international metropolitan area in the world. And because of the proximity, we could take our teams to El Paso (just a one day drive from the Denver, Colorado area where we were from), have them stay on the US side every night and for a week at a time, take them into Juarez daily to do ministry.
The ministry we did was not work projects but consisted of evangelism, church visits, VBS Bible clubs, sport camps, feedings, and simply just spending time with the people. After we visited with one of the children’s homes, they told us: “Other groups paints our walls and build our fences, but you were the first group to just play with us.” My parents remained involved with IFM for 22 years total. In July 1999, we moved to south-east El Paso to manage the ministry base we used to house and facilitate these teams. We’d host a team of 35-40 people, comprised of mostly families, but we also took toddlers, the elderly, grandkids, grandparents, handicapped, the works. I was also one of the “handicapped” because of the challenges I had growing up. My parents quickly realized that God was going to use me when I was eight years old. I was in my own world while the team was doing ministry at the prison in Juarez. The men were inside with the men, while the women and children visited with the wives and kids visiting the men. Our director was speaking to a group of pastors that was interested in what we were doing and he asked me to get a “Worldless Book”, a felt booklet that contained five colors (gold, black, red, white, and green) and this booklet contained the Gospel message. I then shared the Gospel with this booklet to these pastors along with all the verses that went with it. And the pastors were totally amazed that a child (not knowing my story) could share the Gospel so simply.
In this time of ministry, we saw God move in many different ways. We did a kite flying event with kids at another children’s home and God stopped the heavy winds so we could do it. In another event, we planned a massive feeding, but God sent the strongest windstorm in recorded history, which meant heavy dirt. Many people know about blizzard conditions with snow. We know the same conditions with dirt. But we had to close down because of this dirt storm. As a result, we found another orphanage that we had been trying to find for several years. And they were down to their last few carrots on food. We had enough for them for a week. We’ve seen food multiply numerous times, sometimes with leftovers, sometimes where the last apple or slice of meat went to the last person. We’ve seen miraculous healings. One woman we witnessed to in the market one year accepted Christ. Two years later she found us and told us that very day she was healed of cancer and was in the markets doing exactly what we had been doing: sharing Christ.
One thing I observed during this time, which I mentioned above, was that teenagers and even kids as young as 7-10 could display a true Christian faith with that innocent, child-like faith that is not childish. I’ve seen little kids share the truth with full grown men who had lost everything. I’ve seen teenagers take leadership where a number of adults would not. But these mature youth showed me that teenagers and younger could walk that kind of Christian life. And I wanted to demonstrate through my book one way that could look like.
My parents and I separated from IFM in January 2012 to move on to another direction God was taking us. IFM itself had ceased to bring groups to Juarez, mostly because of a brutal war between drug cartels. That war has mostly ended but IFM is seeking the Lord on what to do from there. In the meantime, my parents have moved on and are currently waiting on the Lord to direct their steps.
Those are amazing experiences and very unique to have while growing up. I can see how they have influenced the plot of Call to Arms. You have definitiely shown in this novel that teenagers and even those younger can take the leadership role. Again, the character of Zack comes to mind. James as well.
You say you experienced a number of encounters with the demonic. Tell us about one of them and how it played a role in your writing?
Spiritual warfare has always been a favorite topic of mine. In writing Call to Arms, I used some of my personal experiences in dealing with demons and I used some of the experiences I heard from those involved first-hand. My first draft did not use as many of these encounters as my later drafts did. My first draft was more about getting some of the principles down, but one very interesting thing about writing I have learned is this: when you write about a certain topic, you have a tendency of dealing with said topic. And while the majority of my experience in ministries was helping facilitate the teams from behind the scenes, I got to see a lot of stuff and hear about a lot of things going on. As I mentioned above, after writing my first draft, I had to scrap my entire story and re-write it. Between those drafts, I had the most significant encounter with the demonic I had personally been involved with.
I was using my first draft as a witnessing tool for a co-worker of mine at the time. He had expressed a strong interest in spiritual discussions, though not always about Christianity. So I used my first draft as a means to get him to open up about the need for the Gospel. But in this encounter, I awoke a demonic stronghold that had laid dormant in him. It started with trying to get some written feedback from him about my novel. Because he did not have a printer, we had to do it via e-mail. But attempt after attempt after attempt, nothing came through. Then something did and it was not the feedback he was trying to send. It was messages from a demonic entity. Each one got more and more sinister, but I was seeing what was happening. I hammered him with the Gospel, recognizing what was going on and day by day, it got worse and worse. I knew he was aware of demonic activity and other “spiritual issues” so I very cautiously watched him, seeing if it was some sort of sick prank. It was not long afterwards that the demonic stronghold manifested itself through him and I started to engage with the demon directly through my co-worker. But I did not quit and I kept presenting the Gospel. I was the only believer in the store where we worked, so I had no physical backup. I also had Acts 19:13-17 in mind. That is the time where the seven sons of Sceva tried to drive out a demon and it went very poor for them. I used that passage of Scripture for one of my scenes that you pointed out in your review. I knew I was in a very tight situation, and the only help I could get was prayer support from a distance. During my final day at that job, I got the chance to give him the Gospel one last time, but in the end, he would not submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
I was shaken. Hard. I was sifted like wheat. But I held my ground. I was reduced to my foundations, and my foundations were on solid ground. This encounter did change my life but it made me stronger in my faith. It took about six months for me to be able to tell this story in detail and when I do, it usually takes about an hour to tell it. This is the short, short, short version. But I have an awesome T-shirt that was very appropriate for this encounter. I got the shirt at the Colorado Christian Writer’s Conference. It says this: “Be careful what you say or you might just find yourself in my next novel.”
Most of us would never have such an experience! Most of us would reel in fright at such, but you show how the battle belongs to God and He is the Victor. I loved how you added that part of the verse from Acts in your plot! More realism and very clever! When I was reading A Call to Arms, one of my first thoughts was that these spiritual scenes could not just be from your imagination, I figured they were God inspired or that you would have had to at least experienced them. Now this does not surprise me from what you have experienced first hand.
series and loved it immensely. It introduced me to the subject of the persecuted Christian Church. In this series, Roth had a Korean church form a Christian special ops team specifically to rescue and aid those Christians in either Churches or other Christian organisations that are being persecuted in countries around the world. 
, on the same topic and sub-genre, I wanted to promote both their books in this blog and encourage readers to consider our fellow Christians who are suffering for the cause of Christ in other countries who live under a hostile regime towards Christianity and all things relating to the the God of the Bible. 
(with Paul Marshall and Nina Shea) and Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner.
have a vaguely similar theme. Lela kindly agreed to answer some questions about the book.
by David G Johnson. 
back to reality and to wait for book 2, 
, and then books 1 and 2 first. 
, I can vouch for him basing his novels on detailed biblical research and much seeking in prayer and of God's direction in relation to the content. David is a seeker of the Word and of God's heart and His truth and it definitely shows in both these novels, especially this one. David's desire is to have only what God wants to say in his novels and not what David wants to say. He is very much God's vehicle in this regards. It comes as no surprise that this heart/mind attitude motivated him to write about this in his latest non fiction endeavor, 