Q. How did you come up with the subtitle for Night Shift?

A. That was the idea of Dave Greene (my editor).  We’d been through a lot of changes on that.  The original subtitle “On a mission crossing borders in the night,” was directly from the outline of the book.  Dave felt it best to be more direct in the subtitle, since the title itself is less revealing.  And he felt that “cultural line” expresses more clearly the cross-cultural theme of the book.  I thought he hit a homer on the final (Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom).  

I still like “crossing borders,” which is a section title in the book.  To me “borders” is metaphorical, but I think some readers will limit it to its literal meaning.  With “cultural line,” the idea is more vague and thus conveys a broader meaning of crossing any type of cultural line, which is my point.  This is one of many good reasons why writers have editors!

Q. What is the story behind Night Shift’s book cover?

A. My son, Stephen, has taken a couple basic courses in graphic design, so I asked him if he’d like to work with me on the cover for Night Shift.  We wanted to portray a night scene – to go along with the title, obviously.  But night scenes can be tricky to pull off in print and media, for the very fact that they don’t reveal much to the eye. 

 

So Stephen chose a city skyline.  We won’t reveal which one, though he picked one not so universally recognizable as the Twin Towers or the Sears Tower.  Then he reversed the photograph to disguise it even more and then turned it into a blackened silhouette.  

So I guess we carried the theme of disguise to the cover as well.  He’s done an excellent job.  I’ve already had requests for poster-sized copies and we are thinking of a theme with that cover and specific quotes from the book to produce as a set and sell for missions conventions.

Q. Why the title “Night Shift”?

A. The book, Night Shift, is about the Christian mandate, the mission of the church and of the believer, which I see as a cross-cultural mission – always.

Much has been written about this mandate, but what seems to be missing in the available literature is stuff that makes this book unique I think.  Here’s where the title comes in.  What does the mission look like when it doesn’t look like what we usually think of as ministry or missions? When our work can’t be so obvious.  Being less than obvious is hard to pull off in a globalized 24/7 media-saturated world.  What that looks like is what I call the “night shift.”

When I was a boy, we used to sing the hymn “Work for the night is coming,” meaning there would come a time when it would be dark and difficult to work.  (The hymn was written before electricity turned night into day.)  When we sang that song, what we had in mind was Jesus coming back.  We also talked about the “midnight hour” in the same way. I’ve long been struck by those metaphors.  

Much of my work and the work of many other friends has been behind the scenes, shall we say, “in the dark.”  For such work, “night shift” makes a great metaphor.  I grew up in a town of shift workers.  Outside my bedroom window growing up I could hear laborers arriving for what locals called the “hoot owl shift."  In other places, the term “graveyard shift” is used in the same way.  They were working the night shift long after everyone else had quit their daytime jobs and gone to bed.

In the end, I think that all believers have something to learn from the principles in this book, even those who don’t see themselves as working the night shift.  If they don’t think the night shift applies to them, that is maybe because much of society is somehow beyond their missional scope, for most of those in need in our world today are in the dark, in the night, where night work is required if the job is going to get done.

Q. What is "Night Shift" about?

A. Night Shift is about the Christian mandate and how we live it out, especially when the world we live in appears indifferent or even hostile to our message.  We do so, the book says, by embracing biblical cross-cultural models, being shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves in tough times and hard places, becoming agents of blessing in a world desperately in need of good news.  

In this book, I share how we as believers are all on a mission to cross cultural lines or borders for the kingdom, even in the darkest night.  In its three parts, I talk about 1) what our mission is all about; 2) how we do that mission cross-culturally; and 3) how we do all that on what I call the "night shift." 

This book is not just for people doing ministry in obvious cross-cultural ways, like in a foreign country.  It is for every believer, because as I explain in the book, the ministry of communicating the gospel is essentially cross-cultural no matter where we are.

Q. Who do you hope will read the book?

A. Young people starting out and wanting to know how they fit into God’s big scheme of things. People serving and ministering in difficult (hostile, indifferent) settings. “Lay” people working or living in environments where they aren’t allowed to or don’t feel free to express their faith. Leaders who teach, train or direct any of the above. And anyone else who is concerned about loving your neighbor or fulfilling the Great Commission.

Q. Why the book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom?

A. I wrote the book out of concern that people at a very basic level are not getting the Christian mandate to love your neighbor as yourself, which includes fulfilling the Great Commission to go to all peoples everywhere declaring and demonstrating the good news.

Moreover, the book is really a corpus or summary of my lifelong missional focus.  It is much of what I have been living, thinking and believing for the past several decades.  I have been wanting to encapsulate my whole MO into a cohesive package that would communicate what I believe are some very important principles for the church at large.

On an even more personal level, I’ve been through some serious life changes in the past four years and have had a desire to focus on writing instead of speaking and traveling for a season.  Hopefully through books like this, I’ll influence even more people than I ever did in my traveling ministry.

Q. "Why Night Shift Crossing"?

A. “Night Shift Crossing” is my newest blog.  I am launching it to coincide with the first run of my new book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom.  I plan to use this new blog to share news concerning the book, interact with readers and answer their questions, and communicate more information and ideas related to the themes in this book.  For the most part, we’ll use this Q&A format, especially as readers' questions and comments start to come in.