Home > Love & Grow > Jim Jay: Reading Christian Authors

“Spiritual disciplines” are things we do to stay in love with God and grow in faith.  They can be things we do alone or together; they can be ways to spend time with God or to serve others.  As the people of Sylva First UMC share one of their spiritual disciplines with you each week, we hope it will inspire you to new ways of loving God and growing in faith.

I’m Jim Jay. My Wife Roberta and I travel full time as a function of our business as convention vendors.  The Pandemic Quarantine forced us to stay in place for a while and we chose the beautiful community of Sylva.  Our oldest son, his wife and our only grandchild are here, so the decision was a no brainer!  Finding and becoming a part of Sylva First Church has been a real added blessing.

I was born in Texas as the child of itinerant Ordained Ministers, so I’ve lived all over the Southeast – Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, North and South Carolina.  Being a preacher’s kid, daily bible reading and prayer have always been a part of my life and that continued practice has helped me keep in close communion with my God.

But the world is much different now than it was when I was younger.  I have found that reading the writings of faithful Christian authors has been invaluable in helping me deepen my relationship with God and find my place in the broader culture.  Chuck Colson is one of my personal Heroes of the Faith.  His writings and commentaries have helped me shape and refine my own personal Worldview.  I continue to follow the daily commentaries from the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and the video series “What Would You Say?”.  I highly recommend them to any Christian seeking to answer the challenges of our culture today.

Grace and Peace,

Jim Jay