It’s award season in the Christian literary world. Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with writing contests. Being named a finalist or winner is wonderful for promotion, affirmation, celebrating great writing, and receiving helpful feedback from judges. For those reasons, I do enter a book into one or more contests most years that I have a new release.
On the flip side, I struggle with the fact that contests like these for Christian writing can feel a bit as though they pit us against each other as believers. Thankfully, from what I have experienced, that is not the prevailing feel. Those who are shortlisted tend to be very supportive and encouraging toward those who win. And those who don’t final or haven’t entered the contest almost universally cheer on the work of their fellow Christian authors who did.
While the ranking of one person’s work over another’s could potentially cause damage to personal or professional relationships or even to the Church, I have been gratified over the years to find that far more often the opposite is true. While authors who don’t place or win almost certainly feel a degree of disappointment or frustration, those award celebrations inevitably become just that—celebrations of excellent writing that brings glory to God, raises the bar for Christian fiction and non-fiction, and promotes unity among believers.
After all, we are most definitely not in competition with each other. We are all on the same team and we are working toward the same goal—the furthering of the Kingdom of God.
I have always found the high priestly prayer in the book of John to be one of the most poignant and compelling chapters in the Bible. In it, Jesus prays to His Father, saying, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:22-23 ESV).
When we as believers do not compete with one another but support and encourage each other, we honour God and reflect His love to the world around us. May we as believers always, whether in our writing or in any other way that we work together or interact with each other, live in unity as Jesus compelled us to do. And may our love and support for each other shine a light in the world, drawing all who witness it to the God we love and serve together.
Sara Davison is the author of three romantic suspense series—The Seven Trilogy, The Night Guardians, and The Rose Tattoo Trilogy, as well as the standalone, The Watcher. She has been a finalist for a dozen national writing awards, including Best New Canadian Christian author, a Carol, two Selahs, a Holt Medallion, and two Daphne du Maurier Awards for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. She is a Word and Cascade Award winner. She currently resides in Ontario, Canada with her husband Michael and their three children. The words on the mug she uses every morning pretty much sum up her life—I just want to sleep, drink coffee, and make stuff up. Get to know Sara better at www.saradavison.org and @sarajdavison.
From Sara Davison…
How amazing is grace? Eight stories trace the path of grace through the lines of a well-known hymn that was birthed in tragedy.
These characters each desperately seek a variety of prizes: relationships, hope, fame and fortune, security, eternal youth. All of them struggle through trials and troubles to stumble upon the same amazing answer.
Song of Grace, a collection of stories by eight different authors, celebrates God’s amazing grace in the lives of us all.
This anthology releases on July 7th but is available for pre-order now.
