Although I’ve written a couple of books and contributed to others, this book was unexpectedly special AND challenging!
For the past three months, leading into our church’s incredible 9/11 weekend in New York City (you can watch the replay here), I worked on this book project that started forming in my mind years ago. Leading Every Nation Church New York for the last 20 years has given me a front row seat in watching life after life transformed.
The stories I heard represented so many vast and varied miracles. Over time, more and more people began to say, “These stories must be shared in a book.” In the fullness of time it has happened.
I’m happy to say this 204 page compilation of 50 short stories is a good read and it brought Lynette, me and many others to tears as we interviewed, compiled, edited and pulled this book together. Many times we experienced the presence of God and had to pause to weep and thank Him for how He meets each of us, so deeply and personally in our darkest hours.
The Good…
The contributors are from 18 different nations, every age group and from every walk of life. Some had their miracle on Wall Street, others Midtown, Harlem, Park Avenue, Madison Avenue and the locations go on.
Each of the stories are beautiful and personal stories by people who I know personally. Each person claims they had a miracle and I have no doubt they did. Some stories are more dramatic than others, but all represent life-changing impact to the story teller.
My friend, Darryl Strawberry, the legendary baseball slugger from the NY Mets and the NY Yankees, wrote the Foreword. Darryl heard a number of these stories while sitting on the front row at our West side service over the years. His story, shared in the Foreword, is also a miracle.
The Bad…
Two weeks before 9/11 our wonderfully accomplished publisher listed the book on Amazon as a presale for digital books on Kindle for only .99 cents. This was like a free gift to my friends, who would prepay and receive this in their email (kindle) on 9/11. As I was interviewed on Salem radio, God TV and others the broadcasters such as Ron Cantor, Eric Metaxas, etc. were heavily mentioning to their audiences to buy the book. We had early momentum, but then the unthinkable happened.
After 2 days of online posting and multiple TV and radio mentions, the Amazon connection failed. My phone was lighting up with texts saying there was an issue with Amazon.
“There’s a glitch.” “I can’t get this to work.” “Something’s wrong.”
At first our publisher thought it was just a temporary flaw but after multiple hours and days on call with the tech department at Amazon we confirmed our suspicion – the sales link was shot.
Our publisher has published 450 books in 20 nations and he said, “This has never before happened and I am at a loss for how and why it happened.”
It felt like we were canceled. All momentum came to a halt.
I apologized to my friends and even strangers who reached out. We still don’t know why or how it happened, but we moved on and on the day of 9/11 the link finally reopened.
The Beautiful…
In spite of the Amazon “glitch,” we are back online and digital copies are still going for 99 cents. Thank you to our Publisher!
Here’s what’s most important to me… Miracles in Manhattan is all about sharing the gospel through telling stories. I’m beyond grateful for the positive feedback.
I’ve heard from several people, “I couldn’t put it down.”
As long as the message of this book gets out and God uses this for His glory, I’ll be extremely happy that our labor was blessed, in spite of the glitches. At the end of the day, the gospel is the only thing that matters.
The day after the book was released on 9/11, I received this text:
“Hey Pastor Ron, We are in the West Village eating pizza and just now a girl walked by with the Miracles in Manhattan book wide open. She had a yellow highlighter that had marked up the book and we could see the pages turned down. What a great thing to see!”
Reading this text above reminds me that when God is in something, nothing can stop it. It’ll get in the hands of people who we don’t know and may never meet and it will make them mark up the book and turn down pages. In my opinion, this is worth the angst of every challenge.
Writing a book is exhausting, fulfilling, and brings forth something that lives on far after the last edits. In this case we believe the stories will live on in all who read them. We believe this book will be a tool God uses to bring hope to so many who are needing a miracle, especially coming out of the pandemic.
If you are so inclined to purchase and share this special book we would be deeply grateful. All proceeds go to our church, and Lynette and I count it one of our great life honors to have stewarded this process.
Miracles in Manhattan: Stories of Hope and Faith From the Heart of New York City is now out on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
You can also go to MiraclesInManhattan.NYC for bulk orders or more information.
