Church Grammar
It’s been a busy year for the Smith family between buying our first home, transferring my Ph.D., teaching my first class at Criswell College (a dream come true!), Christa working for a hospital, and watching our nearly 2-year-old daughter grow in leaps and bounds before our very eyes. We thought we were finally settling in for some R&R as fall approached, and we were looking forward to developing some sort of routine. We had big plans to do a lot less as 2015 came to a close.
But we know now that God has different plans for us.
In late August, I will begin working for the B&H Publishing Group of LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, TN as Brand Manager for the HCSB and Bibles, with some occasional crossover into B&H Academic reference products like commentaries, dictionaries, etc. when appropriate or needed. This means I will be leaving my posts at Criswell College and Zondervan in mid-August.
The best description I’ve found for brand managers is that they’re like small business CEOs–they’re concerned with the overall growth and quality strategy for their business or product. What that will look like day-to-day for me is still yet to be determined in some ways, but my role will be part management, part publishing, part marketing, part writing and editing, and part vision-casting. I’ll also be blessed to work alongside and learn from the host of specialists in the world of Bible publishing that B&H has gathered together.
This also means that we’ll be relocating to Nashville (our home in Haslet, TX sold in less than 48 hours–praise God–and we’re under contract on a beautiful house in Murfreesboro, TN). While I plan to continue teaching part-time at Criswell, my full-time focus will be on getting the HCSB into as many hands as possible–not for B&H’s sake, but for the sake of the gospel.
Joining B&H will also take my hands out of several other pots and allow me to spend significantly more time with my wife and little girl. I’ve prayed in earnest that God would provide clarity and direction for me as I’ve sought to move away from the time-suck of multiple jobs and responsibilities. The phone call from B&H, I believe, was an answer to those prayers. My love for my family far exceeds anything a new job or new city can offer, but I’m thankful that a new job and new city will help me love them better.
Please pray for us as we transition. This move will be more bitter than sweet at first as we leave all of our family, our best friends, our amazing church family, and the state we’ve called home our entire lives. Joy and peace often feel like enemies to us at the moment, but we know that God is working all things for our good and his glory.
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