Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Daniel Im

5 Things I’ve Learned About Writing

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As much I enjoy writing, I never thought I’d be a published author in my thirties.

So to see my name on two published books, four eBooks, and another published book on the way is humbling. This is not a humble brag—I’m just seriously floored and surprised by the way that God has led my wife and I to this point. All glory be to God!

In my twenties I had a wonderful plan for my life.

I literally wrote out a plan until my wife and I were in our eighties. Several years later, am I ever glad that this wonderful plan didn’t come to pass because God’s ways are always higher, deeper, and better than ours. We unfortunately had to learn that the hard way post-Korea, which is another story for another time. You can read more about it here.

God’s ways are always higher, deeper, and better than ours.

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So to celebrate the one year anniversary of my book, No Silver Bullets, being on the bookshelves, I wanted to share 5 things I’ve learned about writing.

If God has placed a dream on your heart to write, I hope that this will be an encouragement to you.

1. Don’t write to go viral. Just write.

There’s no formula for going viral—even the best marketers haven’t cracked the nut. Sure, your article or book needs to be timely, it needs to hit a felt need, and it needs to be written well, but there’s that intangible “share-ability” nature to everything that goes viral that’s hard to figure out. In fact, a pursuit for the next viral article can cause you to chase rabbits and trends, rather than write on topics that you’re personally passionate about and have something to say on.

A pursuit for the next viral article can cause you to chase rabbits and trends.

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So stop obsessing over SEO hacks and keywords for your title, and instead focus on honing your writing skills. I’m not telling you to ignore SEO and keywords, since they do help the “share-ability” of your content. I’m just saying that it may not be the best way to spend your time as a writer. What’s most important is practice, since the only way to get better at writing is by writing.

What’s most important is practice, since the only way to get better at writing is by writing.

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2. Knowing God was J.I. Packer’s 9th book.

We love overnight success stories. When we see people pop, or their book go on the New York Times bestseller list, we get jealous—especially if we’ve never heard of them before. But when you dig deeper, most of these overnight success stories aren’t overnight success stories. J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter pitch was rejected twelve times, Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit was self-published, Madeleine L’Engles’ A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times, and on and on it goes.

Don’t get caught up in hacks to get famous or to make your book pop. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

Don’t get caught up in hacks to get famous or to make your book pop.

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The theologian and professor J.I. Packer is probably best known for his book Knowing God. It’s been a classic for over 40 years, one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals, received a platinum book award from the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association, and has sold over one million copies. When Knowing God popped, I’m sure most people thought that Packer was an overnight success—unbeknownst to them, this was his ninth book!

Don’t give up. Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing.

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Don’t Be Dead Weight

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Your church or organization is like a train.

There are things you’re doing that are causing the train to move (the coal).

There are things outside of your control that are either speeding up the train or slowing it down (hills and air resistance).

And there are things within your control that are slowing the train down (baggage and needless weight).

The next time you gather your team together:

Try identifying what’s core to your team and what needs to happen to keep things running, like casting vision, celebrating, or having the right metrics.

Then, identify the things outside of your control that are moving your team forward or slowing you guys down, like neighborhood growth/decline, market growth/decline, change in leisure activities, or time of year.

And then identify what’s within your control that could be slowing your team down, like toxic team members, a weak culture, or a lack of planning.

And for you personally, reflect on whether or not you want to be on the train that you’re on.

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The One Thing Husbands Need to Know About Their Wives

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The following is a guest post written by my wife, Christina Im, on the one thing that she wants every husband to know. I pray that it encourages you as much as it has encouraged me.

Marriage is hard.

Marriage takes work.

Marriage isn’t always what we thought it would be.

Marriage takes sacrifice.

Daniel and I have recently entered our 12th year of marriage. During our engagement, if someone were to have had told me any of the above statements, I would have scoffed at them. “Actually, marriage is going to be amazing because I can finally have sex,” is what I would have wanted to say. But honestly, I would have NEVER had the audacity to be that abrupt.

On a perfectly sunny August day, I married my best friend. And, we lived happily ever after, right?

Well, like you always hear from those who have gone before us, the first year of marriage was difficult—we had A LOT of “iron sharpening iron” moments. However, nothing could have prepared me for the agony and the deep soul searching that awaited me.

I can recount two times where I cried out to God, “Hey…I think you’ve forgotten me.” The first time was when Daniel felt a strong calling to leave everyone and everything behind and move to South Korea. I was just entering my second year at a job that had GREAT potential and I was toying with the idea of going back to school to get my Masters of Social Work. Moving to Korea was not on my radar, and while I begged God to change my husband’s heart…God changed mine instead.

Have you ever felt put on the sidelines…by God?

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The second time I felt that God had put me on the sidelines was the moment I saw the blue double lines appear on the pregnancy test. “Oh God, we are living in Korea with no family around. We are BOTH just about to start our second semester of school. We don’t have time to be pregnant.” In the end, Daniel and I chose to put my schooling and career on hold while I became a full-time stay-at-home mom.

I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

I wanted to wear heels during the day and slippers at night while I rocked my precious children to sleep. However, with Daniel working full-time, writing part-time, and the cost of having three kids under five in daycare, it didn’t financially make sense for me to go back to work. So, life tumbled on.

A year ago, a theme began to appear in my life.

Whether it was the latest Bible study I was doing, or the new hit song that would play on the radio—the theme was “SEEN.” Slowly, God’s past whispers of “I have not forgotten you,” turned into billboards screaming, “THE UNSEEN IS SEEN.” Suddenly, through one event catapulting to another, my dormant dreams, passions, and aspirations emerged from their cocooned state.

What is unseen to you is SEEN by God.

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Husbands, I share my story with you because we have something in common.

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What’s Wrong With This Statement? “I want to do great things for God”

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“I want to make my life count. I want to do big things for the kingdom. I only want to do things that have an eternal significance.”

Have you ever prayed such prayers? I know I definitely have.

In fact, when I was getting serious about my relationship with Christ, this is what I regularly prayed for because I wanted my life to count. I wanted to make a difference in this world. I didn’t want to live for what was temporal—my fame and my glory—but for what was eternal.

I wanted to be like the great missionary, William Carey, who famously said, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

If I wanted to see great things from God, I figured that there was only one way to get there—by doing “great” things for God. Not small and insignificant things, but rather, big, significant, and influential things.

“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” – William Carey

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My intentions were right; the only problem was my heart—my prideful and self-centered heart.

I judged doing “great” things for God and kingdom significance according to size. Here’s what I thought:

  • Pastoring at a small church = Small impact
  • Speaking at a small conference = Not significant
  • Having a small platform = Lack of the right gifting

So to do “great” things for God, I had to do. I had to be the pastor. I had to be the speaker. I had to be the preacher. I had to be the hero.

I wonder what would’ve happened if I knew earlier that God wanted me to be a hero-maker, rather than the hero? I wonder if I would’ve gone through as much heart break and sorrow?

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Why Every Church Planter Should Plant Pregnant

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Planting a church is like having a baby.

It’s hard to know when you should start trying. During pregnancy some babies thrive, and others have more of a difficult time. When the baby is delivered, it’s messy and painful, but in the end a beautiful life is born, the labor is forgotten, and we often want to have another.

Planting a church is like having a baby

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In the same way it’s difficult to know when you should start plans for a daughter church; after all, there always seems to be a countless number of reasons to put it off:

  • “We aren’t even two years old, and I’m the only staff member.”
  • “When we begin to hit budget, I’ll consider starting a daughter church.”
  • “We’re too small. If we start a daughter church, that’ll cannibalize our people and finances.”
  • “Isn’t that the denomination’s responsibility anyway?”
  • “I’m barely keeping my head above the water, and you want me to add something that big onto my plate?”

Sound familiar? If you’ve found yourself saying similar things, you’re not alone.

However, once you get past those initial hurdles and decide to plant a daughter church, sometimes the assessment, training, and preparation of the planter goes well; however, other times the process unfortunately ends prematurely.

And when that daughter church is finally ready to be launched, it’s painful because everything changes.

You lose leaders, people, tithes, and your sense of normal.

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