Author Spotlight: Garth and Mary Jestley
We are pleased to introduce Garth and Mary Jestley. They recently published The Portal: Enter Into a New Life Filled with Purpose, Peace, and Hope which is available through the Word Alive Press Bookstore, and everywhere fine Christian books are sold. We asked Garth and Mary to share a little bit about their new book and how it came to be. But first, a little bit about them.
About
Garth and Mary Jestley grew up in the same Vancouver neighbourhood, though they went to different schools. They met at the University of British Columbia where both were pursuing a Bachelor of Science and characterize their relationship as love-at-first-sight, since they seriously discussed getting married on their first date!
After graduating from UBC, Garth and Mary married and moved to London, Ontario where Garth completed his MBA while Mary worked as a physiotherapist. Upon graduation, Garth entered the world of finance. Their first of many moves was to Toronto, where Mary pursued her career while Garth began working as an investment analyst.
Three years later, after being provoked to examine the Christian faith by one of her patients, Mary had a dramatic encounter with Jesus and accepted him as her Saviour and Lord.
While pleased, Garth regarded her decision as having no direct relevance to his own life, particularly in respect of his career. However, when the president of Citibank New York announced Garth’s promotion to vice president, he experienced a startling feeling of emptiness.
Finally, while attending a church in Montreal at Mary's invitation, Garth also had a dramatic encounter with Jesus.
From then on, Garth and Mary were united in their passion to follow Jesus wherever he might lead. This passion informed every aspect of their personal lives, including the raising of their four children. While Garth remained in business, ultimately serving as CEO and an owner of an international investment management firm, he treated his work life as his calling and frequently shared his faith with other marketplace leaders.
When he felt a nudge from God to exit full-time corporate leadership, Garth sold his interest in the company and took on the role of executive director of LeaderImpact, whose mission is to help marketplace leaders explore the relevance of faith in God in their professional and personal lives.
Garth and Mary are leaders in their local church and frequently teach, including participating in their church’s International Leaders School of Ministry in various countries around the world. In addition, they love spending time with their many children and grandchildren.
Q&A
Q: What prompted you to co-author your new book, The Portal: Enter Into a New Life Filled with Purpose, Peace, and Hope?
A: Our primary goal in writing this book is to reach not-yet-believers with the good news of Jesus Christ. In today’s secular culture, life simply works for most people, ups and downs notwithstanding. As a result, they don’t feel a need to pursue God.
Our book is intended to provoke in readers a desire to connect with God. For example, it challenges them to consider whether their lives might be characterized as “just getting by” or genuinely fulfilling. By sharing how our relationship with Jesus provided us with a new life filled with purpose, peace, and hope, we pray that the Holy Spirit will convict them of their need for God and explain the action they need to take to have a relationship with him.
Our secondary goal is to encourage other believers through our personal stories to go deeper in their relationship with God. Our prayer is that they will see the book as a tool to help them fulfill their assignment to be more open about their faith by sharing the book with anyone who doesn’t have a vibrant relationship with God.
Q: After you became believers, your lives weren’t always smooth sailing. Could you elaborate?
A: In John 16:33, Jesus told his followers that worldly troubles were the norm rather than the exception. However, he encouraged them by declaring that he had overcome the world.
Since becoming believers, we can attest to the reality that life has been anything but smooth sailing, though there have been calm stretches! Like most believers, we have experienced lots of troubles, some of which we document in the book, including significant financial challenges and serious health setbacks, like a cancer diagnosis. However, in every case, we emerged victorious as we trusted in Jesus to see us through these storms.
Q: Garth, what is the background behind your previous book, More Than Your Business Card: A Wake-up Call for Leaders Desiring to Follow Jesus in the Marketplace?
A: During my career in the financial services sector, I observed that most believers don’t treat their role in the marketplace as their calling from God. Often, they see it as a placeholder pending their moving to a more spiritual calling. Besides being unbiblical, this perspective robs them of fulfillment as they labour in a role that will occupy a significant percentage of their God-given time on earth.
The book makes the case that business can be a legitimate, important, and fulfilling calling. It motivates readers to step up to their marketplace assignment and provides tools to answer Jesus’s call on their work lives.
Q: How do you come up with ideas for new books?
A: At the beginning of most days, we spend time together worshipping God, praying, and reading our Bibles. On occasion, we discuss what we believe are nudges from the Holy Spirit concerning messages he wants to communicate through us, and these discussions sometimes translate into ideas for books—or, in Garth’s case, blogs.
Q: Once you sense that you are to write, how do you proceed?
A: We create an outline of the message. We don’t generally proceed from this stage until we have a good idea of the personal illustrations we will use to make our point and how we will open and conclude the book or blog.
Q: What is your editing process like before sending the manuscript to a publisher?
A: While suggestions from editors invariably lead to improvements in what we’ve written, we are in fact very harsh editors of anything we write. Almost without exception, every sentence goes through many edits!
Q: Do you have any advice for new writers?
A: Before launching into a new book, pray for God’s guidance! Writing a book is challenging and time-consuming. Therefore, it’s important to determine whether God is calling you to write the book at this time.
We recommend writing a one-page overview. It should include the overall message of the book and an outline of the contents. It’s important that the overview be limited to no more than one page, since this constraint provides the kind of focus that clarifies one’s thinking. It’s also important to clearly define the primary target market for your book. This definition not only informs the book’s marketing program but also the content of the manuscript. Finally, to the extent possible, we suggest setting aside a fixed time to write each day.
Connecting Points
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