A central Iowa minister has written a book about members of a fictional small-town church with a Yuletide theme.
Pastor Dave Nervig, from Bethesda Lutheran Church in Jewell, says the book is based on a series of tales he told during his Christmas Day sermons over the past decade and a half.
“We would have huge Christmas Eves and I wanted something a little different for Christmas morning so I started writing stories about an imaginary congregation and how they experienced Christmas,” Pastor Nervig says. “For 15 years, I crafted those stories and now I’ve rewritten them and put them into this little book.”
The book is called, “Letters from Pleasant View Lutheran Church,” which he’s placed in South Dakota.
“None of these characters exist but we all know people exactly like them,” Nervig says. “We’ve all met the characters before with different names and in different places.”
Nervig said the book focuses on the lives of these fictional folks between 1985 and 1999.
“Each story is about a different one of the characters, their life experience, and how that ties into being a Christian and at the same time, struggling with what it means to be a human who is frail and makes mistakes.”
The book can be ordered online at Amazon and at BarnesandNoble.com.
By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City