Once upon a time, a tall and very homeschooled teenage lad witnessed a certain 1999 space franchise prequel hero printed on a pizza box. That’s when this teenage homeschooled student came up with a brilliantly original thought:

Say, what if there was an adventure story set in space—but, you know, about Christians?

Plot twist: That teen lad was me all along. I had grown up surrounded by great Christian-made stories. Adventures in Odyssey arrived first, showing me so many biblical truths and beauties, including God’s wonderful gift of imagination that can glorify Him. Then came The Chronicles of Narnia, The Left Behind series, The Lord of the Rings, the Star Trek universe, stray superhero film franchises, and beyond.

From 2005 to 2006, I was a reporter in local journalism, and in 2009, I married the love of my life, Lacy Rhiannon. All the while I studied Christian publishing realities and attended writers’ conferences. In 2010, I helped restart a legacy team blog dedicated to exploring fantasy and sci-fi from a Christian-worldview.

Local pastors, like mine and Lacy’s at Faith Baptist Church (north of Austin, Texas), helped train me to love biblical teaching as members in a local body of believers.

Authors like Randy Alcorn taught me how to long for New Heavens and New Earth.

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Ministers like John Piper taught me how to seek ultimate joy in Jesus and His gospel.

And so many fantastical Christian storytellers taught me that Christian-made fantasy and sci-fi is fantastic and can reach a growing audience. Inspired by this potential, I founded Lorehaven.com, a reforged mission created by biblical Christian fans and storytellers to explore fantastical stories for God’s glory.

Lorehaven.com began in 2018 with a print magazine, then later replaced this with a podcast and all-digital mission. Over 1,500 listed books, 330+ reviews, hundreds of articles, and over 250 Fantastical Truth podcast episodes ¹ now serve thousands of fantastical readers—including Christian fans, homeschool families, church influencers, and cultural conservatives.

If you seek fantastical books that ignore Agendas and instead reflect the beauty, goodness, and truth of our Author, you can find these books at Lorehaven!

Meanwhile, my interest in popular cultural engagement led to articles for Christ and Pop Culture² and a few Christianity Today movie reviews.³ I worked with authors like Ted Turnau and Dr. Jared Moore, then joined forces with them to cowrite my first book, the nonfiction-about-fiction The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ (2020, New Growth Press).

The Pop Culture Parent led to articles at The Gospel Coalition and beyond. I met families at conferences like Teach Them Diligently and the Florida Parent Educators Association, often appearing with the Realm Makers Bookstore. In fact, were it not for Realm Makers—the only Christian-led organization that trains and connects fantastical creators of faith—I would not also have persisted in my sci-fi aspirations.

Coming in March 2025, Enclave Publishing launches my first sci-fi adventure, Above the Circle of Earth. Years of life experience helped reform this story from that original basic concept (“Christians in space”). Instead, this personal epic orbits one heroic couple of the next century, Brock and Alicia Rivers. Their foolish choice got them exiled to Mars, soon to be overtaken by the spacefaring humanist regime CAUSE. Now, Brock’s isolated people plan to restore missions for the 22nd century, voyaging beyond Earth to share the gospel in space. Brock must find a ship and recruit a team of misfit believers. They will face not just adversaries who attack from the shadows, but threats from their own people who oppose the first Space Mission.

Above the Circle of Earth will drive more of my appearances in 2025, from podcasts to homeschool events to other speaking opportunities. Reach out to see if my love for Christian-made sci-fi—and all fantastical genres!—can also serve your audience.