Michael Hyatt is a rare person. He is Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a pioneering thinker on the topic of intentional leadership, and a good friend.

Mike is uncommonly curious. He wants to understand the world around him. He wants to know about you, the things you care about, and why God invited you to the party. Life still surprises him, and people like that are harder and harder to find these days.

I’ve been away most of the summer, but I was back in Nashville two weeks ago and Mike asked if we could sit and talk about my [...] Continue Reading →

Al Andrews is the founder of Porter’s Call, a ministry of counsel and support for recording artists, and their families outside Nashville. He is also the author of one of my favorite children’s books titled The Boy, the Kite, and the Wind but that’s a topic for a different post.

Al and I were eating breakfast at Puckett’s Restaurant when he asked if I would be willing to read a few pieces from my yet to be released memoir Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me: A Memoir…Of Sorts at a benefit for his ministry.

“Absolutely,” I said, through a [...] Continue Reading →

Every year on Father’s Day I used to watch the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird. As an insecure young dad it was an agonizing exercise. What dad can win the comparison game against Atticus Finch?

Finch, played superbly by Gregory Peck, is the paragon of fatherhood. He’s strong, a pillar of courage, brimming with dignity, yet a gentle and attentive single parent to his two children. If that weren’t enough Finch always knows exactly what to say at precisely the right moment.

“Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand,” he says to his 10 year-old son Jem. “It’s [...] Continue Reading →

(Nashville, Tenn.) – Thomas Nelson, Inc. is pleased to announce that Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…Of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron has been selected as a featured title in the Barnes & Noble (B&N) Discover Great New Writers program.

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…of Sorts will be part of the program for the months of August, September, and October 2011 at B&N stores nationwide and online at BarnesandNoble.com.

Former authors to be selected as part of the B&N Discover Great New Writers include Cormac McCarthy, Elizabeth Gilbert, Frank McCourt, Barbara Kingsolver, Yann Martel, Alice [...] Continue Reading →

With Father’s Day around the corner I decided to compose a short list of books that inspired me to “up my dad-game.”

To make the exercise interesting I only gave myself five minutes to write the list, I limited myself to five titles, and I couldn’t use Google.

The list had to be spontaneous, written under pressure, and maddeningly inadequate. This way there would be so many glaring omissions that others would be moved to offer their own suggestions.

Here are five books containing great fathers who inspired me to become a better father.

To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee [...] Continue Reading →