Q & A with Lynn Vincent, Senior Writer for WORLD

Q: Why do you do what you do?

LV: I do what I do because I can’t not do it. I once read, and I can’t remember who said it, probably Mark Twain because he said everything… “Don’t try to make a living as a writer unless you can’t help it.” And that’s me. I am called to write, so that’s the reason I do it. I’ve been doing it since I was ten.

Q: Why do you believe what you do matters?

LV: We are changed by stories. Same Kind of Different is a great example. [Same Kind of Different as Me, which Lynn co-authored in collaboration with Ron Hall and Denver Moore, has been on the New York Times Bestsellers list for over a year.] … After Same Time came out Ron Hall was getting letters about marriages being saved, about people reading the book and going, “I want to do something.” …We know of two families that have adopted children – not because they’re particularly emulating exactly what Ron and Denver and Deborah did, but because they’re saying, “Wow, I want to love like Deborah loved…”

Q: How is your work connected to larger trends in 21st century journalism?

LV: The power of the narrative in 21st century journalism is exactly the same as it was in 1st century journalism. Luke…wrote the only gospel that was told from end to end in the order that things actually happened, and his book of Acts was extremely detailed with facts and historical figures and accurate locations… Twenty-first century journalism, if correctly practiced, should be no different. You will see a lot of things today masquerading as journalism, but what Luke said was I’m going to tell you this story and I am going to tell you it in order that you may know the truth.

Q: What is your sense of God’s place in the world? How do you encounter and respond to it?

LV: I can sum up my response in Psalm 37:3 … “Trust in the Lord and do good.” I think if you could boil a life down to seven words, you could do that – you could do those seven words…

Q: What is the biggest challenge you have faced as a journalist?

LV: There are so many stories to tell and not enough time to tell them… I have to just constantly remember that God has prepared in advance good works for me to do that I should walk in them...

Another challenge that I’ve had in the past is that there were…investigative stories that I worked on for WORLD that exposed wrongdoing in the church. I was more mercilessly attacked for these – both personally and professionally –then for anything I wrote criticizing the left. Editors like Marvin Olasky and Nick Icker…counseled me that the best thing to do in the face of those kinds of attacks is to withstand them in dignified silence. I’ve come to think of Marvin as my yoda.