A wonderful place for spiritual and creative energies is the Niños prayer group (yeah, "neenyos," you got it). We've been meeting for more than a dozen years now and it remains fresh: lots of fun; amazing prayer; miraculous answers; wonderful support and encouragement in our creative endeavors, including a handful of doctoral theses prayed-through and completed.

We are called The Niños because there was an El Niño weather system bringing in big weather drama during the first few months we met and "niņos" means "children." So, as children of God, we are grateful to be His Niños.
 

 
Joseph Bentz is one of the "original Niños" --along with Mike and Diana Glyer, Laura Simmons, and myself-- and when the group started he'd published one book and had another under consideration. Now Joe has a veritable stable of successful books, both fiction and non-fiction.
 
Joe's latest is God in Pursuit: The Tipping Points from Doubt to Faith.
 
           
 

 
Diana Glyer is the one God gave the vision for the Niños; she has always had a strong sense of community and understands that God built us for relationship - both with Him and with each other. One of our regular prayer focuses was Diana's award-winning book, The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community - a piece of truly inspiring scholarship that every writer would benefit from reading. If you also happen to be a fan of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis or Charles Williams, well, all the better!
 
Here is a nice interview with Diana on The Tolkien Library website and here are some of my thoughts on my blog.
 
Diana's newest book is Clay in the Potter's Hands, a book on spiritual formation and Christian growth using the God-given analogy of humans as clay in God-the-Potter's hands. No bias but it's a wonderful book!
 
           
 

 
Laura Simmons' excellent book, Creed without Chaos: Exploring Theology in the Writings of Dorothy L. Sayers, is developed from her doctoral thesis and while she's moved out of state to be a professor at George Fox Theological Seminary and thus is no longer a regular Niño, she is always in our hearts (and emails!) and we were thrilled to be noted in her thanks.
 

 
Monica Ganas has just published her first book, Under the Influence: California's Intoxicating Spiritual and Cultural Impact on America, and since we've heard her read excerpts out loud at our "Grateful Hearts" celebration, we're all looking forward to reading it.
  
        
 

 
Thomas Allbaugh is another talented Niņo: he has written a textbook, Pretexts for Writing, leads worship, writes fiction, teaches English, and occasionally blogs at Run the Path.
  
        
 

 
The Niños have supported, encouraged and prayed powerfully for me through the years. Fruits of this group in my life include my musical based on the book of Ruth, House of Bread and the companion calendar to Diana's Clay in the Potter's Hands book