Jarred Fenlason

What I write. Books on the nearness of God. The Nearness, The Interval, The Man Who Knew God, and what comes next are published by Encounter Press, the small press I run from the mountains of North Carolina.

What I hunt for. Some of the men and women who walked closest to God wrote in other centuries, and some in other tongues, and their books have been out of reach for a long time. Encounter Classics is where I bring them back: Tersteegen and Bernières translated into English, Rebecca Springer annotated and made easier for the modern reader, and in fall 2026 Gerlac Petersen.

Some of what I find, I give away. Tersteegen wrote letters as well as books; for the first time, all 605 of them are in English, free to read at gerhardtersteegen.com. And for many years I’ve kept walterbeuttler.com, where the messages and study notes of a Bible teacher who carried God’s presence to a hundred countries are free to anyone who wants them.

What I share with pastors. Encounter Discipleship began as my doctoral project: eight weeks, fifteen people, a Tuesday-night prayer room in Florida, and one question. Could ordinary churchgoers learn to hear God’s voice, encounter his presence, and pass it on? They could. The book is now in its third edition and is used by pastors in several countries.

What I’m part of. Since 2019 I’ve worked alongside a pastor in southern India whose team is carrying the gospel village by village across his district: churches planted, hundreds of children in Bible school every year, a well drilled where there was none. The work is carried by Kids in Crisis International, where I serve as a director.

Where I’ve been. I’ve spent most of my working life in business, and still do; I’ve come to see it as a gift rather than a distraction. At thirty-five I stepped away for eight years to study and to serve. I earned a Doctor of Ministry, and for several years taught as an adjunct professor at Global Awakening Theological Seminary. With Rochelle and two friends I kept a house of prayer in Florida, first called the Secret Place and later the SHOP, where people came on Tuesday nights to worship, pray for one another, and encounter the presence and love of God.

We live now in the mountains, where I write and translate, walk the woods, and keep looking for what is on God’s heart: what he is doing now, and what he has done in the lives of men and women who walked close to him across the centuries. I’ve never wanted to spend words for their own sake. When something is burning, I write it down.