James Russell Lingerfelt was born on July 28, 1980. Raised on a cattle farm in northeast Alabama (population 1,100), he spent the first twenty years of his life helping his dad and brother maintain the family farm and doctor cattle. Lingerfelt was an average student in high school, yet excelled in Literature, gravitating toward the writings of Emerson and Thoreau, due to their post-romantic portrayals of the North American countryside. He was involved in the Student Government and started at point guard on the varsity basketball team.

He attended a local two year college through a full tuition theatre scholarship, the same college attended by the members of the legendary country music group, Alabama. There, Lingerfelt acted in the Broadway musicals Annie and Big River and went onto work as an extra and volunteered on the camera crews for Dawson's Creek (starring Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek) and Tim Burton's Big Fish. Lingerfelt was also a member of the college chorus, which performed Gabriel Faure's Requiem in New York City's Carnegie Hall.

Lingerfelt majored in Psychology, and worked part-time on the college maintenance crew, scrubbing toilets and mopping floors. He also worked at his local home bank as a bookkeeper. Having a close relationship with his parents and older brother, he studied in-state, journeying to Auburn University where he and his brother were roommates.
    
James Russell's brother is Dewey Wayne Lingerfelt, the lead singer for the award winning Texas country music group, The Dewey Wayne Band. His mother is a middle school math teacher, and his father is a farmer and retired manager after thirty years at a tire factory.

While at Auburn, Lingerfelt completed a BA in Counseling and minored in 19th century British Literature. His focus followed Romantic and Victorian poetry, and the life and theological writings of CS Lewis. He also joined the university lacrosse team as a midfielder, and they went on to win two consecutive conference championships. After befriending international students, Lingerfelt began volunteering with international humanitarian organizations every summer. Early projects included relief work in Jamaica and Romania, medical teams in Mexico, a homeless men's soup kitchen in Scotland, and pursuing Arabic studies while living among Arab-Muslim families in remote areas of North Africa.
    
Lingerfelt wrote his first book as he left Auburn, titled, The Warrior of Ephes Dammim: When Teenagers Overcome their Giants. The book was written for a youth group at a local church where Lingerfelt served a summer following his freshman year of college. Meant only to serve as a pamphlet to instruct teenagers on how to maintain their identity and integrity in high school, the writings were formatted into a book and picked up by a small literary press named JC Choate Publishing. Over a course of two years, it became one of the highest selling books in the publishing company's history. The following year, when the publisher requested to run a second print of the book, Lingerfelt refused, saying he no longer agreed with most of the book's message.

Lingerfelt attended graduate school at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He majored in Theology, and volunteered as a counselor for juvenile delinquents at Camp David Gonzales, in Los Angeles County. While at Pepperdine, Lingerfelt's emphasis was Christian-Muslim Dialogue and post-Enlightenment Theology. Writers and theologians who influenced his spiritual life are Oxford scholar and Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright; the late Yale Chaplain Henri Nouwen; and anti-Nazi, Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. After completing his Masters, Lingerfelt served in campus ministry as a one year interim at Wichita State University, where he studied Patristics (Christian Literature 100-500CE) and the writings of St. Augustine.

Lingerfelt went on to spend a number of months in East Africa, where he counseled genocide refugees in Uganda, and taught as an English teacher at Made-in-the-Streets; a street children's rehabilitation farm in Kenya. Upon returning home and completing a documentary on the street kids, burned out, Lingerfelt resigned from the ministry and academic study. He then applied to work as a ranch hand in northern Colorado. However, after reading The Ragamuffin Gospel by theologian and ex-Franciscan priest, Brennan Manning, Lingerfelt met with Manning at Lake Arrowhead in California, where they had a lengthy conversation concerning purpose in spiritual and third-world poverty. Impacted by this meeting, Lingerfelt has since continued humanitarian efforts (Egypt '07, Mongolia '08, Syria and Palestine '10), and was accepted into Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California to prepare for his PhD in Intercultural Studies, where he maintains a 4.0 GPA.

Lingerfelt serves on the board of directors for LifeBread, and taught two years as a visiting adjunct professor in Theological Studies at Lipscomb University ('07-'09). He was awarded the Lily Endowment for his work with street orphans in 2006. And his documentary, Made in the Streets of Africa, which he wrote and directed in England and Kenya, is now used as course material in a number of universities across the States. In 2008, he founded William and Keats Publishing, which publishes a variety of books, but caters especially to non-profits to help their organizations raise funds at conferences and conventions. In 2011, the company produced the video series, People Who Make a Difference, which features popular leaders and organizations who engage in humanitarian efforts. Issues have included Korn's Brian Welch, the founders of Habitat for Humanity, and economic development through Hope International's microlending. Lingerfelt writes and directs the films and they've been featured on popular nonprofit websites across the world.

Lingerfelt's first novel, The Mason Jar, a coming of age love story set in Tennessee, was distributed as a pre-released book in December 2011. The Mason Jar is available in bookstores nationwide. The official publishing date for the novel is set for October 2012 where an interactive ebook version will be available. Lingerfelt worked on the novel for five years. Thus far, there has been a grassroots buzz about the book. Best-selling author Diana Bold said she was "blown away" by The Mason Jar. And award-winning author Nicole Weaver stated in a review that The Mason Jar reads like "one long beautiful poem." Lingerfelt received consultation during the book's creation from Brad Cummings, the mastermind and co-creator of the international best-selling book, The Shack.

Today, Lingerfelt spends much of his time in the greater Nashville area partnering with Revolution Pictures, where he is being trained in producing and directing for feature films. He also travels and speaks to audiences nationwide concerning the future of faith-based media. Recently, Lingerfelt gave a campus-wide address at Lipscomb University titled, While We Are Here, where he challenged students to play a greater role in ecological and humanitarian efforts.

If you would like to book James Russell for a speaking engagement, see Connect above.














































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