About
About True Bearing Press
A small Christian publisher in Saranac, Michigan.
Who we are
A small press that takes good writing seriously
True Bearing Press publishes thoughtful, substantive Christian nonfiction: books on Christian living, theology, ministry, and the questions churches are facing now. Our Puzzle Arbor imprint publishes Bible puzzle and coloring books, and our Church Renewal imprint, coming soon, will publish books on church revitalization and spiritual renewal.
We believe there’s room for a small Christian publisher that treats authors fairly, takes good writing seriously, and produces books worth reading. We haven’t figured everything out yet, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
The name
A true bearing is a direction measured from true north, rather than from wherever a compass needle happens to point. We want our books to point readers toward what’s true.
Our founder
Bart Denny
Bart Denny, Ph.D., is a retired naval officer who pastors a rural church in west Michigan. He spent nearly twenty-two years in the U.S. Navy, serving on submarines and destroyers and commanding two coastal patrol ships, before he went to seminary and into pastoral ministry.
From 2022 to 2024 he worked as a buyer for Bibles, nonfiction and academic books at a Christian bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That job is where he met the self-published authors whose books he couldn’t stock, and it’s why True Bearing Press exists.
He holds a Ph.D. from Liberty University’s John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, teaches Christian leadership as adjunct faculty at Grand Canyon University, and is the author of Reassigned and Human, Still. He writes on the True Bearing Press blog.
Read the letter that started it
In 2023, while he was still a bookstore buyer, Bart wrote an open letter to self-published Christian authors about what he was seeing from the other side of the counter.