ONE YEAR

A Letter to the Community That Built This

One year ago today, I sat in a room that was too quiet and typed words into a platform I did not fully understand.

I had no Substack following. No algorithm. No badge. No ranking. No proof that anyone would read what I was about to write. I had a name for the thing — The Pen & Press Vanguard — and a conviction that would not let me sleep: that somewhere, someone needed a voice that carried both weight and warmth, both truth and tenderness, both theology and craft.

I pressed publish.

And you came.

——— ✦ ———

What God Did

I want to be precise about this, because precision honors the God who did it.

In twelve months, The Pen & Press Vanguard grew from zero to a Substack Bestseller, ranked in the top five in Faith & Spirituality on the entire platform. Subscribers now span 45 states and 10 countries. Our open rate has held above 47 percent — more than double the industry standard. Our paid subscriber growth rate has been rated “Excellent” by Substack every month it has been measured. Our paid cancellation rate last month was zero.

During the Anniversary Raffle, four donors — acting independently, without coordination — funded a combined one hundred annual paid subscriptions for strangers in this community. One hundred people who now have full access to every premium series we publish, given to them by people who believe in this work so deeply that they invested on behalf of readers they will never meet.

I did not engineer this. I did not strategize it into existence. I wrote, and you carried. I published, and you shared. I prayed, and God moved.

Every number I just listed is a name. Every metric is a person. And every person is someone God placed in the path of these words for a reason I may never fully understand.

To Him be the glory. Every syllable of it.

——— ✦ ———

To You

I have read every comment. Every reply. Every message. Every entry in the Anniversary Raffle.

I have read the woman fighting a rare cancer who opens Morning Mastery before her feet touch the floor because it is the only thing that keeps her grounded. I have read the caregiver who lost her father and brought her mother home and found an After Hours With God prayer on the worst night of her life and said it gave her a peace that passes understanding. I have read the teacher who reads these words before walking into a room full of middle schoolers and prays to be the hands and feet of Jesus to them. I have read the widow who shares every post with another widow because the words helped her survive her own grief thirteen years ago.

I have read the woman who entered the raffle and then withdrew her name so that someone else could have the gift instead.

You are not an audience. You have never been an audience. You are a congregation. You are the reason I write at 4 AM and the reason I do not stop. You are the people these words were always meant for. And if nothing else ever came of this work, the fact that it reached you would be enough.

Thank you. From the deepest place I have.

——— ✦ ———

The Anniversary Raffle — and a Gift That Grew Beyond What We Imagined

What began as twenty gifted subscriptions from one anonymous donor became something none of us expected. Three more donors came forward — unsolicited, uncoordinated — and the total grew to one hundred annual paid subscriptions. One hundred gifts. Four donors. No conditions. Only generosity.

Here is how we are stewarding that generosity.

Today, I am announcing the first wave of raffle winners. Forty of you who entered the raffle — who replied with your stories, your testimonies, your reasons for wanting to be inside this community — have been selected and notified privately. You will receive a full annual paid subscription to every premium offering on the Vanguard. After Hours With God. The Inner Court. The Pen & Press Exposition. The King’s Hour. Morning Mastery Weekend Commentaries. Lightning Scripture. MicroGospels. Everything. For a full year.

In addition, thirty of the most faithful and engaged free subscribers on the Vanguard have been identified and gifted a paid subscription by these same donors. You did not enter a raffle. You did not ask. You simply showed up — every morning, every evening, every week — and your faithfulness was noticed. Those notifications are arriving today.

That is seventy of the one hundred.

The remaining thirty gifted subscriptions will be deployed throughout the summer — because the donors did not give one hundred gifts so that they could all be spent in a single day. They gave so that the door could stay open, week after week, for people who have not yet found us. More details on that are coming in the weeks ahead.

To everyone who entered and was not selected in this first wave: your words are not lost. I read every single one. Many of you said things I will carry for the rest of my life. The Vanguard is not going anywhere. The door remains open. And the work you described — the way these words have met you — is the very reason I cannot stop writing them.

To the four donors: you know who you are. You know what you did. And you know why you did it. Everything we have belongs to Him anyway. All glory to God.

——— ✦ ———

And now — the announcement I have been carrying.

I have been building something in silence for a long time. Through the mornings and the evenings. Through the devotionals and the expositions. Through every word published on this platform over the past twelve months. Something was forming underneath it all — something that needed its own cover, its own spine, its own weight in your hands.

Before The Day: A Devotional for the Formed and Forming

by Lev Montgomery

This is my next book.

Before The Day is a devotional born from the same fire that built Morning Mastery — but deeper. Longer. More complete. It is written for the person who meets God before the day begins and needs more than a quote and a prayer. It is for the formed and the forming — for those who have walked with God for decades and those who are just learning to hear His voice in the early hours.

It is for you.

Every page carries the same voice you have come to trust on this platform. The same conviction. The same craft. The same refusal to be shallow when the moment calls for depth. But in a form you can hold in your hands, carry to the chair where you sit with your coffee and your Bible, and return to morning after morning after morning.

Pre-order details are coming soon. When the pre-order opens, the Vanguard community will be the first to know. Not social media. Not a press release. You. Because you believed first, and you deserve to hear it first.

If you have read Flashes of Fire, you know what I bring to the page. Before The Day is the next step. And I cannot wait to put it in your hands.

——— ✦ ———

One More Thing

The Vanguard is not finished growing.

This Tuesday, May 12 at 7:00 PM ET, I will be introducing a new flagship section of The Pen & Press Vanguard: The Hearth.

I am not going to say much about it today. It deserves its own introduction, and it will receive one Tuesday evening. What I will tell you is this: The Hearth is something I have wanted to build since the day the Vanguard launched. It fills a space in this community that nothing else we publish has been able to fill. And when you see what it is, you will understand why I waited a full year to open it.

The introduction is Tuesday, May 12 at 7:00 PM ET. The premiere drops Saturday, May 16.

Be here for both.

——— ✦ ———

Year Two

One year ago, I pressed publish with shaking hands and a prayer that someone would read what I wrote.

Today, I sit in a room that is no longer quiet. It is filled with the names and stories and prayers and testimonies of hundreds of people across forty-five states and ten countries who have made this community their home.

Year one was the foundation.

Year two is the building.

A new book is coming. A new section opens this week. New series are in development that I have not yet announced. The work is deeper than it has ever been, and it is reaching further than I ever imagined.

And none of it — not a single word of it — would exist without you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for staying. Thank you for believing before there was evidence.

Now let’s build what comes next.

— Lev Montgomery

Founder, Pen & Press Publishing LLC

The Pen & Press Vanguard — One Year

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