Praise for - Today! -The Best Day of My LIfe

"If you have heard me speak, you already know I often talk about my dear friends on death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee. KB (Kevin Burns) is one of these friends. This book is about KB and includes his close relationship with KR (Kevin Riggs), a Franklin pastor. If you are curious and want to hear a story of how an innocent man wound up on death row, read this book. If you want to know what day-to-day life is like on death row, read this book. If you want to hear a story of redemption that will surprise you, well, you know what to do. You can thank me later."

Paul Young, author, The Shack

“Kevin Burns and Kevin Riggs are two of the most interesting and inspiring people I know. And I am elated that they have captured their story in writing. I’ve had the privilege of being on their journey with them for the past decade or so. KB is one of the first people I met on Tennessee’s death row, and he has been firing me up ever since. I was present when KB was officially ordained by Kevin Riggs, and being served communion there on death row is one of the most powerful experiences of my life. This book is about grace, redemption, faith, and friendship. It is also a story about how broken our criminal justice system is and the lives that are on the line. Let this book move you, change you, and shape you into a revolutionary for love.”

Shane Claiborne, author & cofounder of Red Letter Christians

 “I have known Kevin Burns (KB) for more than twenty years. I have been inspired by his faith and Christian example. I usually met KB when I went to Unit 1, RMSI, to serve communion to the Christians there on Sunday mornings. I have seen and admired his very positive relationships with the men housed there as well as the officers. He is deeply respected by all who know him. This book tells KB’s story and is a strong statement of the failures and shortcomings in the justice and prison systems in the United States. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about justice and redemption.”

 Michael Duncan

“Heartbreaking and hopeful, this book is a testament to the life-giving power of God's love as it confronts the death-dealing power of the state. Pastors Kevin Burns and Kevin Riggs give us a rare glimpse into the machinations of the death penalty system from both an insider and outsider perspective, while demonstrating how their faith and friendship give them hope in the face of a system that often seems hopeless.”

 Stacy Rector, executive director,Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

“Kevin Burns’s (KB’s) book (coauthored with Pastor Kevin Riggs), Today Is the Best Day of My Life, is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand prisoners and the role of faith in their lives. It is also, and relatedly, a priceless account of the relationship between a faith mentor and his prisoner friend. For those on the outside of prisons, the image of inmates is often shaped by reality TV documentaries, YouTube videos, and the nightly news. Through those lenses, prisoners appear as irredeemably evil and best locked up forever in their concrete cells. Understanding prisoners and the prison universe they inhabit requires seeing them from a different perspective. Today Is the Best Day of My Life provides that perspective. In its pages we read of crime, the streets of Memphis, arrest, and the criminal justice system. We learn of life in prison and the death penalty: all told from the vantage point of a person who is and has been there. Above all, we read the words of a man who has found God, and with the guidance and friendship of Pastor Riggs, committed to Him, studied, and lived His Word, and who has been called to become himself an ordained pastor serving the Lord.

The title KB gave this book, Today Is the Best Day of My Life, is no mere throwaway line, no cliché (“have a nice day . . . ,” “I appreciate you . . .”), but rather expresses the presence of a deep faith, the lived heart of the journey this book recounts. Despite what might appear to be terribly miserable years in prison, always in the shadow of the execution chamber, KB has found the best day of his life: a day, a life, of God’s gifts, His comfort and the hope He gives each of us, whether in prison or outside. For the better part of the past ten years, I have been a faith volunteer at Riverbend prison’s death row, where KB lives. Just about every Saturday, as I enter death row to meet with my group, I come across KB, and ask him, “How are things going, KB?” And every time, with a wide smile, he answers, “Today is the best day of my life!” He means it, and should you ask him how that can be so, he’ll tell you that it is through his relationship with the Lord, with the One who consoles, encourages, and gives hope.

There is much for all of us to learn from this faith-filled book.”

 Deacon James Booth