A Suffolk native has published his third and fourth books recently.

Dr. Michael Reilly grew up in Hall Place and served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He and his wife, Jean, have been married for nearly 42 years and have lived in many different countries ministering to people and to churches.

The Reillys were involved in youth ministry in the 1980s and later moved to Virginia Beach so Reilly could work on his master’s degree.

In 1995, he was invited on a missions trip to Cuba, and that opened the door to ministry in other countries, including Mexico, Brazil and the Bahamas.

He has always wanted to write, he said.

“I was clueless what that really meant, pragmatically speaking,” he said.

He started writing when he got the idea to put the bedtime stories he was telling his granddaughter, Kailyn, into book form.

“I would just sit there and fabricate this story,” he said of the stories he told Kailyn. “I kind of took the stories and passed them on. I wrote it as if I’m talking to Kailyn.”

Once that first book, “The Tree House Stories,” was written, writing became much easier.

“Once the door opened, it was like a conveyor belt,” Reilly said.

His next three books have been about his faith and ministry. He has written “New Wineskins,” “Anointing and Spiritual Gifts,” and “The Master’s Model.”

“The Master’s Model,” the most recent book, examines how Jesus interacted with the 12 apostles, Reilly said.

He said many people have been deceived into thinking that having a relationship with the local church is synonymous with having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

“If learning more and more Scripture was the focus of all of Jesus’s time, our local churches would be vibrant with His presence and we would be impacting the world as a result, but instead the world is impacting us,” Reilly said.

He and his wife currently live in Corapeake, and they minister to anybody and any church that needs them.

“The Lord has uniquely gifted him to where he can go to pretty much any denomination and he teaches the same thing, and it’s well-received,” Jean Reilly said. “This is what we’re supposed to be doing. “We’ve always been willing to do whatever the Lord wanted us to do, and it’s been a wonderful path seeing people’s lives change. I’m not saying it’s always been easy, but it’s always fulfilling.”

Visit his website at www.reillywithlsm.com. The books can be purchased there or online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.