About this item
Western culture is in a tailspin, and Christian faith is entangled in it: we do kingdom things in empire ways. Western approaches to faith leave us feeling depressed, doubting, anxious, and burned out. We know something is wrong with the way we do faith and church in the West, but we're so steeped in it that we don't know where to begin to break old habits.Popular pastor and speaker Mandy Smith invites us to be unfettered from the deeply ingrained habits of Western culture so we can do kingdom things in kingdom ways again. She explores how we can be transformed by new postures and habits that help us see God already at work in and around us. The way forward isn't more ideas, programs, and problem-solving but in Jesus's surprising invitation to the kingdom through childlikeness.
About the Author
Originally from Australia, Mandy Smith is lead pastor of University Christian Church, a campus and neighborhood congregation with its own fair-trade café in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a speaker and author, most recently of The Vulnerable Pastor and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith Beyond the Baggage of Western Culture (Brazos, 2021) . Mandy and her husband Jamie, a New Testament professor, live with their family in a little house where the teapot is always warm.www.TheWayIsTheWay.org"To those with the most impossible of 'jobs' -- our pastors -- comes a great gift: The Vulnerable Pastor. Here, with great care, Mandy Smith manages to reframe what it means to be a pastor and to infuse it with the life of the gospel. I truly tell you that The Vulnerable Pastor resonated with the core of my being. It not only made being a pastor possible again, it made being a pastor wonderful." (David Fitch, B. R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology, Northern Seminary, author of Prodigal Christianity) (Of "Making a Mess") : "Mandy Smith is a provocateur of imagination and holy mischief. Here is an invitation to play with God. May it spark something in you that will bend the world a little closer to Jesus and to justice." Shane Claiborne(Of "Life is Too Important") : "The biggest questions are still the oldest ones: Where do I find meaning? What produces authentic joy? How do I live well and wisely in light of my finitude? Every once in a while someone raises these questions in a fresh, light-giving way. This is Mandy Smith's gift to us."John Ortberg
