Called: The Crisis and Promise of Following Jesus Today

The most urgent call upon God’s people is to live as followers of Jesus. The most indicting critique against the church is as simple: its failure to do so. As the leader of an evangelical theological seminary that trains men and women as leaders for the church and society, Mark Labberton writes: "People ask many questions about how their lives relate to the world. What are our lives in this world about? What are we to make of being human? Why are we here? Is there a reason we are alive, and, if so, how would we know what that is? These questions are brought on at times by beauty and joy, but also by the daunting facts of our own lives or of the world around us. We look around in doubt, in pain, in suffering. These are human questions asked throughout history by those inside and outside the church." We long to renew our hope for a world broken and hurting. And it is we, God’s people living in the power of the Holy Spirit, who are called to become this hope and flourish while in exile. Here is the crisis: we are made and redeemed for this calling, but it slides through our fingers. Here is the promise: living and practicing who and why we are is our Christian vocation whenever and wherever we may be. Will you answer the call?

• Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation
• Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality
• Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
• Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation (Renovare Resources)
• The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy
• Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire
• Rachel's Cry: Prayer of Lament and Rebirth of Hope
• Practicing Affirmation: God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God
• Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace
• Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries