"Jesus is not looking for converts to Christianity; he's looking for apprentices in the kingdom of God."

"The Way of Jesus is not just a theology (a set of ideas that we believe in our heads). It is that, but it's more. And it's not just ethics (a list of dos and don'ts that we obey or disobey). It is that, but it's still more. It's exactly what it sounds like - a way of life. One way to paraphrase Jesus' invitation of "follow me" is to say, "Adopt my overall way of life to experience the life I have on offer."

As I was reading this book, I constantly kept putting it down to text people that they have to read this book when it releases. John Mark Comer provides not only a beautiful vision for discipleship to Jesus, but also an accessible framework to take practical steps. Especially in our modern and distracted world, we desperately need a vision for the grace of transformed lives that Jesus offers us. As someone who has been apprenticing under Jesus for over a decade, I found myself with renewed hope and excitement about the kind of person Jesus desires to see me becoming. Grounded in scripture, filled with historical and modern sages, and packed with practical examples, Practicing the Way is a truly enjoyable and must-read for individuals and communities desiring to follow Jesus in our age.

Thank you to Waterbrook/Multnomah and NetGalley for this advanced copy.

So simple but so profound. I love the simplicity and purity of the book's message and the call to action. JMC has proven himself a necessary voice in today's world. I'm inspired by his words. They are challenging and grace-filled all at once. This book was fantastic, and I will recommend it to everybody.

“In both my personal and pastoral experience, the problem is not that people don’t want to change (most do) or aren’t trying to change (most are); it’s that they do not know how to change. We don’t have a good grasp on how the human soul goes from spiritual birth to spiritual maturity. So we have a lot of spiritual adolescents, few elders.”

This is the problem John Mark Comer seeks to address in Practicing the Way, and he thoroughly succeeds. This book is the single best synthesis of the spiritual journey of being a disciple of Jesus that I have ever read. John Mark Comer brings together a historical perspective of discipleship with the wisdom of how we live this out in the modern world, and it is a brilliant work that will become an invaluable resource to the church in this age. As someone who has listened to many of John Mark’s teachings and read his other books, I view this as the compilation of much of his best work. To anyone outside of the Christian faith, this book is an invitation to take up a life of discipleship to Jesus, and to the church, it is an invitation to the rich depths of experiencing eternal life through knowing Jesus. John Mark balances the beauty of the vision of following Jesus with the immense practicality of crafting a rule of life in community, and the resources he gives for this in the back of the book are worth their weight in gold. This is a book that I will be coming back to many times, and I look forward to its official release to be able to share it with more people.

Thank you to Waterbrook/Multnomah and NetGalley for this advanced copy.