I always appreciate the grace filled way that Sarah Bessey approaches nearly any topic. Initially upon beginning this book I wondered if this wasn't the book I wished that I had been given several years ago - perhaps not entirely startling considering I've walked with Sarah Bessey through much of a similar journey to hers online - but as I continued through it I found ideas that expanded my own, some suggestions to rumble with, and several teary moments.

This is a book for people who are feeling ill at ease with established religious spaces. It might even be a book for people who this is the second or third time you've felt ill at ease here. It is a book for remembering that you belong, even in the wilderness, and that beauty can be found in those spaces. If you're just beginning this journey, this might even be a five star book for you. But even if you've been wandering around the wilderness for a while and you just need a reminder that you're not alone? This book is a solid four stars with plenty of grace, hope, and joy to go around and you'll probably pick up some new ideas along the way.

Not at all what I expected and that resulted in a DNF for me. This book is much more Christian then the promotion would leave one to believe, and makes frequent use of biblical passages. I came for the wilderness, left due to dogma.

I love how Sarah Bessey is always so real. She makes no pretense of perfection, or of knowing it all. She provides great insight into life and spirituality, and the struggles of both. Being one of her books, it feels like you could sit down and have a chat with her at any moment, and feel like you've known her forever. This book is a great guide for those seeking spiritual direction.

I didn't realize I needed this book until I started reading this book!
I highlighted so much, and have been telling so many of my friends about this book.
As someone born and raised in a Southern evangelical household that I held on to for a million years, through moving and grief I have now been rethinking what exactly I believe.
I love that Sarah opens the door for people like me to freely think, and not shove the EXvangelical part down our throat, but introduces "evolving faith" instead.
I still am not to her level of calling God "Mother God", but I loved this book and read it so fast.

A breath of fresh air for anyone who feels alone in their discontent of the American evangelical church while simultaneously wanting to follow Jesus. I would definitely recommend this book!

A gentle but thoughtful book for those of us wanting a truer faith, questioning what we believe and why, and unsure how to wrestle with what we know to be true with what we see in the world. This was excellent. I can’t stop thinking about it.

A thought provoking book filled with wisdom and empathy. There are parts I agreed with and others I didn’t but they all made me think and reflect. I enjoyed all the beautiful stories the author shares. Throughout the book I felt I had finally found a companion to wander in the wilderness with.

Sarah Bessey shared her own experiences of wandering through the spiritual wilderness and offers wisdom and lessons learned along the way.

I found it encouraging to see my experiences are not unique and that there are benefits to the wilderness and rethinking one’s faith. Highly recommend to everyone struggling with the things they’ve been taught or told to believe as a Christian.

this is the kinda book that’s healing to my soul. Sarah has a voice that is uniquely her, but so easily relatable.

Sarah Bessey says this book is about “practices for an evolving faith” - and it is - but for me, even more importantly, it is also a series of love letters to all of us who have been hurt and broken by the church that we keep trying to love. I read only a chapter or 2 at a time, savouring this book and I cried often as I read it, because it felt like Sarah was speaking to my soul. So, yes, read this if you are ready to move forward, bravely, into the wilderness. But also read it if you still just need to sit by a tree with your blanket in the wilderness hoping someday maybe you will be able to get up again. I’m still the second one and I’ll be buying this book when it comes out to reread for that me but also with hope that someday I’ll be the me who is ready to move forward, bravely.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC!

My oh my, reading Sarah Bessey's writing is always like having coffee with a friend and getting a great, comforting Canadian bear hug. I imagine that she is the kind of lady that is just so kind, warm, inclusive, and validating, because that is exactly how she writes. This short book is hopeful, and will encourage you on your faith journey regardless of where you are heading or the path you are on. I don't always see eye-to-eye with Bessey on some things, but that's perfectly okay. I still recommend this book if you feel like you are wandering in the wilderness, and you'll find me continuing to read her writing in the future all the same.

This book will help you mature in your faith. Like Sarah Bessey, the circumstances of my life have led me to reevaluate many things related to Christianity.

What Bessey excels at is getting you to ask questions you had formerly dismissed: maybe it's not a bad thing to doubt, or to pray, or to desire justice. Maybe a Christian can also be a feminist. Maybe the goodness we've sensed in Jesus is even calling us to some of these reconsiderations.

I highly recommend this, especially to someone who (unlike myself, actually) feels locked into Western conservative evangelicalism but senses more to Christianity than that.

Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith is a collection of tenderly written letters offering encouragement and companionship for those in “the wilderness” of an “evolving faith”. Sarah valiantly embraces curiosity and gives permission to address doubts with openness and honesty. While I recognize not all will not come to the same theological conclusions as Sarah, I think her book’s overarching themes of hope, compassion, and belonging can be appreciated by many. Thank you NetGalley and Convergent Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Dear Wanderer; Dear Scrappy One;
Dear Companion. It’s words like these that address the reader to begin each chapter. Although much of what Bessey writes is typical, non-fiction prose, I couldn’t help but feel that she was writing a personal letter to me, a fellow wanderer.

If you’ve read any of Sarah Bessey’s other books, know that you’ll be getting a similar kind of experience with this most recent work. When her first book Jesus Feminist came out, my wife bought it and encouraged me to read it as well. Admittedly, her conversational style of writing didn’t really appeal to me. After a few chapters, it ended up back on the shelf. Although written in the same style, her next book, Out of Sorts, really did it for me. That probably had more to do with where I was in my own journey of faith at the time, than anything else. With her latest, Fieldnotes for the Wilderness, it felt like I was having a similar experience - not necessarily loving her writing style, but nodding my head to so much of what she had to say. It really resonated with me, and I think it will do the same for others who have an openness to hear what is being said.

I really appreciated Sarah’s wisdom and humility that came through quite glaringly. She shares so many beautiful stories and speaks with a strong level of conviction, yet prefaces and ends her book with these kinds of words: “I’m not under the illusion that what worked or works for me will always work for you, but it’s been an honour to spend these pages with you, offering up the practices and learnings that have served me well out here in the wilderness.”

Sarah is wise, compassionate, and a voice that needs to be heard, especially by those who find themselves wandering away from familiar structures and systems; those who are looking for new practices and ways of being in the world.

I give it a 4 out of 5. I enjoyed the read, no doubt, but it wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down.

I was only a few pages into Sarah Bessey's "Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith" when I shed my first tear.

It wouldn't be my last.

In fact, I cried often throughout "Field Notes for the Wilderness," the latest book from the popular Christian author and blogger who is also co-founder of the Evolving Faith conference and podcast.

I first became familiar with Bessey via social media, her warm yet direct spirit appealing to me and my few encounters with her affirming my sense that she's what my Kentucky relatives would call "good people."

I must confess, however, that my tears while reading "Field Notes for the Wilderness" weren't always entirely because of a response to the direct subject. Instead, this "wilderness" that Bessey writes of feels very connected to the last few years of my life as I've lost a limb, experienced bladder cancer (and lost the bladder), experienced prostate cancer (and lost the prostate), acquired a new urostomy, lost my brother, lost my brother, and lost my best friend all within the past four years.

I have, quite honestly, felt very disconnected and very much like I'm wandering.

Into this wandering, I began encountering different writers - some Christian, some not. These included Bessey, Nadia Bolz-Weber, the late Rachel Held Evans, Beth Allison Barr, and even Miroslav Volf (whom I affectionately call my favorite theologian).

"Field Notes for the Wilderness" essentially plops us down in the midst of our deconstruction of faith, really an evolving of faith (evolving being a term I find more inclusive and accurate in my case), and nurtures our faith, our curiosity, and our desire to live into our beliefs that haven't always had space in organized religion.

Bessey writes about practicing wonder and curiosity as spiritual disciplines, mothering ourselves with compassion and empathy, making space for lament (I cried a lot here) and righteous rage (I probably should have been angry here, but I cried some more), finding good (and in my case healthy) spiritual teachers, and moving toward what we are "for" in this life.

Bessey isn't a prescriptive author. She certainly writes what has worked for her, however, her writing presents itself as more companion and mentor than anything else. She's the kind of author you want to run into at a conference (sadly, I never have) and she strikes me as a safe space for one to confess that ever-evolving faith (and we sure need those safe spaces).

By the end of "Field Notes for the Wilderness," I felt heard. I felt seen. I felt nurtured. I felt fed. There is one line, the very last line (at least in my ARC Galley of her book) of chapter 16 that still leaves me in tears every single time I think about it.

Available with a companion guided journal (and I strongly recommend reading the book first), "Field Notes for the Wilderness" feels like that unexpected creek you find when you're wandering in the wilderness.

"Field Notes for the Wilderness" is Bessey at her very best, a coach and mentor and friend for an evolving faith offering presence, nurture, coaching, mentoring, a few gentle nudges, and a whole lot of love.

I read and enjoyed Bessey's spiritual formation book Spiritual Practices for Soul Care: 40 Ways to Deepen Your Faith. To explore my journey of faith with this new book is a privilege. NOTE: it will be published in February 2024 ... so put it on your advance reading list and set up a "notification of publication" with your bookseller.
It's worth it. Why?

If you feel like your journey of faith has landed you in the wilderness - scrub-land and deprivation on every hand, or maybe even in the desert - where it seems there is no life, nourishment, or water for you, this set of 2 books will provide sustenance and refreshing along the way.

You'll see the path behind and around you as it is: God's provision for developing in you depth, character, and trust. I highly recommend the book but then also hope you pick up the journal and work through it. If you yourself are not in this season, you will gain empathy, words, and a spiritual companion (the author) to give solace others who walk through their grief, pain, and doubts.

The journal offers prompts, prayers, and questions to guide you through an honest appraisal of where you are and where the Holy Spirit is leading you.

I may not agree with all of Bessey's theology, but that's ok. Her understanding of God-among-us in the unlovely times, in the times we feel unwanted and unwelcome, is unmatched. Get the book. Remember, it's coming soon.

Sarah Bessey is a well-known Christian author, speaker, and co-founder of Evolving Faith. I've enjoyed all of her previous books, so when I saw that she has a new book coming out, I quickly requested it! "Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith" is a guidebook for those who are questioning their long-held beliefs. I found this book incredibly helpful for the season of life I'm in, and I highlighted a good amount of the book. Bessey does a fantastic job of talking about heavy topics, but making it feel okay and even necessary to question your beliefs. I especially appreciated her assertion that God is not angry when we're questioning, but rather, "God meets us in those places of space [questioning] even more than when we are pretending to have it all figured out or cam our souls full of our own opinions and certainties."

I found this book incredibly helpful and will read it again, I'm sure. I highly recommend it for anyone who is questioning their beliefs. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Another great book by Sarah Bessey for those finding themselves in the spiritual wilderness. Written in the style of letter to a friend, this is a user friendly format and broken into topical chapters. There are parts you will disagree with, parts you will agree with and sections that make you think. And that's what this book is designed to do, to make you think about your faith and what questions you still want to ask. Highly recommend this and will definitely be re-reading when I get my pre-ordered copy in the mail.

I received an advanced reader copy via NetGalley.

I received a pre-read advanced copy of this book and I didn't even realize this was the book I needed. I love Sarah Bessey and follow her and evolving faith but this book broke me open. I have been struggling internally with my faith but it isn't really my faith I am struggling with, it is the expectations and contradictory behaviors of the church in recent years. Perhaps I was lucky before to not see it as much as the past couple of election cycles and covid 19 but it has been so overwhelming. She speaks the words that I have been feeling with so much grace and love and I have worked through and processed so many of those emotions because of this book. I feel that I am turning a corner back to my faith and prayer and love for Jesus. Thank you Sarah for naming and helping me feel that I was not alone. I know others feeling similar ways and cannot wait for this book to come out to the world.

I am a fan of Sarah Bessey's previous work and blog, so I was looking forward to reading "Field Notes for the Wilderness." The book is full of gentle wisdom and practical ideas for one's spiritual journey. I recommend this for anyone who is struggling to redefine their faith and/or to find their place within (or without) the church. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.