“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16

The author believes that many people who leave "the church" do not leave because they no longer want to follow Jesus. Rather, they leave so they can follow Jesus. This book does not advocate giving up church; in fact, community is promoted. However, many times we start to depend on church for our spiritual life and as more church-goers do this, the church becomes stagnant and relies more on being locked into tradition than on finding ways to open up to God's will. As the author states, “God can’t be contained by the structures that claim to serve him but often try to manage and control him.” This book tells us how we can turn ourselves and our churches back to serving God.

There are several questions at the end of each chapter and a Study Guide at the end of the book. Because I didn’t want to distract myself, I didn’t take the time to sit down and answer the questions. I will do so in the near future. I did read all the questions and one stood out for me. Part of the question reads: “Imagine that all church services were shut down and church buildings closed, all denominations disbanded. Imagine that the only way Christian faith could survive was through people living it and passing it on to others through friendship and daily informal interaction.” Living our faith, what a concept.

I enjoyed the author's friendly writing style. I firmly believe God wants us to enjoy life and it's clear that Mr. McLaren shares that belief. He includes personal stories and humor and is not afraid to make fun of himself. (Such as the fly-fishing lesson gone awry in which he described himself as a criminal caught in Spiderman’s net.) This turns what could have been a dry, hard-to-read book into an enjoyable, informative and thought-provoking book.

This book is written, not just for Christians, but also for Jews and Muslims.

The seven ancient practices are fixed-hour prayer, fasting, observing the Sabbath, the sacred meal, pilgrimage, observance of sacred seasons (the liturgal calendar), and giving.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
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Meh. Nice idea, but not too taken by the book's execution. ( )

Regarding the truth: if one has lost their way and strayed from the path, they must retrace their steps and find their way back to the place they had originally mis-stepped. Even though there are a lot of chunks in here that I don't agree with, I like what Brian McLaren was going for with Finding Our Way Again - in the broader sense. Christ's followers don't always follow Christ as closely as they ought to. Making Christ's ways a set of rules to follow makes it worse - in contrast, Jesus seemed to mold his followers through organic relationship.

"Jesus never makes 'Christians' or 'converts,' but he calls disciples and sends them out to continue the process: learn the way so you can model and teach the way to others who will do the same." McLaren follows this with a citation that the term "Christian" only occurs 3 times in the New Testament while disciple occurs more than 250 times. However, he then immediately applies the same logic to Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad stating that all of them, as well as Jesus, were intending a movement as opposed to a religious institution. I'm all for getting away from legalistic religiosity. However, even if one were to choose not to believe that Christ is who he says he is, it's a hard case to argue that Jesus merely wanted a "movement".

Later in the book McLaren lists some practices and exercises. He gives modern examples of people putting some disciplines in action and he gives some tangible suggestions on how we can as well. He stresses that these are not to add to the already unhealthy to-do list, but rather "The purpose of the ancient practices is not to make us more religious. It is to make us more alive. Alive to God." Though I love that bit, I struggle with this book. I am glad that McLaren is trying to help folks grow closer to God. However, I am disappointed by the lack of playing time Jesus is given. For a book centered on getting back to what Jesus did, I've heard an awful lot about what other people are doing currently without a clear connection with Christ. I think McLaren's response would be that God is at work in those people. I believe that too. I just missed Jesus as I read the book.

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their rad BookSneeze book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review of the book. The opinions I have expressed are my own. To see this review and others like it please check out the Booked and Convicted blog. ( )

This book while abrasive sometimes, which is not necessarily bad, has many excellent insights about renewing ancient spiritual practices. Also, he gives a variety of metaphors to help the reader gain more intuitive insight into what is happening. This book however is not about how to actually do all of the spiritual practices, such as in "Celebrating Discipline". It is mainly about the purpose behind spiritual practices, in particular the three-fold path. ( )

This is a good introductory book on some of the foundational Christian practices. What I really enjoyed about this book was the removal of theological differences that keep denominations separated. This book has potential for bringing Christians from all over together in love. It's a return to the basics. Even long-time Christians will learn from this book. The only thing I didn't care for was the typical modern-day sermon wit that uses frequent play-on-words to make points. The graphs also didn't follow much logic and could have been better rendered. Also, on at least every other page is a highlighted sentence from the text set aside in a gray box for emphasis, which is a great in workbooks when it's not overdone.

However, this is not a workbook. And despite my annoyances with some of this book, the message is beautiful and clear. There is a lot of love that went into this book.