Called: About the Book and Author

Now Featured at the Patheos Book Club
Called
The Crisis and Promise of Following Jesus Today
By Mark Labberton

About the Book

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. 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?

About the Author

Mark Labberton is president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He previously served as Lloyd John Ogilvie chair for preaching and director of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute for Preaching.

Labberton came to Fuller after sixteen years as senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California. He has served as chair of John Stott Ministries (now Langham Partnership) and co-chair of the John Stott Ministries Global Initiative Fund. Today he continues to contribute to the mission of the global church as a senior fellow of International Justice Mission. He is the author of The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor and The Dangerous Act of Worship.