I met Dave Ferguson at an event for ministers in Chicago back in 2009. Dave is a fellow compatriot in missional church and a fairly well known figure among the people who’ve attended the missional church conferences I’ve spoken in.
Today, Dave and Jon Ferguson have released their new book Finding Your Way Back to God: Five Awakenings to Your New Life.
I caught up with Dave to talk about the book and explore its important message.
Enjoy!
Instead of asking, “what is your book about,” I’m going to ask the question that’s behind that question. And that unspoken question is, “how are readers going to benefit from reading your book?”
Dave Ferguson: The great benefit of the book is in the title. This book was written to help people find their way back to God. All of us know what it is like to long for meaning, love and significance and when life is difficult to feel disconnected or distant from God. Those longings were placed within us by God and can only be fulfilled by God. We offer five awakenings in the book that are a clear path back to God for any person at any season in their spiritual life.
Sometimes people will ask me if this is a book for believers or non-believers and I always say, “Yes.” This book is for both! Just as the “12 steps” of AA are described as “the way to get sober” and “the way to stay sober.” These five awakenings are both the way to find God for the first time and the way to stay close to God. In theological terms, the five awakenings are the experience of initial sanctification and the experience of progressive sanctification. This is a book that will benefit every one of your readers and will also be a great help to their friends, family members and neighbors who are far from God.
What provoked you to write the book?
Dave Ferguson: My life mission statement is “to help people find their way back to God,” In addition, for 25 years the church my brother and I started, Community Christian Church has had the same mission statement. It was that deeply held passion by myself, Jon and a whole movement of people along with the experience of journeying with thousand of people who described their spiritual pilgrimage as “finding their way back to God” that motivated us to write this book. This book is another way of extending the mission and helping more and more people find their way back to God!
Tell us a bit about the experiences that shaped the insights in the book.
Dave Ferguson: Jon and I have had the privilege of journeying with thousands of people who have come to faith for the first time or once again. We noticed that there were certain events that seemed to happen in all of us lives as we came to faith. However, it wasn’t until we did in depth interviews with twenty-five people in preparing to write this book that we were able to name the five awakenings that everyone experienced.
At the same time, our study of scripture led us to the story of the prodigal son. I’m convinced this is the greatest short story in literature and Jesus told this story as a narrative for how to find your way back to God. So, out of twenty-five years of experience, intense interviews with people and study of scripture we came up with five awakenings that we believe everyone experiences on their way back to God.
Give us a summary of the five awakenings.
Dave Ferguson: Sure, here they are in order…
Awakening to Longing. This is the feeling that “there’s got to be more.” We all feel the longing for love, purpose and meaning. And it is the quest to satisfy these basic longings that sends all of us on a journey.
Awakening to Regret. We pursue those primitive longings without God and when we do we find ourselves alone, directionless and confused. With regret we often will say, “I wish I could start over.” Many people get stuck in the first two awakenings and repeat them over and over again. We call repeating the first two steps the “sorry cycle” – pursuing God-given longings outside of a relationship with God, which lead to decisions and actions that we regret.
Awakening to Help. After repeating the “sorry cycle” of trying to fulfill these longings without God and ending up with regret over and over again we come to the end of ourselves and say, “I can’t do this on my own.” We hit bottom. We need help. And that help is Jesus.
Awakening to Love. Jesus is the one who leads us back to God. As we come back to God we are ambushed by grace and we discover “God, loves me deeply after all.” However, there is a shadow of shame and guilt that follows us home and we struggle to believe we are loved just as we are.
Awakening to Life. It through following Jesus that we discover “life and have it to the full.” As we experience these awakenings many times over we become convinced that “Now, this is living!”
One of your chapters is titled, “What on Earth Am I Here For?” – give us a sketch of your answer.
Dave Ferguson: We ask the reader to think back to when they were a kid, “…what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to be a doctor or a nurse? How about a teacher? Or a professional athlete? Maybe an astronaut or a firefighter? Did you dream of becoming a rock star?” Then we challenged the reader to think more deeply, “…why in the world you were dreaming about having any kind of job or profession at all?
You didn’t need a job at that age. You didn’t need to take on more responsibility or pay the bills. You were still learning the alphabet and how to write your name correctly! Why even think about what you wanted to be when you grew up?” That desire is not only within you as a reminder that you were meant for greatness, but God himself placed that longing inside of you as a reminder that you need Him. The very longing you feel is an intrinsic apologetic that you need the God who put that desire in you to achieve that greatness.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In