Do you need to take a Jump of faith?

Do you need to step out to do something new? Do you sense a call from God to venture into something outside the box? Do you need to take a jump of faith?

I just finished a book by pastor — and now church leader/administrator — Efrem Smith called Jump: Into a Life of Further and Higher, and I want to urge those who are wondering if they need to take the next step to take up and read this book.

Efrem Smith was until very recently the pastor of Sanctuary Covenant in Minneapolis but is now the superintendent of the Evangelical Covenant church in the Pacific Southwest. This book is a wonderful combination of:

Personal memoir … pastoral humor … pastoral encouragement … church transformation … church visioning. As it tells Efrem’s story of jumping in faith to trust the God of love and into the community of the beloved God and then into a broader ministry of reconciliation … and ends with a chapter on the jump into marriage. For pastors, it’s the story of development and the story of courageous new steps. For the individual, it is the same … we all need the courage to jump at times.

If you need courage, Efrem can show you how he has had to jump to the next level a number of times.

The book begins with a wonderful story about impalas: how they can jump so high and so far but can be constrained by not knowing where they might land. If they can’t see where they will land, they won’t jump. Efrem’s point: we need the courage to jump.