Restless: About the Book and Author

Now Featured at the Patheos Book Club
Restless
Because You Were Made For More
By Jennie Allen

About the Book

A practical plan to identify the threads of your life and how to intentionally weave them together for God's glory and purposes.

Restless explores the fact that God has called each of us to do great things in his name, and then helps us discover what that might mean for each of us individually. Jennie says, "We are called to dream but we're afraid to. But because we are called, when we don't act on it we become restless—restless to find purpose, to make a difference in the world, to matter."

Jennie doesn't suggest women add one more thing to their to-do list, but instead invites them to stop and listen where they are. She frees them to be themselves and to see themselves as valuable. In addition to this permission to dream she helps them get over themselves and their issues and then offers a simple process on highly designed journal pages to identify the raw materials—the unique threads—they've been given by digging into five areas:

1. Gifts
2. Suffering
3. Places
4. People
5. Passions

Using her own story and that of women with whom she has walked through this process as examples, Jennie weaves in the story of Joseph the dreamer and how God used his threads to fit into the greater story of God. Untangling the threads of our lives and assembling them together in one place reveals a beautiful plan designed by the Creator himself: God's Agenda + my threads + the need + the Holy Spirit = my purpose.

And since living out our purpose is often filled with uncertainties Jennie addresses the doubts, fears, and challenges that hold women back from what they've been called to do. This repositioning of their lives is not a promise that all things will be perfect, or will go perfectly, but a promise that it will be the start of the best part of life—the part that completes what we were made for.

About the Author

Jennie Allen is a Bible teacher who is passionate about inspiring a new generation of women to encounter the invisible God. Raised in a Christian home, Jennie heard about God her entire life but not until high school did she see her need for Him. Since that time she has been teaching groups of girls and young women about her God.

Jennie studied at the University of Arkansas for three years. She met and married Zac Allen and moved to Tennessee where she completed her B.S. in Communications at Carson Newman College. She and Zac later attended Dallas Theological Seminary at the same time. Jennie graduated with a Master's in Biblical Studies in 2005.

Thomas Nelson signed Jennie to a multi-project contract in 2011, including a series of seven DVD-based Bible studies and two trade books. Her first study released in 2011: Stuck: The Places We Get Stuck and the God Who Sets Us Free. Chase: Chasing After the Heart of God released in 2012. Her first trade book, Anything: The Prayer that Unlocked My God and My Soul (2012) recounts the journey into surrender that Jennie, her family, and her church have travelled. The book earned her a 2013 Christian Book Award for "New Author" from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

Jennie's newest book, Restless: Because You Were Made for More, helps women discover their unique life callings through the study of Joseph (from the book of Genesis) and the tapestry of their personal passions, gifts, people, places and suffering. A video-based Bible study of the same name released simultaneously with the Restless book in January 2014.

Jennie's teaching is marked by personal authenticity and vulnerability, and she encourages women to go to these same places as they study scripture. "I want to provide places for women to wrestle with truth, so that we are more fully living what we know about God, not just learning about Him. As God gets bigger to us, our lives start to change."

Jennie is the founder of the If Gathering, a uniquely practical conference which will gather, equip and release a generation of women to live out their purpose. The first If Gathering is scheduled for February 2014 in Austin, Texas. www.IfGathering.com

Jennie and Zac Allen are the parents of four children: Conner, Kate, Caroline and Cooper. They live in Austin, Texas.

Find Jennie online:

www.JennieAllen.com
www.IfGathering.com
Twitter: @jenniesallen
Facebook: Jennie Allen