JourneyOnline
Upper Room Books RRP
$22.25 from MediaCom
The Uniting Church Basis of Union affirms that we belong to the people of God on the way to the promised end.
While a pastor of the United Church of Christ USA, John Indermark’s God-given gifts of insight and communication will prove to be invaluable to us as we journey on the way.
In Parables and Passion Indermark invites us to travel with Jesus along the 40-day Lenten path to Jerusalem, listening as we go to our Lord’s stories, and then applying them to our lives.
His rationale for using the parables is that “they invite our imaginations as well as our memories to envision anew what Jesus reveals about God and the coming realm that lies not only ahead of us but within us”.
His hope is that, as we listen again to Jesus telling his stories, we will hear them afresh and so come to experience Lent in particular, but more importantly our whole life of discipleship, from a different and life-giving perspective.
There are six chapters, each with five daily readings which look closely at the parables. The language is plain English and the illustrations and anecdotes help to earth the message.
The daily spiritual exercises included connect the theme of the day with the reader’s own spiritual journey and growth.
Our pilgrimage may be undertaken individually or, with the help of an included Leader’s Guide, in community. Either way, this is not a journey for the faint-hearted.
Every Easter reminds us that a cross remains central to the life of discipleship…but then, what a LIFE as we travel with Jesus on the way!
Reviewed by Warwick Church, a retired lay preacher and member of the Proserpine-Whitsunday Coast Congregation
