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CURRENTLY IN BOOKS
A heart-walk with God

David Wiebe

The Journey: Walking With God Roger Helland. Sovereign World Ltd., 2000.

Waldo Hiebert, a senior professor at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, first introduced me to spiritual formation. His teaching style matched his life character, with a gentle approach to sharing information. Roger Helland may be the new Waldo Hiebert. Van Gogh said, “I read books searching for the man who wrote them.” Reading this book you find Roger Helland.

The Journey is about learning a heart-walk with a person (God), not a set of propositions. It addresses both the private and public walk of an individual. In the private walk are plenty of illustrations and personal anecdotes. An excellent thought on prayer: “We are walking, talking houses of prayer.” On facing the truth of pain and loss: “Sometimes the bad events don’t make sense, and we never discover a real lesson.” How refreshingly honest!

In the second part – “the public walk” – Helland makes some unique applications, calling people to link spirituality with personal gifts and passions, passing on faith to our youth, and deepening community as a means to the Great Commission.

People will like this book for both personal reading and as a group study. Some illustrations are from contemporary media, so they might backfire if the reader’s taste doesn’t match Helland’s interests. But these are minor quibbles in a very strong resource.

The book maintains an even quality throughout. The concept is solid. The author writes from the crucible of painful, personal experience. The spiritual journey is not about answers and formulas for success – it’s about walking with God with all our heart. Highly recommended.

David Wiebe is executive director of the Canadian MB Conference.

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Last modified July 10, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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