With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God

By Skye Jethani

With explores the narrative of the Bible to show that we were created to be with God, and that restoring this connection is his mission. Instead of life over, under, from, or even for God, what leads us into freedom and restoration is life with God.

Why are American Christians, who have more access to biblical teaching than any other people in history, failing to experience the freedom of the Christian life? Why are pastors, those closest to the work and ministry, burning out at an alarming rate? Why do many church members, who give large amounts of their time and wealth to Christ and his kingdom, secretly question the legitimacy of their efforts? And why are spiritual seekers dismissing the validity of the Christian message?

Is it possible we’ve misunderstood the call of the Christian life?  

A life lived in rich communion with God cultivates faith, hope, and love in a way that transforms both us and the broken world we inhabit.

In With, you’ll find:

• illustrations of concepts in the book to aid understanding;
• recommendations for how to practice communion with God, including three helpful practices; and
• a discussion guide for use when continuing the conversation with others in small groups.

 

Endorsements:

If we've grown weary of Christianity, if we find most any local church uninspiring, maybe the problem lies not in the Christian faith or these faithful bodies, but in our own disgruntled hearts. In With, Skye Jethani tenderly unmasks the clichéd posturing that too often masquerades as genuine communion with Christ. More importantly, he takes readers to the humble place they must occupy--in prayer, studying Scripture, with the Church--if faith, hope, and love are to truly mark our lives.  -James H. Gilmore, author, The Experience Economy

It doesn’t matter, as old theologians were rumored to argue, how many angels can dance on a pinhead. But it does matter which preposition governs your faith--over, after, against, for, from, under, with. Who knew what huge worlds turn on such tiny words? Who knew what theological riches were laced into the bones of grammar? Skye has done a great service to the church. In prose elegant and clear, with insights keen and deep, he shows how everything changes with just one word: With. It’s a book I want my whole church to read.  -Mark Buchanan, author of Spiritual Rhythm

Who knew that a preposition had so much influence? Skye's book will challenge the way that you think about God and faith, digging deep into our motivations and heart issues. You can't read this book and not see yourself and others differently!  -Margaret Feinberg, author of Scouting the Divine and Hungry for God

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Aug 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781595553805

Skye Jethani

Skye Jethani (www.skyejethani.com) is the managing editor of Leadership journal, a magazine and online resource published by Christianity Today International. He also serves as a teaching pastor at Blanchard Alliance Church in Wheaton, Illinois.

Book preview

Reviews for With

[Jorde Hutton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read this book twice, and plan to again!

[travis0bowen-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am on staff for a Christian outreach ministry. I work with a lot of people that either never liked the church or has since walked away from the church. Much of the view of why people don't interact well with the church is their view of God and his position towards them. This book takes on that perspective. How are we supposed to understand God's position and thoughts towards us? How are we supposed to understand our position and thoughts toward God? This really emphasizes the relational aspect of a belief system with God. One can really see how God desires relationship not just religion or humanitarian.

[Cynthia Pamela Zapata Tagarino · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Honest, unbiased and relatable! I love how it presented various postures in an approach to make you think and reflect about my personal relationship with God. The drawings aided to present deep concept easier to comprehend. A must read book.

[stevebishop-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Barna group recently did an extensive survey and found that the youth are leaving the church. What has previously happened is that they then come back when they get married and have children, however, that trend doesn’t seem to be happening. Nothing we didn’t previously know! But they identified several reasons why. One of which is that their experience of Christianity is shallow and another is that the churches seem overprotective.

This book may well present something of a solution for these issues.

Skye Jethani, editor of Leadership Journal, in this book makes an interesting observation: he sees all religions are based on the idea that the world is a dangerous place. Because it is a dangerous place, this leads to fear. We want to protect ourselves, so this means some sort of control. However, control leads to conflict and so more danger. This may explain why churches want to protect. All religion, Jethani claims is some sort of control based on fear.

In different ways we try and control God. This leads to four postures. In the first half of the book Jethani explains these four postures. Each of the postures contain an element of truth but are parasitic on the truth of the Gospel. But many are passing them off as gospel, which may be why the experience of Christianity for many is shallow.

The first posture is life under God. The best way to maintain control is to try and control the God who created the world. This posture looks to rituals and morality to do that. If we do the right things then God will cooperate. If we obey, God will bless.
It’s the drop the virgin in the volcano approach to religion. We adhere to the rules and rituals, but God won’t cooperate. Christianity then doesn’t seem to work.

The second posture is life over God. In this posture we don’t need to follow divine commands, rituals or morality, we don’t even need God we can get control through science, through laws and principles. The more extreme version of this posture is atheism – we can take God out of the picture. A god-version is deism, god is a clockmaker – he’s set the world up so now it runs according to laws.

For Christians who adopt this posture the principles in the Bible, rather than science, can give us control and help us find success. What happens is that we then have a relationship not with the God of the Bible but with the Bible as god.

Life from God is the third posture. This is perhaps the most popular today, it sees the issue as unmet desires and pleasures. It’s a consumerist gospel, a gospel that’s all about me. God is there to give us our needs and desires, to give us what we want.

We’ve made God into a divine butler or a divine cosmic therapist.

What happens to Christians who adopt this posture when God doesn’t meet our desires? They walk away form the shallow alternative to the gospel, mistakenly thinking that they have tried the real thing.

The fourth posture reverses this approach – rather than life from God it’s life for God. It puts mission or transformation at the centre. God doesn’t exist for us; we exist to serve God. We need to figure out what God’s purpose is for us and do more for God. The more we do for God the better we feel about ourselves.

Jethani points out have produced an activist generation – we want to end world poverty, we want to reach the lost, we want to go out on the streets to heal, we want to see people saved, we want to see culture transformed. But why are we doing it? We are driven not out of compassion but out of a search for significance.

This is a brilliant analysis of false gospels often promulgated as the Gospel. It is no longer people’s experience of Christianity is so shallow – they have been inoculated against the truth.

The second part of the book looks at the posture of the Gospel: life with God.
In all the other postures we use God to achieve some end: it may be success, wealth or it may be significance. But once we get a revelation of who Jesus is – we no longer want to use God. He isn’t the means to an end – he is the end, He’s the beginning and the end, the all and in all.

I found the first half of the book fascinating and insightful – the second less so, it’s hard to write about how we can get a revelation of God, it’s something that’s ‘caught rather than taught’. This is an important book. It may well change your view of God and the Gospel.

[jerrycolonna · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Interesting but not all that compelling.

[rockstarwife628_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

** I received this book free from Thomas Nelson's Booksneeze program in exchange for an honest review.**With so many different branches and flavors of Christianity out there, it can be quite confusing to think about what exactly Christianity is all about, especially when the different flavors all seem to be focused on different aspects of the faith. Author Skye Jethani looks into four of the most common focuses that we see - lives that one could say are under, over, from, or for God. And in doing so he shows us how each of those tends to miss the point, by having the wrong focus, offering instead the idea of a life lived with God as a way of life - and faith - that offers more peace, hope, faith, and love.While I don't agree with everything he has to say (for example, I am a Unitarian, as well as a Universalist (believing all paths do lead to the same place), and I tend to be deistic in my personal beliefs), his premise is one that I can agree with completely. Too many Christians do seem to focus so heavily on getting things from God, or doing things for God, or trying to live according to their understanding of rules and dogma, and so often these different ways of relating to God just don't seem to work as well as a relationship with Him should. Attempting to live in relation *with* God is something that just seems much more effective, and in line with His intentions...There were several examples the author used that I really enjoyed - including his explanation of the Prodigal Son narrative, Tolkien's word eucatastrophe, as well as the way 1 Corinthians (verses 1-3) ties into the various positions in relation to God. Those areas of the book (along with a few others I didn't mention) did hold my attention very well, and I will remember them and draw from them even after finishing the book and putting it away.I agree with the author that God desires a relationship with us, that we are loved by Him unconditionally, that we are invited to experience life with God here and now (which makes me think of the idea of the Kingdom of God, as referenced in books by authors like Brian McLaren...), the idea that we can be in constant communion with God, as well as many other points he makes.He tells us that how we understand God informs how we see ourselves, and shows how the various positions he talks about relates to how we see ourselves and God.His whole purpose, he tells us, is to "illuminate a different way of relating to God", and he does that, by pointing out the flaws in the common ways of relating to Him, and offering a way that offers the peace and love that the others can and do not seem to offer when they are disconnected from the Life With God position. He shows us how those different positions "can lead to dangerously flawed understanding of Christianity, not to mention a warped perception of God and myself" (page 123).Again, I really did enjoy, and agree with, the author's main premise - I did have a hard time keeping interest int he book, though. It could just be that I didn't really connect with the *way* he presented his information. It just didn't grab me like some books I've read, which I guess is something you can see, given how hard it actually is for me to write the review... I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it, though I did agree with at least the main point of it, and I do believe that his point is one that Christians should hear and consider. And perhaps they'll connect to the book in a way I didn't. I'm glad, at least, that his main point was something I was able to take away and resonate with.