Reconstruct Your Faith: Ancient Ways to Make Your Relationship with God Whole Again - Hardcover

by Kevin M. Young (Author)

Navigate the deepest questions of faith with the compassionate guidance of a pastor whose faith nearly fell apart

This book is a must have for anyone facing a crisis of faith. When our hearts begin to question faith, we often fear voicing our concerns and confusions aloud. But questioning is inherent in the journey as we seek truth faith, as author and pastor Kevin M. Young has learned firsthand. At a time when many lack trust in clergy--and clergy members themselves are facing burnout and disillusionment--we need an honest and accountable reckoning with the role of the church in our lives. Reconstruct Your Faith takes you back to square one, helping you reengage with the church, the clergy, and God, using methods that have been essential to Christianity from its beginnings.

• Embark on the next phase of your spiritual journey--even if you have become disillusioned with aspects of organized religion
• Receive guidance and wisdom from an open-minded pastor who has struggled with his own faith
• Examine the role of God, Evangelicalism, and the church in your past, present, and future
• Return to the foundations of faith to discover your own path through questioning to a stronger spirituality

This book guides you through the application of ancient spiritual practice in your life's journey, regardless of your denominational identity as a Christian or your belonging to a particular tradition. Anyone experiencing a crisis of faith or nagged by persistent questions about the direction of the church today will find healing and answers in Reconstruct Your Faith.

Front Jacket

Your faith is no longer what it used to be, and you can't ignore it anymore. You've lost trust in the institutions that your faith produced--its buildings, its movements, its heroes. You've lost trust in the traditions that shaped you. You've lost trust in yourself. You are burnt out, and you are staring at the crumbling walls, wondering if there's even anything behind them.

And you are not alone.

Reconstruct Your Faith is a book about spiritual formation, which is not simply going to church, reading the Bible, and praying more, as you may have been taught. Spiritual formation is the unburdening of an exhausted heart so that it can stretch, open, and grow into something more beautiful than you could have imagined. As more and more Christians are called to "deconstruct" their faith, Reconstruct Your Faith will help guide you through your journey of asking big questions about big things so that you can understand how--and when--to build that faith back.

In this book, author and pastor Kevin Young shares the vulnerable, gut-wrenching story of his own dark night of the soul, where he watched his own faith nearly crumble as he deconstructed beliefs that once defined him. His words are an essential resource for any like him; they are a chart for navigating the waters of religious doubt and frustration. Drawing on teachings and ancient spirituality lessons from the early Christian church and reflecting on faith in our modern world, Kevin actively works to explore the kinds of questions that have threatened to shipwreck countless believers, and demonstrates how we can restore our faith--even when it seems that the church has abandoned us. Fit his wisdom to your circumstances, or use it to inspire you to find your own way forward. Whatever your destination, know that this path of de- and reconstruction has been walked before, it can be walked again, and you will not be walking it alone.

Back Jacket

PRAISE FOR RECONSTRUCT YOUR FAITH

"If you are a sincere and fulfilled Evangelical Christian, you may not think you need Reconstruct Your Faith. Similarly, if you have walked away from religion entirely, you may feel this book is for someone else, not you. But I think just about anyone--from happy churchgoer to struggling doubter to church-wounded 'none'--will find real wisdom and insight in these pages. Kevin Young tells his unique story in a way that will help you better live your unfolding story too."
--BRIAN D. MCLAREN, author of Faith After Doubt and Do I Stay Christian?

"Kevin Young is a stirring stick. He is a maestro of troubling the waters and stirring things up. I sometimes wish he were stirring the other way he's swizzling, but the church needs stirring sticks that are kind, caring, smart, and fair. After all, there was no healing at the Pool of Bethesda until the waters were stirred up. Let the healing begin in Reconstruct Your Faith."
--LEONARD SWEET, prolific author, professor, preacher, publisher, and proprietor of Sanctuary Seaside (Orcas Island, Washington)

"For people in evangelical spaces who have always been (perhaps secretly?) curious about liturgical traditions, Young's pilgrimage into liturgical, practice-based faith offers a template for fellow sojourners to reconnect with God in an ancient way. As a privileged insider in evangelical American Christianity, Young's indictment of abusive theology--and his hope that change is possible--offers a clarion call for confession, compassion, and transformation."
--THE REV. LIZZIE MCMANUS-DAIL

"Kevin Young offers clear direction here into a path to Christian faith reconstruction through reconnection with core practices of the Early Church. Reconstruct Your Faith illustrates two important truths that post-fundamentalists (and post-evangelicals) need to remember: 1.) Protestant fundamentalism was an oddly modernist intellectual cul-de-sac, and thus 2.) deconstructing fundamentalism opens the door to reconnection to the ancient sources and practices of Christian faith. This book is inspiring, both as a memoir and as a path ahead."
--REV. DR. DAVID P. GUSHEE, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University