Hello. My name is
John Mark Comer.
I make things with
words.
Hello. My name is
John Mark Comer.
I make things with
words.
The first followers of Jesus developed a Rule of Life, a set of habits and practices based on the life of Jesus himself, that put God at the center of their lives. They made space for God to do what they could not — form them into people who are like their rabbi, Jesus.
Practicing the Way is a vision for the future that has been shaped by the wisdom of the past — a time when to be a Christian meant to apprentice under Jesus in living. As an introduction to spiritual formation, it’s accessible to beginners and lifelong followers of Jesus. It’s also the culmination of many years of learning, thinking, working, and teaching on spiritual formation, and my manifesto for the future of the church in the post-Christian West.
This book is an invitation to apprenticeship to Jesus and a guide for a more embodied faith. Through practices like Sabbath, prayer, solitude, and other everyday rhythms from the life of Jesus, we can open deeper and deeper layers of our souls to Jesus to heal and transform.
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Dallas Willard once called hurry “the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.”
I live in one of the most secular, post-Christian cities in our nation, and the longer I’m here, the more convinced I become that he’s right: hurry is the issue under all the other issues. The root cause beneath so much of the anger and anxiety of our cultural moment. And followers of Jesus are not immune to culture’s pain. Many of us live with a low-grade fatigue and chronic anxiety that rarely, if ever, goes away. We careen through our days at breakneck speed, and wonder where God is in the fray.
The reality is, most of us are just too busy to live an emotionally healthy and spirituality vibrant life. Hurry is incompatible with the way of Jesus. The love, joy, and peace that form the nucleus of Jesus’ kingdom are all impossible in a life of speed. We must, as Willard went on to say, “Ruthlessly eliminate hurry.”
I’m a teacher and writer from Topanga Canyon in LA.
For nearly two decades, I was the founding pastor at Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon. We spent many years working out discipleship to Jesus in the post-Christian West, and organized our community around a simple idea: practicing the Way of Jesus together.
In 2021, after leading a five-year initiative around spiritual formation we called “Practicing the Way,” I stepped away from my role to create simple, beautiful formation resources for church communities around the world.
Today, I’m developing new practices, courses, and podcasts for Practicing the Way and serving as a teacher in residence at Vintage Church LA with my wife T and our three kids.
I’m also the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including my newest manifesto: Practicing the Way, the bestselling The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and Live No Lies, God Has a Name, and Garden City.
I hold a master’s degree in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary, but these days you’ll find me out walking the oak groves of the Santa Monica mountains working on my next project.
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