Missional living

So it just gives you a little window into how I found his work very helpful for my work as a pastor and for my own formation as a pastor.

And so I was reading a lot, I was drawing from his work and I had this growing sense that his theory of spiritual formation somehow bridged that divide between the spiritual formation gurus and the missional living kind of specialist.

And that eventually, I mean, there's more little twists and turns to the story, but that's what originated.

I mean, if you're gonna write a big book like this, you gotta have some kind of impetus, some nasty pebble that still, it kept gnawing at me, kept bothering me.

Well, and I'm wondering if the pebble in your shoe and sort of trying to tie those... two streams together, is that sort of how you'd answer the second question that I posed, which is basically Willard's contribution that the church needs to listen to afresh today? Is that how you'd answer that? Again, maybe there's not one answer because he has so much to offer, but at least I'll say I'm curious what you saw in his theory of spiritual formation that compelled you to think that you could tie those two streams together.

Well, the deeper I got into his work, when I really started, when it moved from... merely reading it to researching it.

That's when I thought, well, we need some sort of commentary to help us understand the ins and outs of his approach to spiritual transformation and the power of the Holy Spirit and to understand its inherent connection to missional living.

And I would say that Dallas is often, we often think that he was all about the spiritual disciplines.

You

know, this is a month of missional living.

And listen, there is power reserved for mission.

Somebody say power for mission.