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Down We Go: Living Into the Wild Ways of Jesus
CREATING MISSIONAL COMMUNITY
Down We Go is a practitioner’s guide for creating and cultivating missional community. It’s based on the idea of living into the Beatitudes, and explores what it means to follow Jesus into the hard places of suffering, inequality, and injustice in order to cultivate, hope, beauty, justice, equality, generosity and healing.
The dream of living out the upside-down ways of Jesus is in our hearts, but many don’t know how to make “what could be” really be. We need practical, tangible ideas to make dreams reality. We need to hear how it can work, from people on the margins and practitioners living in the trenches. We need real stories of practice that will fan our hopes and dreams for justice, mercy, equality, and healing in the kingdom of God into flame. Down We Go fleshes out practicing the ways of Jesus in action, personally and through life in community.
Endorsements
"Page after page in Down We Go, I feel the crazy sanity of the kingdom of God seeping back into me. I'm so thankful for Kathy Escobar, the Refuge, the TransForm Network, and everyone who dares to switch directions and become more profane - in the holiest sense of the word." - Brian D. McLaren, author of Naked Spirituality and A New Kind of Christianity.
"Kathy Escobar explores how to move from 'doing' ministry for others into creating sacred spaces where all can be a part of the Kingdom of God. Those desiring something beyond “comfy church” will find inspiration in Kathy’s downwardly mobile journey" - Becky Garrison, author of Jesus Died For This?
“Kathy Escobar leads us on a guided tour of the wild ways of Jesus. She is one of my favorite leaders. I hope to continue to learn from her example for years to come" - Jim Henderson, D. Min, Author of Jim and Casper Go To Church and The Resignation of Eve.
"Kathy takes us down into the trenches where ordinary hurting people live and where we too need to live out our faith. Her personal faith journey from mega-church pastor to ministry with the destitute and marginalized is a compelling and convicting read." - Christine Sine, Author and Executive Director of Mustard Seed Associates.
Down We Go is a practitioner’s guide for creating and cultivating missional community. It’s based on the idea of living into the Beatitudes, and explores what it means to follow Jesus into the hard places of suffering, inequality, and injustice in order to cultivate, hope, beauty, justice, equality, generosity and healing.
The dream of living out the upside-down ways of Jesus is in our hearts, but many don’t know how to make “what could be” really be. We need practical, tangible ideas to make dreams reality. We need to hear how it can work, from people on the margins and practitioners living in the trenches. We need real stories of practice that will fan our hopes and dreams for justice, mercy, equality, and healing in the kingdom of God into flame. Down We Go fleshes out practicing the ways of Jesus in action, personally and through life in community.
Endorsements
"Page after page in Down We Go, I feel the crazy sanity of the kingdom of God seeping back into me. I'm so thankful for Kathy Escobar, the Refuge, the TransForm Network, and everyone who dares to switch directions and become more profane - in the holiest sense of the word." - Brian D. McLaren, author of Naked Spirituality and A New Kind of Christianity.
"Kathy Escobar explores how to move from 'doing' ministry for others into creating sacred spaces where all can be a part of the Kingdom of God. Those desiring something beyond “comfy church” will find inspiration in Kathy’s downwardly mobile journey" - Becky Garrison, author of Jesus Died For This?
“Kathy Escobar leads us on a guided tour of the wild ways of Jesus. She is one of my favorite leaders. I hope to continue to learn from her example for years to come" - Jim Henderson, D. Min, Author of Jim and Casper Go To Church and The Resignation of Eve.
"Kathy takes us down into the trenches where ordinary hurting people live and where we too need to live out our faith. Her personal faith journey from mega-church pastor to ministry with the destitute and marginalized is a compelling and convicting read." - Christine Sine, Author and Executive Director of Mustard Seed Associates.
276 pages, Paperback
First published May 31, 2011
10 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 30, 2021
This is the best book on living in the Way of Jesus that I have read for quite some time. I want to recommend it to all of my brothers and sisters who are serious about to live more like Jesus, lay people and clergy alike. It's set up really well for a book study -- relatively short chapters with several sections each (read a section a day or a chapter a week) and study guides at the end of each chapter. This is not a deep book of theology, just basic, common sense advice on how to actually apply the teachings of Jesus in every day life. It will not challenge your mind to understand but it will challenge your heart and will as you attempt to put Kathy Escobar's hard-won advice into practice. Do you care about the downtrodden? Compassion? Justice? This book will tell you how to live out those impulses. Turned off by "prosperity gospel," "name it and claim it," success oriented "Christianity?" This book is literally about living "down" into Jesus' teaching. Read this book!
June 10, 2014
This author speaks the Truth with a capital T, a truth that is sometimes hard to read let alone live: in order to really follow Jesus, you have to go against the grain of American ideas of success and go down to live and love those who are not on their way up. I am giving this four stars only because it gets a bit repetitious about midway through, but gets five stars for the ideas presented here. I nearly underlined the first half of the book because each sentence captured a truth that every Christian needs to hear. This was a needed challenge to my paradigm; I just hope I can actually live out the Beautitudes as she describes them here. I would love to visit the author's faith community and see this book in action.
April 18, 2012
This is one of the best books on what it means to live a life of discipleship that I have read in a long time. Chapter after chapter I found myself resonating with the author and affirming the points she makes. I cannot begin to capture all that I liked about this book in a simple review, but an indication of its weight in my life is the extent to which it has compelled me to reexamine my lifestyle and step out into new areas in pursuit of the downwardly mobile life. I would love to use this book in a discussion group and hope to have that opportunity eventually. I would also really love to meet Kathy in person and have a good conversation with her.
December 6, 2011
I just finished Down We Go by Kathy Escobar. It’s a totally compelling read about following Jesus into the downwardly mobile life that was taught in the Gospels. It is based on the Beatitudes and the 12 Step programs that teach us a new way of living. I would love to think I had the courage to follow – I know I’m going to try. I started reading it because it was recommended as a companion book for the Presbyterian Women’s study of the Beatitudes this year. I feel like it really made an impression on me. I hope it sticks.
August 8, 2011
"Maybe wholeness begins with accepting our brokenness,” Kathy Escobar writes. "Instead of resisting and rejecting brokenness, we can accept and acknowledge it. It doesn’t mean that we stay there or encourage others to stay there either. Acknowledging the brokenness means transcending it by discovering it doesn’t define us." Read more
August 17, 2011
See my full review at http://erb.kingdomnow.org/brief-revie...
May 28, 2012
Life changing for me, really. Most challenging book I've read in a while. The Kingdom of God is indeed living down, down, down.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews