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Borderlands: Navigating The Adventure Of Spiritual Growth
Personal and spiritual growth is costly and the evangelical church is frequently glib about discipleship ideas like "dying to self" and "transformation," holding out these words and phrases as ideals while providing few road-maps for growth. This book tracks the journey of the disciples from Gethsemane until the immediate aftermath of the day of Pentecost, using this period as a metaphor for spiritual growth and personal change. While Jesus models perfectly how to navigate this territory, the Bible offers a bracingly realistic account of how the disciples, as flawed characters, frequently resist or grapple with the challenge―and often pain―of spiritual growth. In an age that prizes authenticity and demands it of the Church, this account offers both an honest account of the vicissitudes of spiritual change and inspiration for each of our personal journeys through daily dying and rising to new life. This book offers a credible and authentic account of spiritual growth for a new generation, featuring evangelical spirituality which draw on Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and Henri Nouwen. This book offers an honest and transparent account of the challenges of personal change, illustrating these with stories from personal testimony and church history. The reader will be able to grow in Christian maturity, provided with key principles and tools that will help him or her along the way.
252 pages, Paperback
Published June 21, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 28, 2020
Personal struggles take us into uncharted territory, but scripture offers a way to navigate these times, says Brickman in this stunning book. Nothing new about that insight, but in Borderlands: Navigating the Adventure of Spiritual Growth the author has an almost prophetic message to the church and the world: “The Church will never witness potently to a hurting world unless it is filled with men and women of Christlike depth who have grown through struggle.” (P.2)
This book draws you into the dark days after Christ’s crucifixion tracking the tumultuous and very human journey of the disciples through this time. The author draws inspiration from the Bible, interweaves this with insights from the arts and his own life to produce a book that is rooted in Scripture and relevant for today.
Scripture, Brickman maintains, offers a rich resource for navigating challenging times. These challenges are a crucible in which a mature relationship with God is formed. Or as Brickman puts it, “In following Jesus, we better understand and process our suffering, we grow and discover fullness of life in Christ.”
In the modern world we are undergoing a period of extremely rapid change. The author says that with a Christian perspective on life we will look back at every current event as part of a larger unfolding movement. “What first seemed like dissonance, as in much contemporary tonal music, will resolve, from a future perspective, in symphonic unity.” (P.88)
Brickman takes the reader on a spiritual adventure with the paschal narrative as a map. Through this we learn to live into the continuing process of death and renewal and become resilient in negotiating these cycles and grow spiritually. “Rather than avoiding these liminal borderlands, we seek them as places of spiritual renewal.” (p.205). Not only do we need to embrace this change – rather than seek to manage it – we need to negotiate life’s challenges together rather than see it as, “some solipstic path to self-individuation.” He continues by saying we need to, “know and live into this story, and we need to travel it together, drawing on the support of others and offering our encouragement to others in turn.” (P.206).
Borderlands resonated with me because it gave me a framework for dealing with challenges that life throws at us. I loved the way the author drew on psychological and cultural references to enable us to apply scripture to our modern lives. Not only that, it is incredibly readable. In Borderlands a new voice in modern theology has come to the fore.
This book draws you into the dark days after Christ’s crucifixion tracking the tumultuous and very human journey of the disciples through this time. The author draws inspiration from the Bible, interweaves this with insights from the arts and his own life to produce a book that is rooted in Scripture and relevant for today.
Scripture, Brickman maintains, offers a rich resource for navigating challenging times. These challenges are a crucible in which a mature relationship with God is formed. Or as Brickman puts it, “In following Jesus, we better understand and process our suffering, we grow and discover fullness of life in Christ.”
In the modern world we are undergoing a period of extremely rapid change. The author says that with a Christian perspective on life we will look back at every current event as part of a larger unfolding movement. “What first seemed like dissonance, as in much contemporary tonal music, will resolve, from a future perspective, in symphonic unity.” (P.88)
Brickman takes the reader on a spiritual adventure with the paschal narrative as a map. Through this we learn to live into the continuing process of death and renewal and become resilient in negotiating these cycles and grow spiritually. “Rather than avoiding these liminal borderlands, we seek them as places of spiritual renewal.” (p.205). Not only do we need to embrace this change – rather than seek to manage it – we need to negotiate life’s challenges together rather than see it as, “some solipstic path to self-individuation.” He continues by saying we need to, “know and live into this story, and we need to travel it together, drawing on the support of others and offering our encouragement to others in turn.” (P.206).
Borderlands resonated with me because it gave me a framework for dealing with challenges that life throws at us. I loved the way the author drew on psychological and cultural references to enable us to apply scripture to our modern lives. Not only that, it is incredibly readable. In Borderlands a new voice in modern theology has come to the fore.
January 29, 2025
This is, by far, one of the best (if not the best) book I have read this year. I was keen to read it after hearing the author preach at his home church (St Aldate, Oxford)
Little did I know that it would take me on a 2 month spiritual journey pondering the meaning of being a disciple of Christ, even in the midst of difficulties.
I have enjoyed the author's writing style, the references and numerous quotes, as well as the study of the biblical texts. I have made a list of interesting books to read from the writer's bibliography.
I am very grateful to have read this book as it came at the right time for me, and encouraged me in my spiritual walk with God.
I will definitely reread Borderlands many times and keep it on my special shelf of favourites.
I'm hoping that Mark Brickman will soon write other books!
Little did I know that it would take me on a 2 month spiritual journey pondering the meaning of being a disciple of Christ, even in the midst of difficulties.
I have enjoyed the author's writing style, the references and numerous quotes, as well as the study of the biblical texts. I have made a list of interesting books to read from the writer's bibliography.
I am very grateful to have read this book as it came at the right time for me, and encouraged me in my spiritual walk with God.
I will definitely reread Borderlands many times and keep it on my special shelf of favourites.
I'm hoping that Mark Brickman will soon write other books!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews