Believe For It: Passing On Faith to the Next Generation

by CeCe Winans, Suzanne Gosselin

From the best-selling female gospel artist of all time CeCe Winans comes a heartfelt guide full of spirit, music, and faith. CeCe’s first book in over 10 years, Believe for It explores what it means to pass along wisdom and faith to generations to come.

Believe for It: Passing on Faith to the Next Generation beautifully recounts the pivotal experiences in CeCe’s life that have shaped her faith. From her childhood in Detroit and the miracle of motherhood to her award-winning music career, CeCe brings readers along for a story full of heart, passion, and wisdom acquired from her walk with God.

The Grammy award-winning artist shares stories of her life and career and lessons she’s learned along the way, including:

Growing up in a musical family with 9 siblings
Starting a church with her husband
Planting faith through the Word of God
Pushing through obstacles that prevent faith from being passed down
Fostering emotional health—mind, body, and spirit—in order to pour into others
What it means to be engaged in a community of faith
How to nurture the faith of younger generations
Inspired by Generations—her popular show and conference—CeCe includes thoughtful questions at the end of each chapter to help readers foster their own intergenerational conversations.

Full of heartfelt and profound teachings, Believe for It offers readers a glimpse into the life of legendary gospel singer CeCe Winans as well as an opportunity to grow in their own faith and wisdom as they pursue a closer relationship with the Lord.

Genres: Christian, Memoir, Audiobook, Faith, Biography, Religion, Christian Living

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2022

About the author

Priscilla "CeCe" Marie Winans Love is an American Gospel singer, who has won numerous Grammy and Stellar Awards.

Reviews

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

I love CeCe Winans music and I was excited to read her book. This was a great audiobook and I loved that CeCe narrated it herself. It was interesting getting some of her backstory and hearing about how she had grown up with her parents and many siblings. I also loved how she talked about sharing her faith and how we’re all supposed to do our part in passing it down to the next generations.

Audio book source: Libby
Story Rating: 4 stars
Narrators: CeCe Winans
Narration Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Non-fiction
Length: 5h 50m

[Calah Paulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equally inspiring and challenging! As someone who doesn’t have children of my own, it’s really interesting to hear her perspective on how the responsibility of passing on faith to the next generation still applies to every believer.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

CeCe Winans is the real deal. She is a practical, intelligent, humble, and hardworking woman that walks in faith every day. In our crazy, broken world of chaos and anger, she is shining her light and making sure her family's light is still working. She reminds all of us to not lose sight of what is really important, and she tells us that "we can't allow a culture of dishonor to shape us; we must....show honor" because we need to pass the baton to the next generation.

[Trinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In this book, gospel singer CeCe Winans gives readers advice on how to help younger generations with their journey of faith. Everyone can share their faith with the younger generations, not just pastors, teachers, and parents. The advice is supported by scripture and the book also has personal application questions related to the material at the end of each chapter. In addition, CeCe also shares detailed stories of her journey of faith from childhood until now. I enjoyed this book and recommend it, especially to those who have a heart for children and youth.

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Believe for It
Passing on Faith to the Next Generation
by CeCe Winans
Pub Date 15 Nov 2022
K-LOVE Books
Christian | Parenting & Families | Religion & Spirituality


Cece Winans is the best selling female gospel artist of all time. And in her first book in over ten years comes a heartfelt guide full of spirit, music, and faith.


Believe for It: Passing on Faith to the Next Generation beautifully recounts the pivotal experiences in CeCe’s life that have shaped her faith. In this book Cece Winans tells about her childhood in Detroit and the miracle of motherhood to her award-winning music career, CeCe brings readers along for a story full of heart, passion, and wisdom acquired from her walk with God. 


In this book the grammy award winning artist shares stories of her life and career and lessons she’s learned along the way, including: She grew up in a musical family with nine siblings, started a church with her husband, and planted faith through the Word of God, Pushing through obstacles that prevent faith from being passed down, Fostering emotional health—mind, body, and spirit—in order to pour into others, What it means to be engaged in a community of faith, How to nurture the faith of younger generations.



Inspired by Generations—her popular show and conference—CeCe includes thoughtful questions at the end of each chapter to help readers foster their own intergenerational conversations.


This book is full of heartfelt and profound teachings Believe for It offers readers a glimpse into the life of legendary gospel singer CeCe Winans as well as an opportunity to grow in their own faith and wisdom as they pursue a closer relationship with the Lord.


I give Believe for It, five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

[Yannick Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

CeCe Winans grew up in a family where faith was very important and her parent encouraged her to put God first. She followed God call for her life and started making music with her brother Bebe.
In God we have everything we need bt it’s important to know who we are and
rely on the Holy-Spirit in our lives.

I like Cece’s heart for our generation and her desire to encourage young people to follow Christ. She created a show on YouTube called Generations and with her daughter they received guest and talk about various subjects: prayer, motherhood, relationships…

I think that young parents could find good advice for their children, because
we are to pour out in their heart the passion for God from an early age.

It’s a good book and it was great to learn more about CeCe’s story because I really like her music and the single Believe for it is such a powerful song, she trusted God in every season of her life and it’s a good example for our generation.

[Lauren LaBat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another solid read. I love CeCe’s music and was excited to learn more about her. It was cool to read about her upbringing and family life, I’m not sure how I never knew she was one of 10!!

She made me think a lot about the role of faith and church community across generations. I see a lot of differences personally between me/my sisters/friends and my parents, and I enjoyed her discussion questions throughout.

[Ame Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! So much good info on family and church life!

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always loved listening to CeCe Winans as a singer so when I saw that she had a new book coming out, I had to read it. I am so glad that I did! SO many good things in this read. I love how CeCe is so down to earth and feels like you are talking to an old friend when you are reading this.

CeCe has so much wisdom from all of her years in the ministry and I am so glad that I got to read some of her great wisdom and lessons she has learned over the years. I loved being able to read some of her ways that she raised her kids and lessons she learned from them and vice versa. This is just a great read all around and makes you think about things that you might not have otherwise.

I highly recommend this book for anyone that is wanting to further their growth in their spiritual walk,
I voluntarily read and reviewed this book and all opinions are my own. Thanks to the Publisher, NetGalley and CeCe Winans for an advanced copy of this book.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a biography, study, inspirational and thought-provoking book all in one. Think of it as having the ability to sit down with CeCe and glean wisdom from her own experiences. Its scripture rich message allows the reader to walk down memory lane with CeCe as she presents how her foundation of faith was set and how to pass faith to the next generation. Spoiler alert: It's not easy or perfect. She will share lessons learned from her own life with her kids. Guys, don't let the female point of view detract you from reading this. There is a lot of good stuff to chew on.

[Jonathon Robert Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not my final review because o like to record my thoughts as I go . This helps me remember the book reading experience. This is especially important regarding Christian books. Her testimony this far hasbeen encouraging. In her first chapter she is talking about generations and passing on our faith to the next generation. This is the first chapter and she is very compelling. I also liked the way that God answered the prayer of her husband and brought the Church to their living room. There is some humor on the book what more could you ask for?

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

CeCe Winans has written a brilliant book on the necessity of the unity of the church and of entrusting the faith to the next generation. She offers details from her childhood and from her time spent with her husband starting a church in their home. While this is not a bible study, each chapter ends with thought-provoking questions that would lend this book to be an excellent choice for a book club or a bible study class to read together.

Highly recommend.

Completely family friendly.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of the book. Opinions are mine.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Believe for It, Cece Winans helped readers to understand the importance of passing on our faith in Christ to the next generation. She opened up about how she grew up in a Christian home. She explained how she was the eighth child born into her father. But she was the very first Winans. In the book, she revealed how that name came to be. She shared how her whole family grew up singing and her house was filled with music. Her parents come from broken homes and when they married, they made a vow to stay together and raise Godly children. They helped lay the foundation for a relationship with Christ and this in turn led her to passing on her faith to the next generation. She explained how she became a gospel recording artist and how she raised her own two children to love God and keep the faith going throughout the generations.


In 2012, her and her husband, Alvin started a church named, Nashville Life Church. They were both nearing retirement age and God called them to start a church. She revealed how 15 years prior to starting the church a woman boldly stated how they would one day her husband would become a pastor. He was often mistaken for a pastor in different places he went. She shared how her son also returned home from Australia and they would pray that he would come back to his faith. He ended up coming back and this led to them starting a church. She stated a heartbreaking statement, “roughly 40 percent were missing a dad or mom in the home while growing up.” She explained how faith is becoming less and less popular and how we need to change that and merge all of the generations together. She also looked at the verse that stated for us to not look down on younger people and how we must be an example to them with our love, faith, and actions. She shared how she begin to enjoy the intergenerational relationships that are in her church.


Worldliness is being more prevalent and the enemy is working overtime to make us believe his lies. One of the big lies he will use against us when we are trying to pass on our faith to others is that the task is that we aren’t qualified. He makes us believe that we aren’t good enough to follow God’s will and plan for our lives. Most of us have at some point said to ourselves that we could never do that. She recalled how scripture reminds us that we are able to anything through Christ. She personally shared how she didn’t think she could stand up on stage and teach for one hour. She had to overcome that fear and believe that she could carry out God’s will for her life. Another area that we believe that we are failures and we could never lead the next generation because of our past sins. She carefully clarified how everyone is a sinner and if we waited until we perfect, then none of us would be leading others. The Bible is filled with imperfect people, Rebekah, Joseph, David, and much more. Many of us may be living with shame and letting it dictate how we live our lives. Jesus died where we can stop feeling guilty over our past sins.


I would recommend this awesome book on passing on our faith to our children to every single parent, grandparent, and to people who don’t have children. We all can be a positively influence for the next generations and Cece talks to all readers on ways they can do that. I appreciated how she understood how some of us may be burned out and struggling with our mental health but there is hope. We can get refreshed and then work towards sowing faith into the next generation. I liked how she encouraged us to seek God and study the scriptures and pass them on to the next generation. She even had a nice suggestion if you don’t have children, you can start a Bible study and engage with the younger generation. I also liked how she explained the roles of different ages and how we all must work together for the Kingdom of God. I thought she did a wonderful job in sharing her own hardships and how she lost one of her brothers and this was one of her darkest days. She was very real in trying to help others through their own adversity. It was interesting to read about how the idea for her first live album came to be right before the pandemic. It was cool to hear about how the song, Believe for It was written and how it was the very last song for the record that ended up become the theme for the entire record. The idea come when one of the producers was mowing his lawn of all things. They were searching for a song that declared that we are believing that God is able to the impossible. As we have heard the song by now, the lyrics of this song has changed lives!





"I received this book free from the publisher, K-Love Books for my honest review.”

[Book Reviews by Tara aka Queen of Memoirs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book I’ve read by CeCe Winans. And just as the first book, I found this one rather dry. Don’t get me wrong. There’s an important message within these pages. But the way in which the message was delivered simply did not hold my attention.
‌
In her book CeCe explains the importance of generational bonds. She details why it’s important for elders to pass wisdom and faith to younger generations. Cece uses her family as an example to show how this can be achieved. She tells how her own parents passed faith to her and her siblings, and how she and her husband worked to pass that same faith down to their own children.
‌
Cece provides a strong case for why it is important for different generations to learn from one another. I definitely agree with her message. Especially, with all we’re seeing in the world right now.
‌
Yet, as much as I agree with Cece’s message, I found the delivery boring. And trust me, it pains me to say this because I love me some Cece. She’s a graceful spirit with a voice like an angel.

I did get some inspirational words of wisdom from the book.
‌
Here’s a few lessons I walked away with.
‌
• Prayer requires discipline. If we don’t schedule time to pray, other things will crowd it out.
‌
• We need to cultivate our family bonds in ways that allow our children and grandchildren to get to know us. And we also need to get to know them. We must fight to maintain strong relationships with our adult children. And no matter how much you may think a bond has been broken, it’s never too late for prayer to strengthen what appears to be weak.
‌
• Always remember, people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. You never know who may be looking to you for hope today.
‌
• The enemy doesn’t always steal from us in big ways. In fact, his most crafty work is winning little victories, such as convincing us we don’t have time to read God‘s word or that church isn’t that important.
‌

[Aminata Coote · Rating 4 out of 5]

What responsibility do you have for the faith of the generation that follows you? This was the question Ms. Winans attempted to answer for her readers. Believe For It is a comprehensive look at the reasons each individual should make a conscious effort to share their faith with people younger than themselves. Sharing one's faith begins in the home but extends to any person who comes into your sphere of influence.

Ms. Winans uses Scripture, as well as, her own experiences to drive the point home. We need to live in a way that honors God so we can inspire more people to believe in Him. Believe For It was written in a conversational manner that made this serious topic easy to relate to. Each chapter ends with questions that prompt you to action on the steps covered in the chapter.

If you've ever wondered how you can share your faith, Believe For It will give you suggestions on how you can do so. I received an advanced reader's copy from the publisher through NetGalley; a positive review was not required.

[Crystal Lucky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cece Winans’ book is an uplifting and encouraging exploration of the ways believers in Jesus Christ can pass on the essential foundational principles of faith to the next generation, whether they are related by blood or community. She shares tender memories from her life growing up within the safety of a large loving family and walks readers through essential decisions she and her husband Alvin made in raising their own children and starting a church. One core tenet of the book is Cece’s belief that God is faithful in and to every generation, so we must not become overwhelmed by the challenges we face in this present day. We must believe God to answer our prayers and give wisdom to move forward in supporting the next generation of believers.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. I'm not a religious person, but I can appreciate some of what faith and spirituality has to offer. For me, this book was a little too strongly religious as it's focus was on how to share and bring younger generations into the faith/religion. There were parts that I enjoyed, and messages that I felt are universal that could be takeaways from the book, and I wish there was more of that. There was too much direct and overtly religious content for me. However, I am sure that someone who is Christian would likely really enjoy this book. I just feel that it wasn't the book for me.

[LAMONT D · Rating 5 out of 5]

INSPIRATIONAL AND PRACTICAL AS CECE TAKES US THROUGH HER STORIES OF HER FAMILY, THE CHALLENGES FACED, AND THE LEGACY THAT HER PARENTS AND SIBLINGS GAVE HER THAT HAVE INSPIRED HER TO PASS ON TO THE NEXT GENERATIONS. HER QUESTIONS AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER ARE SIMPLE YET VERY PRACTICAL IN APPLYING HER THOUGHTS FOR YOU TO LIVE OUT YOUR FAITH IN FRONT OF THE NEXT GERERATION AND WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT. HAVE YOUR BIBLE HANDY AS SHE TAKES SCRIPTURES MEANINGFUL TO HER AND GIVES YOU AN INSIGHT THAT MIGHT BE VALUABLE TO YOU NOW AND IN THE FUTURE.

[Michelle Castaneda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Believe for It: Passing on Faith to the Next Generation by CeCe Winans is a wonderful look at the author’s life. Known best for her beautiful voice, Ms Winans here tells the testimony of her family’s life of faith and how they worked hard to pass on a legacy of faith to her and her siblings. She also talks about her experiences leading a church with her husband. This book is a great encouragement and call to others to pass on our faith as well. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly had no idea of CeCe's legacy until picking up this book. I thought she was much younger (20s) and much newer to the Christian music scene, having only heard one of her songs. Wow, was I wrong.

On the actual book - I love how CeCe's (biblically based) passion and conviction reading the next generation comes through. She makes many biblically founded points that we can all benefit from - regardless of which generation we belong to.

Another plug - I listened to the audiobook, which I highly recommend!

[Christy Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an incredible book on passing on your faith and investing in the next generation. Whether you’re a young mama with littles to pour into or think you’re “almost done” with kids about to leave the house or a grandma not sure of your purpose…this book is timely and for you!

CeCe has such a word about what it looks like to continue to invest and pour into the generations behind you.

[Amy Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believe For It by CeCe Winans is an inspirational book that is part memoir and part exhortation to lead the next generation to follow Jesus. I enjoyed reading about her life and she was quick to share ways to lead our children in their growing up years. I would recommend this book for anyone who is a fan of her singing career as well as anyone looking for a book about how to lead their family.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book for my honest opinion.

[Kim Paulus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book. I made a bible study within the reading. Ce Ce spoke about growing up and her family's godly examples from those around her. Grandparents, mother, father, church family, all had an impact on her. After each chapter there are prompts included for deeper thinking and a personal response for growth in God's word. I have learned so much. I recommend this book to all people that want to walk closer with God!

[Sarah Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

After attending CeCe’s concert in Colorado Springs for our one-year wedding anniversary, I decided to listen to her book on audiobook. While the content wasn’t necessarily new, it was a wonderful reminder of faith and positivity. Having her voice fill our home made it even more powerful—it felt like being pastored by a wise, loving aunty you aspire to be like when you grow up. It’s an easy listen, perfect for doing chores or going about the day, and I loved that she narrated it herself.

[Delaney Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book full of wisdom. CeCe wisely discussed a biblical topic that is necessary to dive into, as I feel many have forgotten the importance of living a life of obedience and passing on faith. I honestly think this is a great parenting book as well, and I hope to re read it when that time comes.

[Kellie Corinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and I’m so glad I did. I think this a a relevant Christian book. CeCe Winans discusses how we can grow in our faith as well as welcome the younger generation into Christ. It’s not very preachy which I appreciate. The book inspired me to lean into my faith. I will be purchasing this book for a couple friends.

[Joycie Verdone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never heard of the gospel singer CeCe Winans until I watched the final episode of “American Idol” in 2024, and fell in love with her beautiful voice. I wanted to learn more about her, and in this book she tells her story growing up in a large faith family. What a humble person. I listed to the audio and was narrated by the author.

[Eugenia Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome read! I’ve been a fan/supporter of CeCe Winans for as long as I can remember. She stresses the importance of being a positive light and example in our family, church and community. She also teaches on the importance of passing our faith on to the generations to come. Our faith should be our greatest legacy that we pass on from generation to generation.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book is like sitting down to share a cup of tea with a friend who is warm, wise, and confidently bold. CeCe’s warmth positions her to impart in a way that is direct but not threatening. You feel her motivation is genuine love for the Father and others. Her heart to be a generational bridge resonates with me.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Cece Winans and her music. This book is really good. She gives tips on sharing faith with the younger generation along with her stories. I think everyone should read this. I'm grateful that netgalley and the publishers let me read this in exchange for an honest review