In Off-Road Disciplines, Earl Creps posits that the normal on-road disciplines of prayer and Bible reading should be accompanied by encounters with God that occur unexpectedlythe kinds of encounters in which God beckons us to die to self and allow Jesus to assume central position in our lives. Such meetings are replete with potholes, bumps and bruises, not unlike going off-road in an ATV.Pastor, consultant, and educator Earl Creps insists that if you want to reach the culture around you, youre going to have follow Jesus off-road. Like many other church leaders today, he has discovered that the calling of the Church is not defined by how its organized or even by its doctrinal distinctions, but by the mission of Godthe work of the Holy Spirit to rearrange ones interior life. Personal transformation is crucial if we hope to be men and women whose passion for Christ is contagious, and whose vision for the world makes them people others want to emulate.We have all heard of paradigm shifts; Creps discusses paradigm crashes disconnects between the American church and the culture it is commanded to reach. Creps invites us on his own personal journey of realizing that, when it comes to the Church, one size does not fit all. His humility and vulnerability are evident as he walks the reader through his path to discovering twelve off-road disciplines. Among them are personal transformation, sacred realism, point of view, reverse mentoring, spiritual friendship, and decreasing.Learn how disciplines like these can open you up to the unconventional, powerful ways God wants to shape youto renew you by making it harder to confuse your culture with His mission. Jesus did not construct an auditorium and demand that people come to Him. He went to them. A missional life means Jesus sending us outward, as the Father sent Him.

I had looked forward to reading this book, since it comes from the pen of an academic proponent of the emerging church movement. On Emergent blogs Creps has sounded fully committed to the ideology of emergent teachings but in this book he speaks as though all he or the movement is concerned with is methodology. I find nothing in his discussion of methodology worth commenting on and am troubled at the apparent misrepresentation of the movement Creps embraces. I do not think very many readers will find this book useful.