Dream Like Jesus by Rebekah Simon-Peter
Mainstream congregations are in trouble. Attendance is in decline and many churches are struggling to survive. Formal religious practice is no longer the centerpiece of American life. Too many people think the church is there to judge them, rather than free them. To limit them, rather than empower them. And the corporeal reasons are all too familiar – uninspired preaching, soccer practice, the failure of society, over-packed schedules and lack of engaging activities.
Looking back over 30 years of recovery from addiction and 25 years as a pastor, Rebekah Simon-Peter, reflects on the power of spirituality, a surprise vision and her work in leadership development in her newest book, Dream Like Jesus: Deepen Your Faith and Bring the Impossible to Life (Market Square Publishing).
The result is a book that goes beyond the ordinary to explore congregation intelligence from the perspective of how a congregation as a whole operates. Simon-Peter says she wrote the book “for spiritual leaders in the United Methodist Church and beyond: clergy and laity who are passionate about the gospel, yet deeply concerned about the future of the church.”
Dream Like Jesus shows Protestant congregations how they can infuse new life in their churches if they would only embrace the empowerment that is their Christian heritage. Known for teaching leaders how to bring out the best in the people who frustrate them the most, her work transforms church leaders and the congregations they serve.
A United Methodist minister, Simon-Peter is passionate about reconnecting spiritual leaders with their God-given powers to co-create miracles with the divine. Her award-winning group coaching program, Creating a Culture of Renewal® has energized church leaders across the country to reclaim their calling and to grow their ministries.
Growing up in a home with a Jewish mother, a Catholic father, three brothers and a sister, their house had it all. “We opened the front door for Elijah at Passover and for the Easter Bunny on Easter,” she says. “Our living room sported a Christmas tree at Christmas and a Menorah at Chanukah. I grew up with a distinctly Jewish religious upbringing in a home where we celebrated everything,”
With Dream Like Jesus, Simon-Peter explores her own spiritual journey and helps leaders learn to get past the “standard” Christianity and learn to dream like Jesus, thus inspiring individuals and congregations to dream and achieve dreams previously thought impossible.
An inspirational speaker and brilliant storyteller, Simon-Peter’s intention is to motivate, prepare and encourage leaders to once again live out their calling. Dream Like Jesus is filled with practical leadership advice and deep spiritual uplift and teaches clergy and lay leaders how to recapture the vision that is at the core of Christian belief, the new, empowering conversations that Jesus inspired through sharing visions that had never been uttered before. Rather than the nice, safe, predictable Jesus of mainstream religion, Simon-Peter shows how the rabble rouser of the New Testament can inspire congregations to dream big dreams and develop big, bold visions where the church is the agent of the vision, rather than the recipient.
For more on Rebekah Simon-Peter, please visit her Author Profile.
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