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Off-Road Disciplines

©2006 by Earl Creps
Reviewed by Patty Kennedy

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 unexpectedly—the 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, you’re 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 it’s organized or even by its doctrinal distinctions, but by the mission of God—“the work of the Holy Spirit to rearrange one’s 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. The book is divided into two parts—one discussing personal disciplines and the other organizational disciplines.

Personal disciplines include personal transformation, sacred realism, point of view, reverse mentoring, spiritual friendship, and decreasing. The chapter on decreasing has one of the best definitions of humility I have ever read: “Humility is the discipline of decreasing the scale of my own story until it fits inside the Jesus story, until He defines me rather than my defining Him, until Paul’s words become reality: ‘For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.’” Creps knows a supernatural work of grace is the only thing that will “decrease” us and our egos until only the Jesus story matters— just as John the Baptist decreased so that only Jesus mattered, and Jesus himself decreased until only His redemptive purpose mattered.

The organizational disciplines include missional efficiency, blending differences, discernment, making room, surrendering preferences, and passing the baton.

Learn how disciplines like these can open you up to the unconventional, powerful ways God wants to shape you—to 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.”

PATTY KENNEDY is assistant web content editor for the national Women’s Ministries Department. She also writes book and music reviews for Pages and Tunes, a free e-newsletter provided by the national Women’s Ministries Department.

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