Saints Along the Way

This concise volume seeks, as Christian theorist Stanley Hauerwas put it, "to identify those people who in a compelling manner embody in their lives that larger journey." Earlier, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian martyr, proposed that, "the Church's word gains weight and power not through concepts but by example." This thrust toward lifting up examples begins with traits -- seven of them: (1) hunger for God, (2) seeking community on the journey, (3) satisfaction with obscurity, (4) influencing others, (5) testimony in word and deed, (6) exhibiting behaviors worthy of imitation, and (7) living in the body of believers. Then appear seven portraits of women and men who have enabled faith to come alive and thrive: Arthur, radiant in faith from a paraplegic wheelchair; Zoe, pulling up by the bootstraps coal miner families; Willard, a scholar full of faith who helped right my sinking ship; "Wee Isa," sharing what she had from her meager store; Dennie, going downhill from cancer but walking uphill toward God all the way to life's close; Chris, who lent lay leadership to congregation and pastor; and Lawrence, nourishing faith in others along the way. Perhaps these portraits of contemporary examples of "the faith once delivered to the saints" will conjure in the reader exemplars in their own journey.