cover image Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose

Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose

Kirk Byron Jones, . . Jossey-Bass, $21.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-7879-8452-6

Determining one's calling in life can be an exuberant process of mining one's deepest desires that delights the God who wishes to inspire our choices, not dictate them. That is the central message of this engaging but evanescent meditation by Jones, an author (The Jazz of Preaching ) and founding minister of Beacon Light Baptist Church in New Orleans. Challenging the view (popularized by megachurch pastor Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Life ) that vocational discernment is all about tapping into God's unique purpose for one's life, Jones claims instead that "we are called to join God in co-creating purpose and life itself." Readers are encouraged to discover how to playfully and creatively join with God in forging their path. Suffused with autobiographical morsels and references to Bible stories as well as a plethora of quotations, the book includes chapters on topics like "The Anatomy of Stuck-ness" and "Dreaming Your Way to Purpose." For readers eager to pursue their own vocational discernment, Jones provides chapter-ending questions and exercises. While the message of this volume could probably have been compressed into a sermon or an anthology chapter, it does pose a provocative counterweight to the popular idea that God has predetermined a unique, singular purpose for each human life. (Feb.)