Reflecting With God

Untangling the day-to-day issues in our multifaceted lives can seem daunting. Time to sit quietly and reflect is rare. If we are fortunate, we have good friends or close family members with whom to talk things through and find clarity, but many times we feel isolated and lonely. As people of faith, we add another layer to our reflections when we wonder where God fits into our lives.

In a broad sense, theological reflection happens any time that we wonder about God, our faith, our beliefs, and our values. In this book, however, Abigail Johnson offers a structured process for engaging in theological reflection by looking at a situation or event through a series of questions. These questions are designed to help individuals and small groups to think through situations with the eyes of faith.

Johnson provides detailed instructions for group facilitators, making this book a valuable resource for any theological reflection leader. She demonstrates how theological reflection will enrich the faith life of the individual and increase group members’ sense of belonging to God and to the whole people of God. She also shows how small groups engaging in theological reflection affects the ongoing life of a congregation-particularly in the community’s worship and the members’ practice of spiritual disciplines. Foreword by Barbara Troxell

More than any volume I know, Reflecting with God is an inspiring, practical, and detailed guide to this most crucial and exciting work-developing theologians. It is a rare delight and an important book.-Dudley C. Rose

Nothing transforms a congregation more than people talking at a profound level about faith questions. Abigail Johnson’s fine, wonderfully practical book offers an exquisite rationale for small theological reflection groups: the opportunity to develop deeper awareness of ministry, a more mature faith, wisdom.-Donna Sinclair

Abigail Johnson, an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada, is director of field education at Emmanuel College in Toronto, where she teaches and learns about theological reflection as a faithful process of discerning God’s spirit at work in the church and in the world.