Steve Wiens - Beginnings: The First Seven Days of the Rest of Your Life

Ive come to think of Steve Wiens as a poetic hound dog, an author who sniffs out the nuances of ancient biblical words and stories until hes dug up their practical implications for the living of our actual lives. Wiens book, Beginnings, is an eloquent, earthy, and gently urgent call to say yes to the beautiful things the Creator wants to grow in the soil of you and me.

CAROLYN ARENDS

Recording artist and author

Steve Wiens has a rich repertoire of stories that have emerged from the daily concrete reality of life. He uses this fund of narratives to fill out and explicate the seven days of the creation lyric. The result of this interpretive work is that we are permitted to read both ways from creation to daily life, and from daily life to creation. This back-and-forth is immensely generative, thanks to the pastoral heart that is so evident on every page of Wiens book.

WALTER BRUEGGEMANN

Author of The Prophetic Imagination

This isnt a book. Its an invitation to new beginnings, new life. With a fresh perspective on Genesis 1, we are invited into Gods process of becoming who we actually are. Telling stories with honesty, vulnerability, and pastoral sensitivity, Steve helps us locate our stories in the grand narrative of Gods creation and re-creation story. Read this book and walk into something new.

NATE PYLE

Author of Man Enough

Beginnings is a fine work of midrash. Steve Wiens knows how Scriptures should work indeed, how they do work to breathe an expansive breath into our mean and shriveled lungs, creating space for a good universe, the fullness of creation, to come inside. Beginnings shows us how to take in the breath, and with the exhale, to let out a great and inspired hallelujah!

STEVE BELL

Singer/songwriter

God majestically spoke creation into being in seven days, creating the teeming world of profundity and promise in which we live. Beginnings beckons us to let into our lives Gods formational framework, the seven days which created the world and just might change yours.

MARK SAYERS

Pastor of Red Church, Melbourne, Australia, and author of Facing Leviathan

I really enjoyed reading Beginnings and found myself referencing Steves writing in conversation with friends immediately. This book will both encourage and challenge. Steve doesnt leave us alone with our thoughts and struggles but expertly guides us into our own new beginnings through both the creation story and his own journey. Nice one, Steve!

STU GARRARD

Songwriter/singer, formerly of Delirious

If you love language, stories, and scholarship, Steve Wiens has prepared a feast of all three in Beginnings. Steve is a wise guide and wonderful storyteller, trekking deep into the rhythm of the creation and the gorgeous Hebrew language which holds it. There are a few stories in my life which have been tender to the touch and in need of a deeper interpretation than merely my own experience of them. Beginnings gave me a way to interpret my life, fresh, and for that I am grateful.

JAN MEYERS PROETT

Author and speaker

I read Beginnings during one of those in-between seasons Steve Wiens talks about. I was at the close of one adventure, with no clear sense of when the next would come, and still less certain that I would be up for the challenge when it did. I was exhausted but also restless. Rather than offering a quick escape, Beginnings encouraged me to embrace that tension. After all, the seeds of new life are often embedded in the vulnerable place between the What now? and the Whats next? Wise, hopeful, and beautifully written, this was the right book at the right time for me. What will it coax to life in you?

JOHN PATTISON

Coauthor of Slow Church

Steve Wiens is the rare pastoral soul who somehow tells the truth about ourselves and God with both truth and love. He gets it; he gets us. And yet he sees the truth of the gospel and the wonder of resurrection among the most regular moments. In an age of Facebook-self versus real-self, this book of his will help our compartmentalized church move into the prophetic work of wholeness.

SARAH BESSEY

Author of Jesus Feminist

This book will encourage you. Deeply. To be and become the light God created you to be. To stop being something and someone you are not. To begin again to be the good God created you to be. Read it and be blessed.

RUTH HALEY BARTON

Author of Sacred Rhythms

NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators, an international Christian organization and leader in personal spiritual development. NavPress is committed to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical.

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Beginnings: The First Seven Days of the Rest of Your Life

Copyright 2015 by Stephen Wiens. All rights reserved.

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

NAVPRESS and the NAVPRESS logo are registered trademarks of NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO. TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Absence of in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks.

Cover design by Ron Kaufmann

Cover photographs are the property of their respective copyright holders, and all rights are reserved. Eye copyright Deyan Georgiev/Dollar Photo Club. Cliff jumping copyright Lukasz Zakrzewski/Dollar Photo Club. Canyon copyright helgidinson/Dollar Photo Club. Sunset copyright Allen Enriquez/Stocksy.com. Man in fog copyright Cosma Andrei/Stocksy.com. Hand removing seeds copyright Liam Grant/Stocksy.com.

The Team:

Don Pape, Publisher

David Zimmerman, Development Editor

The author is represented by Christopher Ferebee, Attorney and Literary Agent, www.christopherferebee.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from THE MESSAGE by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked The Voice are taken from The Voice, copyright 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data