Ordinary Discipleship: How God Wires Us for the Adventure of Transformation

For Jessie Cruickshank discipleship isn’t an outcome—it’s a process. In this insightful book, Jessie fuses a biblical understanding of discipleship with the taxonomy of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey and shows us how spiritual maturity is an extended process of learning and unlearning, being broken and remade. Or to use her words, it is “climbing the mountain and coming back down again.” Here’s the guidebook to get you started on that heroic journey.

So much of what we are seeing in today’s church behavior in and outside of the building can be linked to discipleship (or the lack thereof). This simple, practical, and inspiring book is needed in this time to help ordinary people like you and me join in on an amazing opportunity and privilege that we are actually made for . . . that of making disciples of Jesus. Jessie provides helpful insights, stories, and even brain science to point the way for us to lean into a God-given invitation to be agents of transformation for lives around us.

Discipleship is a word that often haphazardly gets thrown around in the church. Definitions are numerous; achievement is rare. Though this book title uses the word “ordinary,” it is an extraordinary call to the true north of the church . . . making disciples who also make disciples. Jessie does a tremendous job of serving as our guide through the journey of not only being a disciple but teaching others to be guides as well.

“Not biologically possible.” The words leapt off the page as Cruickshank described the most common discipleship method I have seen attempted all my life. Ordinary Discipleship clearly guides us to change the way the brain learns the life of the Spirit.

My friend Jessie Cruickshank lives and believes what she writes. As a church leader, it has been a long time since I’ve read such a practical resource for those in disciplemaking. The church needs this work. In fact, while this book is itself accessible and “ordinary”—the words here are paradigm-shifting and world-changing. You’ll leave these pages equipped, encouraged, and ready to start your own adventure of ordinary discipleship. A must-read for all who want to lead others in following Jesus.

Recently, there’s been a lot of buzz around brain science and discipleship. What does this mean? How does it intersect? What can we do differently? In this book, you are going to find the answers to these questions, but it’s not going to be in the way that you might initially think. Jessie offers a practical and accessible framework to easily help you leverage the insights from brain science into discipleship and disciplemaking. It’s amazing. Don’t miss this important work.

Jessie Cruickshank is the dangerous sort. She robs the intelligentsia of vital concepts they attempt to obfuscate and makes them visible and usable to everyday people. Ordinary Discipleship is a bit of sleight of hand. Jessie takes a hidden and seldom-used concept, priesthood of the believer, and makes it operational for the average Joe and Sally. Dare I say that it is a breath of fresh air to read not only because she uses her outdoor experience as metaphor from cover to cover but also because the ever-abiding references operate like superglue, attaching the concept to concrete, doable actions. I am roped up and ready to use this tool!