GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL AND KIND

A short, dynamic book with fresh energy and classic truth that invites readers to love like Jesus and step beyond distraction and division into the joy we all long to experience.

Sometimes, the world feels like it is tearing itself apart because we have not been taught to love. Our daily experience is marked by reactivity, impatience, unresolved conflicts, and the inability to hold space with one another. The impact on our bodies and most treasured relationships is overwhelming. But what if a different future is possible? What if we could find real peace, joy, and love?

Pastor Rich Villodas writes that the way towards wholeness, healing, and a new collective future is found in the ancient way of Jesus. Jesus offers a way of being human that is both strong and tender enough to tear down the walls of hostility we see and feel daily. Jesus presents us with a way of healing, reconciliation, humility, reflection, patience, empathy, truth-telling, and presence. It's the way of the Cross, and the victorious path of the resurrection. We have not been trained to love well. Our society reminds us of this often. But what if that could change? What if we submitted ourselves to an ancient path that forms us out of sentimentality into self-giving love; out of anger and into compassion; out of fear and into hospitality?

Rich Villodas is the author of The Deeply Formed Life, winner of the Christianity Today Book Award, and the Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large, multiracial church with more than seventy-five countries represented in Elmhurst, Queens. Prior to becoming lead pastor, he gave oversight to New Life's small group ministry and served as preaching pastor. Rich graduated with a BA in pastoral ministry and theology from Nyack College. He went on to complete his master's of divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.