Mrs. Escobar writes about what Christians need to do to live out our faith in a tangible way. To quote Escobar in the first chapter, "Practice is centered on deep inner work in our souls that propels us to habitually, intentionally, and repeatedly live out new healthier ways over the long haul."

Recommended for small group discussions, as well as, public libraries.

Thought provoking and inspiring.  Really makes you think about HOW to be a change in our world. Very practical information.

I loved the first few chapters of this book and was highlighting like crazy. Then, the chapters started taking a turn towards a more liberal perspective and I had to put it down. Had this book stayed close to the premise that attracted me, I would have rated it higher. Instead, the book felt like a soapbox for the author to preach from.

Practicing is a hard book to read. I don't mean writing style. I mean with content. Escobar really challenges you to practice love by looking at how to truly do it. Teh author changes your perspective showing you when you aren't doing enough. The good news si there is no judgment, just help. The author shares stories that help you understand how to truly practice advocating for others. Each chapter has questions for you and encourages ways for you to g past what you are currently doing. This is a good book is you are really ready to look at our life and make it better.

The description of this book paired with the endorsement of some of my favorite authors made me really excited to dig in. I wasn’t disappointed! Escobar helps us think about what we personally can do to end injustice in our world.

Kathy Escobar’s “Practicing: Changing Yourself to Change the World” is an incredible wise, insightful, and practical book that gently guides us to not settle for a comfortable life, but a daring and courageous life. Kathy combines the prophetic and pastoral with literary finesse. I will be recommending her work broadly!

PRACTICING
                                                       KATHY ESCOBAR

Having received this Kindle book for free for the purpose of review I struggled through. What each of us needs to PRACTICE,  writing style seemed slow and not particularly interesting.

I did agree that a changed world begins with our own changes and then practiced among people in our every day life and those who may be completely different.  It is valuable to treat everyone, be it friend or foe, kindly.  "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you", Matthew 7:12.

Matthew 7:12 sounds easy enough and yet we know how difficult it can be.  However, with each "Practice" it becomes more strengthened in our life.

So, all that said, I muddled through the book and found all suggestions worthwhile.

Practicing discusses a variety of topics: healing, listening, loving, including, equalizing, advocating, mourning, failing, resting, and celebrating. The book talks about the difference between how we treat one another vs how we SHOULD treat one another.

This book gives great guidance. I believe God touches us all different times with different things.

This book gave me great realizations in life!

Teaching to listen more and talk less. Many could benefit from this concept that comes from God.  Loving others is also so important. Putting God above all else is important. 
Interesting read. 
I received an advanced copy from netgalley and the publisher

Wow yes I needed to read this book. At one point, Escobar talks about how take better care of others than ourselves. She writes here about what it truly means to rest in God. I really needed this right now. Thanks for writing this book.

Practicing
Changing Yourself to Change the World
by Kathy Escobar

Westminster John Knox Press

Christian , Religion & Spirituality

Pub Date 18 Feb 2020


I am reviewing a copy of Practicing: Changing Yourself to Change the World through Westminster John Knox Press and Netgalley:




There are parts of this book I agree with like when Kathy Escobar says “Part of an active, vibrant, tangible faith is becoming healthier human beings and learning to practice a better way.”  The importance of personal healing and listening, really listening being emphasized are also something I agree with.


The fact that more ears and less mouth are emphasized are something I understand as well, because I believe truly listening is one of the ways we can reach out to others and show them that our faith is genuine.  But as I said there are things that I don’t agree with, it’s almost as if the author is accusing Christians in general of not taking the time out to truly listen before forming an opinion, and though I’m sure that wasn’t her intention it was the vibe I got.


The fact that as a Christian she says we can spend to much of the loving God part and not enough of the loving our neighbor part gets to me as well, first of all we are supposed to love God with all our hearts, I do think we need to love our neighbors in a deeper and more profound way but that does not mean we should focus less   loving God, if we do it right we can effectively do both.


I honestly found the way she lumped all conservative Christians into this broad category, of judgement and hate.


Honestly I struggled to get through this book because in many ways it felt like an unbalanced personal attack.


I give Practicing three out of five stars, only because this book was well written, and some of the arguments were well thought out!

Inspiring and thought-provoking. The book is full of ideas on how to put our faith into practice by changing ourselves as the title suggests. At the end of each chapter, she has personal and group reflection questions as well as tips on how to put the particular theme into practice. Each chapter also has book suggestions for those who want to dig deeper into that particular topic. Overall, a great book that is easy to read and has a beautiful message.

I originally received this book through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Before I was halfway done I had ordered a copy. It's the kind of book you want to keep close by, so you can scribble in the margins and underline sentences and have available for use in your day to day life. 
This is a book explaining ten practices that any Christian can do, to help change the world. A little bit at a time. As Kathy Escobar says in the introduction, faith is a verb. Each chapter describes a faith practice explained through practical advice and stories. Each chapter ends with a prayer, questions for personal reflection, questions for group discussions, a list to help you get started on that practice, and book suggestions for digging deeper.

Definitely feel like this book would be a great high-school graduation gift. But as a woman in her mid-30s it missed the mark and felt like a watered down checklist of irrelevant common knowledge things to do to “better” myself.

We have often heard of pleas to walk the talk; to put ideas into action; and to put theories into practice. Whatever the expressions, the common theme is that people are sincerely wanting to live out their faith authentically and tangibly. Practice is also about change: Not more but deeper; not bigger but stronger; not better but integrated. For faith is not a static belief but active practice. For author and pastor Kathy Escobar, it is not just one but ten practices that we can do to change the world beginning with ourselves. In a powerful introduction, she gives several reasons why all Christians need this book. Generally, in a world where people talk more than they walk, we need to do the reverse, to declare faith as a verb to be practiced instead to be passively talked about. That does not mean that we do not talk. It simply means that whatever we talk, be ready to apply. So the word "practice" is the active verb throughout the book. She explores the nature of practicing via several dimensions. It is about being "tangible" to make our faith visible. It is about walking with people, to mourn with those who mourn, and to rejoice with those who rejoice. It is about becoming like Christ before others. It is about "improvement," where we move from popular words like "more, bigger, or better" toward "deeper, stronger, and more integrated." This improvement begins from the inside out. While emphasizing the practicing more than the talking, she admits that conversations are still necessary. She even gives us six broad sets of ground rules to begin the conversation process. In summary, we are called to be Christ's physical ministry to others. The ten practices are:

1) Healing: We need to be honest with ourselves that we all have various needs for healing. This is essential if we want to participate in such ministry to others. 
2) Listening: We need more ears and less mouth, to increase our understanding of others.
3) Loving: Following Richard Rohr's words to put into action; "The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better."
4) Including: Avoid the addiction of preferring the known and the comfortable. Remember that there is no "us vs them" but we.
5) Equalizing: From power differences to giving all individuals an equal sense of worth.
6) Advocating: To help those who cannot help themselves by "magnifying" their voices.
7) Mourning: Grief should not be avoided. Instead, we should make space for one another to lament and mourn any loss. Mourning with those who mourn also means letting one another express themselves without any other forms of interference.
8) Failing: Making mistakes is part of being human. We ought to cultivate resilience to rise up each time we fall, in order to learn and grow as real people.
9) Resting: We need intentional space to rest on a regular basis. It keeps us sane. 
10) Celebrating: Helping people see and celebrate the good they have done, that sometimes they cannot see themselves.

Each chapter begins with a dictionary-like definition of the participle, or a continuous form of the verb. With the definitions, Escobar gives us a popular understanding of the word. Following that, she shares a thought from a practitioner about the direction of the chapter. There is a personal story, where Escobar shares not only from her past but her present struggles from family, ministry, and relationships. She then invites us into the practice by showing us how we are not alone in suffering the short end of the stick. Interestingly, she applies what were discussed to each succeeding chapter. What I like about Escobar's approach is the way she asks questions while teaching the meaning of the practice. One does not feel being talked to, but more like being invited to a learning conversation. This is something very beautiful in this approach because the author has been so open which in turn encourages us to be open. On top of that, she lists a few different examples to help us notice the many different ways in which the practice could be relevant to us. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter make for very good small group interactions. There is a prayer to ask the Lord for help to be open, to be honest, and to be willing to share constructively with one another. Escobar concludes each chapter with what to do next and how to "dig deeper" into the topic. 

Three Thoughts
First, this book puts into practice the flesh needed to bring theology to life. It is a much needed book especially in a climate of suspicions and skepticism about the Christian faith. It reminds me of the importance of letting our faith do the walking as what letter of James 1:22 had taught us: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." The author hits us at the jugular by pointing out Richard Rohr's observation, that "Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control, power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else." Theologically, it is about sin. Escobar is clearly one who have had enough with hypocrisy in Christian circles. On the one hand, we are all guilty, both believers and non-believers. On the other hand, as Christians, we are expected to be people of faith demonstrated in good works. Put in this light, this book gives us ways to go about doing that. In particular, I appreciate the constructive ideas at the end of each chapter that puts forth about how to go about putting the virtue into practice.

Second, we need to be cautious not to depend on human strength and wisdom to go about doing things. Spiritual things must not only be spiritually discerned, they need to be spiritually led toward Christlike living. It is tempting to jump into the practice without praying or seeking God. When that happens, things might work for a while, but it will not be sustainable. When Jesus tells us the need to abide in Him and He in us, He is reminding us that apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Any rush to do things, even the good things in the Name of God, would be folly. Proverbs also warn us against hasty living. Seeking God, seeking counsel, and seeking godly wisdom must come before the actual work itself. In fact, prayer and discernment are not limited to the beginning. They are meant to be practiced through the entire process. Kudos to Escobar for including a prayer at the end of each chapter to do just that. If there's anything to critique, I would say the prayers are way too brief.

Finally, this book should be a kick-start for more practices to follow. It should trigger the beginning rather than the end of any conversation. The ten practices Escobar had listed could easily spawn other topics. For example, listening could progress toward different levels of understanding for different situations. Both the personal and group reflection questions ought to inspire us to creatively formulate other acts and practices. The lists are probably worth the price of this book.

Great book to start a conversation as well as a movement.

Kathy Escobar is co-pastor at the Refuge, a Christian community and mission center in North Denver. She is a trained spiritual director, speaker, writer, group facilitator, and advocate for safe spaces for healing.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Westminster John Knox Press and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

We often hear the quote about being the change we wish to see in the world, in her book Practicing, Kathy Escobar shows us how to do that. 

From the very first page, you will feel like you are having a conversation with a dear friend who is a wise sage. Kathy has organized and crafted this book in such an intentional way that it will without a doubt, help you live out your faith in a better more meaningful way.    

Her chapters are organized around 10 topics that we all can grow in; Healing, Listening, Loving, Including, Equalizing, Advocating, Mourning, Failing, Resting, and Celebrating. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all practiced our faith in these areas? The stories Kathy includes are from her and her friends. Each narrative, teaches us so much and was included in such an intentional way.

For each of these 10 areas, Kathy gives us practical ways we can live this out in our faith, she also includes discussion questions and prayers. This book is so engaging and well written that it is an easy read-- however I highly recommend taking your time and give room to put her wisdom into practice. 

The publisher provided an ARC through Netgalley. I have voluntarily read this book and these thoughts and opinions are my own honest review.

I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this. But, let me tell you, this book was fantastic! I typically read a lot of fiction. But this year I challenged myself to read more non-fiction and I am so glad that I did. 

This book is exactly what I needed for the season of life that I am currently in. This book is life-giving, beautiful, hopeful and motivating. Through this book Kathy Escobar pushes you to look within yourself and to be honest and more intentional with yourself. This is a book that you can come back to and continue to learn from year after year. I highly recommend it.

Helpful and Insightful
From page one it's like talking to a close friend. It gives words to the raw realities of life. It's like a hug letting you know your not alone and it's ok to be broken. It gives you the tools , guidance, and encouragement to begin to heal your self and your commentary through faith in action. It is a book for deep contemplation and soul searching retrospect. Giving you the courage.to be honest with yourself and others.

I'm one of those that are "done" with church and organized religion.  That doesn't mean that I don't still want to practice my faith and help make things better.  I'm an older reader but I still found things that I can do and ways to help others that I really hadn't thought about.  I am enjoying the book as it's not just a book to read but to absorb and use to practice.  I love the interactive aspects and am looking forward to reading more from Ms. Escobar.
I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher and voluntarily chose to review it.