Samuel C. Williamson

An interesting look at how we teach in Sunday School and how it works in the real world. I know as a Sunday School teacher I had questions about why we use certain people as examples of how we should live. Their flaws get in the way of the good they may have done. Too often they have committed most of the 7 Deadly Sins. I liked the common sense the author brought to the discussion. I also liked that he said bring Jesus into the stories as we read them. I did that as I thought about the Good Samaritan and it was interesting to see the story with Jesus as the victim left by the side of the road then as the travelers passing the victim. What would Jesus' actions be and what can I learn and use to make me live the gospel better?… (mais)

His sheep know his voice. John 10:4 tells us that; yet many of us struggle to discern God's voice in the midst of daily life. Samuel Williamson, founding director of Beliefs of the Heart, has written a helpful guide to hearing God's voice everywhere.Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere helps us cultivate our curiosity and attention to the ways in which God speaks to us.


Williamson begins with a story of hearing God's voice when he was just a 9780825444241ten-year-old, newly minted atheist. When God didn't strike down his girlfriend Diane for cussing, Williamson lost his faith. So he started his own experiment with profanity and living like God wasn't there. God simply said, "Sam, I'm real, and you don't understand" (24). Williamson was brought back to faith. While this experience is unique to him, Williamson believes we all have a capacity to hear God's voice. He relates the various ways people hear God. In his second chapter Williamson argues that the point of God speaking is less about directions from on high (though He is still God) and more about conversation. God wants to connect and commune with us. Williamson uses the analogy of learning sailing from his dad and the casual conversations that would spring up organically as a result (35-36).

But Williamson is also an evangelical. He gives pride of place to the Bible. Williamson wants us to read our Bibles, but not as a maintenance manual or a rule book but as an opportunity to encounter the living God. We read to commune with the living God. So he offers scriptural meditation (focusing on the one book where God clearly spoke) as a way to train ourselves to hear God's voice, "The best way to become familar with God's voice is to meditate on his Word, just as the best way to spot a counterfeit is to spend lots of time with the real thing" (61).

Along the way Williamson has lots of practical advice for listening prayer: how to recognize God, how to hear God's voice for others, hearing God's voice in the silence, and detours of life, the place of emotions, etc. Williamson opens up about his own journey of God. He shares childhood stories of learning to hear God's voice, awkward words that God gave him for others (or about others), and his process of discerning God's call to leave a stable career with a software company to pursue full time ministry. He suggests brainstorming with God (journaling) and listening to 'God's questions' in the Bible as ways to press into a deeper relationship with God.

What distinguishes Williamson's book from some treatments of listening prayer is how down-to-earth he is. He shares stories and anecdotes with good humor (occasionally this is a bit distracting). Two appendixes address the arguments against listening prayer by some conservative evangelicals and those 'questionable and excessive practices.' There are other good books on this theme (notably, Joyce Huggett's Listening to God and Brad Jersak's Can You Hear Me?, Dallas Willard's Hearing God). Williamson own influences in writing include Oswald Chambers, C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard and Tim Keller (22). He makes a strong and helpful contribution to the topic of hearing God. The best thing I can say about a book on prayer is that it makes me want to pray. This book certainly makes want to do that.

Five stars. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Note: I received this book from Kregel Publications in exchange for my honest review… (mais)

Sunday School doesn't necessarily destroy kids. Some children come through their childhood-Christian education with their souls relatively unscathed. However there is a big ugly problem that well-meaning sunday-school-teachers (and parents) inadvertently pass on to their children: moralism.

What is moralism? Moralism is a tendency to make judgments, to 'moralize' For Christians, it represents the perversion of the doctrine of grace. Often Suday school, our way of reading the Bible, our parenting methods and are way of spiritual formation is characterized by moralism. We want our kids to be good, but being good is so much less than the gospel of grace. Grace is the good news that despite how many times we screw up, fall short, and how rotten we are to the core, God loved and pursued us anyway.

In Is Sunday School Destroying Our Kid? Samuel C. Williamson shares a collection of essays exploring the problem of moralism and the power of grace. People are not changed by submitting to high-moral-standards. We are changed when we lay hold of the gospel of grace--the good news of all that God did for us in Christ. When we get grace, we are set fee to live differently.

This book is short and the chapters are short. Sometimes Williamson is so pithy that it feels like reading an abridged version of an early Rob Bell book. But in this book he makes a lot of points. He talks about how Esther was likely complicit in sexual sin and the manifold ways that moralism poisons the well. Okay I don't agree with him totally on Esther, but his point is that we turn bible characters into heroes to emulate and that subverts the message of the Bible itself. No human person (other than Jesus) is the hero of the Bible; the hero of the Bible is the God who has compassion on his people. [My personal feelings on Esther is that whether or not she was complicit in her status as a court concubine (before she was the wife), she was still a victim of some pretty ugly power dynamics. She isn't the hero, but there are still aspects of her character that are 'heroic'].

I agree with Williamson's concerns to defend the gospel of grace. Moralism is a real problem. Still this book has a bit of an antinomian feel to it. Grace is primary but law is eternal and any parent will tell you that cultural, legal and moral expectations are necessary elements in raising children. I don't want to shame my kids for not 'measuring up' but I also don't want them to not know the good and the right. I think moral education is important and I wonder if Williamson poo-poos it too much. Still I agree that Grace and God's goodness stand at the center. I give this book three and a half stars but am

Notice of material connection: I received this book free from the publisher or author via SpeakEasy in exchange for my honest review.… (mais)

Author Samuel C Williamson offers his own experiences and those of others to ground his book, Hearing God In Conversation, in the real and the everyday of human life. We won’t all hear voices, he says. We won’t all see visions of glory. But we can all learn to listen better and to hear the message of God, spoken, whispered, resonating in circumstance, nudging our thoughts and actions, bringing wisely inspiring memories to mind just when we need them, and gently guiding. We don’t need to be “spiritual giants” to do this. But we do need to believe God really cares.

The author starts with the art of communication—of conversation—with a God who can truly speak all our languages (body language, love language, everything). Highlighted tidbits offer immediate takeaways, breaking up the page and drawing the reader in. Short sections keep the text flowing smoothly and inject their message as quickly and clearly to casual reader as to careful annotator. Meanwhile familiar metaphors are shown wanting—the Bible as “owners’ manual” for example—when they speak of a God who really wants to know us.

Paraphrase, prayer and meditation are offered as guides. Scripture, tradition and famous speakers of the past join the conversation. Care and concern for spiritual truth keeps the reader grounded, protecting against spiritual excess while promoting invaluable practice in listening and praying. Readers will learn to recognize the biases that hold them back, drop pretensions, and cultivate holy curiosity, all in conversation with a God who loves to answer. As the author points out, we don't need to hide anything from God; we need emotion as well as knowledge—it’s the way we’re made. We need the past as well as the present if we’re to move to the future. Then, one day, the everyday might seem so much more when it’s shared with the creator.

Hearing God In Conversation is a very practical book, enjoyably written, easy to read, Biblically honest, and spiritually uplifting. I really enjoyed it.

Disclosure: A group at church is learning from this book, but I couldn’t join in, so I bought a copy for myself.… (mais)