The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You [Paperback]

''I was terrified of being ordinary', and with that one sentence Shannan Martin sums up every single one of us. Certainly me. And then she deconstructs the cliche of orindary and puts it back together with pictures and stories and sidewalks full of people who will make you want to cry or singy or despair or dance or rail or just quietly whisper, amen. This book is a new pair of eyes. Go ahead, open them!'- Lisa-Jo Baker, bestselling author of Never Unfriended and Surprised by Motherhood'The Ministry of Ordinary Places tears down the high and mighty calling we've often conjured in our minds about how the faithful serve God and instead invites us to see a sacred call in the faces of our neighbors, to smell the holy incense in ashtrays fulled with crooked cigarette butts, or to see the broken bread set before us in a Burger King table for two. Shannan challenges who our neighbor is then offers a glimpse of what it might look like to stay put, stick around, and find that our best life is one where we simply pay attention to that common ache to be known and seen and lvoed, just as we are. in a book that's both challenging and down to earth, she leads us into a theology of ordinary places, of neighborliness, secondhand smoke, and the holy ground of discovernig our way home is always together.' - Alia Joy, author of Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack'In a world where hope seems dim and solutions feel complicated and partisan, Shannan Martin offers us a starting point that is as radical as it is domestic; widen your circle, hush your mouth, and pay close attention. This book is the right book for this moment in time and I simply cannot get over it. I either laughed or cried on almost every page. We need these lyrical, prophetic words now more than ever before.' - Emily P. Freeman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Simply Tuesday'Our nonstop consumer society seduces us into forsaking the ordinary. Even as believers, we are prone to aspire to do sexy mil3¨