I am delighted to share my latest book with you that is now available for purchase. “CATCHING UP WITH GOD: Freeing Ourselves for Divine Engagement,” is a homiletic commentary of sorts based on the book of Exodus. It is intended for preachers, teachers and anyone interested in an accessible study of the second book of the Pentateuch.

Dr. Walter Brueggemann, my teacher and mentor, wrote the following generous endorsement of CATCHING UP WITH GOD:

“The hard generative work of good preaching is to show the ways in which an old treasured text is as contemporary as the life we live today. I cannot remember when I have seen such a sustained embodiment of the good work of preaching. DeLoach has taken up both the plotline and the specificity of the Book of Exodus in order to summon us to fresh faith and to missional living.  This is a series of sermons to which attention should be paid because Greg’s word and our lives constitute a perfect match for each other. This book is an important gift we do well to receive and welcome.” Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary

The following is an excerpt from the book’s introduction: “The word “exodus” brings to mind urgent images of migration, flight or escape. Rarely does one think of it as something generative and life-giving. Exodus feels more like survival. Kurds in flight across Turkey, Iran and Syria are described as in exodus, with blood marking their steps. Children of El Salvador and Honduras are in exodus as they desperately pick their way through Mexico and into the United States. Hurricanes like Katrina push families out of their homes and neighborhoods, and into migrations of transitions. Churches too are in their own kind of exodus, with the loss of privileged status, navigating though the wilderness of missional identity and theological wanderings.

Exodus is both an ancient story and a contemporary one. The book within the Torah called Exodus is the epic narrative of God’s deliverance of the children of Israel that continues to speak to all who wander, seek, or flee. It is the story of a larger gospel of Missio Dei – the work, or mission of God. The center, or subject and object, is with YHWH moving ahead, leading, calling, and summoning. Through Exodus we read of Israel’s experience as part of the greater story of God at work in creation.”

Much of what forms my preaching and informs my calling is this notion that God is at work in the world and therefore find ourselves in a sacred pursuit of “catching up with God.”

Like Israel of old, the ancient stories of Exodus have a fresh word for all people groaning, murmuring, wandering and searching for God to remember, direct and work in their lives.

It is an old story and if we are honest in the telling, sharing and hearing of it, we can at times find ourselves standing alongside the bloody Nile with Pharaoh, or trotting alongside it with some of the women. We may sympathize with the enslaved as we arise each day to make more bricks or as likely be discomforted and disturbed by our own complicity as the taskmasters disbursing burdens.

The old story is still a fresh story that people of faith and people wanting faith still tell because we still live in a world that needs to hear.

To purchase a signed copy of CATCHING UP WITH GOD, please see my web page at www.gregdeloach.com or email me your address at: deloach_cg@mercer.edu.

Gratefully.

Greg DeLoach