Starts Wednesday, June 9 at 2 PM ET

A learning community for church leaders

Is it possible to live like Jesus or is that the sort of life reserved for the likes of St. Francis—the rare saint whose way of life is beyond the reach of most Christians?

This is a question that Christians and non-Christians are asking today. Even unbelievers intuit that what often passes for Christianity is not Christianity at all. It’s a corruption. A desecration. Or at the very least, it is Christianity on life support. And they want nothing to do with it.

The good news is that living like Jesus, like saints, is indeed possible, but it will require that we walk away from cultural and politically captive Christianity to daily avail ourselves of God’s grace by leaving no stone unturned in our surrender to God.


This 4-week learning community led by author and professor, Marlena Graves, will meet Wednesdays, June 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2-3:30 PM ET on Zoom. Participants will discuss and apply concepts from The Way Up is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself, including:

  • converting every ounce of our being to Christ
  • embodying the posture of surrendering our rights instead of seeking our rights that we might be filled with God’s life
  • descending downward to be emptied, or unclogged, of the world and its ways that often masquerade as Christian, in order that we might be filled with God and live powerfully right where we are.

Participants should purchase, read and be prepared to discuss the book, The Way Up is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself. Use discount code MISS21 to receive 40% off and free shipping. Purchase the book here.

Move more deeply into being who it is God calls us to be here and now.

Join Today

$49 for 4 week session

*$24.50 for Friends Network members

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Register here

All registered participants should purchase and read the book, The Way Up is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself.

Use discount code MISS21 to receive 40% off and free shipping.

Purchase the book here.

About the Presenter

Marlena Graves is an author, PhD student, and an adjunct professor at Winebrenner Seminary. She is pursuing her PhD in American Cultural Studies at Bowling Green State University with a focus on evangelical Christianity, race, and inequality. She worked at the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) with migrant farm workers and urban youth, in non-profits, and in pastoral associate roles. Marlena holds an MDiv from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York.

She has been a bylined writer for Christianity Today, (in)couragewomenleaders.comOur Daily Bread, Sojourners, and numerous other venues like Missio Alliance. She has also been a guest on numerous podcasts and interviewed by publications like the New Yorker, and in Reuters. She speaks at retreats, universities, writers’ conferences, and churches.

She is the author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself (IVP, 2020) which won Christianity Today's 2021 Book Award of Merit in Spiritual Formation and was also recognized by Outreach magazine’s ‘Resources of the Year 2021’ as an ‘Also Recommended’ resource of the year. Her newest book, 40 Days on Being A Nine: Enneagram Daily Reflections (IVP, 2021), came out in March 2021. She is also the author of A Beautiful Disaster: Finding Hope in the Midst of Brokenness, winner of Hearts & Minds Books Best Book on Spiritual Formation by a First Time Autho(Brazos Press, 2014), and Who's My Neighbor (ODB’s The Discovery Series, 2020). She lives with her husband and three daughters in the Toledo, Ohio area. You can find her at marlenagraves.com, Twitter: @MarlenaGraves  and Instagram @marlenagraves