Secrets From The Vineyard - Cultivating and Sustaining Our Productive Relationship with God (Paperback)

My goal in this book is to share insights with the readers, especially those living within the Christian community, about spiritual transformation and leadership. As Christian leaders, we are called by God to enter into the process of spiritual transformation by sharing our God-given resources with others. This book is about investing our time, gifts, talents, and energy with other individuals no matter who or where they are in life's journey. This book, figuratively speaking, is about "working in the "spiritual pruning process" of individuals and not about "cutting" and discarding them. It is about cleaning the branches, not cutting them. Drawing on my 29 years of experience working with the grapevine and in the vineyard, I compare them with the words of Jesus in John 15:1-8. In doing so, I draw attention to the metaphors and other figures of speech used in biblical writing. In this book, I see us as the "pruning instruments "and laborers in God's vineyard. In the cultivating process, we become the "land growing agent" to empower others; and "the seed" to be planted and grown in the image of Christ. In the sustenance task, we become "God's hands" to lift "those vines that grow crawling on the ground, clean the leaves, cut the damaged parts, and tie them so they can grow upward." Finally, in the production process, we become the trimming instrument (shears) that God uses to clean (prune) the branches in order to bear much good and sweet fruit for God's glory.