Standing Naked Before God

Standing Naked Before God by Molly Phinney Baskette. mass_market edition. ISBN: 9780829820300.

We suffer when we screw up, but we suffer doubly when we conceal our screwing up from each other and from ourselves. As the good folks in AA say, "we are only as sick as our secrets."We all like to think of ourselves as good people, but thats only half the story--and to tell only half the story is to live only half our lives. Standing Naked Before God is a book about telling the whole story--one amazing, vibrant progressive Christian churchs countercultural practice of public confession of sin. Every week, millenials, Gen-Xers, Boomers and even young teens at First Church Somerville UCC, the church Baskette pastors in hipster Boston, take the stand to tell about a time they messed up, broke bad, or made Jesus want to cry. The book is part how-to, part devotional reading, part how-to, and part anthology of stories of personal loss, vulnerability, failure and redemption--stories to make you laugh and cry in equal measure. Its a book, in our tell-all culture, that is not about baring our souls to get more likes or pageviews: its about putting our wounds into the service of others. Telling the stories of our sins in a sacred setting means learning to see how God has entered those stories, turning even our failures and flaws to goodness and grace. All we have to do is show up--and tell the truth. All of it.This is a book for spiritual seekers of any stripe who love true stories, and who might be aching for a spiritual practice that will move them toward a wholehearted, vulnerable and fully integrated life.