Becoming Sage: Cultivating Meaning, Purpose, and Spirituality in Midlife

About the Author Since coming to faith in Christ at the tail end of the Jesus Movement, MICHELLE VAN LOON'S Jewish heritage, spiritual hunger, and storyteller's sensibilities have shaped her faith journey and informed her writing. She is the author of five books, including If Only: Letting Go of Regret, Moments & Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith and the forthcoming Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity. Michelle is a regular contributor to Christianity Today's women's blog, In Touch magazine, and is the co-founder of www.ThePerennialGen.com, a website for midlife women and men. She's married to Bill, and is mother of three and grandmother of two. Learn about her writing and speaking ministry by visiting her website, www.michellevanloon.com. Why Do We Act Like There Is An Age Restriction on Spiritual Growth?For the last several decades, Western churches have focused the bulk of their resources on the early stages of discipleship-children?s Sunday school, youth group, college ministry. While these are all important, we have neglected the spiritual growth of those in the second half of life. In fact, an outside observer might think that after the growth of the college years, the goal is simply to coast through the rest of your Christian life. Michelle Van Loon has a different idea. In Becoming Sage, she challenges those in midlife and beyond to continue pursuing radical spiritual growth, and she?ll help you get started. She explores what the unique challenges of midlife can teach us about Jesus and how to think about everything from church, friends, and family, to money, bodies, and meaning. Don?t settle for a life of coasting. Revitalize your spiritual growth today. Review Praise for Becoming SageWe have so often focused our attention on millennials and the church while failing to attend to the significant realities surrounding discipleship in midlife. In this gem of a book, Michelle Van Loon issues an important wake-up call to the church to cultivate and support lifelong discipleship as she invites us to consider the particular issues being navigated by those in midlife. A powerful antidote to formulaic and quick-fix discipleship, Becoming Sage is a must-read for all in ministry and all in midlife as it calls us to nourish slow-growth disciples who can bear fruit in each season of life.-KRISTEN DEEDE JOHNSONDean and Vice President of Academic Affairs; professor of Theology and Christian Formation, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, MI I?m old, depending on who?s counting, so Becoming Sage spoke to me. Michelle Van Loon parses the realities of these years-spiritual, emotional, physical, and social. As Michelle points out, most of us are much more familiar with the stages of the first half of life than the last. Especially interesting was her insight into how our walk with Christ naturally changes and how we can leverage this season for maximum wisdom and influence-how we can become sage and not just old.-LEE ECLOVPastor and author of Feels Like Home: How Rediscovering the Church as Family Changes EverythingBecoming Sage is a gift to people of faith in midlife, that disorienting ?time of reckoning? that Michelle Van Loon so deftly describes. We are encouraged to continue on as she reminds us that maturity is not a destination, but a process that doesn?t follow a ?tidy trajectory.? Humorous, honest, and wise, Michelle is just the guide many of us need as we move through the second half of life. The prompts for reflection at the end of every chapter are much more nuanced and helpful than the norm. I look forward to journaling through each one.-JENNIFER GRANTAuthor of When Did Everybody Else Get So Old: Indignities, Compromises, and the Unexpected Grace of Midlife and Maybe God Is Like That TooIn light of almost one third of the population moving into midlife, the church needs guidelines as to how to move on to maturity and to not waste what can