Beginnings: Understanding How We Experience the New Birth

Very helpful book that helps Christians gain a greater understanding of how God has reached out to them prior to and during the process of becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. It also gives them the tools to share their own spiritual journey and story of God at work in their lives with others. This book is a "must-read" and tool for those who desire to know God's love for them more deeply and share His love with others.

Our world and experiences are limited by our environment and geography, and so goes out knowledge. I love reading real people's faith stories. The stories here support the author's "spiritual birth line" . The book has given me a fresh understanding on how God can work on reclaiming His beloved - meeting us exactly where we are!

My conversion took many years and I can't really say when it happened. I know exactly when it started but for me it is a continuing process. Stephen Smallman's book affirmed for me what I already understood: that when the Holy Spirit moves in, you are at the beginning of a journey that will last the rest of your time on earth.

This is the same book (with slight revisions and additions) of my book, "Spiritual Birthline". It has been formatted to pair up with "The Walk" (also published by P&R. "Beginnings" was written to help those in ministry understand how the Spirit works to bring us to faith; "The Walk" was written to help new and renewed believers walk in a gospel way.

A good book but should be about 1/10 as long, he says the same thing many different ways. It's not a new concept being introduced, just one that evangelical Christians has not been biblically perceptive about.

I found the concept interesting and a good tool in explaining the new birth as a process rather than a single event. However I found the book difficult to read, for me it was the same information repeated chapter after chapter. Of course there were slight changes but basically the same information.FYI this book was part of a reading assignment, had that not been the case I would have stopped reading after chapter 2.

Describes the regeneration process using true story-illustrations. It helps not only energize you for Christian witnessing, but removes the burden of urgency, showing how you don't make it happen, God does.

In some ways this book is helpful and a discerning Christian with a firm grasp of theology may find it helpful. Smallman's basic thesis is that conversion is a process and that there is an enormous amount of work that God does silently in a person that the person himself does not always know about. But this work of God eventually leads the person to be converted to Christ.This is a helpful thing to say since today in many churches conversion to Christ is not understood as a process and most people do not seem to understand that God initiates the work of conversion in a soul and works in that person perhaps for many years before the person becomes a Christian. This, of course, is very helpful. The problem is that Smallman calls the beginning of this work the new birth. In other words when God begins to work in a person which will eventually lead to his conversion, Smallman indicates (though he is not very clear on this) that this is the new birth. This is all very confusing. Take the example he gives of an Indian man in London who first experienced the work of God in his heart 65 years before he was actually converted. Does this mean that for all of 65 years or for some of that time this man was born again but remained an idolater? If this is the case what are we to make of 1 Jn. 3:9, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin"? How can a man remain an idolater for many years while he is "becoming born again"?This leads to another question: is birth itself really a long drawn out process? Is it not the case that conception happens in a moment and that birth is usually a fairly short matter. Can we really use this to say that the new birth can take years, decades even?One more gripe: I thought Smallman was a bit obsessed with the theme of his spiritual birthline, it almost becomes a mantra with him and the only way to explain salvation.So, all in all, some helpful bits but rather a confusing book.

Very helpful