By Abram Book
Spring Arbor University Professor Nathan Foster will attend Free Methodist General Cnference 2011 (GC11) to promote and sign copies of his book, “Wisdom Chaser: Finding My Father at 14,000 Feet,” released in April of 2010.
“So many people in our world have a deep sense of isolation and loneliness,” Foster, professor of social work and founder of Door of Hope Counseling and Consulting, said in a February 25 interview. “I would love to see us as the church leading and creating the space for us to be honest and authentic with each other.”
“Wisdom Chaser” focuses on deepening relationships, using Foster’s own recollections of hiking craggy mountain peaks with his famous father Richard, working through addictions and becoming a father himself.
On the book’s final page, Foster shares the idea he says best summarizes his book: “I have now come to believe that building and cultivating relationships is the most important thing I will ever do.”
“This is a really hard book to put into a twenty second sound bite,” he explained. “I put a lot of layers in, and it’s not a pretty or tidy story. Things end well, but there are still messes.”
Nathan Foster
In fact, Foster has been pleasantly surprised at the source of help his book has been to so many. “It’s really just my story — I didn’t expect it to be much more than entertaining, so it came as a shock to me when people found it helpful and meaningful.”
Many of the vignettes Foster recounts in “Wisdom Chaser” feature unique lessons on leadership — content he figures might strike a chord with pastors attending GC11.
“Leaders and churches are kind of unwrapping what it was like for my dad and a son with a father in the public eye,” Foster said. “I’ve had a number of pastors comment on how helpful [the pieces on leadership and the church] have been.”
In what figures to be a momentous sesquicentennial general conference, Foster should have ample opportunity to promote and discuss the core message of “Wisdom Chaser.”
“We want as much participation as possible and are encouraging delegates and Free Methodists everywhere to bring their families,” GC11 Steering Committee Chairman Rex Bullock recently told Light & Life magazine.
Foster also offered a sobering challenge to GC11 goers and the church at large as he discussed another of “Wisdom Chaser’s” main ideas: Pace yourself, move slowly and don’t stop. “It’s in that stillness and slowness where God seems to like to show up,” Foster explained, “We choke that out by our franticness.”
Joining Foster at GC11 will be fellow SAU professors Paul Patton, Robert Woods and Dan Runyon. Each author will be selling, signing and discussing copies of their latest works.
The signings are scheduled for Friday, July 15 in the Voller Athletic Center immediately before and after evening services and from 12:00-1:30 on Saturday, July 16 in the Garlock Dining Commons.
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