“When God answered my prayer and I didn’t know what to do”

"Pastor, can you help us?"

The question came from Diana, and it changed everything. She was leading our "Grow and Go" groups—passionate evangelists who were 100% sold out to sharing the Gospel. In a Methodist church, no less.

I had prayed that Matthew 9:38 prayer so many times—"Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers"—and yet when God finally answered, I felt like the dog who'd chased cars his whole life and then caught one.

"We need help articulating the Gospel message," Diana continued. "Something simple that people can understand and remember. Like a 60-second elevator speech."

I confidently said "Sure I can," but honestly had no idea where to start. How do you distill centuries of theology into something that makes sense to ordinary people?

That question launched me on a journey I never expected—one that eventually became a book I never planned to write.

The answer came from an unlikely place: my years in ministry in England back in the 1990s. I remembered learning about something called "The Four Alls of Methodism"—later expanded to five. Simple statements that somehow captured the entire Wesleyan understanding of salvation.

But here's what shocked me: despite being elegantly simple and powerfully comprehensive, virtually no one had ever written about them in depth. They were forgotten by most American Methodists and largely ignored by our British cousins.

I realized I'd stumbled onto something significant. Here was a framework that had helped drive the greatest evangelistic movement in church history outside of the New Testament—and it was sitting there unused, unexplored.

Sometimes the most profound truths are hiding in plain sight.

As I studied these forgotten principles, I realized they perfectly described something I'd been observing for years: the difference between "almost" Christians and "all-in" believers. People who are close to genuine faith but haven't quite committed fully versus those who've experienced the transforming power that turns lukewarm religion into passionate discipleship.

We're living in an age of "almost" Christianity, and I believe these five simple truths offer a roadmap to something deeper.

So when Diana asked her question, I knew exactly where to start. The answer had been waiting in my own tradition's forgotten treasure chest.

What began as a request for a simple Gospel presentation became a journey into the heart of what it means to move from spiritual interest to spiritual transformation.

Have you ever felt stuck between "almost" and "all-in" in your faith journey? What would it take to move from one to the other?

"The Day My Friend Told Me to Rewrite My Entire Book"

"David, this is great content... really solid stuff... but it needs more of 'you' in it. It kind of reads like a seminary lecture."

I tried very hard not to get my back up. We were sitting in Great Longstone Methodist Chapel after a nine-mile walk from Youlgrave on the Peak Wesley Way, and my friend Jorge had just delivered the feedback I'd been dreading—and secretly expecting.

"What do you mean more of 'me' in the book?" I protested. "This book isn't about me—it's about these five great truths from the Wesleyan tradition that people need to understand!"

Jorge gave me a patient, pitying look. "You don't understand, David. People don't care about great theological truths if they're not couched in the story of a real-life person who has struggles and questions just like them."

This book had been percolating for twenty-nine years. I'd been slogging away at the actual writing for the better part of a year. And Jorge was basically asking me to rewrite the whole thing.

The irony wasn't lost on me. Here was a guy who had published seven books, a coach and speaker who knew what he was talking about. We'd agreed that at the end of each day's travel on our Wesley pilgrimage, we'd read a chapter and he'd give me his assessment. After just three chapters, we quit reading and finished the pilgrimage.

But his words haunted me the entire way home.

Here's what Jorge was really asking me to do: make myself vulnerable. Share my struggles. Admit my questions. Connect my personal journey to these theological truths in ways that might make me look foolish or weak.

I DON'T like self-disclosure. I don't enjoy making myself vulnerable to other people. I'm much more comfortable hiding behind theological concepts and historical analysis than admitting where I've struggled, failed, or had to learn things the hard way.

But deep down, I knew Jorge was right.

So there was nothing for it. I opened up the manuscript, pen and highlighter in hand, and began looking for places where my life and personal struggles had intersected with these lofty theological truths—sometimes in visceral, uncomfortable ways.

Within two weeks, I had rewritten the entire book from start to finish.

What emerged wasn't a collection of five theological lectures, but the story of my journey—the journey of one very flawed Jesus follower and Methodist preacher trying to figure out this path from "Almost to All-In."

I had to admit that my journey through the Five Alls wasn't linear. I've often taken one step forward and five steps back. I've completely left the path, only to find my way back through God's prevenient grace. It's been messy and often embarrassing.

But that's exactly what Jorge was asking for—the messy, real story of how abstract theological truths become lived reality.

Jorge understood something I was resisting: people don't connect with perfect theology; they connect with imperfect people wrestling with perfect truths. They don't need another expert explaining doctrine; they need a fellow traveler sharing the journey.

The Five Alls of Methodism—All need to be saved, All may be saved, All may know themselves saved, All may be saved to the uttermost, All must witness to their salvation—these aren't just theological concepts. They're stages in a spiritual journey that real people with real struggles experience in real time.

My job wasn't to present them as abstract truths, but to show how they played out in one person's messy, often embarrassing, always grace-dependent journey from "almost" Christian to "all-in" believer.

Looking back, I'm grateful Jorge pushed me beyond my comfort zone. The book that emerged from that painful rewrite process isn't the academic treatment I originally envisioned, but it's the book people actually need—one that connects profound theological truths to the lived experience of ordinary believers trying to figure out this faith journey.

Sometimes the best books aren't the ones we plan to write, but the ones we're forced to write when friends who care about us refuse to let us hide behind our expertise.