Meet Jesus - John Twisleton

John Twisleton is Rector of St Giles, Horsted Keynes in Chichester Diocese, where he also led the diocesan mission and renewal team for eight years. He has also worked as an Area Missioner in London Diocese and as Principal of an ordination training centre in Guyana. He has written on issues including baptism, confession, priesthood, prayer, healing, and he broadcasts regularly on Premier Radio.

John Twisleton combines clarity of thought and a pastoral heart in this book which lives up to its name. Based on his own experience and conviction that it is both possible and life changing to meet with Jesus, it will be of great use to individuals or to folk gathered in small groups. Bishop Lindsay Urwin OGS

I long ago got used to the expectation that, if I pick up a book on the Christian faith by an evangelical or grotty protty, I will find a great deal of Bible-thumping and injunctions to get myself saved. Whereas, in a Christian book by an anglo-catholic or spiky Joe, I will see a lot about the Virgin Mary and the profound influence on the writer of the high church theological college which prepared him for the ministry. In John Twisleton's, lively book, we get both - and this is part of what makes him so refreshing. Here is a man with prominent evangelical virtues who yet calls himself not only a minister but a priest. Meet Jesus is a basic introduction to Christianity which works the minor miracle of combining intelligent, persuasive teaching with the complete avoidance of the patronising tone of voice. Yes, here is enthusiastic evangelical preaching to the individual but also the reminder that, 'The faith of Christians is sustained within a body, the church, formed and authorised by God.' I can almost hear John Henry Newman adding his loud Amen to that. And to this: 'The forgiveness that Jesus won for us on the cross is freely available through the worship of the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) as well as through prayer.' This is more than refreshing: it is inspired. For it is about time that Christians of all denominations put aside their differences of emphasis and directed their fire towards the aggressive secularism which attempts to displace Christianity from public life and discourse. John Twisleton does not peddle cheap grace. He teaches a commitment to faith in Jesus Christ which not only encourages us in the sunshine of joyful worship and the spiritual exhilaration which friendship with Jesus can bring, but which calls on us to know that, in times of pain and difficulty, '...you will be carried forward through all the perils of life by one who loves you beyond reason.' How far does Twisleton's true liberalism extend? Of the major non-Christian religions he quotes, with approval, the Second Vatican Council: 'The Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions.' The author knows that we can not only be enlightened by science but also blinded by it. And this is why in his defence of the reasonableness of belief in God, he asks tellingly of the cosmologists, 'If everything started with the Big Bang, who could have caused this event other than someone outside space, time and matter who created space, time and matter, called God?' Twisleton strongly defends the reasonableness of faith but he knows that the heart has its reasons which reason knows not of. And here, in what for me is the most impressive line in his book, the author declares, with Blaise Pascal, 'Holiness is the church's greatest influence.' Reviewed by Rev'd Dr Peter Mullen at St Sepulchre-Without-Newgate, London

Twisleton walks out an ancient-future faith as pastor-priest. He straddles theological diversity in a fresh and compelling visitation with Jesus Christ. Meet Jesus is a gritty and warm-hearted introduction to Christianity with insight, truth and warmth! There is a evangelical fervour beating here in the call to the body-life and church family. It will stir your heart and inspire your faith with the beauty of grace, truth of worship and wisdom of gospel living. As Twisleton poetically pens...' in times of pain and difficulty, you will be carried forward through all the perils of life by one who loves you beyond reason.' There is science, reason, cosmology, scripture and story woven well in this title. The author echoes Blaise Pascal's high wisdom challenge, 'Holiness is the church's greatest influence!' Oh that we might live up to this. Here is a lively, engaging and utterly reasonable ask! Rev'd Dr Johnny Douglas for the Goodbookstall