THE STORY OF IN SEARCH OF DEEP FAITH BY JIM BELCHERAfter almost 20 years pastoring two congregations, raising four children and finishing my first book, I was tired and worn down--out of gas. I needed to make a change, to find a way to regain my passion for my calling. While I was exhausted, my wife and I were also worried about our four children and whether they were developing a strong enough faith to last a lifetime. Were they being more influenced by the culture around them--the media, materialism and friends--than by the story of Christianity and its reality in their lives? Then we hit on an idea. What if we traveled on a pilgrimage for a year to England and Europe, and studied and experienced the biographies and places of some of the great heroes of the faith--people like C.S. Lewis, Sheldon Vanauken, William Wilberforce, Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria Von Trapp. Maybe this could get my passion back for my calling and at the same time help my children develop a deeper faith--a faith that shaped their imaginations and identities and futures. So we left the comforts of Orange County,Ca and moved to Oxford,England.We didn't have any definite plans but upon arriving we discovered that a pilgrimage has three components: to rediscover our roots, to understand that life is a journey and to know our ultimate destination. These three ideas became our inspiration, shaping the themes we pursued, revealing the heroes we studied, and steering us across time and place. And as the pilgrimage unfolded, day by day, month by month, what we learned and experienced over the year would startle us and surprise us and change us forever. In Search of Deep Faith is the record of this pilgrimage, an unfolding drama marked by suspense and intrigue. I hope you will take the journey with us and go deeper into the faith than you could ever imagine. BiographyJim is best known for his widely acclaimed, award-winning book, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (InterVarsity Press, 2009), which won Christianity Today's 2010 Best Book Award and Leadership Journal's 2010 The Golden Canon Award. His forthcoming book (October, 2013), In Search of Deep Faith: A Pilgrimage into the beauty, goodness and heart of Christianity (IVP) takes the reader on the year-long pilgrimage that Jim and his family took through England and Europe, pursuing a dozen heroes of the faith and weaving his family's journey throughout the book. Steve Garber of the Washington Institute calls it "A Pilgrims Progress for the 21st Century" and author Will Vaus calls it a "great theological adventure story and Christian travel guide to Europe all rolled into one."Jim is the former founding and lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Newport Beach, California, where he served from 2000-2010 and led a period of steady growth. He was the co-founder of the Restoring Community Conference: Integrating Social Interaction, Sacred Space and Beauty in the 21st Century, a conference for city officials, planners, builders and architects.Jim was an adjunct professor of political science at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, Ca from 1993-1996 teaching classes on American government, international relations, and political philosophy.In 1996 he earned a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Georgetown University.He and his wife, Michelle, and four children live in south Florida, where they are raising four children--Jordan (14); Jonathan (12); Lindsay (9); Meghan (7). Michelle, a former elementary school teacher, home schools their son Jonathan, while the other three children attend a more formal school. Most afternoons, Jim can be found on the field or rink coaching his kids' Little League and ice hockey teams. Along with raising their kid's in the faith, their family is integrated into the community of City Church/Forth Lauderdale, where Jim is an associate pastor and where Michelle teaches in the Sunday school.