Pastor Rebecca Collison expounds upon Jesus’s parables to help Christians cultivate the soil of their souls and advance the Kingdom of God.

Collison, a Methodist minister, begins Groundwork with a thought-provoking statement: “If you have a question, ask the land.” In the busyness of life, Collison found that “getting back to the land is getting back to God.” In her biblical studies, she also noticed Jesus’s frequent use of farming analogies in his teachings. Drawing from this, she delivers a fresh, in-depth look at Jesus’s parables as she compares the process of cultivating the land to produce crops with cultivating the soil of our souls to produce spiritual fruit.

Collison covers six of Jesus’s parables, including “a story known by even people who do not read the Bible”—the prodigal son—“because of its ability to address our human condition.” In each chapter, Collison brings fresh perspective to overused and abstract religious ideas like mercy, grace, acceptance and salvation. She also speaks to the current cultural issues of discrimination, racism, equality and more through the lens of biblical truth.

Her tone is warm and caring. An obviously seasoned shepherdess of a church flock, Collison gently challenges readers to seek an authentic relationship with God through what she calls “cruciform cultivation”: “[D]ig down deep, bring what is found upward, swing it over to deposit it, and then return to that now empty space to fill it with a new growth.” This is an excellent visual for self-reflection and internal change.

Collison’s work is thoughtful, creative and encouraging, but unfortunately the narrative is replete with typographical errors. Missing text and wrong or repeated words cause confusion. The author’s scripture quotations are marred with a 7 every time a “th” was needed. These missteps lend an unpolished and unprofessional feel to the book.

Collison’s ideas are sound, but the book’s presentation needs attention before her book can appeal to a wide audience.

Also available in hardcover and ebook.

Groundwork: Farm Parables and the Cultivation of Faith by author Rebecca Collison is a detailed and thoughtful work that uses Jesus’ agricultural parables as a framework for spiritual growth and transformation of believers into fruit-bearing disciples. Its central idea is that spiritual growth is analogous to farm cultivation where just as a farmer prepares, tends and nurtures the soil for a successful harvest, a believer must intentionally cultivate the “soil” of their soul to bear spiritual fruit.

Collison doesn’t just explain the parables but also uses them as tools to diagnose, challenge and redirect the modern Christian faith and practice. She re-frames the Parable of the Sower from how it is commonly seen as people’s rejection of the gospel to a mirror one should use to check their own spiritual receptivity. While explaining the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, she gently reminds the reader they are not the farmer, but part of the field and should therefore never at any one time be found deciding who is “wheat” and who is “weed.” Outstanding is her view of self-righteousness as being more insidious than outright rebellion. This perspective is revolutionary and which for many devout religious people who cling on to the fortress of being a “good” person, may be deeply unsettling.

In this book, Collison has remarkably built an entire lexical world around a single powerful metaphor. It’s beautiful how she rarely says to the reader “you must” and instead replaces it with “we must,” placing her not as a superior pointing a finger, rather into a fellow traveler, kneeling side-by-side with the reader in the same dirt, tending to the shared, fragile soil of the soul. This disarms defensiveness and makes the reader willing to receive hard truths.

Collison constantly employs questions like, “Who has not, in some way, wanted to be accepted for who you are?” “Who among us has not squandered the love we have been given?” These are questions that force personal engagement and deep introspection. Her sentences are clear and direct as to avoid complex jargon. Her masterful use of language allows her to deliver a message which is indeed revolutionary but firm, in a way that is not just palatable, but invitational and transformative.

This book is for those who feel a stirring for a deeper, more authentic and action-oriented faith. For those who feel their faith has become like a “silk plant,” which gives the illusion of vibrant plant life, but closer inspection shows them to be a poor imitation, it will offer them the tools to diagnose the problem as well as a practical guide to invite growth.

Groundwork: Farm Parables and the Cultivation of Faith by Rebecca Collison uniquely culminates with a chapter that is bound to leave the reader not at an end, but at a beginning, equipped with hope and commissioned as a seedling of faith, ready to be planted in the world. Whether you are a new believer taking your first steps, or a seasoned believer feeling the soil of your faith grow hard, this book will offer you a timeless, practical path to a deeper, more fruitful life in God.