You Are There

You are There: Restoring Churches, People, and Places is a pastoral conversation about creation care. It is a pastoral voice shepherding Christian people in Christian churches towards discipleship that is all the way down to the dirt. In it you will find a pastor with time to talk with you and walk with you so that the fruit of the redemption earned by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection will make a real and substantial difference in your very own backyard. This book is not actually about you; it's about us as local churches. Each local church should care about its place because the church is where God uses the gospel to restore people, and God's restored people restore both people and places. This is what we mean by creation care. You, church, are a gathering of people defined by your faith in Jesus and the dirt you walk on. You are a people sent to that place. This is why it is good news that you are there. "This is one of those books that must delightfully confound publishers looking to pigeonhole its market. You Are There is part travelogue and part theologue. This book is full of warmhearted stories that remind you what the church could be if it was ever able to set aside its industrial-sized aspirations. Robert Campbell puts the 'pastoral' back into pastoring, and the 'local' back into the local church. But don't overlook it for a lack of scale. This book has as much ambition and challenge as anything that I have read in recent years. Campbell offers a theology of place, surprising with insight relevant to the millennial church, even as it leads us back toward our roots." --Kenton C. Anderson, President, Northwest Baptist Seminary in Langley, British Columbia, and author of Choosing to Preach "You Are There is a necessary conversation about a big-time issue, packaged in small-town practicality and warm, pastoral insight. Creation care, with all of its political and theological overtones, is too important to leave to the pundits and politicians. Christ-followers must take up the challenge of representing God in caring for both souls and soil, and you'll find no better guide than Robert Campbell. Read it once, and then read it again." --David W. Hegg, Senior Pastor, Grace Baptist Church, Santa Clarita, CA "This book is an encouraging and pastoral gift to the church today. Many of us, and many of our churches, are struggling to reconnect with and recover our calling to the people and places around us. Robert Campbell invites us into a life-changing part of his story, which is really the story of his humble but remarkable congregation, and how they are learning to live out the fullness of the gospel right where God has planted them. . . . I am often asked what it practically looks like for a local church to care for creation and love their neighbors--this book is one very good and hopeful answer. Read it and start applying its timely and valuable lessons." --Ben Lowe, activist, author of Doing Good Without Giving Up and The Future of Our Faith Robert Campbell pastors the magnificent, loving, and sometimes irreverent Community Church in Santa Margarita, California, where he lives with his wife, Julie, and children, Caleb and Meg. A graduate of Biola University, The Master's Seminary, and Trinity Western University, Robert serves on the board of directors for A Rocha USA, a Christian conservation organization putting people and place back together in twenty countries on five continents around the world.