Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Beverly Rykerd
VP, Director of Publicity
brykerd@penguinrandomhouse.com
(719) 268-1935
The Mountains Are Calling Teaches How Scripture Offers a Mountaintop Experience
“What an incredible book to walk us through the mountaintop experiences God gave to so many of his saints in Scripture. If you’ve longed for a new kind of intimacy with God, a fresh experience of who he is and what he wants for you, this book is for you. It will, as Jarrett Stephens promises, change your perspective, first on who God is and second on who you are. You’ll love this book!”
—
J. D. Greear, PhD, President of the Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor of The Summit Church, Raleigh-Durham, NCWhen praying over what to teach at a youth summer camp, Jarrett Stephens, teaching pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas—one of the fastest growing mega-churches in the country—realized that many of the most important events and teachings in Scripture take place on moutaintops. This personal revelation led him to see that God uses mountaintop experiences to change our perspective of him and to change our perspective of who we are.
In his debut book,
The Mountains Are Calling: Making the Climb for a Clearer View of God and Ourselves (Multnomah, August 7, 2018), Stephens introduces readers to 10 mountaintop moments and describes how the events that took place (or will take place) affect lives today. Through his study of the Old and New Testaments, Stephens realized that when God wanted to reveal a truth, command, or a commitment from his people or instruct them in a significant way, he would call his prophets or people to a mountain.
• Abraham was called to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah and learned there that God would provide for him and meet his needs.
• Moses not only met God in a burning bush on a mountain but was allowed into the presence of God and given the Ten Commandments on top of Mount Sinai.
• Jesus preached his first major sermon not from the synagogue in his hometown or the temple in Jerusalem but on the side of a mountain in Galilee. He modeled intimacy with God throughout his ministry as he broke away from the crowds and went to unspecified mountains to pray. He revealed his glory to his disciples in the Transfiguration on Mount Hermon. His suffering, betrayal, ascension, and eventual return all happen on a mountain called Olivet. He gave the church its mission statement from an unnamed mountain in Galilee.
Taking the reader from Mount Moriah in the Old Testament to Mount Calvary in the New Testament, Stephens teaches that we don’t need to climb a literal mountain to have a mountaintop experience.
“All we have to do is open our Bibles, begin reading and invite God to speak through his Word,” writes Stephens. “I am convinced that God loves to give us moutaintop type experiences with him and uses these times to draw us closer to him and propel us forward in our walk with him.”
For more information, visit www.waterbrookmultnomah.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Jarrett Stephens is the teaching pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, one of the largest and fastest-growing megachurches in North America.
The Mountains Are Calling is his first book. Stephens graduated from Ouachita Baptist University with a bachelor of arts in biblical studies and psychology. He received a master of divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctorate of ministry from Liberty Theological Seminary.
Twitter/Instagram: @jarrettstephens www.prestonwood.org
Contact Publicist
Beverly Rykerd