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Press Release

 
Pastor and Award-Winning Author Rich Villodas Unearths Spiritual Treasures from Jesus’ Sermon the Mount, Equipping Readers to Embrace These Powerful Truths and Find Peace, Love and Fulfillment on His Narrow Path

In this age of anxiety, depression, political polarization and online vitriol, Christianity Today award-winning author and widely respected New York City pastor Rich Villodas now reintroduces readers to the wonder of Jesus’ timeless wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount, which speaks powerfully and practically to the human experience.

In The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies Our Souls (WaterBrook; on sale 7/16/24), this widely respected voice on spiritual formation unearths treasures from Jesus’ words and applies them to contemporary life. Writing with great clarity and conviction, he explores how Jesus’ narrow path does offer the life they truly desire, while also equipping them to stay on the path so they can experience the deep fulfillment that Jesus alone offers.
“While it’s easy to drift onto the broad path-to succumb to moralism, success-ism, and individualism—there is good news,” he writes. “There is another path available to you. Jesus invites you onto the narrow path, and no matter how long you’ve deviated from it, you’re always welcome.’

Villodas compassionately comes alongside his readers as a fellow traveler on the path, openly sharing his own challenges as he has sought to follow Jesus’ countercultural values. Writing with clarity and conviction, he equips readers to: 

• understand the Father’s tender care for them and clear away any false images of God to help them be freed from anxiety
• manage their inner life (including anger) in a healthy way and understand when anger can be a redemptive gift
• practice Jesus’ lifestyle of hiddenness and “anti-performance” which helps free believers from being fulfilled by the shallow praise of the world
• use time, money, and words in ways that builds others up
• stand strong in their faith even when it’s difficult and grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus

In the book, he also explores how Jesus warns his people to follow their sacred calling and live distinctly from the world, while being faithful to shine their light in dark places.

Throughout, he encourages a lifestyle of prayer, silence and contemplation, often reminding his readers that they are loved and accepted by God.

Those distracted by the information glut of the digital age, discouraged by their lack of spiritual zeal, or distressed about the division in the world will find solace and wholeness in The Narrow Path, as they encounter Jesus afresh through his soul-healing, world-changing, God-glorifying words.

About the Author: Rich Villodas is the bestselling author of The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies Our Souls (WaterBrook; on sale 7/16/24) as well as The Deeply Formed Life (winner of the Christianity Today Book Award) and Good and Beautiful and Kind. He is the lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large multiracial church with more than 75 countries represented, in Elmhurst, Queens, and Long Island, New York. Rich graduated with a bachelor of arts in pastoral ministry and theology from Nyack College. He went on to complete his master of divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary. Co-host of the Resilient Pastor podcast, he’s appeared on many media outlets including Good Morning America, CNN’s “The Assignment with Audie Cornish,” “That Sounds Fun with Annie Downs” and "The Holy Post." He’s been married to Rosie since 2006, and they have two beautiful children, Karis and Nathan. For more information, visit richvillodas.com and
Instagram.com/richvillodas (105,000 followers)
https://twitter.com/richvillodas
https://www.facebook.com/rvillodas

Notable Quotes from Rich Villodas in The Narrow Path:
Those who have truly been transformed by Jesus resist the cultural norms around them.
 
What the world prizes, Jesus devalues. What Jesus applauds, the world rejects.
 
His invitation is to follow him fully or not at all.
 
To journey through a narrow path takes time. It requires you and I to slow down.
 
He cares about who we are becoming, not just what we do.
 
Our love for our neighbor is proof of our love for God.
 
God delights to bless those who long for justice.
 
Fixing our attention and affection on God is the most powerful strategy for defeating sin.
 
To be his disciple requires being a whole person, not merely doing religious things.
 
Following Jesus requires the empowerment of God.
 
Prayer is not a list we bring to God but a practice that forms in us his love.
 
Prayer is about simplicity of heart and speech.
 
Communities that foster untruth are not sustainable or life-giving.
 
To speak truth is to, by God’s grace, follow through.
 
A life of integrity narrows the gap between the words we say and the way we live.
 
Doing God’s will necessitates knowing his will.
 
The narrow path of Jesus says…
 
if we want to be strong, we must be weak;
 
if we want to be first, we must be last;
 
if we want to be great, we must be least.

Praise for The Narrow Path:
“In The Narrow Path, Rich unpacks what living our best life truly looks like. By challenging some of our most basic assumptions about what it is to walk with Jesus and by inviting us to discover whether we are on the broad or narrow path, Rich inspires us to get on the right path so we can live the abundant life Jesus came to give us. This book is a much-needed heart checkup for every Jesus follower.”
— Christine Caine, founder of A21 and Propel Women
 
“A book written for all those ‘who are weary of anchoring their lives in the unfulfilling promises of the surrounding culture,’ those who find the broad way, essentially, ‘do whatever you want and follow the crowd,’ to be revealing itself as exactly what Jesus warned—a path toward death, not life—and those who are interested, intrigued, and deeply drawn to the possibility of Jesus and his narrow way.”
— John Mark Comer, New York Times bestselling author of Practicing the Way
 
“Rich Villodas is one of the necessary voices of our time. As we wrestle to understand how Jesus speaks to our current day, Rich makes the words of Christ accessible. Leaders like him are rare. This book is needed.”
— Lecrae, Grammy Award-winning artist and producer
 
“If you’re tired of the choice between a half-Christian, conscience-quieting religion and an exhausting, guilt-inducing moralism, this book is for you. With a map through Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Rich Villodas leads us to the narrow path and shows us how to find joy on that road. You won’t regret the trip!”
—Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today

“Brilliant and beautiful, concise and clear, The Narrow Path helps us remember again the words of our Lord that lead us to the liberating reality of a world in which less is more, in which the hard work of obedience leads to durable joy, and in which the love of Jesus is to be discovered and dwelt in while we travel this road together as a body of fellow pilgrims.”
—Curt Thompson, MD, psychiatrist and author of The Deepest Place and The Soul of Shame
 
“This is Rich Villodas at his pastoral best. His writing shimmers with grace, reflecting the radiance of a kingdom vision of the good life. It is obvious that the words of Jesus’s most significant sermon have passed through the depths of Rich’s own heart. They emerge through his stories and scars to meet us in the realities of our world. Challenging and confronting, these are pastoral reflections for everyone, calling us to the narrow path toward an expansive life.”
—Glenn Packiam, lead pastor of Rockharbor Church and author of The Resilient Pastor and The Intentional Year
 
“By bringing laser focus to the manifesto of our faith—the Sermon on the Mount—Pastor Rich edifies us anew with the wonderful, subversive love of Christ. With clarity, wisdom, and wit, he reminds us that God’s ways are the ways of life, joy, love, and peace—the truly good life.”
—Danai Gurira, actress, playwright, and activist
 
“This biography of the Jesus Way reset me on his way again. I hope and pray it sets and resets you on the Way. But my real hope is that it would become all our autobiographies. This book won’t just do you good; it will do the world good.”
—Archbishop Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

Contact Publicist

Brett Benson