“I’ve never liked the word balance, especially when it’s been used to describe the Christian life. A balanced Christian life has always struck me as bland, passionless, a comfortable midpoint between competing extremes. Aim for balance and you end up with limited self-awareness (too much would lead to brokenness) and modest kingdom aspirations (let your aspiration become strong and you risk fanaticism).

I see a movement emerging. It’s not yet developed into revival but it’s heading that way. It’s a movement toward a genuine spirituality that pretends about nothing, that destroys all illusions, and leaves us with only – Christ! The potential exists for this movement to form an alternative community that stands out like a rose in a patch of weeds in our self-obsessed, self-honoring, self-dependent world. If the church is ever to become that alternative community that catches the world’s attention by the “balanced life” its members live, and live together, we need to hear from balanced teachers, passionate and gifted teachers who live in the trenches of real life, who involve themselves in its messiness, who persevere in absolute dependence on the Spirit to do anything of enduring value. We need to hear voices that stir up the courage to look deeply enough into ourselves to see our self-centeredness and that awakens our thirst to know Christ in His resurrection power.

Dori Sear speaks with that voice. God moved her from highly successful leadership in the corporate world into humble and wise leadership in the church community. All Consuming Fire, her first book, is a treasure of spiritual insights drawn from wide reading, careful study, personal struggle, rich dialogue, and years of fruitfully joining scores of ordinary church folks on their journey towards real change.

Pastors and other church leaders, as well as thirsty-for-God Christians who long to be consumed by the Spirit’s fire, will find in this book a non-formulaic and trustworthy guide for walking the narrow road to life. The wise, practical and Spirit-directed counsel in this book will stir the life in every serious reader until it becomes an All Consuming Fire leading them into a truly balanced life.”

“Taken as a whole, I believe you have done an extraordinarily fine job. It is thoroughly compatible with everything that I know of that constitutes “evangelical” theology and teaching. I think your questions are not only adequate, they are excellent. Also, your commentary preceding the questions is extraordinarily well-done and helpful. I think you have done an excellent piece of work that will serve to take believers down the right road of spiritual formation.”