final 2 painting with ashes 2dcvr frnt hbk

As more and more people leave the church, it’s time we take church to the streets.

From drug dealer to pastor on a mission to bring “church to the wild,” pastor Michael Beck’s raw and powerful story of redemption and healing will inspire you to rethink the way you do church and give you a fresh vision for reaching your community.

Order now

Born addicted to drugs, to a mother who was on and off the streets, and to a father he never knew, from an early age, Michael Beck learned the importance of imagination. Imagination was a place to escape trauma, a place where the limitations and labels the world put on him didn’t matter.

His imagination carried him through years of addiction, dealing drugs, and living life in and out of prison until God met him on the floor of a solitary confinement cell and transformed his life – calling him to create the type of church that reaches people like him with a message of hope.

In Painting with Ashes, Michael Beck tells his raw and powerful story of overcoming addiction and becoming a pastor on a mission to rethink church as a healing community that is safe, accessible, and real. A thought leader in the world of building missional communities and the fresh expressions movement, Michael’s story will rekindle your passion for ministry and give you a fresh vision for how to reach your community.

For the ministry leader who is burned out, who needs encouragement in their own struggles, or who wants more for their church or ministry, Painting with Ashes will increase your understanding of the issues your community is facing and help you think beyond the four walls of your church to bring hope and healing to the world.

Perfect for recovery ministries, prison ministries, and churches with recovery ministries!

invite resources book cover mockup 3d angled 01 pwa

Download your Free Chapter of Painting with Ashes Today!

Download

“Painting with Ashes is a must read for Christians at any level in their journey. Now in my 50^th year of ministry I was reminded of how God has used and will continue to use my own weaknesses to display divine power.” – Michael Slaughter, Founder & Chief Strategist, Passionate Churches, LLC

Michael Adam Beck

Michael is currently the Director of the Fresh Expressions House of Studies at United Theological Seminary, Director of Re-Missioning for Fresh Expressions US, and Cultivator of Fresh Expressions for the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. He serves as the co-pastor of Wildwood UMC and St Marks UMC with his wife Jill, where they direct addiction recovery programs, a jail ministry, a food pantry, an interracial unity movement, and house a faith-based inpatient treatment center. Wildwood and St Marks are traditional congregations and a network of 13 fresh expressions gatherings in tattoo parlors, dog parks, salons, running tracks, community centers, burrito joints, and digital spaces.

Michael cultivates missional innovators in an individual, regional, statewide, and national capacity. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at several educational institutions. He coaches entrepreneurs across the theological spectrum and has consulted with hundreds of churches, districts, denominations, networks, and dioceses. As a practitioner of missional leadership, he has started and developed businesses and planted missional communities most of his life. Michael has done this for over a decade while pastoring in the local church. His coaching and consulting work are not theoretical only, but experiential. He believes in maintaining a practitioner’s ethos: “I eat my own cooking and share experimental recipes.”

Beck earned a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary and a Doctorate in Semiotics and Future Studies at Portland Seminary.

Painting with Ashes Reviews

What people
are saying…

Painting With Ashes is a wonderfully honest and deeply insightful story of radical conversion set in the frames of the tragic human narrative as this intersects with God’s prevenient grace in Jesus. The result is a genuinely poignant, intelligent, and meaningful, witness. Captivating!

Alan Hirsch

award winning author of numerous books on missional theology, spirituality, and leadership. Founder of Movement Leaders Collective

Michael Beck is a prolific writer and influential thought leader in innovative forms of ministry in North America. In this book we are introduced to the raw, unedited life story behind the movement maker. We see Beck’s journey shift from a hurt person hurting others to a healed person healing others—a shift that begins with a Bible slid through his jail cell door. Beck takes us on a profoundly difficult journey through the depths of pain and addiction to the heights of loving community found in AA and the local church. Ultimately, Beck reminds us that in Christ our greatest asset is our brokenness and a masterpiece can be painted with ashes.

Luke Edwards

Associate Director of Church Development for the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church

Painting With Ashes is more than just the powerfully raw, ruthlessly honest and relentlessly hopeful story of God’s work in Michael’s life. It also offers deeply rooted, spiritually alive, and powerfully practical guidance for any faithful person who knows that God always has more for our lives that they have already experienced. By seeing what God is up to in Michael’s life, every reader will be challenged to discover more of what God is doing in their own.

Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish

author, Finding Your Bearings: How the Words that Guided Jesus through Crises Can Guide Us

Michael Beck’s new book will break your heart in the best possible way. His deeply personal stories of humanity’s brokenness will tempt you to close its pages and shut your eyes to the pain. But if you do, you will miss the most remarkable story of God’s redemptive power to turn the ashes of depravity and desperation into a stunning masterpiece of healing and hope.

Missy Buchanan

popular speaker and author

As more and more people leave the church, how can we bring the church to them?

How do we make church safe and welcoming for those in the community who feel like their lives are too messy or imperfect to belong? How do we present the Gospel as a message of hope and healing rather than one of fear and judgment?

Painting with Ashes will invite you into one pastor’s journey of transformation and his vision for reaching people like him through creative ministry and fresh expressions of faith.

A life-changing story of redemption

Be inspired by a message of hope and redemption through Michael’s raw, honest, compelling, and life-changing story.

Insight into your community’s struggles

Gain a new perspective on the struggles your community is facing and greater understanding of those who are hurting and how to reach them.

A new vision for church

Discover an imaginative and radical new vision for church as a healing community that is accessible, safe, and real.

“Michael Beck’s to-hell-and-back conversion story conveys what it means to be the church even better than some of the highest moments of Christian literature.” – Leonard Sweet

It’s time we think beyond the four walls of the church.

For the ministry leader who is burned out, who needs encouragement, or who wants more for their church or ministry, Painting with Ashes will rekindle your passion for ministry and ignite your imagination for what your church could be. Get Painting with Ashes today.