About the Book
Book: From Comfort Zone to Trust Zone: How Jesus Urges Us to Take Leaps of Faith for His Kingdom
Author: Cecil Taylor
Genre: Christian Living
Release date: March 6, 2024
The innate human longing for comfort is undeniable. However, Jesus challenges us to step beyond the boundaries of our comfort zones and venture into the profound realm of faith, aptly described as trust zones by Cecil Taylor. These are the spaces where we dare to take risks in service of Christ’s Kingdom. In this enlightening exploration of the Bible, Cecil Taylor delves into 12 narratives of Jesus encouraging individuals to forsake their comfort zones in favor of trust zones. Through insightful interpretation, he unveils the valuable lessons these stories impart for contemporary followers of Jesus.
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About the Author
With more than 30 years’ experience as an adult Sunday School teacher and as many in youth ministry, Cecil Taylor has impacted lives in local churches throughout his adult life. He founded Cecil Taylor Ministries to broaden that impact, teaching Christians to live a 7-day practical faith through books, video studies, and speaking engagements. His ministry is cross-denominational, focused on the common struggle Christians face in putting their faith into practice and applying scripture and faith principles to life situations.
From Comfort Zone to Trust Zone has won the 2024 Living Water Award (nonfiction, third place) from the Blue Lake Christian Writer’s Conference. This is the fourth award that Cecil has been presented across his three books.
More from Cecil
Comfort zones can be positive. Not only do we feel good about ourselves, but we also can be effective and efficient. We can find a groove. We may even be able to mentor others and cause a ripple effect of good.
But comfort zones can fool us. Our comfort zones can become invisible. They can limit us and tell us not to take risks. Comfort zones can keep us from going all-in on what Jesus has to offer us.
As I read the Gospels, I see how Jesus frequently pushed people out of comfort zones and into his trust zones, where they would take leaps of faith for the sake of his kingdom. Similarly, Jesus calls us out of comfort zones today, inviting us to take risks while deepening our faith.
A woman who read From Comfort Zone to Trust Zone said one of the most gripping moments in the book is when I shared my own story of going all-in for Jesus. I had grown up in the church as a preacher’s kid. Throughout decades of my adult life, I was a leader in my church, a highly committed volunteer, someone others might think was all-in for Christ.
But I wasn’t all-in, though I fooled myself into thinking I was. In a time when I asked for more comfort zone, Jesus gave me a trust zone: to forget about volunteering so much and to focus on giving my heart to God. I was busted, as I foolishly thought I had hidden from God that I wasn’t fully yielding control of my life. I didn’t know what Jesus would ask of me, so I held him at arm’s length. My prayers zeroed in on what was comfortable for me rather than what the Holy Spirit was beckoning me to do.
Since that moment, my life has changed. I believe your life needs to change, too, if you’re feeling comfortable. It’s time to get uncomfortable, to overcome your desire for certainty, and to inspect the ways in which you have limited the Spirit’s power to work through you. I invite you on a journey to identify subtle comfort zones that you never knew you had and to uncover trust zones that will take your faith to new levels while mightily serving Christ. I invite you to the experience that is From Comfort Zone to Trust Zone: How Jesus Urges Us to Take Leaps of Faith for His Kingdom.
Author Interview
- Are you a one project at a time author or do you have multiple projects going at once?
Oh, I’m a multi-tasker, so of course I must juggle multiple projects. I actually wrote From Comfort Zone to Trust Zone and Unison Parenting simultaneously.
While I’m looking during the remainder of 2024 to focus on speaking tours and on shoring up the business processes involved in an expanding ministry, I’m already thinking about multiple future projects. Some are simpler, like Advent and Lenten video studies, but I am brainstorming three future books right now. I have ideas for perhaps ten more books, but I don’t know if all will see the light of day.
- How has your life experience helped in your writing journey?
I believe that God is using every ounce of my life experience to inform my ministry and my writing. I was a small town preacher’s kid; those experiences might produce a combination comedy/spiritual book on their own. As an adult, I never felt the call to ordained ministry, but I have ministered as an adult Sunday School teacher and as a youth volunteer for three decades. My varied business career in software development, product management, and (of all things) sports broadcasting have helped me understand daily life for many people while developing skills such as business sense and speaking that assist my ministry (found at CecilTaylorMinistries.com).
I haven’t even mentioned my personal and family life, which has also deeply informed my ministry. For example, a number of family crises, including ones involving depression, became vital references in my first book, The Next Thing: A Christian Model for Dealing with Crisis in Personal Life.
- Who is your favorite author? Why?
From a Christian perspective, William Barclay, because he understands and articulates the context of the Bible so well. From a secular perspective, I love the meaningful, creative nonsense of Douglas Adams.
- Do you have extensive outlines when writing or do you write a book as you go?
I love this question. I am pretty organized, so I prepare an outline for each book. I spend extensive time on research, organization, and deciding what’s in or out before I write the first word.
I feel that it’s important to know where you’re going as a book’s creator. I typically lead the reader through a process of thought, so I decide where to start, where to end, and how to get there. I also consider what a future small group video series, based on the book, would look like. Then I write.
- Do you remember the first book you read? What sort of impact did it make on you?
My father would read to my sister and me from a bedtime stories book. There were 365 one-page stories in it – not widely spaced like children’s books today, but a full page of text with one small drawing at the top. The stories were about a family and what happened each day with the children and parents.
My father would lie on his back in bed and hold the book up where my sister and I could lie next to him and see the words. As a preschooler, it was a challenge figuring out the words and where he was in the text. I would ask for his reading location periodically to confirm my guess. Often I would try reading the book on my own.
As a result, my interest in reading and writing quickly expanded. When I was in first grade, I read at a sixth-grade level. I know this because of the unsophisticated approach my small rural school took to assessing my reading skill.
One day I was sent to the principal’s office. As a first grader, I had no idea what I had done wrong. The principal gave me a book and asked me to read aloud, then checked my comprehension. Then he had me read another and another and another. The books were ascending the grade levels. He finally gave up when I read and comprehended a sixth-grade book, as that was the highest level he had. The principal told me that he guessed I could have read a ninth-grade book.
Blog Stops
Blossoms and Blessings, June 15 (Author Interview)
Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, June 16
Artistic Nobody, June 17 (Author Interview)
Mary Hake, June 17
Jodie Wolfe – Stories Where Hope and Quirky Meet, June 18 (Author Interview)
Lots of Helpers, June 18
Beauty in the Binding, June 19 (Author Interview)
Texas Book-aholic, June 20
Guild Master, June 21 (Author Interview)
Locks, Hooks and Books, June 22
A Reader’s Brain, June 23 (Author Interview)
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, June 24
A Modern Day Fairy Tale, June 25 (Author Interview)
Happily Managing a Household of Boys, June 26
Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, June 27
Fiction Book Lover, June 28 (Author Interview)
Giveaway
To celebrate his tour, Cecil is giving away the grand prize package of a copy of the book and a $50 Amazon gift card!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
https://promosimple.com/ps/2ca3c/from-comfort-zone-to-trust-zone-celebration-tour-giveaway