Way of Life Participant Guide

The study Way of Life will help groups approach and engage the spiritual, theological, and missional proposals in Brian McLaren’s book The Great Spiritual Migration. This participant guide provides an introduction to the main text and can also stand alone with additional commentary and questions. The book also contains new content from Brian McLaren, including personal devotionals written to accompany each section.


In The Great Spiritual Migration, Brian McLaren argues that in order to survive, Christianity must shift away from an outdated system of beliefs to a way of life based on love. In order to achieve this, McLaren outlines three migrations: spiritually, Christians focus less on doctrine and more on the abiding life of love made manifest in Jesus; theologically, a new way of reading Scripture shifts away from literalism and toward a more generous, literary approach; and missionally, the new way of life leads to “organizing religion,” rather than organized religion, in which spiritual activists are committed to ecological, economic, and interfaith concerns.