Amy, thank you for reading the book and for inviting me to do this interview.  I love the A-Team blog and I subscribe to your blog feed, which helps me keep up with you all as you dig into a great variety of subjects.  All to say, this is fun for me to interact with you and the A-Team this way.  I hope some day we can all get-together live, perhaps at the next God Blog Conference.

That would be great!

I'll push you a little on our possible disagreements later, but for now, let's start at the beginning.  In Common Grounds, I think you did an excellent job of painting a picture of the glory and sovereignty of God in a way that is quite moving.  Thank you!  There were parts that moved me to tears and worship. I see a few different applications for this book--an example of how to tell others about God, a call to integrate our doctrine with our lives, and an argument for uniting our heads with our hearts.  What was your purpose (or purposes) in writing this book and what prompted you to write it? 

My primary purpose in writing this book was to entice young-in-their-faith believers to learn the Christian story, to get "thick" in their knowledge and experience of Christ, and thus to live the Christian story robustly in the scrum of daily life.

My secondary purpose was to depict a way of engaging non-believers in a winsome manner that is predicated on genuinely loving and listening.

You chose to explore doctrines about God in the context of a narrative.  Why did you choose this format?

Ben Young (my co-author) and I discussed how there are multitudes of young-in-their-faith believers who would like to know and live out more of their Christian faith, but they are very busy professionals and lack time and even a map of where to go. We realized that a straightforward, didactic prose book of Christian teachings would probably not motivate lots of young adults to read it. 

However, Ben and I knew that young adults were hungry for teachings if the teachings could be presented in an interesting manner.  Ben had preached a remarkable series of messages for over a year on the essential teachings of the Christian faith.  What began as a gathering intended for a small core of leaders at the church exploded as well over a thousand young adults flocked to learn. 

So we knew there was hunger to learn Christian teachings and we suspected that a didactic prose book of teachings would not satiate that hunger.  So, I suggested that we use Plato's dialogue genre and tell a story involving young professionals at different stages in their faith journey. 

I did appreciate your presenting doctrine for what it really is--a knowledge about who God is, affecting every aspect of our lives.  You did a good job of showing its beauty--or rather, His beauty!

The story centers around four characters.  Three are Christians:  the professor, MacGregor, who's leading us through the discussion about God; Brad, who is mostly about head knowledge of God; and Jarrod, whose Christian life centers on emotion and experience.  The fourth character, Lauren, is not a Christian.  You've certainly covered all the bases here!  Are these the types of people you're hoping to reach?  Whom do you see benefiting from reading this book, and how do you envision it being read (Christians, non-Christians, alone, in groups, etc.)? 

From the beginning Ben and I hoped that small groups would read Common Grounds in community.  There's a small group discussion guide at the end of the book and I wrote a far more detailed study guide for free download at the blog (here).

There's give and take in a small group discussion.  Participants can take the dialogue and Scripture from a chapter and go in whatever direction that is most pertinent to their lives. They can explore notions that they find hard to accept, like how 9/11 relates to God’s sovereignty.

Without question the most substantive and enthusiastic feedback I have received has been from small groups around the country. They love it. Every group I've heard from talks about "getting" how Christian teachings relate to their daily lives. A few emails from small group members have told me about new hunger to learn their faith. That's what Ben and I love to hear.

In terms of people we're trying to reach, we're basically hoping to entice young professionals who have hearts for Jesus but for whatever reason are still "thin" in their knowledge and experience of Jesus.  We know a slew of professionals who are cutting edge in their knowledge and experience in their careers, but have left their Christian faith at a middle school level.

There are consequences to that. If we are going to live the Christian story robustly, amidst and against the scripts of the world, we are going to have to know the Christian story.

MacGregor is hoping to bring the other three characters who are currently in different corners to some sort of middle.  They're each in need of a deeper relationship with God in their own way.  Could you describe the Christian life to which you are hoping to lead people through his words?

I could, but I don't want to give away too much from Books 3-5!  In Book 3 Professor MacGregor begins unfolding to Brad, Lauren and Jarrod what it looks like to live the Kingdom of God in contemporary society.

Herman Ridderbos (The Coming of the Kingdom) and Richard Pratt (professor at Reformed Theological Seminary-Orlando and the teacher of my life) have helped me to understand the now and not yet of the Kingdom, and my studies of both Scripture and sociology have helped me see that the Kingdom is not spiritual only--it is material and social as well.  So broadly speaking, that is the Christian life that I'm hoping to depict to readers.  The specific, particular aspects of that will come through the characters' lives and dialogue in Books 3-5.

Could you briefly tell us the doctrines you cover in this book and the ones you hope to cover in the rest of the series?

In Common Grounds Professor MacGregor starts conversations about the nature of God, how God's sovereignty relates to everyday life, including events like 9/11, how God communicates with people through Creation and how God communicates with people through Scripture and Jesus Himself.

In Book 2 MacGregor will explore what the Christian story has to say about the nature and worth of humans, sin and the Fall, and how Jesus, as Fully God and Fully Man, is our mediator to redeem and renew us into the New Humanity.

In Book 3 the changes in the characters' lives bring to the fore redemption, baptism and the Lord's Supper, sanctification, and how these relate to the Kingdom now and not yet.

Lest I give away too much, I think it's best not to specify the teachings of Books 4 and 5.

All right, we'll let you have your mystery!  We'll continue this tomorrow on the subject of apologetics.