New from Barna Group, A Guide to Help You Figure Out Who You Truly Are and What to Do with Your Life


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In “You on Purpose,” Shackelford and Denzel combine biblical principles with years of research—including thousands of surveys, interviews with career counseling professionals, and more—to help readers answer one of life’s biggest questions: What is my purpose?

We all have a vision for what we want our lives to be. But within our ever-shifting culture, unexpected changes—pandemics, job losses, family crises—often throw us off the course we’ve mapped out. Dr. Stephanie Shackelford and Bill Denzel have spent their careers helping people of all generations gain a clear vision of their God-given calling so that they are living not by accident (according to their own plan) but on purpose (according to God’s plan).

In “You on Purpose: Discover Your Calling and Create the Life You Were Meant to Live” (Baker Books, September 2021), Shackelford and Denzel combine biblical principles with years of research—including thousands of surveys, interviews with career counseling professionals, and more—to help readers answer one of life’s biggest questions: What is my purpose?

Shackelford and Denzel apply Barna’s trusted and proven, 4-step research process to the journey of discovering your purpose:

  • Define: look at your current situation and set your intention for what you want to achieve
  • Discover: dig deep into who you are as well as your context, times, and available choices
  • Decide: begin to narrow things down and zero in on what your calling might be
  • Do: take action—doing things to move toward your calling, one step at a time

“Your calling isn’t revealed in one flash of insight; it unfolds as you take repeated steps in the right direction,” say Shackelford and Denzel. “If you’re willing to do the work, we think we can help get you started in the right direction…let this book be a map, guiding you to a clearer picture of where you should be headed and which road you should take.”

Shackelford and Denzel are available for interviews and op-eds on:

  • getting started when you feel stuck
  • discovering a deeper understanding of yourself
  • rightly defining your life’s objectives
  • finding your path through disappointment and suffering
  • understanding your context within the world
  • how community can add clarity
  • relieving the pressure of decision making
  • the crisis of overchoice and why constraints will help you

“God is writing a long story with your life. It’s never too early and it’s never too late for you to step into it, the way of calling that unfolds over time. The time to enter it is now.”

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