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Crossing the Waters: Following Jesus through the Storms, the Fish, the Doubt, and the Seas Paperback – October 1, 2016

by Leslie Leyland Fields (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 262 ratings
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Winner of the 2017 Christianity Today Book of the Year for Christian Living.Get ready for the wettest, stormiest, wildest trip through the Gospel you've ever taken!
The gospels are dramatic, wild, and wet―set in a rich maritime culture on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus' first disciples were ragtag fishermen, and Jesus' messages and miracles teem with water, fish, fishermen, net-breaking catches, sea crossings, boat-sinking storms, and even a walk on water. Because this world is foreign and distant to us, we've missed much about the disciples' experiences and about following Jesus―until now. Leslie Leyland Fields―a well-known writer, respected biblical exegete, and longtime Alaskan fisherwoman―crosses the waters of time and culture to take us out on the Sea of Galilee, through a rugged season of commercial fishing with her family in Alaska, and through the waters of the New Testament.

You'll be swept up in a fresh experience of the gospels, traveling with the fishermen disciples from Jesus' baptism to the final miraculous catch of fish―and also experiencing Leslie's own efforts to follow Christ out on her own Alaskan sea. In a time when so many are "unfollowing" Jesus and leaving the Church, Crossing the Waters delivers a fresh encounter with Jesus and explores what it means to "come, follow me."
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    NavPress
  4. Publication date
    October 1, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    163146602X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1631466021
  8. See all details
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From the Publisher

"The disciples could often be found battling rough seas, storms, and empty nets. As an Alaskan fisherman for nearly four decades, Leslie Leyland Fields brings unique insight to the disciples’ experiences with Jesus—and how we, too, can learn to trust and follow the Savior."

"Before reading Crossing the Waters, I didn’t yet realize that the guide I most needed to steer me through turbulent waters was one whose hands smell of finger kelp. With insight, wisdom, and a deep connection to the maritime world from which Jesus plucked his first followers."

"This book is a rare gift. It pulses with story and theology, with lived suffering and quiet joy, with vast mysteries and a strong Savior. The question is not if you can put it down—because that will be hard—but if you have the good sense first to pick it up and read."

"Recasting her own enchanting but gritty life in the commercial fishing industry alongside those “fishers of men,” Leslie Leyland Fields shows us how each of our life stories is best understood in light of the “good story,” the gospel."

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Customer Reviews
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4.6 out of 5 stars
262
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5.0 out of 5 stars
6
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4.6 out of 5 stars
423
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"What a grand and surprising book this is . . . Fields is a remarkable writer, very talented, very wise. She is, by vocation, not only a writer, but a fisher-person doing her work with her family on a remote island off the coast of mainland Alaska. This book includes some vivid telling of her wild experiences fishing in the dangerous seas of the Pacific Northwest. But here's the thing: besides being a woman's wilderness memoir and story of life in Alaska, it is also a study of faith. Crossing the Waters is a tremendous book, what review Mark Galli calls, 'a rare gift.'" ----- Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Booknotes

"Crossing the Waters" does what it promises to do: 'lead us across the waters of time and culture' into a new experience with Jesus and his 'rag-tag fishermen-disciples.' It beckons us to a deeper understanding of the life to which Jesus calls his followers---one that requires persistence, sacrifice, faithfulness and dependence---and in doing so, reminds us that our faith is never misplaced." ----Suanne Camfield, The Englewood Review of Books

Review

This book is a rare gift. It pulses with story and theology, with lived suffering and quiet joy, with vast mysteries and a strong Savior. The question is not whether you can put it down―because that will be hard―but whether you have the good sense first to pick it up, and read. Mark Galli, Editor in Chief, Christianity Today

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NavPress (October 1, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 163146602X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1631466021
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 262 ratings

About the author

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Leslie Leyland Fields

Leslie Leyland Fields

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LESLIE LEYLAND FIELDS is a multi-award winning writer, editor, and international speaker who lives on two islands in Alaska. She has written/edited 14 nonfiction books of memoir and essays on a variety of subjects, including memoir writing, the spirituality of food, forgiveness, wilderness, discipleship and parenting. Her books have been translated into 10 languages. Leslie has traveled all over the world, both as a seeker and as a speaker, including treks across the Sahara, through Asia, Europe and Central America. She has taught in numerous countries including Mongolia, South Africa, France, and Slovakia. In 2013, she began the Harvester Island Writers' Workshop, a week long writing workshop and retreat at a beautiful wilderness island in Alaska. Guests have included Ann Voskamp, Philip Yancey, Scot McKnight, Bret Lott, Luci Shaw and others. Summers, she also leads Your Story Matters Retreats and Psalm Retreats in Kodiak.

Leslie has written for many publications including The Atlantic, Orion, Books and Culture, Beliefnet, Christianity Today earning her a number of EPA awards.

She holds three graduate degrees and currently teaches through retreats as well as through live online classes, including her Memoir Masterclass, with more than 1000 writers from around the world.

Leslie and her husband Duncan have 6 children and 5 grandsons. They continue to commercial salmon fish together on their wilderness island in Alaska.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
262 global ratings
Leaving peace to face the storm
4 Stars
Leaving peace to face the storm
"Crossing the Waters" by Leslie Leyland Fields, is one of the most amazing, awe-provoking books I've read lately. The author makes the reader feel, see, and touch life two millennia ago. She allows us to travel to holy lands and experience life first hand.I love how she parallels her life to that of others who followed Jesus, leaving everything behind and venturing into the unknown, exposing herself to the hazards of Mother Nature but believing and keeping her faith in the Creator who kept her safe and saved her life and that of her loved ones many times.Her dedication to and knowledge of the Gospel and the Scriptures motivates the reader to learn more about the subject.It's a great book I highly recommend to anybody willing to learn from somebody who sacrificed family and comfort to follow her dreams but still keeping the family together. Total dedication.
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Top reviews from the United States

Dikkon Eberhart
5.0 out of 5 stars like the strands of a net
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2016
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I had been waiting eagerly for Leslie Leyland Fields' new memoir to appear. Her previous Alaskan and Christian memoir left me breathless, Surviving the Island of Grace. What new and masterful merging of her life's stories and her Christian wisdom would come from her pen? So that's the background. Four days ago, I tore open the Amazon envelope and there was Crossing the Waters. My next two days did not belong to me. Fields held me in her grip while I streaked through her book, eagerly rejoicing, eagerly pressing on for more. Fields uses her honestly, her forthrightness, her vulnerability, her faith, her doubt, her practicality, her bravery, her anger and her succinctness--all of which are innate to her and perhaps, at least in potential, to all of us--as the emotional foundation of her story. On this foundation, she builds her story. Her two stories, really. One is her own story of the high and the low of everyday events during a single season of salmon fishing with her husband, children, and helpers. Her other story is of her sojourn around the shores of the Sea of Galilee, talking fishing with modern Peters and Andrews and Johns--and talking Jesus with them, too, who are Jews. An Alaskan caster of nets in 2016, Fields sails with the Israeli casters of nets and experiences a storm with them. She brings the earlier prototypes of those same fishermen, from 2,000 years ago, to us in her story, and she enlivens them as she does so. She humanizes them, right through from the moment they are called upon to drop their nets and to follow. She shows us their doubts and their angers, and then their joys, right up until the end. Fields' two stories twist together on the page, like the strands of a net. It is I who am caught in Fields' net--in Fields' story's net, woven of words. Other readers may experience the same thing; I think it would be hard to read Crossing the Waters and avoid being caught in Fields' net. This is so because Fields is not only a writer who possesses exciting skill, she is a skillful writer who possesses a poet's heart. There is a poetic and confessional cadence in the book, which brings the reader, step by step, onward and upward, through Fields' doubts about Jesus, through the apostles' doubts about Jesus, through the reader's own doubts about Jesus (at least mine), all the way to her final two pages--which are triumphant. And then--like any human still asking why despite triumph--her words come down from triumph and are real.
7 people found this helpful
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PAR
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and well written
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2022
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This book weaves faith into everyday life From the frigid waters where the author's family fish commercially fish for Alaskan salmon to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, there is great application and sound scholarship of the biblical texts. Good reading.
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Satisfied
5.0 out of 5 stars Rate this book at ten stars!
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2017
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I could not put Crossing the Waters down. I was hooked. Fields' true stories from her family's commercial fishing business based on a remote island off the coast of Kodiak, Alaska, are mixed with scenes from the Gospels. Every scene is alive and real. I tried to force myself to stop reading at the end of each chapter in order to savor the insights and encouragement intertwined with the narration, but I couldn't. This is a book I will reread and reread. I purchased five extra copies for Christmas gifts and already need to order more.

Crossing the Waters isn't your typical "Christian Life/Spiritual Growth book." It doesn't attempt to solve life issues with formulas. Fields dives into murky waters and surfaces with questions and feelings that plague us all. Any reader will identify with Fields' transparent heart and her question: What does it mean to follow Jesus in the midst of our flesh-and-blood everyday lives? But as she writes about her faith struggles and the disciples' struggles, she always takes the reader back to Jesus. Fields doesn't minimize the pain in today's world, but she shows us how God saves us through the storm and suffering. She speaks to our fears and doubts, reminding us that Jesus is enough.

I've been a Christian fro 42 years and have read boatloads of books on spiritual growth. Crossing the Waters is among the best. I'm not surprised it won Christianity Today's 2017 Book Award for Christian Living/Discipleship. The study guide at the end of the book also makes it wonderful to read and discuss with others, whether for a book group or Bible study group.

My only regret is that I can't give it a ten star rating.
14 people found this helpful
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Ron, Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars great for new and mature Christians alike
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2018
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Tremendous book, great for new and mature Christians alike. Also a great book for someone who simply wants to know more about Jesus and the basic Gospel message. Easy to read, very personal conversational style of writing, and best of all, a chance to know Jesus in the same way the first disciples came to know him -- as fisherman picked fresh from the docks and the boats of life. Leslie Leyland Fields shares an amazing story of life from a perspective few of us have ever experienced, the salmon fisherman's daily life in Alaska, interwoven with her heartfelt joy of sharing the Gospel message that comes alive daily in that same seashore when you imagine Jesus in those fishing boats calling Simon to come and join him, and fish for people.
2 people found this helpful
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Otis Borop
4.0 out of 5 stars A fishing background and comparison.
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2020
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I was not excited about her fishing ventures, but she did a good job on the reflective questions in the back of the book.
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Lloyd Mattson
5.0 out of 5 stars Hankering for an Alaska fishing yarn?
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2016
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If you are hankering for a great Alaska fishing yarn, hanker no more. Leslie Leyland Field’s Crossing he Waters will feed that hanker like few books out there. Her skilled storytelling is spot on with the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of the greatest salmon fishery on the Planet. I know; I’ve been there.
Crossing the Waters is an honest book. It mingles Alaskan and Palestinian waters seamlessly, refreshingly free from tiresome gospel platitudes. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of what it means to follow the Master Fisherman. You will come to know four flawed, hardy fishing partners and gather a wealth of Galilean lore.
Not interested in theology? Read Crossing Waters anyhow. Enjoy the stories and judge for yourself whether Leslie’s different take on Christianity makes sense. It sure does to me. I’ll be adding more of her writings to my must-read pile.
10 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Graeme Connell
5.0 out of 5 stars The power to overcome
Reviewed in Canada on March 13, 2022
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This is an amazing story of how we can be encouraged in our Christian faith and to overcome doubts to live in the hope that Jesus Christ has given us. Well written, and the author has expressed her personal life around God's promises contained throughout the Bible. It is difficult to put down as the author weaves the reader through the lives of the fishermen expressed in the Gospels.
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B. Schultz
5.0 out of 5 stars Raw, honest, and moving.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2020
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Raw, honest, and moving. A book to encourage the realisation of what it takes to follow Jesus. Not for the faint-hearted!
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dave
2.0 out of 5 stars Not so sure i enjoyed it sadly... sorry!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 4, 2017
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Obviously a talented writer, though I felt the book was a little slow. There was alot of content about the author's life and experience, though sadly i was left wanting for spiritual input and challenge. Pitty.
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