Ordinary Altars

What if God wasn’t far away, waiting for you to get it all together, but was already here—in the carpool line, on the job site, in the mess?

From “one of our most important progressive Christian voices” (Jen Hatmaker), an invitation to let go of performative spirituality and rediscover the sacred in your actual life.

In our noisy world of quick fixes, there’s an army of pastors, conferences, and devotionals telling us that spiritual growth requires mountaintop moments, dramatic breakthroughs, and perfectly executed quiet times. But bestselling author Sarah Bessey gently dismantles this illusion. She names what so many of us feel but hesitate to say: that performative spirituality—checking boxes, chasing spectacle, trying to “prove” our devotion—leaves us feeling distant from the very God we long to know.

Instead, she offers a deeper, truer path. With warmth, wit, and profound storytelling, Bessey guides us into the sacredness of the ordinary: the grace that meets us in thrift store clothes and carpool lines, in heartbreak and garden soil, in the ache of longing and honest conversations with God. Drawing on her two decades of helping readers rediscover a more openhearted, compassionate faith, she offers a new imagination for where and how God moves.

For readers who are spiritually tired but still hopeful, deconstructed but longing to rebuild, Ordinary Altars is a holy pause—a guide to reenchanting your faith and a reminder that you’ve been standing on sacred ground all along.