Starting Over: Your Life Beyond Regrets - eBook

Dave Ferguson is founding and lead pastor of Chicago’s Community Christian Church, a multisite missional community considered one of the most influential churches in America. Dave is also the visionary for the international church-planting movement New-Thing and president of the Exponential Conference. Dave and his wife, Sue, have three children and live in Naperville, Illinois.
 
Jon Ferguson is founding and teaching pastor of Community Christian Church and movement leader for NewThing. He is currently helping to plant a Community campus in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. He and his wife, Lisa, have two children. Brothers Dave and Jon are the coauthors of several books, including Finding Your Way Back to God.

I wish I had loved more.
I wish I had been smarter about money.
I wish I had thought about God more.

We all have regrets about the past. Many of them come from our attempts to fulfill unmet longings. Dave and Jon Ferguson call this back and forth between longing and regret the Sorry Cycle-and they want to help us escape it.

In Starting Over, Dave and Jon show us how to recognize specific regrets and then release them to God as we learn to see our regrets as opportunities to start over. Finally, we can see God redeem our regrets as he takes the worst things in our lives and uses them for a greater good.

Your regrets don't need to keep you from the joy God has for your life. As you apply the recognize-release-redeem process to your financial, relational, and personal regrets, you will find new freedom in living out your God-given dreams.

Fall in Love with Your Regrets

It sounds impossible. How can we learn to love our mistakes? Instead, we go over and over them in our mind. Could they ever bring us-or anyone else-good?

Drawing from scientific research and biblical truths, Jon and Dave Ferguson give us tools to redeem our mistakes in five key areas: relationships, health, purpose, finances, and spirituality. Along the way, they teach us lifelong skills for getting unstuck when regret threatens to trap us again. We also learn how to help others escape the Sorry Cycle and experience the Starting Over Loop.

It is possible to learn to love our regrets because through them we see God at work. We see that our weakness does not limit what God can do. Whatever regret is trapping you in the Sorry Cycle, God is big enough to redeem it. What could you do with a life beyond regret?

"Starting Over is a remarkable, grace-filled invitation to move past regrets. Dave and Jon Ferguson take us on a journey filled with story and Scripture that guides the reader from a pain-filled past into a positive and redemptive future. This is a life-changing book you need to read and will want to give to others!"
—Andy Stanley, senior pastor, North Point Ministries

"Dave and Jon give us the tools we need to find a fresh start! I’m thankful for their wisdom and easy-to-follow steps to freedom."
—Mark Batterson, New York Times best-selling author of The Circle Maker; lead pastor of National Community Church
 
"Dave and Jon Ferguson’s book Starting Over will guide you through a healthy, God-inspired process of recognizing, releasing, and redeeming your regrets. Rather than staying in the trenches of the past, it’s time to start over and allow God to do a new work in you."
—Craig Groeschel, pastor of Life.Church; author of #Struggles—Following Jesus in a Selfie-Centered World

"The greatest need in human life is a Do-Over—here it is. I cannot imagine anybody who would not benefit from this book."
—John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Church; author of All the Places to Go

"We all have regrets. Thankfully, we are reminded by Dave and Jon Ferguson that everything is going to be okay. This book is filled with stories and practical steps to learn how to be okay and overcome regret. It is an inspiring and compelling message of hope and freedom. Let Starting Over be the launching pad for a new season of regret-free living and leading!"
—Brad Lomenick, former president of Catalyst; author of The Catalyst Leader and H3 Leadership

"One of the greatest stories in the Gospels is when John summoned as many who had the courage to the Jordan River. There they could confess their sins and start life all over again. John wanted the whole nation to start over because the one to whom he pointed, Jesus, was ushering in a brand new world. Starting Over contains the pastoral accounts of one person after another who, like those who entered the Jordan River with John, have learned that God’s grace forgives, restores, and ushers one person after another into a life without regrets. What a marvelous book about God’s abundant, forgiving, new-life-making love."
—Scot McKnight, Julius R. Mantey Professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary

"Dave and Jon Ferguson have built one of the most dynamic and influential churches in America through their passion for telling others about the love of Jesus. Their Spirit-filled energy and vision flows through their book Starting Over, with the life-changing message of redemption and grace."
—Nicky Gumbel, Holy Trinity Brompton

"Regrets are part of the human condition, but how we process them is key to how we will live beyond them. In Starting Over, the Ferguson brothers provide insight and tools to help us live beyond regret and into the new opportunities for life and flourishing that God has for each of us."
—Debra Hirsch, author of Redeeming Sex and Untamed

"I’m not perfect. I’ve experienced regrets. Starting Over provides practical next steps to neither suppress nor forget but rather redeem and release the regrets I’ve experienced in my life. Unless you’re perfect, and none of us are, I think you’ll appreciate this opportunity for a new start as well."
—Tony Morgan, founder and chief strategic officer, The Unstuck Group

"Starting Over drives home the message that God has an unending promise of redemption for us. We live in a fallen world and all deal with regrets in this life. This incredibly powerful book helps us walk through the process of recognizing, releasing, and redeeming our regrets, through repentance and forgiveness, so we can give glory to God and live in the freedom he desires for each one of us. Our staff plans to take hold of this tool, and our congregation will experience its impact. I know you will too."
—Joby Martin, lead pastor, The Church of Eleven22