Discover · Chapter One
Discover more about Above Base Camp.
Find out more about what ABC is all about, who we are and where it all started.
Find out what Above Base Camp is all about.
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A confession
"We had all been on the journey of faith for a long time, but we weren't seeing the transformation or the fruit that we thought we should have. And we all wanted more."
Jonathan Logan · Founder
II
Who is behind Above Base Camp?
Hi. I'm Jonathan Logan.
I'm married to Claire and we have two teenage kids. For the first half of my life, I worked in Finance in the world of Corporate Treasury. But a growing feeling that there had to be more to my faith life than I was experiencing led me to investigate the concepts of 'integrative formation' and 'practical discipleship' with some of my close friends. Together, in an attempt to bring something positive out of our Covid lockdown experience, we wrote 'The Journey Above Base Camp'.
Inspired by this idea of Above Base Camp, I have retired from the corporate world and am studying for a Masters in Spiritual Formation at Waverley Abbey College. Those original explorations, together with some newly-acquired academic frameworks, a love of word-play, alliteration and acrostics, and a heart to help people move forward on their walk with Jesus, have led to this idea of an 'ABC'-themed framework for how to Follow Jesus on the Path Above Base Camp.
Four friends · One conversation
It all started with a group of four friends.
All of us Christians and all of us around that 'mid-life crisis' sort of age, whose connection largely revolved around the exchange of some friendly and, to us anyway, amusing banter over social media, but that was it.
Then one year we decided to go away for the weekend and on that long car journey, after the usual inane conversations had run their course, we actually started to talk, really talk, about our Christian lives. And we realised that we all felt similar, that we were all experiencing similar things in our Christian lives. We had all been on the journey of faith for a long time, but we weren't seeing the transformation or the fruit that we thought we should have. And we all wanted more. It felt like we were all having a bit of a Christian mid-life crisis. Disillusioned with the state of our present lives and without a lot of hope for it changing in the future.
Over the course of the next year, our conversations grew more spiritual, we started listening to some new podcasts and reading some different books on topics that were foreign to us, like spiritual formation and stage theory, and these started to rekindle a light in us that had grown dim, bringing with it, new hope. We began to understand the stage we were at in our lives and what that meant for what we had to do next. We decided that we were going to commit to trying something new together, and that was to meet together with a new heart to see each other grow in the faith. We committed to meeting with each other weekly, intentionally seeking God through the week as we sought to put into practice what we were learning.
The Christian faith is like climbing the mountain of God. Reaching Base Camp is a major achievement — but, over time, some of us mistake it for the summit. It's not.
Shortly after that one of us came up with this climbing analogy. That the Christian faith is like climbing the mountain of God. Our Christian lives are like the journey to the summit of Everest. But the reality is getting to the summit is hard, and it is dangerous. And it takes a lot of training. A lot of effort. And so, a lot of people get to Base Camp and stop. Settle. Make camp. Now reaching Base Camp is a major achievement in itself. But, over time, some of us mistake it for the summit. It's not. At some point, if we want to make it all the way, we have to choose to leave the relative comfort of Base Camp, to walk through that mental 'wall', and renew our climb for the summit by Following the Path Above Base Camp.
That is what Above Base Camp is all about. Climbing the Mountain of God, together, by intentionally accepting God's invitations to climb higher. Our book, 'The Journey Above Base Camp', is our story. Our aspiration for Above Base Camp is to help you make it your story too.