A sequel to the best-selling Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God is in production by Lifeway Christian Resources.
It’s written by Richard Blackaby, eldest son of Experiencing God’s author, Henry Blackaby, and by Richard’s two oldest sons, Mike and Daniel.
“My dad died 18 months ago [Feb. 10, 2024]. He’s not able to write a sequel,” Richard Blackaby told Baptist Press. “But here are his oldest son and two oldest grandsons who knew him best, longest, so you have the next two generations picking up the mantle my father left behind.”
For many years, there was talk between Blackaby father and son about writing a sequel to the extremely popular Experiencing God, but the timing never seemed quite right.
“Over the years, many people who have taken the original course have clamored for a follow-up study,” Blackaby said. “Currently, there is a movement among young adults to experience God and to know His will. This seems to be a wonderful time to produce a fresh new study that builds on the original.”
“Daniel and Mike brought new insights to the concept of experiencing God,” Blackaby continued. “Both have Ph.D.s in apologetics, and I have one in church history. We’re carrying on the spiritual legacy that our parents passed down to me and to my children. It didn’t start with my parents. Dad and Mom learned it from their parents, who learned it from theirs.”
The legacy continues. Henry Blackaby started Blackaby Ministries International 20 years ago last fall. Richard Blackaby now leads it, “and several of his grandkids work for it to continue promoting the messages God gave my dad originally,” Richard Blackaby said. “Part of my boys and me writing the sequel is wrapped up in the legacy that my dad left to his family.”
Experiencing God became a publishing phenomenon soon after it was released 35 years ago.
Anticipated to hopefully sell 5,000 copies (the typical number of such study books sold by Lifeway at that time), the study vastly outsold expectations.
“For years, it was selling over half a million copies a year,” Blackaby said. “It caught everyone by surprise. Experiencing God did things the publisher [Lifeway Christian Resources] had never seen before.”
Hospitals, orphanages, ministries and non-profits were started as a result of people experiencing God in their own lives. Congregations and relationships were healed as members worked through the 12-week course whose basic premise is, “Find where God is at work and join Him.”
More than 8 million copies of Experiencing God have been printed in English since 1990, still more in 80 other languages. The English version has been updated twice and its latest revision in 2022 was reprinted in February 2025, testifying to its continuing appeal.
“Experiencing God taught people how great God is,” Blackaby said. “Experiencing God encouraged people to look for God-sized things to do. It taught a lot of ordinary people God could do God-sized things through their ordinary life.”
An unintended consequence of the book was that people could lose enthusiasm for God when they weren’t having a “burning bush” experience — a spiritual high — every week, Blackaby said.
“God’s also very involved in the ordinary moments of our life. When people go to work on Monday, God’s working there too. Mountaintop experiences are wonderful, but most of our life is spent in the valley.”
The sequel — Experiencing God in Everyday Life: A Journey Toward Spiritual Maturity — urges readers to not miss God in the ordinary, that God is as involved in the normative moments of a person’s life as He is in the extraordinary experiences.
“A lot of the focus in the sequel is how to build spiritual disciplines in your life, where week by week we are doing healthy practical things that lead us toward spiritual maturity,” Blackaby said. “It doesn’t take a week-long intensive conference for us to grow spiritually. It takes daily habits done consistently over a period of time.
“We’re always looking for a spiritual steroid to help us grow quickly, but spiritual maturity is a process in which we’re doing healthy things day in and day out.”
Spiritual maturity sets a pattern for the next generations as children see their parents living out their walk with the Lord.
“We assume someone taking the course wants to grow as a Christian,” Blackaby said. “You don’t grow just for your own sake but for others. People will pay a price if you don’t keep growing. If you’re a mom or a dad and don’t have time to grow, your kids won’t have the spiritually mature mother or father they could have had.”
The more a Christian grows spiritually, the more exciting opportunities become available, Blackaby said.
“Dad said, ‘When you keep growing, you’re in a place where God can trust you with more.’ If you’re not spiritually mature, you’ll never know what you missed. Certain doors won’t open. You won’t be invited to do some things. God won’t reveal certain truths to you. The more you grow, the more you will notice what God is doing in and around you. You also will also have greater spiritual power because you’ll be walking in the Spirit.
“What we are trying to do is provide a fitting sequel to those who have gone through Experiencing God, and we’re trying to fill in some gaps that weren’t addressed in the original,” Blackaby said. “At the same time, we are working to make sure this sequel speaks directly to today’s young adults who are showing a growing interest in spiritual things.”
Taking into consideration the busy lives of 21st century Christians, the sequel consists of eight workbook sessions connected each week with a related video. It’s meant to involve a little less reading each day, “a little less burdensome for people who can’t commit to a long study session,” Blackaby said.
“What a delight to work with my two sons in writing the book and making the videos,” Richard Blackaby said. “It would have made their grandparents proud. The teaching is the primary focus of the sequel; secondarily, contextualizing it for each new generation. There’s currently a huge movement among GenZ, a lot of them are coming to Christ, especially young men. We want to provide materials to help these young believers on their path toward spiritual maturity.”
The sequel builds on a personal encounter with God that grows into a life-transforming relationship with Him.
“To be a disciple is to follow Jesus,” Blackaby said. “Discipleship is a relationship with Jesus. Discipleship is personal. To be a disciple, you’ve got to relate to Jesus. Too often our discipleship involves studying about Jesus but not actually loving and following Him!”
The sequel is to be released at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting next month in Orlando. The three Blackabys plan to do a book-signing in the exhibit hall.
“When my dad wrote Experiencing God, he wanted to not merely produce another course, but to produce materials that would change people’s lives and help them to experience God,” Blackaby said. “Over and over again, people’s testimony is that ‘it is unlike any other course I ever took. I actually experienced God while going through the material.’
“We’re praying the same thing for this sequel,” Blackaby said.
— Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.