What if the life we long for isn’t elsewhere but rather right here, waiting to be discovered?

Joshua Luke Smith believes the greatest lie facing our generation is that the life we long for lies beyond the life that we have. We so easily learn to disdain the inconveniences, interruptions and messy mundane that infuses our everyday. But the real transformation happens when we look at our life as it is and dare to announce: This is the main event.

With depth, wisdom and storytelling, This Is the Main Event is your invitation to awaken to the sacred in your ordinary life. As Joshua claims, the extraordinary life is simply the one in which we practice presence – to ourselves, to others, to God. Every moment becomes meaningful when you recognise the God who meets you in it – a holy encounter accessed in the everyday.

Whether you’re packing lunches, paying bills, headed to the office, a hospital or a recovery meeting, this is a book to help you receive the greatest gift you already have and to practice your own aliveness in your actual life.

Ebury Vine: The Home Of Christian Living. Drawing on the deep roots of Christianity to cultivate curious minds and inspire faith-informed growth.

"I try to read (and watch and listen to) everything Joshua Luke Smith puts out. He's fast becoming the poet laureate of a new generation. There are thoughts, phrases, lines in here which will soon become your friends. They will be cherished in solitude, quoted in cards, shared at weddings and funerals, for many years to come." - Pete Greig, bestselling author of How to Pray and How to Hear God

"There are very few writers who can combine raw, even painful honesty about how brutal life can feel with a grounded hope. Joshua Luke Smith is one of them. This book is beautiful, humanizing and profoundly nourishing—soul medicine for our times." - Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive and podcast host of The Sacred

"A cluster of imaginative, kind and soul-opening propositions nestle here. Joshua lives in a world we all understand, yet again and again he gestures to the luminous within the ordinary. There's a hard won decency that's refreshing." - Martin Shaw, author of Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us

"What a gift... Beautiful, real, raw and relentlessly hopeful. This is a work of holy art." - Jo Hargreaves, The Faith Filled Therapist, pastor, speaker, author and podcaster

"You had me at the title – ‘This is the main event’ is the kind of phrase I’d like to tattoo on my arm – and my spirit. But the excellent title is just the beginning: this is a thoughtful, artful, soulful meditation on life and faith and time and what really matters." - Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author

"Joshua Luke Smith’s affecting craft connects heaven to earth and uplifts earth to heaven. Joshua moves words in his kinetic poetry: words distilled to authentic truth with vulnerable candour and prophetic alacrity. This is a book for generations of dreamers, sunflower seeds of words scattered in the poisoned soil of culture, ready to chase the sun." - Makoto Fujimura, artist and author of Art Is

"What a book . . . full to the brim of honest poetic stories, teachings and lessons that feel they come from a kind big brother gently shuffling us all forward while also keeping us beautifully in the present." - Elle Limebear, artist and storyteller

"Few people love words as much as Joshua Luke Smith . . . This new book, as in everything he does, is a gift from the depths of a wise, earnest and articulate heart, straight to the heart of every reader." - Andrew Peterson, singer/songwriter and author