Can this book change your life? In Journey to the Well, Bishop Vashti McKenzie offers lessons in spiritual transformation.

My first encounter with Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie is one I will never forget. It was ten years ago, and McKenzie had been recently appointed senior pastor of the historic Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in her hometown of Baltimore. For me, women preachers were nothing new--my grandmother was one. But meeting a woman who was a recognized pastor was something else altogether. What amazed and inspired me about McKenzie was not the fact that she had assumed a prominent role in Christian ministry, something that had been traditionally denied African-American women. Rather, it was her creative approach to ministry that left me with a lasting impression.

In her Founders' Day address ten years ago to a Washington, D.C., area chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority--of which her grandmother was a founding member and McKenzie herself currently serves as national chaplain--she spoke of how she was able to draw women from the community to the church by hosting midday TV soap opera-viewing groups. In order to reach these women--many of whom were single parents on public assistance--she believed that they must be met on their own terms. And while most of the women came to Payne A.M.E. Church to watch "the stories," she observed that they left with a different perspective through their encounters with Jesus Christ. It is that kind of religious pragmatism that has marked her career in the ministry.

Since then, McKenzie's own life has changed considerably. Two years ago, McKenzie became a trailblazer in the African Methodist Episcopal Church by becoming the first woman to be elected bishop in the church's history, which dates back to 1787. Currently, McKenzie presides over the 18th Episcopal District of the church, an area that extends from the Indian Ocean to the Kalahari Desert and includes the southwestern African nations of Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique and Lesotho. Yet, despite her vast authority, McKenzie has not lost the same enthusiasm and passion for transforming women's lives through ministry that she exhibited during her early years as a pastor.

My second encounter with Bishop McKenzie was in Atlanta this summer where she was on tour promoting her latest book, Journey to the Well. Indeed, the life-changing concept that she has embraced in her pastorship has become the source of her new book.

No stranger to writing, Journey to the Well is McKenzie's third book. Even before answering the call to ministry, McKenzie was a journalist with a heritage rooted in the black press. Her great-grandfather, John H. Murphy Sr., founded the Afro-American newspapers in 1887, which became one of the largest chains of black weekly newspapers in the country, and still exists today.

With McKenzie there is no pretense. Instead, she exudes warmth, a sense of humor and a sincere passion for the kind of ministry that is transforming. So it is not surprising that Journey to the Well isn't the usual spiritual self-help book. "It isn't merely to be read and put down. It is to be experienced," says McKenzie.

In Journey, McKenzie draws from the New Testament story of the hopeless Samaritan whose life is transformed when she has a chance encounter with Jesus at a well--thus the title of the book. McKenzie uses this ancient parable to illustrate how women can empower themselves to overcome adversity and lead richer, happier, more spiritually nurturing lives.

"Hidden inside this scripture is what I call the `genius of Jesus'," says McKenzie. "Not only does Jesus break custom by speaking to a Samaritan woman in public. But also--better than any psychiatrist or psychologist you could ever hope for--he lays down a pattern for transformation. In this story [Journey to the Well], Jesus helps a five-time divorcee, who is currently living with a man not her husband, to face her past; and through His presence gives her hope for a brighter future. After her encounter with Jesus," McKenzie continues, "this woman dropped her water-gathering pots at the well and went back to her community. This time, instead of being isolated and dislocated, she returned as an agent of change who was able to lead others in transforming their own lives by encountering Jesus Christ."

McKenzie's message to readers is simple: If you take the journey of the Samaritan woman, you can achieve similar personal transformation and learn to recognize those "kairos" moments in your life.

In the twelve chapters of Journey, McKenzie illustrates a different lesson that women can learn if they become, "well women," a reference to the spiritual enlightenment she advocates for all women. In addition to providing advice, anecdotes from her own life and others, as well as biblical quotations and meditations in each chapter, McKenzie calls upon readers to engage in the "disciplines of the well."

There are five disciplines outlined at the end of each chapter that encourage readers to put into practice the lessons discussed. The first discipline, "well lessons," helps explain the essence of the Samaritan woman's experience. These teachings underscore the message of the story. "Well words" and "well language," which include scriptural references and positive affirmations, are designed to keep readers focused on their spiritual journey.

The last two disciplines are "well sabbatical" and "well works." The "well sabbatical" is the thread that holds the other disciplines together. Through the sabbatical discipline, McKenzie encourages women to break away from their `busy-ness," distance themselves from life's daily grind and engage in rest, intimate reflection and communion with God.

Although McKenzie admits that taking a sabbatical may be difficult for many women who lead very hectic lives to do. "I've spent much of my meditation time in the bathroom," laughs McKenzie, a wife and mother of three children, two of whom are now grown. But she says she struggled to find a time and a place to take refuge, especially when her children were young. "Even a three-year-old understands that Mommy needs privacy in there," she says of her bathroom breaks.

Well works, the final discipline, makes Journey to the Well unlike other spiritual self-help books that are long on words of advice and short on self-affirmations. The final discipline puts readers to work. By engaging in "well" works, which include everything from keeping a journal to writing thank-you notes, to making a difference in your community to getting to know someone from another culture, readers are encouraged to put those lessons into practice.

To be sure, McKenzie's style is anything but preachy, at least not in the fire and brimstone way. Much like her personality, McKenzie's writing is honest yet compassionate. Her smart, down-to-earth tone will appeal to women of all ages, from all walks of life. Although Journey is told from a woman's perspective, McKenzie believes there is advice in the book for men.

"Just as women throughout history have learned lessons from stories told from the man's side of the page, men too can learn the lessons of the Samaritan woman," she says. Urban Ministries, Inc., a publisher of Christian education materials, offers The Journey Reading Group Kit, as a tool for group study for men and women. One Atlanta-area church has already used Journey to the Well as part of its curriculum for all its adult Bible school classes this summer.

Although the lessons imparted in the book are especially helpful to African-American women, who McKenzie believes have received the message that they are inferior, the message is universal. "Culture and society have not been very kind to women of African descent," McKenzie says. "The dominant stereotype of African-American women is either that of a mammy or a Jezebel. Black women were either in the kitchen or the bedroom. These stereotypes are alive and well today in music videos and other media images."

As her mission of supporting and encouraging women, McKenzie has formed a support group called the Circle of Love, in churches where she has been pastor. In the Circle, women are able to hash out some of the issues that cause their lives to become stagnant. "The Circle of Love grew out of the fact that I kept encountering women with the same issues. I decided that instead of counseling these women individually, we should get together and draw from each other and examine some biblical answers to life's challenges," explains McKenzie. "The women in the group provided encouragement, inspiration and accountability to one another. They found fellowship and connectedness through their shared painful experiences. They also encountered women who had gotten on the other side of their painful circumstances and were inspired to get through it themselves." McKenzie describes many of these women's stories in Journey.

"September 11th was a defining moment for this country and for us as individuals. Before September 11th, we lived lives that said that he or she who gets the most toys wins," observes McKenzie. "Now, our friends and families are important. We no longer put-off saying `I love you.' We are sure to say `goodbye' before we leave. Many of us have stopped putting our lives on hold and begun to embrace what is really meaningful," she says. "It is within defining moments like these that we live differently and we begin to seek new meaning for our lives."

So how do you know if you have found the meaning in life that you seek? "You will know when you have arrived at your created purpose because your spirit will soar," says McKenzie."

"If you had told me when I was a little girl that I was going to be preacher, I would have told you that you were crazy," she says. "But when I became a pastor and started to preach, I realized that everything in my life had led me to that point. When I am in the pulpit, I soar. When I am pastoring, I soar. When I see women who were anonymous women suddenly emerge from the background, find their voice and enter their own lives, my spirit soars. And I know that this is what I was created to do."

An Atlanta-based freelance writer, Kathryn V. Stanley's work has been published in Essence and Emerge magazines. She is a regular contributor to BIBR's "Faith" section and serves as a staff writer for The Smiley Report, a quarterly newsletter from Tavis Smiley Enterprises. Stanley, a former attorney and an intergenerational preacher's kid, oversees the community development ministries of Big Bethel AME Church where she is also a member. She jumped at the chance to sit down with Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, the AME Church's first female bishop, to discuss her new book, Journey to the Well.