Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics

An Honest Search for Personal and Collective Peace in Our Anxious Times

- Discover how to live well in a culture permeated with fear, worry, and anxiety
- Develop doable daily practices to promote peace both for yourself and in community
- Learn to face anxiety head-on rather than merely coping and compartmentalizing


Every era has its challenges, but ours seem to be majoring in anxiety. Bombarded (via screens) by constant global conflicts, rancorous politics, and church scandals, today we endure seemingly endless external stressors. The reasons are easy to find--division in politics and the pews, caring for kids or aging parents, and the rapid impact of social media on our psyches, to name a few. While exploring these origins may hold some benefit, Sara Billups is concerned with right now How do we live well in the presence of pervasive personal and collective anxiety?

The dissonance between Jesus saying ＂Do not worry＂ and her heart’s inability to stop worrying led Sara to seek out spiritual rhythms and practices that create a holistic, holy response to the anxiety brimming in our bodies, our churches, and our society.

Nervous Systems offers helpful, doable daily practices for anxiety in the large and small trials in our lives. This collection of personal and cultural observations invites us to let go in the presence of our anxiety. Join Sara in learning how, with God’s help, to face anxiety head-on rather than trying to pray it away or, worse, grin and bear it.

Sara Billups is a writer and cultural commentator with bylines in publications including The New York Times and Christianity Today. Sara completed a Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. Sara writes Bitter Scroll on Substack and cohosts the podcast That’s the Spirit. She lives in Seattle.