‘Jesus Calling’ author Sarah Young passed away from cancer Thursday night, just days after it was reported she was failing health. She was 77.
Published in 2004, Jesus Calling has 45 million copies in print. It is one of the most recognizable devotional books in recent history and has spawned a multitude of spin-offs, all the while being one of the most dangerous books released in the last twenty years for it’s espousal of mysticism, speaking for God, extra-biblical assertions, automatic writing, and rejecting the sufficiency of the scriptures.
In an obituary released by her publisher, Laura Minchew, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of the Children’s and Gift Book Group at Harper Collins Christian Publishing, writes, “Sarah was a dear friend who will be deeply missed. Through nearly 20 years of publishing with Sarah, I had a firsthand seat at seeing millions of lives changed through the Jesus Calling books. Her books have met people in their darkest hours, taught children about Jesus, and changed lives for eternity. Knowing Sarah professionally and personally has been the privilege of a lifetime.”
Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Sarah earned her undergraduate degree in philosophy. She credited her background in philosophy and Francis Schaeffer’s Escape from Reason as her motivation for studying with L’Abri Fellowship, a Christian community in a tiny Alpine village in France, where she became a Christian. Sarah earned a master’s degree in biblical studies and counseling from Covenant Theological Seminary. There she met Stephen Young, whom she married in 1977.
In 1977, Sarah and Stephen joined World Presbyterian Missions, which in 1983 merged into Mission to the World (MTW), the global missions-sending agency of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). They spent eight and a half years planting churches and ministering in Japan. From 1987 to 1991, Sarah and Stephen were on loan to Mission to North America, working with the Westminster Japanese Church in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1991, Sarah and Stephen moved to Melbourne, Australia, and began a Japanese language church in cooperation with the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. In 2001, the Youngs moved to Perth, where Sarah began contemplating and eventually revising her personal devotional journals into the manuscript for what would become Jesus Calling. In 2013, Steve and Sarah returned to Nashville, Tennessee, where they remained active with the PCA.
Sarah is survived by her husband, two children, and six grandchildren.
