I, Jason Robertson, highly recommend this book. I grew up listening to Manley Beasley while he lived at Milldale Baptist Church and through the years when he would return. My life and ministry have been greatly influenced by him.

Often my dad would ask me when I would be in a crisis of faith, “What would Manley do?” I knew that Manley trusted God and never looked for the route of ease.

Such faith led me to leave Milldale in 2001 and plant a church in Southern California. Many times I have been asked, “Why would you leave the legacy of Milldale and move to California where no one knows you, where most churches go bankrupt?” And I answer, “Leaving Milldale? I am not leaving anything… I am continuing a legacy of trusting God… trusting God for something that if He doesn’t keep His word then I am doomed.”

When it comes to the life of someone like Manley Beasley you are faced with an individual whose life was his message and whose message was his life. The message of prayer, faith and dealing with adversity that Manley lived and preached was forged in the foundry of experience; the terminal diseases he carried in his body for years, the hospitalizations, the months in intensive care, and then, then only, was the message passed on through his preaching, his writing and his interacting with people in the myriad of ways he was used of God to minister.

This book does not follow the line of traditional biographies. It is a “message-driven” biography that incorporates excerpts from messages Manley brought to churches small and large, to international conferences and from the stage of national conventions. It is also a collection of “snapshots” of family remembrances as well as testimonies of those whose lives would never be the same after having encountered Manley on their journey.

This book also briefly describes the atmosphere of faith that surrounded the ministries of Milldale Baptist Church (my home church). So if you want to understand my passion for MVC, read this book — you will begin to understand what I believe God can do with a church that is willing the pay the price to trust Him.