NEW BOOK: Take an honest look at your discipleship
We caught up with Phil Caroe to talk about his new book “The Upward Call: A guided journal for followers of Jesus”
The book provides a framework to help us take an honest look at ourselves. Rooted in the grace of the gospel, it encourages us to keep pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Keep on scrolling for a free download of the first chapter!
Hi Phil - for those who don’t know you, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’ve been part of City Church Cambridge since arriving in the city as a student in 1999 and I’m a regular worship leader, songwriter and occasional preacher. In my day job I’m Head of Risk for the Allia Group, which supports charities and social enterprises from start-up through to raising large-scale debt finance in the capital markets. And I’ve been married for 20 years and have three children aged 11 to 17.
What prompted you to write The Upward Call?
As I reached my early forties and realised that I might be about half-way through this life, I started to ask myself whether I’d made the most of it so far and how I wanted to live the rest of it. I thought that perhaps I might organise a retreat day to take some time out for reflection, but I knew that sitting down with a blank piece of paper and no structure wasn’t going to get me very far. I started to look for something to guide me, a set of questions I could ask myself, but everything I found just focused on things I ought to be doing: was I reading my Bible enough, was I praying often enough? I wanted to ask myself some deeper questions, so I decided to write my own list. Then it occurred to me that if this was the tool I needed, maybe others might benefit from it too.
You call it a guided journal – what does that mean?
The journal part is key because this isn’t just a book to impart information, it’s designed to get people thinking about where they are in their journey with Jesus and where they want to go. Each question has a ‘reflect’ page with space for the reader to write down their honest assessment of how things are going in that area in this moment, and a ‘consider’ page to record any practical steps they plan to take to move forward. But for each question I’ve also written a short thought-piece to act as a guide, and provided various Bible references for further study.
What can we expect from the book?
The Upward Call is divided into four sections: ‘How is my relationship with God?’; ‘Am I becoming the person God is calling me to be?’; ‘How are my relationships with others?’; and ‘How am I spending my life?’. Along the way it invites us to ask ourselves questions such as ‘Am I regularly rejoicing?’, ‘Am I seeing the fruit of the Spirit?’ and ‘Am I enjoying my life?’. And all throughout I wanted to root everything in the grace of the gospel. An exercise like this can so easily result in self-condemnation and either renewed efforts in legalism or simply giving up. The goal of this little book is not to leave people feeling they should do better, but to encourage us to keep pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
You can pick up your copy of The Upward Call from Amazon.
“Phil has produced a brilliant spiritual self-diagnostic. Reading it will help you keep your eyes on Jesus and inspire you to press on and pursue the upward call of our God and saviour.”
Free download
Get a feel for the book with this free download of chapter one using the button below
by Phil Caroe
Phil is based at City Church Cambridge where he leads worship and is an occasional preacher. As well as being the author of The Upward Call, he also writes of songs for the church, including ‘Together’ which was introduced at More Together Festival 2025.