Barbara Brown Taylor believes that one can find moments of spiritual inspiration in everyday tasks, such as hanging up clothes or making eye contact with a clerk at the grocery store.

Taylor spoke at two Sunday morning services at First Baptist Church on Green Street and then talked about her latest book, "An Altar in the World," during a luncheon.

A professor of religion at Piedmont College in Demorest, Taylor is also an Episcopal minister. After being named by Baylor University as one the 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world in 1996, she left full-time ministry two years later to begin teaching at Piedmont.

Her 2006 book, "Leaving Church," was a memoir of her decision to leave the active pastorate. Her latest book, published in February, is a follow-up.

"A lot of people I talk to, whether they call themselves spiritual or religious, talked about faith as if it didn’t have much to do with their real lives," Taylor said. "I thought it might be helpful to write a book about the ways in which life in God, spirituality, is not a thing that comes in a box that you pull out for a couple of hours, a couple of days a week."

The Rev. William L. Coates Jr., pastor of First Baptist, said Taylor’s novel is the best book he has read about the meaning of spirituality.

"At the same time, it acknowledges that we are encased in bodies," he said. "It’s a blending of spiritual and physical that is just right."

Taylor said that she worries that virtual realities, the conveniences of modern communication, may be overtaking actual reality.

"I don’t want to get rid of those tools, I just know that every time I buy one, I get fascinated with a little screen," she said.

She makes a call in the book for slowing down and finding meaning in the daily tasks of life and suggests making more time for being and less time for doing.

"Every religious tradition I know anything about has stopping in it somewhere, whether it’s called Sabbath, meditation or contemplative prayer," she said. "All these accumulated traditions seem to understand that when you’re moving quickly, most your life is either in the past or the future. Life becomes the scenery zipping past on my way to being late to the next task."

Taylor also blurs the lines of sacred and secular, suggesting that almost no task is without a divine moment.

A graduate of Yale Divinity School, her current work is her 12th book. She and her husband, Ed, make their home in the North Georgia mountains.