6 Months of Theologizin' Bigger

It's a celebration (with a special price & everything)!

Six months ago, I published my first book.

I’m very proud of it.

I’m proud of it for a number of reasons, but I’ll stick with the top 3:

1. I chose an unconventional path to publishing.
   Publishing is… not fun. And when you get into the business side of things, I’ve heard some Jordan Peele level horror stories. People desire to publish books for a number of reasons, but for me… I really wanted to create something that was both artful and necessary.

   
   And I’m sensitive about my stuff.
   
   Self-publishing was always an option, but I know myself well enough to know my limits as far as driving a project at that level goes. So I found a partner with both expertise and vision in Lake Drive Books, and I chose to trust the communities I belong to to help make this project happen.

   
   I don’t regret a single one of those decisions. In fact, I even heard (from a literary agent, no less!) that some other authors have looked at the path I took and decided to pursue non-traditional methods for themselves.
   
   I’m as proud of showing artists, creatives, and authors another path to sharing their work as I am of the actual work. That said…

2. I wrote the heck out of that book.

   An interesting thing happened at the earliest days of the pandemic shutdowns: a lot of preachers had to learn how to preach without an audience. Many of us lamented delivering sermons in empty rooms while staring into a camera lens, but I chose to take advantage of an opportunity to reflect on what it was I was trying to accomplish through the act of preaching.

   
   If I am trying to introduce people to new possibilities and the pathway to rehumanization (“salvation” in Christianese), is the reaction I can generate in a room a good indicator of my success? With that question in mind, I decided to rethink how I preached & communicated.
   
   I was no longer a preacher and a writer. I was a writer who preached.
   
   When you lose the face to face connection with the audience, you have to find another way to connect with the people you’re trying to speak with. If you ask the people at the Refuge Church, they’ll even tell you my preaching (even the in-person kind) sounds different nowadays. And that’s because of the energy I began to devote to the writing process. I’ve always brought (or at least tried to bring) research, exegesis, sound/responsible interpretation, and a level of coherence to my preaching. But when instant feedback was no longer a possibility as far as delivery was concerned, I had to lean on the actual composition of the words I was saying. I wrote a lot more.
   
   When it was time to sit down and write Theologizin’ Bigger, my pen game was sharper than it had ever been. While none of the chapters in the book were ever actually sermons, I included the word “homilies” in the subtitle because I was largely able to write this book this way when I approached the task of preaching differently.
   
   That’s also why the cover of the book looks like it does. That’s how I end up creating.

3. People have found it helpful & healing.
   The success we had in crowdfunding was a little nerve-racking for me. It showed me that there was a level of excitement/anticipation around my debut book. I wasn’t sure if I could meet those sort of expectations.
   
   But dang near every bit of feedback I’ve gotten has suggested that I was successful in my goal: helping point people toward liberation and wholeness.
   
   I’ve had invitations to speak and preach. I’ve gotten to sit with book clubs. I even got to take Theologizin’ Bigger into a jail ministry in another state.
   
   There is nothing more fulfilling than knowing you’ve played a role in someone learning to see a bigger, more loving God.

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To celebrate (and to acknowledge how rough our bank accounts get to lookin’ in the summer months sometimes 🥴) we’re running a special price! For the next week, you can grab the paperback for $9.99 or the ebook for $4.99.

Wanna preview the book? You can read a free excerpt here. And if you’re an audiobook person? You can listen to a preview here.