Coming in 2026
DARK HORSES
A Love Letter to the Church Mavericks & Misfits
Maybe leaving church wasn’t the end of your story.
Maybe you walked away from a church.
Maybe church walked away from you.
Maybe you simply reached a point where the structures, programs, expectations, or answers that once made sense no longer did.
And yet…
You still find yourself drawn to Jesus.
You still pray.
You still wonder what God might be doing.
You still care about people.
You still believe your life ought to matter for something larger than yourself.
You may be done with some things.
But you’re not done.
Dark Horses was written for people living in that tension—the dechurched, displaced, questioning, overlooked, and underestimated followers of Jesus who are wondering:
What now?
Coming soon.
THIS BOOK IS A LETTER
Not a textbook.
Not a church-reform manual.
Not a theological system.
And definitely not a list of everything that’s wrong with Christianity.
Think of it more like a letter from one fellow traveler to another.
I’ve spent much of my life inside conventional church structures—as a volunteer, elder, and executive pastor. I’ve also spent years outside those structures, sorting through what I learned, questioning some of it, keeping what still seems beautiful and true, and discovering new ways of following Jesus.
I don’t have everything figured out.
That isn’t the point.
MAYBE THIS BOOK IS TO YOU
This book may be for you if…
You left church but didn’t intend to leave Jesus.
You still attend occasionally but no longer feel like you quite fit.
You were hurt, disappointed, controlled, dismissed, or misunderstood.
You asked questions that weren’t welcomed.
You became uncomfortable with the gap between the way of Jesus and some of what you experienced in Christian culture.
You deconstructed things you once assumed were essential and aren’t sure what reconstruction looks like.
You miss meaningful Christian community but aren’t sure you want to return to what you left.
You want your faith to become more participatory, relational, and connected to ordinary life.
Or maybe nothing terrible happened.
Maybe you simply began wondering:
Is there more?
FIVE THINGS I WANT YOU TO HEAR
If we were sitting across the table from each other, I’d want to look you in the eye and tell you:
YOU ARE SEEN.
Your story hasn’t gone unnoticed.
YOU ARE LOVED.
Your journey doesn’t make you less worthy of love.
YOU BELONG.
You haven’t been disqualified from the family of Jesus.
YOU MATTER.
Your life, experience, gifts, relationships, and questions still matter in the Kingdom of God.
YOU’RE NOT DONE.
And maybe that’s the most important one.
Jesus isn’t finished with you.
SO… WHAT’S A DARK HORSE?
A dark horse is someone who has been overlooked or underestimated.
Someone whose potential isn’t obvious.
Someone people may have stopped watching.
And then something unexpected happens.
That’s the metaphor behind this book.
I don’t assume you’re already a Dark Horse when you pick it up.
Maybe right now you feel more like a reject.
A disappointment.
A church dropout.
A black sheep.
Someone standing outside the fence wondering where you belong.
Dark Horses is an invitation to imagine that your story might be bigger than what you left.
Maybe you weren’t discarded.
Maybe you’re being invited into something new.
THIS ISN’T AN ANTI-CHURCH BOOK
That’s important.
I’ve received enormous gifts through traditional churches.
I met people who changed my life.
I learned Scripture.
I learned to serve.
I found community.
I met my wife.
And many people I love continue to follow Jesus faithfully inside conventional churches.
This isn’t a campaign to get people out.
And I’m not trying to get anybody back in.
WHAT ARE WE RUNNING TOWARD?
CLARITY
The freedom to ask hard questions and pursue truth—even when the answers make us uncomfortable.
FREEDOM
Not freedom from Jesus.
Not freedom from community or healthy accountability.
Freedom from unnecessary religious control.
CREATIVITY
Permission to notice where Jesus may be working in unexpected people and places—and to experiment faithfully.
AUTHENTIC COMMUNITY
Relationships where we can be known, challenged, encouraged, loved, and honest.
UNITY
Refusing to build another tribe that needs everyone else to be wrong in order for us to be right.
PARTICIPATION
Ordinary people rediscovering their place in Jesus’ mission.
FROM DECONSTRUCTION TO DISCOVERY
Leaving a church structure can create an unexpected problem:
Once you’ve taken some things apart, what do you build with what’s left?
Did I leave Jesus?
A congregation?
A denomination?
A church-growth model?
A political culture?
Ideas about leadership?
Ideas about mission?
Ideas about what “church” even means?
Those aren’t all the same thing.
Dark Horses doesn’t ask you to burn everything down.
It invites you to sort through it.
Keep what is good.
Question what needs questioning.
Let go of what gets between you and Jesus.
And remain humble enough to recognize that you’re still learning.
THEN THE QUESTION CHANGES
Eventually, I think we have to move beyond:
“Why did I leave?”
toward:
“Where is Jesus leading me now?”
That’s where Dark Horses becomes increasingly practical.
Because following Jesus outside familiar structures doesn’t mean sitting around talking endlessly about church.
It means learning to notice his Kingdom in ordinary life.
DISCOVER YOUR KINGDOM EXPRESSION
Most of us will never plant a church.
Most of us won’t become professional ministers.
We don’t need to.
Jesus has already placed us among people.
At work.
In neighborhoods.
Inside families.
On teams.
In classrooms.
In art communities.
Around dinner tables.
In coffee shops.
In places we already go every week.
The book calls these Kingdom Expressions:
the ordinary contexts in which we intentionally live as followers of Jesus—with the people already around us, in the places we already go, doing the things we already do, using what we already have.
Normal life. Kingdom eyes.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO RUN ALONE
Being unbridled doesn’t mean being isolated.
Dark Horses still need a band.
People who know us.
Pray with us.
Challenge us.
Share meals with us.
Laugh with us.
Help us discern what Jesus might be saying.
The book eventually reduces much of this journey to three wonderfully simple questions:
UP — Am I moving toward Jesus?
IN — Am I growing in relationship with the beloved community?
OUT — Am I building relationships with the people Jesus has already placed around me?
No perfect score required.
Just movement in the right direction.
THE DESTINATION ISN’T “DECHURCHED”
That’s only part of the story.
The hope of this book isn’t that you become really good at explaining why you left church.
It’s that somewhere along the way you discover:
You still have a life with Jesus to live.
You can love your neighbors.
You can make disciples.
You can create community.
You can ask difficult questions.
You can experiment.
You can make mistakes.
You can learn.
You can take unconventional paths.
You can participate in the Kingdom of God without waiting for someone to hand you a religious title.
A LOVE LETTER
That’s still the phrase I keep coming back to.
Because underneath all the questions, critique, theology, stories, metaphors, and experiments, there’s something I want the reader to know.
I have tremendous hope for you.
Maybe you’ve been underestimated.
Maybe someone decided your questions made you dangerous.
Maybe you were told that leaving a church meant leaving Jesus.
Maybe you made some mistakes on the way out.
Maybe you’re still angry.
Maybe you’re just tired.
Maybe you’re standing in unfamiliar territory wondering what comes next.
I don’t know exactly where Jesus will take you.
But I don’t believe your best Kingdom days are necessarily behind you.
You are seen.
You are loved.
You belong.
You matter.
And you’re not done.
DARK HORSES
Coming Soon
I’m currently preparing Dark Horses for publication.
If this sounds like a book that may have been written to you—or someone you love—join Dark Horse Field Notes and I’ll keep you posted as we move toward release.
You’ll also receive occasional stories, ideas, questions, excerpts, and practical tools for following Jesus beyond the familiar fences.
No pressure. No religious marketing machine. Just occasional notes from the journey.