We’re the Dark Horses
In this letter I want to introduce a new label: the Dark Horses.
A dark horse is someone who is underestimated or overlooked. Someone people don’t see coming. They carry hidden strength, talent, or potential that others have missed—until suddenly they try something no one expected.
Among the Dones—Jesus-followers who have stepped away from the traditional church institution—the Dark Horses are those who see themselves as anything but done with Jesus or his Kingdom mission.
In fact, many of them would find the name “Dones” a little ironic.
Because in their minds, they’re not done at all.
If anything, they feel like they’re just getting started.
After stepping outside the institutional model, many experience something surprising: a sense of freedom. Freedom to rediscover Jesus. Freedom to engage the world in fresh ways. Freedom to pursue the mission of God without the constraints that once made them feel restless and stuck.
Most of them didn’t leave quickly. They gave the system a chance—and then another, and another. But over time a quiet impatience grew. A longing for something deeper. Something more alive.
The Dark Horses carry a fire in their belly to see Jesus’ will done on earth as it is in heaven.
They dream about a movement more like the one we see in the first few centuries of Christianity—before the Roman government absorbed it, before political power reshaped it, before faith became professionalized, commercialized, and wrapped in layers of spiritual elitism and conformity.
Many Dark Horses aren’t bitter toward the church. They aren’t necessarily angry or wounded.
They’re just hungry.
Hungry for more of Jesus.
More authentic community.
More Kingdom fruit in the real world.
If that sounds like you—or even the kind of person you hope to become—then welcome.
You might be one of the Dark Horses.
And if so, we have a lot to talk about.
OK, you’re turn. Engage with us. Here are some questions. We’d love for you to share your thoughts!
- When you hear the term “Dark Horse,” what resonates with you personally?
In what ways have you felt overlooked, underestimated, or hidden in your faith journey?
2. What were the key moments or experiences that made you feel restless with the institutional church model?
Were they gradual or sudden?
3. What does “being anything but done with Jesus” look like in your life right now?
How are you currently living out the mission of Jesus outside traditional structures?
4. Are you longing for something more—more of Jesus, more community, more Kingdom fruitfulness.
Which of those feels most urgent or missing in your life, and why?
5. If a fresh Jesus movement were to grow in our time, what do you think it might look like?
What would be different from what we typically see in church culture today?
