New Book: Invisible Jesus

A Book about Leaving the Church and Looking for Christ

This is a fun one to finally write.

After six months of weekly Revelation posts, I am taking a break from the topic for the month of August in order to travel and prepare for some new projects, namely, my new book! Last year I signed a contract with Zondervan Reflective to write a book with author, professor, and New Testament Scholar Dr. Scot McKnight.

The book is called Invisible Jesus, and it is intended to hold a mirror of Jesus up to the American Evangelical church and ask, “Do we look like Jesus?”

For years, statisticians like Ryan Burge have documented the mass exodus that is happening across the American church, and there have been books like “The Great Dechurching” that have sought to set out a strategy for reengaging with the “leavers,” the “nones,” and the “dones.” However, McKnight and I are less interested in a strategy to stop the trend. We are far more interested in asking the church to consider whether or not the criticisms being leveled against the church by deconstructors are valid.

We argue that people aren’t leaving the church because they’d like to “sin more” or “live immoral lives,” as many megachurch pastors and evangelical thought leaders have surmised. Instead, many are leaving because they have come to see the church itself as immoral, bigoted, judgemental, greedy, power-hungry, and generally un-Christlike. Many no longer see the body of Christ as a faithful representation of the life and teachings of Jesus, and we want to amplify their criticisms while also offering a path towards reforming and rebuilding the church to look less like a politically charged moralistic fundamentalism and more like Jesus of Nazareth.

Furthermore, we ask the question, “Is deconstruction a problem or a prophetic movement?” Could the Spirit of God be behind the wave of deconstructors leaving the church and calling out her shortcomings? Could deconstruction be the tool that God is using to put the church back in the hands of the outcasts and the marginalized? We think so.

But we go further than that.

What if those who have walked away came together to do something new? What could they base it upon? Can what Jesus said about himself in the gospels serve as a guide for those attempting to come together as the body of Christ today? Again, we think so.

Pre-orders and New Music!

For starters, pre-ordering a book is a huge deal for any author. So, if you plan on picking up a copy, head over to the Invisible Jesus landing page here, where you will find options for pre-ordering.

Pre-orders will also receive several chapters of the book early so that you can start reading before October 15th, when the book is released.

Also, you may or may not know that I am also a singer/songwriter and have been touring and making music for twenty years under my middle name, Preson Phillips. It is mostly Americana/alt-folk/Worship music written for our worship gatherings at Watermark Church in Tampa. We currently have five albums available, but I have recorded some new music that will not come until 2025. Zondervan has made three songs available to hear for those who have preordered the book.

The EP is called “Wild Things May Call,” and a link is also available through the landing page.

Lastly, we have a book launch event in Brentwood, TN, on October 29th. The event will be held at Otter Creek Church with a discussion panel including Scot McKnight, Sean Palmer (Author and Teaching Pastor at Ecclesia, Houston), Sara Barton (Author, former head Chaplain at Pepperdine University), and Josh Graves (Pastor, Otter Creek Church). My band will be providing the music and we will have the book available for purchase. We plan on sticking around and talking for the evening, so if you are anywhere near there, please come and join us!

What is Changing Here?

So, back to my substack. My Revelation series will finish up in the coming months, and I will likely branch out and write about the issues we address in the book. I am also deciding which New Testament book to blog about next, so if there are particular topics that you would like to read about, nagging questions, questions about the Bible itself, or general Christian living, I would love to hear from you. You can reply here, or feel free to message me through the app. Thank you all for reading; I started this substack six months ago, and already having over 350 people sign up to read my weekly reflections on the Bible and the Christian life is an honor. Thank you.