Jim’s Blog

Jim September 20th, 2008

Jim Palmer

Jim Palmer is the author of Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces. He is currently writing two books for Zondervan Publishing.

Jim encourages the freedom to imagine, dialogue, live, and express new possibilities for being an authentic Christian. His background includes pastoral ministry, inner-city service and international human rights work. He has a Masters of Divinity degree from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago. Through writing, blogging, speaking, conversation and friendship Jim is a unique voice for knowing God beyond organized religion. Jim enjoys doing triathlons, eating pizza, and has a dog named Jack.

Social Networking

There are several places you can connect with Jim across the Internet including: The Divine Nobodies Network, the shedding religion group, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and MySpace. Jim also has a site dedicated to sharing his experience and knowledge as a triathlete.

Speaking

If you are interested in inviting Jim as a conference speaker or major event, click here. For book clubs, church services or other similar gatherings, email Jim at jim@divinenobodies.com.

Spiritual Direction and Retreats

People who desire to know God or explore Christian spirituality beyond organized religion may be interested in contacting Jim for individual spiritual direction or group retreats. Contact Jim by email if you are interested in this.

If you are unfamiliar with Jim’s first two books, keep reading…

About Divine Nobodies

What does a Hip-Hop artist, Waffle House waitress, tire salesman, and disabled girl have to do with discovering spiritual truth? What if embracing authentic Christianity is a journey of unlearning? Welcome to Jim Palmer’s world!

Don Miller meets Anne Lamott meets Brian McLaren in this tale of shedding religion and plunging into uncharted depths of knowing God. Jim Palmer, emergent pastor, shares his compelling off-road spiritual journey and the unsuspecting people who became his guides.

“Perhaps God’s reason for wanting me,” writes Palmer, “is much better than my reason for wanting him. Maybe God’s idea of my salvation trumps the version I am too willing to settle for. Seeing I needed a little help to get this, God sent a variety pack of characters to awaken me.” For all those hoping there’s more to God and Christianity than what they’ve heard or experienced, each chapter of Divine Nobodies gives the reader permission and freedom to discover it for themselves. Sometimes comical, other times tragic, at times shocking, always honest; Jim Palmer’s story offers an inspiring and profound glimpse into life with God beyond institutional church and conventional religion.

An Extensive Divine Nobodies Review

Divine Nobodies Conversation Guide

About Wide Open Spaces

Jim Palmer’s critically acclaimed Divine Nobodies was only half the story – the deconstruction and shedding of a religious mentality that hindered his knowing God. In his next book, Jim takes the reader along into the Wide Open Spaces of exploring and experiencing God beyond religion. Jim writes, “It is no secret that God can be lost beneath the waving banner of religion. Divine Nobodies is my story of how this happened to me. Sometimes you have to disentangle God from religion, even Christ from Christianity, to find the truth. With the help of some unsuspecting nobodies, I uncovered a new starting line with God. As I’ve put one foot in front of another, I’ve experienced God in ways that are deeply transforming.”

Each chapter revolves around a central question related to knowing God on fresh terms: Is God a belief system? Is the Bible a landing strip or launching pad? Can what we’re feeling inside be God? Are we too religiously minded to be any earthly good?

Publisher’s Weekly Review

What others are saying

“I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Donald Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice. So I might instead say that one of our best young writers in the future may well be called the next Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies is a delight to read, and it did good for my soul to read it.”

Brian McLaren, Author of The Secret Message of Jesus

“Jim Palmer has written a winsome, thought-provoking, and highly readable narrative — it’s about being Christian and about being who God has created you to be. Jim obviously knows who he is, and he’s a keen observer of humanity, which is why this book hits home. I’m happy to self-identify as a ‘divine nobody.’”

Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village

“You hold in your hands an amazing story of a broken man finding freedom in all the right places—in God’s work in the lives of some extraordinarily ordinary people around him. You will thrill to this delightful blend of gut-wrenching honesty and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and in the end you’ll find God much closer, the body of Christ far bigger and your own journey far clearer than you ever dreamed.”

Wayne Jacobsen, Author of Authentic Relationships and founder of lifestream.org

“I love this book! Coming from a non-church, non-functional, non-connected family I see myself as being a divine nobody in the hands of God. When we come to see ourselves as ‘divine nobodies’ we see the divine in ‘all-bodies.’”

John O’keefe, Founder of ginkworld.net

“As soon as I saw the title of the book, I had a strong feeling I was going to like it. I had no idea that I would be giving away loose-leaf chapters to friends before I had even finished reading it. Jim Palmer might be at the head of the pack of the new ‘Evanradicals’.”

Oteil Burbridge, Bass player, The Allman Brothers Band

“Jim knows the mess of the world. Jim knows the mess of the church. And he still has the audacity to believe that love wins. Here he has created a book of stories and reflections that cannot help but leave you feeling closer to God, with a smile that isn’t just for Sunday mornings, and filled with the hope that another world is possible.”

Shane Claiborne, Activist, author, recovering sinner (thesimpleway.org)

“Jim Palmer, the hall of fame pitcher, changed speeds on his fastball. Jim Palmer, the author, changed lives in our locker room. It has been an absolute pleasure to pass this book out to some of my teammates. As I read the pages of each chapter, I could literally feel God moving my heart further away from religion and closer to experiencing His desired freedom in Christ. If you want to escape the popular Christian treadmill or common Churchianity, Wide Open Spaces and Divine Nobodies are must reads!”

Paul Byrd, Major League Baseball pitcher for Cleveland Indians

“My favorite spiritual practice is underlining books. I stopped underlining Jim Palmer’s newest book because I found myself underlining the whole thing. Few books in life have brought my soul more pleasure, or profit, than Wide Open Places.”

Leonard Sweet, George Fox University, wikiletics.com

“I could read what Jim Palmer writes all day. He’s honest, funny, and his perspective really gives you something to chew on. When you open up Wide Open Spaces, it’s like opening up a window on the first day of fall after a long hot summer, and letting that breeze rush in. It’s refreshing and invigorating, and oh so welcome.”

Ernie Johnson, Jr., NBA on TNT

“A radical and welcome book about how to be an authentic Christian in a post-Christian world. Jim Palmer’s new words on church, faithfulness, and finding God in new places are a gift to us all.”

Greg Garrett, Author of Crossing Myself and The Gospel According to Hollywood

“To anyone who has ever gasped for air within the claustrophobic confines of religion, to anyone who has ever held up her dukes to God in a desperate plea for honest contact, Jim Palmer suggests, ‘Let’s take this outside.’Wide Open Spaces is an invitation to freedom beyond the boundary lines of organized religion (which is more a mix of cultural bias and corporate structures than a celebration of the Truth that sets us free). This book is guaranteed to raise both your eyebrows and your hopes, to stretch your doctrine even as it stretches your faith. Every word rings true, even as it startles, with this bold—and biblically supported—proposal: that when we fulfill our true calling to be ‘little Christs,’ we partner with God as he works his perfect will, joyfully growing the kingdom ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’”

Kristyn Komarnicki, Editor, PRISM magazine Evangelicals for Social Action

“It is a rare achievement for any artist to follow their first work—one that remains as highly acclaimed as Divine Nobodies—with a follow-on work that is unequivocally better than the first. Jim Palmer has done it with Wide Open Spaces. The reading of Wide Open Spaces is not optional. It’s mandatory if you are one who desires to know God and be love in our world today. This book is an epic contribution to the way ahead. The implications of Wide Open Spaces are clear for the spiritual sojourner and the possibilities for a way of life for those who deeply desire something more in how they experience God on a day-to-day basis.”

Bill Dahl, Author, Creator, and Editor of theporpoisedivinglife.com

“From the first chapter, it’s clear that Jim has written a brave book. He’s articulated much of the discontent I have felt with the church in America, and he’s done it not with cynicism (which would’ve been easy) but with a frank and gentle wisdom. I put the book down grateful for the reminder that being a Christian means vastly more than adhering to the paradigm.”

Andrew Peterson, Singer/Songwriter

“No sooner does one come to the understanding of seeing the divine in others then Jim pops another at us – in the reality of Wide Open Spaces. I love the way Jim connects his story with the stories of others, and how God can move in us, around us, about us and through us to see the work in the kingdom. Sometimes life can be hard, but seeing the hand of God is a powerful way of expressing our walk – Jim does just that in this book – I would recommend it to anyone seeking to know more, find more, live more, understand more and journey more with the divine in us all. Get ready to be “Unzipped” as you explore the reality of God in many ways.”

John O’keefe, Founder of ginkworld.net

“Wide Open Spaces is an unabashed invitation to sail out of the shallows of stagnant, repetitive Sunday-only religion and to sail out into the adventure of a life lived alongside Jesus in the wild, open currents of every day life. As Jim attests, the rewards far outweigh the risks!”

Wayne Jacobsen, Author and founder lifestream.org

“As a dedicated Christian currently in search of a church, I found Wide Open Spaces hope-inspiring and instructive. Ever since I became a Christian I have struggled with the question of church: not just which local church to attend, an ongoing problem for my family, but what church really is, or should be. The response of the church—that is, of pastors and churchgoers in my acquaintance—has only contributed to my struggle. While many have allowed a distinction between “church” and “the church,” most are leery of taking the discussion much further, and some even question whether those who don’t attend church can really be Christians at all. According to Jim Palmer, though, church is not a building or a set of activities or a certain group of people who get together weekly to worship God. Rather, church is “everywhere, all the time, with everybody.” What a refreshing message to those of us whose pursuit of God takes place in large part outside the context of the established church.

Patty Kirk, Professor of English, John Brown University, Author of Confessions of an Amateur Believer

“Thank goodness Wide Open Spaces is done! I thought Jim was going to pass out from the heat as he pecked away on his laptop in that ugly rocking recliner in his garage.”

Jim’s next door neighbor

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