I’ve shared a bit about this the past few months, but I’m so pleased to share my first novel launched today—and with a 15% ebook sample that should give you a good feel for the journey that’s ahead.
It’s called From There and Back Again, the first book in a new 5-book series (mostly) aimed at young adults wrestling with their faith or wading through a crisis of faith. I call it a “spiritual coming-of-age story.”
It is meant to be an orthodox answer to other more progressive Christian books aimed at twentysomethings (and older) who are wondering if the Christian faith is still relevant to their world.
If there’s something to compare it to I’d compare it to the award-winning series by Brian McLaren called A New Kind of Christian or Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. The book follows young seminarian Peter Daniel Young through his journey through the progressive faith he carefully constructed to save his Christianity. Yet as the story unfolds, he finds himself returning to the faith he thought he left behind.
The book really is a fictionalized version of my own young adult spiritual journey into, through, & beyond Emergent.
As a former Emergent insider who said goodbye to the Emerging Church five years ago, I wrote it to help a new generation wrestle through deep questions of faith, life, and everything in between. I wrote it to be the book I wished I had and my parents had during my own crisis of faith.
I gotta say it’s my best work so far and the project I am most proud! I’ve written several non-fiction books, and love it, but there’s something about walking people through ideas in the form of fiction that just feels right to me.
This is only the beginning for this story—I’ve just finished the first draft of a prequel and have three more in the works. I really hope you engage this story and its ideas.
I hope you download a 15% sample and pass this along to others you think might find it helpful!
Download a Sample. Start reading now!
I invite you into the faith journey of Peter Daniel Young—a journey you’ll discover that’s less about him and more about the people he encounters along the way, and the Savior who is big enough to wade alongside us through our sea of questions and carry our boulder-sized doubts upon His shoulders.
It’s the book I wish I had and my parents had when I was experiencing my own crisis of faith.
My hope is that you and others would learn what Peter begins to learn: That it’s only in going backward that we can truly move forward in our spiritual journey.
