Help Write a Book about Church

By Filed Under Finding Church 11 Comments

I am working with a publisher to write a book about people and their experiences with church. If you have a story to tell, and would like to get your story into print, you are invited to participate.

The rest of the post contains more information, but here are the submission guidelines if you just want to start writing:

Finding Church Project Submission Guidelines (MS Word)

Finding Church

The working title of the book is Finding Church. 

Finding Church

The project is currently broken up into four categories. These categories may change as the project develops. We encourage you to shape your submission to fit within one of these categories.

Leaving Church
Stories about personal life adjustments, theological changes, or church moral failures which led people to leave church for good.

Returning to Church
Stories about people who used to attend church years ago, but stopped for a while, and have now decided to start attending again. These stories explain why they left, and what caused them to return.

Reforming Church
Though many people are leaving the church and criticizing how church is done, some people want to stay within their church and be part of the solution. These stories relate what problems exist in the church, and how the person is seeking to reform and renew the church from within.

Changing Church
Many people leave one church to attend another. Sometimes they attend a similar church across town; other times the new church is a completely different denomination, or form of church, such as going from a mega-church to a house-church. These stories reveal what moves the person made, and why they changed churches.

We are looking for 1000-2000 word stories about your experience in one of these areas. We are not looking for theological argumentation or extended explanation of biblical texts, but simply the real, honest stories of people wrestling with their involvement in church.

We encourage you to let it all out on the page, and share in detail both the external circumstances and the internal conflicts that arise because of it. When at all possible show – don’t tell. Give us the gritty details, the emotions, the conflict, how you felt, how you responded (good and bad), and what you learned, if applicable to your story.

Submit Your Story for Publication

Finding ChurchTo learn more, check out the following links and submission guidelines:

Announce the Project On Your Blog

If you are a blogger and think that some of your readers might want to participate in this project, please consider writing a post about it and including the following badge on your blog sidebar.

Finding Church by Jeremy Myers

To add this badge, copy and paste the following code into a text widget on your blog sidebar:

1
 

When you have done this, let me know, and I will include a link to your blog here:

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11 Responses to “Help Write a Book about Church”

  1. James January 14, 2012 at 2:36 pm #

    Hey Jeremy, I am interested in this project. Maybe I’d have something to contribute in the future.

    On another question, how do you generate the bookcovers for your projects?

    Reply
    • Jeremy Myers January 14, 2012 at 8:33 pm #

      James,

      There is an April 30 deadline, so if you want to contribute, don’t wait too long!

      This book cover was created by the publisher’s Graphic Design team. I do not think it will be the actual cover for the book, but I could be wrong about that.

      As far as my other book covers, I created those myself and used Photoshop. You can also use Gimp, which is a free online photo editing program.

      Reply
      • James January 18, 2012 at 9:35 pm #

        Thanks Jeremy, you got a PHP layout of one of your pieces I could gander at to get some idears?

        Reply
        • Jeremy Myers January 19, 2012 at 7:21 pm #

          James,

          Are you asking if the book covers are in php? No. I saved them as a jpeg or a png.

          The eBooks I write in Word, and then convert to PDF, MOBI, EPUB, and XHTML.

          Reply
        • Kylie February 4, 2012 at 8:53 pm #

          The Greatest Story Ever Told is ciaertnly the most reverential treatment of the life of Jesus. The 1965 movie was based on the book by Fulton Oursler, which integrated the four Gospels into a single narrative. To appreciate this task just look at the different versions of what Jesus said on the cross according to each Gospel. Reconciling the various versions is not an easy task and while viewers may question some of the specific choices, the only really significant alteration is the death of Judas by throwing himself into the sacrificial pit of the Great Temple, a symbolism that is unnecessarily heavy handed.The choice of Max Von Sydow to play Jesus is an interesting selection to say the least. His slight Swedish accent and closely cropped beard are ciaertnly in keeping with the reverential tone of the film, but I can not help wondering if this was something of a reaction to the more populist Jesus portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings. After all, this was 1965 and the Beatles invasion was underway making male hair length a hot issue. This is a Jesus who is too solemn and too sedate for the most part. There is a nice moment where one of the new disciples comments that he likes Jesus name. The smile and Thank you that follow are one of the few glimpses of the charisma of the man from Galilee.

          Reply
  2. Jake Kampe January 23, 2012 at 10:11 am #

    Hey Jeremy – Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be submitting something on this. Looking forward to it. Looks like it’s going to be an awesome project!

    Peace & Blessings!

    Jake

    Reply
    • Jeremy Myers January 23, 2012 at 4:14 pm #

      Jake,

      Submissions are rolling in, and I am looking forward to reading yours!

      Reply
  3. Scott Johnson February 6, 2012 at 10:48 am #

    Hi Jeremy,

    I have a story that i could submit. My wife and I were in a small church that we became heavily involved with and then there was some fall out, we left, came back, left again. then we attended larger churches for awhile and stayed on the side lines. now we are attending another smaller up and coming church. Would this fit your book guidelines?

    Reply
    • Jeremy Myers February 8, 2012 at 10:01 pm #

      Scott,
      It definitely would!

      Write it up and send it in. I look forward to reading the rest.

      Reply
  4. Genevieve Thul @ Turquoise Gates February 9, 2012 at 4:37 pm #

    I just wanted to let you know I blogged about your project for my readers. Many have painful stories from their church past and I am hopeful some will have the gumption to write. I also submitted a piece today and look forward to hearing your feedback. My blog post is here:
    http://www.turquoisegates.com/2012/02/finding-church-call-for-authors.html

    Good luck with the editing stage of your project!

    Reply
    • Jeremy Myers February 9, 2012 at 11:42 pm #

      Thanks Genevieve!

      I will add you to the list above!

      Reply

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