"I Like Jesus" becomes "Do you like Jesus?"

I get asked or emailed about this often, so thought I would update the status of the "I Like Jesus but not the Church" book. In 2007, the "They Like Jesus but not the Church" book came out which was a book for church leaders addressing some of the common perceptions of Christians and the church from those outside the church (such as the church being homophobic, non-thinking fundamentalists, judgmental, political, arrogantly dismissing all other faiths but theirs etc.).

I am writing a follow up to that book, which was called "I Like Jesus but not the Church" and is a book that is written to the average Christian or someone outside the church open to exploring these issues. So it is somewhat of an apologetics book and an apologetic for the church as well.

A concern I had that was initially raised from a pastor friend of mine who is also an author, said it looked like I was making that statement because it had the title and then my name underneath. The book is actually a strong pro-church book and the goal is to show that the church of Jesus is very important to Jesus and is His bride, despite our faults. So we explored a series of different titles to change it to something that would hopefully still get the point across but not seem as though it was a negative-church book. It was difficult to think of a name because the "They Like Jesus" book title is so similar (and that one for church leadership). We wanted to keep them distinct, although they are very much in sync since one (They Like Jesus) is for church leaders and one (Do you like Jesus?) for the people in the church. So the book got renamed "Do you like Jesus But Not The Church?: Exploring uncomfortable Questions About Christianity and the Church". The release date is yet to be determined, most likely it will be early 2009.

Since the They Like Jesus book came out - the interest has resulted in the creation of a DVD curriculum for teaching a series or a class or used in a small group format. The DVD curriculum comes out next month (February 08). So this past summer Zondervan came to Santa Cruz and filmed it interviewing some of the people in the They Like Jesus book. I also went to Grand Rapids and filmed part of it there. Then I got into the writing of the study booklet Appendix and answers to questions which has some more apologetical answers and biblical discussion on the specific topics "world religions, homosexuality, fundamentalism and the Bible, women in ministry". My friend Margaret Feinberg wrote a bunch of the application questions for the study book and I focused on the Appendix and biblical study part of it. So a bunch of my time went into that, and thus the "Do you like Jesus, but not the Church?" book is now being released later as I am still writing it and wrapping it up.

So.... for those who have asked - that is the latest. I am packing and heading off to be part of the Rethink Conference tonight. Should be very interesting there and I look forward to hear what they other speakers are going to be talking about. I will be talking about the gospel and how Christian sub-culture and Christians can unintentionally create barriers for people hearing the gospel. Yes, I know that it is the Spirit of God who does all the convicting and drawing people to Jesus. But we do have our part, and often our part has been either staying in our non-missional Christian world and hanging out only with our Christian friends..... or it has been losing our witness by non-credible testimony and conforming too much to the world..... or that our approach to evangelism is not effective in our current culture and can even be detrimental. So I hope to give positive examples of churches across America who are seeing great fruit from their missional Spirit-empowered efforts.