Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you) [Paperback]

Jim Palmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2006

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.

"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 . . . Divine Nobodies is a delight to read, and it was good for my soul to read it."
-BRIAN MCLAREN
Author of The Secret Message of Jesus

"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

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Palmer founded and currently leads the Pilgrimage Project, an emerging church in Nashville, Tennessee. His background includes inner-city service and international human rights work. He has an M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He and his wife, Pam, live in Nashville, Tennessee, with their daughter, Jessica.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0849913985
• ISBN-13: 978-0849913983
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jim Palmer's new book Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life (whoever and wherever you are) is now available. He is the author of Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you), and Wide Open Spaces: Beyond paint-by-Number Christianity. He encourages the freedom to imagine, dialogue, live, and express new possibilities for being an authentic Christian. His background includes inner-city service and international human rights work. He has an M.Div. from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago. Through writing, blogging, speaking, conversation and friendship Jim offers a unique voice in dialogue about knowing God and spirituality. Jim enjoys being with his daughter, ultrarunning, eating pizza, and has a dog named Jack. You can find Jim at divinenobodies.com, Twitter, and Facebook.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rare Find... October 25, 2006

By Larry Shallenberger

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Finding a writer who is able to be both vulnerable and Christian is rare. Too often the language of "ought" overtakes the language of "is." Consequently many of the books in the evangelical world intended to provoke spiritual growth settle for passing out the lastest God-talk. And the hard art of letting God's love near our brokeness is never shared. Jim Palmer is a writer who's learned to embrace his imperfect humanity and a God who is comfortable to enter it.

"Divine Nobodies" chronicles how Jim got to that place. In what now feels like a past life, Jim had been a rising star in the world of evangelical leaders. At the time, Jim peddled Jesus-mottos, but never experienced the grace of God moving in among the hurts of his childhood. Jim's ascent into mega-church heights stalled when his marriage fell apart.

"Divine Nobodies" is the story of God rebuilding Jim's spirituality by placing a line of ordinary "Joe's" and "Janes" into his life. Each chapter of "Divine Nobodies" contains an essay about one of these "nobodies"-- a waitress, a mechanic, a wheel-chair bound girl and her father among them-- and how these individual made Jim reconsider what it means to be spiritual. God met Jim in the temple of Jim's damaged emotions, fears, anxieties shared his love.

Jim essay's are warm and gracious. He manages to describe those who hurt him the most with gentleness and honor. Jim seems to grasp how fragile we all are, so he applies self-depreciating humor and vulnerability to disarm his readers and to guide them toward a God who collects "nobodies."

Jim well crafted essays deserve comparisions with the likes of Donald Miller and Anne Lamott. However, Jim's voice is both unique and needed.... Jim once perpetuated the subculture which seemed to nearly smother his own faith. "Divine Nobodies" chronicles Jims long walk out of religion and into God's life.

I suspect that "Divine Nobodies" will resonate with the silent majority of injured people who fill our church, people who want to connect with God, but who aren't sure how to introduce God to the dark corners of their hearts. Jim is a loving guide who shows us how. Read more ›

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Questions worth asking...one man's journey. October 6, 2006

By Rick Harris

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Divine Nobodies will touch the deepest most intimate parts of your being as Jim meanders through life discovering God within and through everyday folks...the divine nobodies of life. You'll cry, giggle, hmph, chuckle and ROFL. Shedding religion is messy business, albeit foundation shaking at times. Jim tells of encountering the round pegs, those questions and life situations that just don't fit into the neat and orderly square holes of religion:

What is church? What does it mean to be the church? If a loving parent wouldn't send their child to eternal hell, how could God? Why do bad things happen? What is our journey about as a child of God...is it about living the `perfect life' a striving for sinlessness? Just how far does God's grace go? Should believers do life with the "undesirables", homosexuals, adulterers, divorcees, alcoholics of the world or does being around "bad" apples spoil the whole bushel...just who are "undesirables" anyway? Is knowing about God the same as knowing God?

If you have an inkling there's something more to God than Sunday services and Wednesday night prayer meetings, pick up a copy of Divine Nobodies...Jim's story will fan that inkling into a knowing that will guide you to a deeper and more intimate relationship with God...and that `is' what life's about.

Read it...then give a copy to others.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Freedom November 28, 2006

By Lucy

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved this book! This is one of the best books I have read this year. Jim's communication style is warm, down to earth and filled with humor - his message is right on. The stories in this book touched me deeply and reminded me again and again that God does not live in a building.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed it very much. March 1, 2008

By Hunter

Format:Paperback

This is not a Bible study book, for anyone looking for that type of book. It is the refections of a guy who hit the wall and found meaning in surprising places. Think of this book as sitting on a park bench listening to a stranger tell you their life story when you simply ask, "How are you?" If you are like me, you will sit quietly, smile, laugh, and shed an occasional tear as you hear the accounts of the stranger. While I don't agree completely with all of Jim's conclusions, I'd like to believe I'm mature enough to glean from all the good within the book. God used the accounts of the waitress and checkout clerk to affect some needed change in my life.

Another Nobody who is only somebody because of Christ,

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Authentic Voice January 3, 2007

By wooball32

Format:Paperback

I had to put the book down and just reflect when I read the Introduction to the book...all the reasons author Jim Palmer states on why you may not want to read this book are JUST the ones that make this book so good. I really enjoyed it and NEVER read spirituality books. It is tender, sweet, open, painful and so REAL. Thanks to the author for taking a risk, being himself and putting pen to paper.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow January 6, 2007

By R. Birkey

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Tired of those hyper-religious people who have simple step-by-step solutions to all of the complex sludge that goes on in your head? Who only want to get you "saved" so that your problems will finally be solved? Who preach endlessly that life is all about Bible-reading, church attendance, acceptable behaviors, and Christian t-shirts and bumper stickers? Exhausted? Depressed? Frustrated? Struggling? Confused? ME TOO!!

This book is an account of a broken man's journey... or maybe I should say the continuation of his journey. It doesn't give any easy answers. As a matter of fact, it probably raises more questions (very thought-provoking!). But finally, FINALLY, someone has put words to the terrible angst that has been within me for a very long time. For me, reading this book was like finding a stream of cool clear water in the middle of a desert. Okay, okay... that might be a little dramatic, but--hopefully--you understand what I mean.

I thoroughly enjoyed the author's wittiness, was comforted by his stories of real (and struggling) people, and was awed by his transparency and his willingness to let me, the reader, see into his soul. Many kudos and thanks to the author for his courage and his honesty. This work is helping to heal my own messed-up, crazy, (sometimes tormented) broken soul.

Divine Nobodies: It's a MUST read!