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Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you) | 
 enlarge | Author: Jim Palmer
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy Used: $12.19
You Save: $1.80 (13%)
New (4) Used (8) from $12.19
Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 262741
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 277.30830922
ASIN: B0013L8BUG
Publication Date: October 17, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Very good condition, clean and tight, with light creasing and subtle shelf wear, multiple copies, may be an ex library copy, will send the best available, fast shipping, excellent service.
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Product Description
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
A Rare Find... October 25, 2006
Larry Shallenberger (Erie, Pa USA)
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
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.
There is not a more relevant book on spirituality on the market November 7, 2006
Kristy S. French (TX)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
This book is a paradox: while beautifully and straightforwardly written, of simple stories, DIVINE NOBODIES is a deep and complex book revealing the very relevant struggles met by spiritual seekers in today's world.
In my opinion, Donald Miller will only catch up to Jim Palmer when he has a few more years of experience in life on this planet. Jim Palmer is a broken man: he humbly shares where he's been, where he is, and where he wants to be. His heart is on every page of this book and it resonates.
More from Jim Palmer!!
Kristy Stubbs, Dallas, TX
Freedom November 29, 2006
Barbara (Mission Viejo, CA USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
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.
Questions worth asking...one man's journey. October 7, 2006
Rick Harris (Music City USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
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.
God is BIGGER than you think November 2, 2006
Ron Brown (Anson, Texas United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
In a world of religious professionals and high powered churches that resemble more of corporate America than they do the peasant carpenter from Nazareth, Jim's book is a breath of fresh air. Divine Nobodies is for anyone who is tired of pat answers and jumping through religious hoops. This book will help you to find God through average, authentic, everyday people - Divine Nobodies. If you're searching for Jesus without the religious strings attached this book is for you.
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