A note from Randy
After more than two decades as a lay elder, and after a long season of writing, the book is nearly here. Before it reaches anyone else, I want to place it in the hands of a small team of early readers: people who care about the health of the local church and are willing to help this book find the readers it was written for.
If someone sent you a link to this page, it is because I asked them to, or because I hoped you would come. Thank you for considering it.
Skip to signup →About the book
This title may read like an accusation. If you are an elder and your guard just went up, that instinct — to defend the office — is a right one. So hear this first: this book is not an exposé. It names no church and settles no scores. It is a diagnosis of something quieter: the ordinary, unremarkable drift by which good men who love Scripture come to lead in ways Scripture would not recognize. No scandal required, and no villain — the author writes as a lay elder of more than two decades who sat at the table and drifted with the room.
If you sit in a pew and were told the trouble was your own heart, these pages will deal honestly with you — about what you saw, and about what to do with it now. If you sit at the table and something in the room has begun to trouble you, they will help you name it — and then hand you the repair. That is the aim of every page: not exposure, but recovery — a leadership brought back near the Shepherd it serves.
What this is, and what it is not
What launch team members do. Read an advance digital copy before release. If the book earns it, leave an honest review where you normally review books, Amazon or Goodreads, during launch week. Share the book with people who need it: a fellow elder, a deacon, a friend still carrying something a church did to them. That is the whole job.
What this is not. You are not signing up to promote something you have not evaluated. The advance copy is a gift to early readers and supporters of this work. Reviews are encouraged, never required, and I ask for honest ones: your words, your assessment, whatever it is. A lukewarm honest review serves this book better than manufactured praise.
What you receive
- An advance digital copy of the full book, in PDF or EPUB (your choice)
- A short welcome guide covering everything, including how advance-copy reviews work on Amazon and Goodreads
- Launch updates from Randy (a handful of emails, not a flood)
- A ready-to-share graphics pack for launch week, if you want to post about the book
- Randy's sincere thanks, and a part in putting this book into the hands of elders and church members who need it
The fine print on reviews
A few honest notes, because Amazon has rules about advance copies and I intend to follow them:
- You do not need to buy the book to review it on Amazon. Reviews from readers who received an advance copy are welcome there, as long as they are honest and disclosed.
- Amazon requires reviewer accounts to have spent at least $50 on Amazon in the past 12 months (credit or debit card, not gift cards). If your account does not meet that, Goodreads has no such requirement and your review there matters just as much.
- If you review, please include one line: “I received an advance digital copy of this book. This review reflects my honest assessment.”
- Reviews are not a condition of receiving the book. Truly. If you read it and choose not to review, the copy was still a gift.