I own several shelves of books I’ve purchased. Many I have read. Some I even agree with.
They’re mostly good books. Some of them I edited. A few, I wrote. Almost always, I reflected on chapters and underlined parts that stung. In the end, I closed the cover and went on living exactly as I had before I’d begun.
The information landed fine. But few books on my shelf are dog-eared, and even fewer of them have actually fostered change in my life.
A book that dislodges the inertia in our hearts is a rare and beautiful thing.
What makes them so powerful and effective?
We’re swimming in information. My first twenty-five years in ministry, most of which I also spent writing, editing, and publishing my own stuff and other people’s stuff, convinced me that that the Church’s problem today is rarely ignorance or, as I used to think, poor communication.
We are not under-informed. Especially now. We have podcasts, study Bibles, and a smartphone with AI that will explain Romans on our morning commute. What we lack is that special something that unsettles our heart and mind, something that connects the page and screen to our hands and feet.
What we need isn’t information, but formation.
That’s what Invite Press is about. We publish in the Wesleyan tradition, which means that we believe grace forgives, and then keeps going. It works on the appetites. It goes after the habits a person is embarrassed by. Over years, it produces someone their kids can tell has changed. That’s the whole promise, and it isn’t ours — Wesley got it from the New Testament and we’re reflecting it back.
Our books are high on Jesus and low on politics. There is no shortage of people willing to tell you who to be furious at this month. We’re after something that outlasts a news cycle.
So what is this page?
Mostly a front porch. Our authors are why you’re here. We publish leading pastors, scholars, and practitioners scattered across the Wesleyan world, several of them now writing on Substack and all of them worth your valuable time. Our goal is to connect you to them. We’ll share excerpts from both existing and upcoming books, video from the Invite channel, our monthly letter, and the occasional note from my desk about what we’re making and why.
Subscribe if you want to know what’s coming. Then go follow the writers we recommend. That’s the invitation.
The shelf is still in my office. My hope is that every Invite Press book becomes the dog-eared kind.
Len Wilson
Publisher and Executive Director
Invite Ministries
Plano, TX