Introducing the Nonpower Project
For several years, I have been wrestling with a question:
What if our deepest problem is not simply that power is sometimes misused, but that we have misunderstood power itself?
We live in a world organized around the pursuit of power. Nations compete for it. Political movements promise to reclaim it. Institutions protect it. Leaders accumulate it. Even churches—often with the best intentions—can begin to measure faithfulness by influence, access, visibility, growth, and control.
We assume that power is necessary to accomplish anything meaningful. We tell ourselves that if the right people can acquire enough power, they can finally make the world right.
But Jesus reveals another way.
He enters the world not as a conqueror but as an infant. He refuses the kingdoms offered to him in the wilderness. He touches lepers, welcomes children, eats with sinners, washes feet, and gives himself for his enemies. He reigns from a cross and rises without seeking revenge against those who crucified him.
Jesus does not merely use power more benevolently than others. He reveals a different understanding of power altogether.
This is the beginning of the Nonpower Project.
What Is Nonpower?
Nonpower is not passivity, weakness, withdrawal, or the refusal to act. It is not powerlessness, nor is it indifference toward injustice.
Nonpower is the deliberate refusal to dominate, control, coerce, exploit, or diminish others. It is the freedom to act without needing to rule. It is strength expressed through self-giving love, authority exercised through service, and leadership that enables others to flourish rather than making them dependent.
Nonpower is not the absence of agency. It is agency freed from the desire to dominate.
The word may initially sound strange, but the reality lies near the center of the gospel:
“You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you.”
—Matthew 20:25–26
“It will not be so among you.”
Those words are not a minor adjustment to conventional leadership. They are a radical reordering of human relationships. Jesus identifies domination as the way the nations organize the world—and then forbids his disciples from reproducing that pattern within his community.
The church is meant to embody another kind of kingdom because it follows another kind of king.
Why This Project?
The Nonpower Project has grown out of my work on a forthcoming book, It Will Not Be So Among You: A Theology of Nonpower. But the project is larger than a single book.
It is an ongoing exploration of the life, teachings, and kingdom of Jesus through the lens of nonpower.
Together, we will consider questions such as:
- What does Jesus reveal about the character of God?
- How does God’s power differ from domination?
- Why are human beings so easily seduced by control?
- How do fear and the threat of death teach us to dominate one another?
- What does the cross reveal about the way God overcomes evil?
- How should Christians understand authority and leadership?
- How can churches resist authoritarianism, celebrity culture, coercion, and spiritual abuse?
- What would it mean for Christian communities to distribute power rather than accumulate it?
- How can we confront injustice without becoming captive to the same logic of domination we oppose?
- What practices can form us into people who no longer need to control others?
These are not merely theoretical questions. They reach into our churches, families, workplaces, political lives, and spiritual communities. They shape how we lead, how we disagree, how we respond to enemies, how we treat vulnerable people, and how we imagine the kingdom of God.
A Pilgrimage of Seeing
At its heart, the Nonpower Project is a pilgrimage of seeing.
It begins with the conviction that Jesus is not simply one source of information about God among many. Jesus is the decisive revelation of who God is and what God is like.
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus tells Philip.
If this is true, then Jesus must reshape our understanding of everything—including power.
We must learn to see God in the child of Bethlehem, the teacher on the mountain, the servant kneeling with a towel, the condemned man on the cross, and the risen Christ offering peace rather than vengeance. We must allow Jesus—not empire, hierarchy, fear, violence, or cultural assumptions—to define what divine power looks like.
This pilgrimage also teaches us to see ourselves more truthfully. The desire to dominate does not belong only to tyrants, abusive leaders, or political extremists. It runs through every human heart. We can denounce domination in others while remaining blind to the quieter ways we control, manipulate, intimidate, exclude, or protect our own importance.
Nonpower therefore begins not with accusation but with repentance.
An Invitation
In the months ahead, I will use the Nonpower Project to share essays, theological reflections, excerpts from the book, conversations with important thinkers, historical studies, and practical explorations of leadership, discipleship, community, and the church.
We will examine both the beauty of the way of Jesus and the many ways Christianity has been tempted to exchange the cross for the throne. We will explore the damage caused when the church seeks to possess the kingdoms Jesus refused—and the possibilities that emerge when Christians recover the courage to follow the Lamb.
My hope is to create more than an audience for a book. I hope to cultivate a community of people who want to think deeply, live faithfully, and learn together.
If you have ever wondered whether there is another way to lead, another way to confront evil, another way to organize Christian community, or another way to be present in the world, I invite you to join me.
Sign up for the Nonpower Project to receive new essays, project updates, selected book excerpts, reading recommendations, and opportunities to participate in the conversation.
We do not need a more religious version of the world’s struggle for power. We need a renewed vision of Jesus.
The one who did not dominate.
The king who served.
The Lamb who was slain.
The Lord who said:
“It will not be so among you.”
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
