Phil Wyman’s
Love Big or Go Home is a hidden gem — the kind of book that quietly takes up residence in your imagination and stays with you long after you finish the last page. Part memoir, part theological reflection, and completely an invitation into a way of life, Wyman’s work offers a vision of Christian mission that feels at once ancient and urgently contemporary. It is full of insight and inspiration for anyone aspiring to follow Christ with genuine humility, generosity, and curiosity.
Wyman frames the gospel as inherently nomadic. He doesn’t mean that everyone should take to the road as he did—crisscrossing the country, and a few other countries, engaging with festivals, subcultures, strangers, and seekers. Instead, he suggests that “nomadic” describes the very shape of Christian discipleship. To follow Jesus is to follow the One who “had nowhere to lay his head,” the One who continually crossed boundaries, stepped into unfamiliar spaces, and surprised people by showing up in places polite religion rarely goes.
Wyman challenges the church—especially those of us who lead, teach, or preach—to resist the stagnation that comes when faith becomes fixed, territorial, or preoccupied with protecting its own place. Churches easily slip into patterns of self-preservation. We cling to our buildings, our routines, our positions in the community, and without noticing it, we lose the improvisational, boundary-crossing, risk-taking spirit of the gospel. Wyman’s story gently but firmly calls us back to movement. To be nomadic, in his framing, is to be attentive to the “ends of the earth” as they appear right where we are—the people on the margins of our attention, the overlooked places in our towns, the unfamiliar conversations that stretch our compassion.
This book deserves to be read not only by pastors and theologians but also by regular folks trying to discern what Christianity means in a culture that has hijacked, commercialized, and often maimed the word. Wyman offers no easy formulas, no triumphalism, and no self-promotion. What he offers is a life lived in pursuit of love—big, risky, self-giving love—and a theology rooted in presence, movement, and open-hearted witness.
I loved this book. I only wish I could have told Phil Wyman how much his words meant to me before he died. His legacy continues in these pages, urging the church to stay light on its feet.
