Meet the Authors
Two Generations.
One Church.
One Mission.
A minister and his pastor. A systems builder and a theologian. Jonathan Barlow and Dr. James J. Minnick write from the same church, the same city, and a shared conviction that faith deserves more than what it has been given.
The Authors
Minister / Systems Builder / Author
Jonathan Barlow
Jonathan Barlow is a minister, author, and systems builder based in Detroit, Michigan. He serves on the executive leadership team at Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church under the pastoral leadership of Dr. James J. Minnick.
A former youth pastor and lifelong member of Mt. Pleasant, Jonathan writes at the intersection of faith, justice, and lived experience. His work sits between the theological and the practical — for the person who has always felt their faith should inform the way they think, not replace it.
He founded Radical Sunday as an answer to a simple observation: the people who think the hardest about life are often the ones who feel the most alone in their faith. When he is not writing, Jonathan is building, mentoring, and having conversations that matter with people who are tired of ones that do not.
Senior Pastor / Theologian / Author
Dr. James J. Minnick
Dr. James J. Minnick has served as the third senior pastor of Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church since March 2001 — over 25 years of continuous pastoral leadership at the church he grew up in as a teenager. A lifelong Detroiter, he holds dual degrees in Business Management and Theology, a Master of Theology, and a Doctorate of Divinity.
Under his leadership, Mt. Pleasant — founded in 1948 on Detroit's east side — has become a community built around the F.E.E.D. framework: Faithfully Educate, Equip, and Disciple. A staunch advocate for education, Dr. Minnick has built ministries ranging from the Leadership Training Academy to Connect Groups to the Blooming Buds Youth Ministry. His voice is heard weekly on FaithTalk FM in Detroit.
Together, Jonathan and Dr. Minnick represent two generations of the same church — the pastor who built it and the minister he raised — with a shared conviction that the church can be something more than what it currently is.
“Two generations. One church. A shared conviction that faith can be something more.”
How It Started
The Origin of Radical Sunday
The name came from a Sunday. Not a dramatic one — just a quiet morning where it became clear that the gap between what faith looked like in public and what it felt like in private was too wide to keep ignoring.
Radical, in its original meaning, refers to the root. The foundation. The thing everything else grows from. And Sunday — not as a day of obligation, but as a marker. A moment to pause, reflect, and decide what the next week will be built on.
Radical Sunday started as a personal practice: one morning a week dedicated to asking better questions. It became a notebook. Then a book. Then a conversation that kept growing because, it turns out, a lot of people were looking for the same thing — faith content that does not insult their intelligence or ignore their doubts.
Today, Radical Sunday is a brand, a library, and a community. But at its core, it is still that same thing: a commitment to going back to the root and building from there.
What We Believe
Our Values
Intellectual Honesty
We do not ask you to check your brain at the door. Faith that cannot withstand scrutiny is not faith worth having.
Practical Theology
If it does not change the way you live on a Tuesday, it is just theory. Everything we create is designed to be lived.
Inclusive Conversation
This is not a members-only club. Radical Sunday is for the skeptic, the seeker, the believer, and the person who is not sure which one they are.
Authentic Voice
No performance. No pretension. Just real language about real things from people who are figuring it out alongside you.
Ready to Go Deeper?
Start with Book One. Continue with the conversation.