We did not lose the mainline churches in a fair fight. We forfeited them—by never contesting the one thing that mattered: jurisdiction. Who holds the ground, and by what right.

For much of his adult life, Jake Dell served inside mainline institutions, including the Episcopal Church—ordained priest, Navy Reserve chaplain—before the institution that formed him tried to purge him without ever saying why. His release in 2024 was not an ending but a passage: out of a captured institution and into a New England congregation founded in 1659, still worshiping in its 1818 meetinghouse, and growing once again under his preaching.

Part memoir, part field manual, Exile and Return tells that story from the inside—what institutional capture costs a man, a family, and a calling—and makes the case that because America’s historic Protestant churches were surrendered, not defeated, they can be reclaimed.

Now comes the reckoning, written by a pastor who thought he’d run out of moves, but found the roadmap for winning the ground back.