Afleveringen
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Hi there! I hope you’re having a great day. This newsletter will be the short version of what I go into much greater depth in the video version. I noticed that there are two kinds of learners on this mailing list: some who just want to read it and others who enjoy the video version. So here we go.
In forty+ years of ministry I’ve seen a lot of things go wrong inside churches, organizations, and movements. Leadership failures, church splits, burnout, abuse of authority, financial scandals — most of it up close.
And underneath almost all of it is the same root problem. Not bad theology. Not weak leadership. Not a lack of resources or strategy.
The number one source of dysfunction in Christianity in my humble opinion is simply the subordination of Jesus.
Not his absence. His subordination. He’s still in the building. His name is still on the sign. People are still singing songs about him and praying in his name and carrying Bibles with his words printed in red. But somewhere along the way, Jesus stopped being the actual authority. He became the mascot.
He became an advisor we consult when we need wisdom, a therapist we visit when we’re struggling, an emergency contact we call when things fall apart. We rarely treat him as Lord — the one with the final say over everything.
Influence and authority are not the same thing
Influence is the ability to affect someone’s thinking and maybe their behavior. Authority is the right to make decisions and expect obedience. You can have one without the other.
Jesus has enormous influence in Christianity. In practical terms, he often has minimal authority. People talk about him constantly. They study his teachings. They worship him on Sunday. But they don’t necessarily do what he says. He said it himself: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say?”
A secular historian named Michael Hart wrote a book ranking the hundred most influential people in history. He places Jesus third — behind Mohammed and Isaac Newton — despite Christianity being the world’s largest religion. His reasoning: Jesus’ ethical teachings are among the most remarkable and original ever presented. Then he says — Christians don’t feel the need to obey Christ in order to identify as Christian.
A secular historian just described the central problem of Christianity in one paragraph. We can never truly align with Jesus until we individually, and corporately, accept his authority over everything.
The seminary problem
As someone who worked in seminaries for twenty years, including as a seminary president, I think I’m entitled to an opinion on this one.
If I wanted to reinstall the authority of Jesus in Christianity worldwide, I’d start with the seminary — the place training the next generation of pastors and thinkers. You’d assume the primary curriculum in a seminary would be Jesus. You’d spend three years unpacking his words, his practices, his way of training people, his handling of conflict and power and poverty, how he dealt with the rich and the poor, how he made disciples.
But if you enroll in seminary expecting that, you’ll be disappointed.
In actual seminary, you’ll study a million other things. A dedicated course on Jesus is typically an elective — if offered at all. You get one course called The Gospels, but you’ll spend half the semester on technical arguments about authorship. etc.
Jesus is not even the chief theologian of his own movement. Paul is. You’ll spend two years studying every word Paul wrote.
Just as John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus, Jesus might as well be the forerunner of Paul if you judge by who gets the spotlight in the institutions built in his name. Let that sink in.
The authority he simply commanded
I want to talk about the kind of authority we’re actually reinstalling by intentionally placing Jesus not just as the most influential Person in our life, but actually as the central authority in our life.
What bothered the temple authorities most about Jesus was the authority he simply commanded. He held thousands of people on a hillside with no amplification — just his voice, while he sat on a stone. In every recorded conversation he speaks as the Master, never searching for words, never uncertain about what he wants to say.
The Pharisees kept throwing the same question at him: “Who gave you this authority?”
John answers it in the first line of his Gospel. He has it by creation. The Father confirmed it through miracles done by his voice alone — commanding demons, sickness, storms, and death. He now sits at the right hand of God, Lord of Heaven and Earth.
That is the authority we are reinstalling. Not a new ministry strategy. Not a doctrinal revision. This.
Jesus is higher than all the apostles. Higher than any ancient or modern prophet. Higher than Mary and the Pope. Higher than your pastor. Higher than the most brilliant theologians who have ever lived. He is higher than anyone else within the pages of the Bible. He is not a teacher — he is THE Teacher, THE Prophet, THE Messenger of God to us.
See Jesus. Then reJesus everything else.
Reinstalling the authority of Jesus starts with one decision: choose to treat Jesus as if he is actually in charge. Not an advisor. Not an emergency contact. The one with the final say.
That single decision changes what you read in Scripture, how you handle disagreements, and how you conduct yourself every moment of every day.
If you’ve got time to listen to this on video, I think you’ll get a lot more out of the podcast version this time.
Every Blessing! Chuck
ReJesus Everything is available now on Amazon. It’s a letter to the generation inheriting the Christian movement — about how to put Jesus back at the center of a faith that has quietly promoted other things in addition to him. Grab a copy, and if you want to work through it with a group, there’s a free discussion guide coming soon. PS: Please leave a review, even a short one. It’s a powerful way to expand the reach of the book on Amazon, the world’s largest book marketplace. Thanks!!!
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Hi there! I hope you’re having a super good day.
Are you good at imagining things? Can you, for example, get an idea about the furnishing of a room so that it comes alive and becomes a place with a purpose? Can you see it before actually dragging furniture into the space?
I think we all have this ability, but some people use it more and so it becomes stronger with them. Anyway, we’re always trying to encourage people to release their creativity because creativity is worship. God is our Creator, and He invites us to create things with Him.
In this video, I want to invite you into the process that is involved in making a video out of a scripture passage. Today I was reading Psalms 148, and it just read like a script. I could see it in my mind. Read it with me in this video, and I think you’ll see it also.
Over the next few months, we want to convert this scripture into a powerful video that lays down the foundation of teaching behind the Old and New Testaments. I hope to have the liberty in the next year to build out some videos that can hopefully gain traction with young audiences online and teach them the big strokes of God’s message in a way that feels the most natural to them.
So, without further ado, let’s open up the Bible to Psalms 148 and start envisioning what a video of those few verses might look like.
Thanks for standing with us as we raise up a generation of content creators who put God’s words into artistic form so they can impact this digital generation.
Every Blessing!
Chuck and Sherry
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Hi friend! Sherry and I are back in Thailand, so I’m back in the studio, able to produce again. Thanks for your patience. Let’s dive in.
There’s a scene at the very end of the Bible that has always amazed me. It’s my new favorite Bible verse, and you’ll find it in the last chapter of Revelation — God’s final word to the world.
You’d expect something tender. Something like, “Please, my children, come back to me. I love you too much to let you go.”
That’s not what happens.
A glorious angel steps forward to deliver the closing message:
“He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him be righteous still. He who is holy, let him be holy still.”
No pleading. No last-minute persuasion campaign. Just…
“Hey Humans, Make up your mind.”
I’ve come to believe that whole speech is basically a command to decide who you’re going to be and get on with it. Vote already.
If you want to be crooked, then lie, cheat, and abuse like a gangster. If you want to be lustful, then go roll in the filth. But if you’re going to follow Jesus — wake up, and do it with everything you’ve got.
What strikes me about that passage is that it doesn’t seem to matter to God whether every single person chooses him. He gave us free will. What matters is that everybody votes. He wants us to pick a team.
I’m picking Team Jesus.
The either-or
This is where I think a lot of churched people skip past too quickly. We think we settled it all when we prayed the sinner’s prayer one day so we wouldn’t have to go to hell.
All of us need to intentionally make up our minds about Jesus. Either he is the Creator come in the flesh to save us, or he is not. Either he is the only door to God, or he is not. If he’s none of those things, then he’s just a man — a good teacher, maybe — but not someone you build a life around.
But if he is that Savior, then he must also be Lord.
If this is true, then we have to live like he’s actually the boss.
The early church didn’t have a twelve-point statement of faith. They had one doctrine: Jesus is Lord. That was enough. Everything else fit inside that one conviction. Compare that to what a lot of us grew up with — stacks of doctrinal positions and denominational distinctives layered on top of each other. Somewhere underneath all of it, the actual Lordship of Jesus has often gotten buried instead of being the one thing holding everything else together.
Lordship or nothing
The core of the Gospel message is that Jesus offers to be our Lord. The choice to accept this offer belongs entirely to us from that point on. But he won’t lower his position to make it easier on us. It’s Lordship or nothing.
That sounds like a hard sell, doesn’t it? Who actually wants a lifetime under the authority of a Supreme Lord? Our experience with power, in this life, is that power tends to end up unpleasant, even abusive. We chafe at the thought of someone else having the final say over us, and that’s a completely normal reaction.
But Jesus isn’t like any human leader you’ve ever lived under. The people who actually live under his Lordship discover something that surprises them every time: his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. His authority strengthens and lifts you rather than crushing you. It releases your creativity. It ignites vision instead of shutting you down.
This is not religion. Religion takes what you have and always demands more. What Jesus offers is the exact opposite — he’s offering to become your shield, your provider, your healer, your leader, forever. That’s an unbelievable offer, once you sit with it.
My own conviction
If Jesus is anything less than what he claims to be in the Gospels, I don’t want to follow him. I don’t need another moral teacher. I need a Savior. There’s no middle road. He’s either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord.
I spent my early years in the spiritual wilderness working through exactly what I believed about Jesus, and why. I looked at the alternatives. I sat with the doubts. And then I made up my mind.
I believe him because of the life he actually lived — he refused to compromise to be popular, wealthy, or to avoid pain. I believe him because five hundred witnesses were willing to face persecution and death to testify that they had personally seen him alive again. But more than any of that, I believe Jesus because I’ve experienced him for myself for fifty years now. He healed my depression as a teenager. He’s answered specific prayers more times than I could count. That’s not theory. That’s my own history with him.
Represent Jesus, not Christianity
Sherry and I have spent over forty years living in Southeast Asia. We have not spent forty years representing Christianity. We represent Jesus — not our denomination, not a nonprofit. Just him.
This Jesus thing has never been doctrine for us. It’s experience. So don’t follow a religion about Jesus, or a creed, or a particular church’s brand of him. Follow him. Know him.
Whatever else you do this week — make up your mind about Jesus. Vote.
If this question is stirring something in you, this is exactly where the book picks up.
ReJesus Everything is built around one conviction: Jesus is the standard, and the Christianities we’ve inherited are just our attempts to represent him — some better than others. This piece you just read is the opening move of a much longer conversation in the book: making up your mind about who Jesus actually is, before we ever get to what’s broken in how the church has tried to follow him, and what it looks like to rebuild from here.
It’s not a book about tearing anything down. It’s a letter to the next generation of leaders, written from fifty years of ministry across dozens of cultures, about how to put Jesus back at the center of a faith that’s drifted. If you’ve ever sensed that gap — between the Jesus you grew up believing in and the Jesus actually described in the Gospels — this book was written for you.
ReJesus Everything is available now on Amazon. Grab a copy, and if you want to work through it with friends, there’s a free discussion guide on the website too. Click here to order.
Please leave us a review on Amazon. It’s more powerful than you could know in causing the algorithm to show the book to other people. Thanks!
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Hi! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I wanted to share with you this interview which was released this week on the Medialight Substack page. It’s a conversation I had with Ross about where the next generation finds themselves in relationship with the church and the Bible and Christianity globally.
One of the concepts we talk about is the need to re-establish the central authority of Jesus and not treat Him just as one voice among many. The Medialight team came up with this diagram, which I share with you now.
Because I know Ross so well, I really think the conversation between us is special, and I hope you will check it out.
The book is available now on Amazon.
Every Blessing!Chuck
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Hey! I have exciting news, the book is finally live! ReJesus Everything is available on Amazon worldwide! We have a Kindle version already up, and we will produce an audiobook within a month or so.
This has been a passion project for many years. In some ways, I feel like I’ve been writing this book all my life because I have been thinking the thoughts that I was finally able to release along the journey of ministry that Sherry and I have been in these 45 years.
There were so many battles involved in bringing this book to its launch day. There were struggles with artists, struggles with the layout designer, and struggles with Amazon over technical parts of the physical construction of the book. Anyway, we expected some resistance anytime we create a new thing, but this one truly took so much grit to bring across the finish line, so please celebrate with us!
The past two years have largely revolved around this project, and now it’s completed. In this video, I talk about what’s inside the book so I won’t go into details on that here.
What I am hoping is that this book will become fuel for discussion in local churches and ministries. We are producing a companion leader’s guide for free that can be downloaded from the book’s website. In this guide, we lay out six to eight sessions that a church can have to create a safe discussion where church leaders and young people can process the dissonance many young people feel between the Jesus of the Bible and the organized version of Christianity around them. Like the book, the majority of this discussion centers around rebuilding our current version of Christianity with Jesus, His words, and the example of His life at the center.
A whole generation of Christian young people are avoiding any idea of serving in church ministry, even though they love Jesus. They just look at current forms of church and say, “That’s not for me.” We’re missing so much buy-in from this generation, and those of us who are mature in the Lord have to put some energy into making certain the baton relay continues.
Over the last two thousand years, if even one generation had failed to pass the baton to the next generation, the Christian movement would have stopped. I don’t want to see things break down in our generation. Sherry and I are spending much energy trying to help this generation pick up the ministry and create their own new version of things so that the powerful Gospel of Jesus continues forward.
We believe this book can be an important resource for the global church, and I want to thank you for supporting us up to this point. Thank you for opening my emails and for participating in this podcast. You have allowed me to work out my thoughts and bring them to a place where they could be published. Sherry and I are so grateful for this.
Can We Ask Two Things Please?
1. Give the book a try.
Here’s the Link to Purchase on Amazon
2. Write a 3 sentence review and give the appropriate numbers of stars in your rating.
If we could get 50 people to buy the book and give it a review, it will trigger an algorithm on Amazon where the book gets promoted to new viewers. This is the great chance for a breakout, but it needs to happen in the first two weeks, so please buy the book today and give us a review. We will be so grateful to you for that.
Thanks again!
Chuck and Sherry
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Welcome back to the Grounded Podcast! I hope you are having an incredible week.
Sherry and I are out of the country for the next few weeks on an assignment that is part ministry and part Sabbath for the two of us. We run pretty hard on the schedule, some days having six meetings back-to-back, and it’s just important to balance that with some good time of restoration.
What’s coming up?
Today we get three great questions:
* Is it okay to question things you were taught growing up in church?
* What do you do when God feels completely silent?
* How do you maintain personal faith when you’ve seen so much hypocrisy in the church?
* Bonus: and I talk a bit about how God brings revelation to us through others.
I wanted to highlight the second question because it’s something I have experienced myself, so I can really sympathize with others who are going through it.
Life Can Wear You Out
We all get worn out, sometimes. The most important things in life need sustained effort on our part. It even seems that the more important something is, the harder it is to do because it gets resisted by the darkness.
I mean, nobody stumbles into a great lifetime marriage or launching a bunch of happy, healthy, solid kids. Or building a God-honoring business that balances making profits with being a blessing to people. These things are so resisted in the world that we have to push harder in our efforts to achieve them.
We Meet a Tired Man
Sherry and I just returned from the Pastors Coalition meeting in Tennessee this past weekend. This is a group of excellent pastors who want to go the extra mile and not only run a healthy church but also influence that church to do something powerful in global missions and humanitarian work around the world.
In this group, there was one notable leader, a man I truly admire. A year ago, I felt compelled to drive to his city and have a meeting with him although I did not know why.
When I called to set it up, he didn’t seem too excited about the prospect of me coming to have a talk with him. After I got there it was a little awkward but eventually we got to an amazing fish house, where we ate a lot of shrimp and ended up having a long talk about dryness and the need to take a sabbath rest.
The essence of our conversation was that maybe he wasn’t really burned out, nor was he finished in his calling. He was just tired and exhausted, and he needed to let things idle for a year.
At this week’s meeting, he told me that our conversation probably saved his ministry, because he was, in fact, resisting meeting with me out of the secret knowledge that he was about to leave it all behind.
His wife said, “We were depleted, but our ground was depleted too. We needed to let the land rest.”
Putting Things into Sabbath Mode
He quietly put everything in this big dynamic church into maintenance mode without announcing it to anyone. Every time someone had a great idea, he said, “That’s a great idea. Write it up and email it to me!” but he never did anything new the whole year.
He slowed the busy-ness of his church and focused on health in the church.
Sabbath year. Just let the land rest.
He spent more time on his personal health, and he and his wife logged a lot of missing hours together and renewed their strength and rebuilt themselves on the inside for twelve whole months. The core leaders from the church got a rest too as things got simplified for a whole year.
The end of the story is that they’re both revived and the church with them. This year they’re actually going to start eight micro churches under other leaders. This will have minimal drain on them or the church but will ignite eight new people in their circle to do something visionary with God in a house group or small-sized church setting.
That’s usually the fruit of truly unplugging for a season. Maybe you need that, and if you do, I hope you will not argue yourself out of it, but just start pulling plugs out and making space in your calendar for a season of doing nothing.
But that’s not even what this episode is about
That part is for free, folks! What I talk about in the video is something totally different. It’s about the reality of a place called the wilderness—a dry, arid, vacant place you end up somehow wandering into even as you faithfully follow Jesus.
You don’t intend to go there.
It just happens.
Things get quiet and you sense that you’re just alone in a desert place, and no matter how loud you cry out to God, you don’t hear anything in response. Maybe this lasts a week or a month.
I felt nothing.
It lasted for three years.
Journeying Through a Spiritual Desert
In Manila, I preached each week, and we had great harvest. Typically, 25 people every Sunday came to Christ over an 8-10-year period. For a long while, I could sing. I could pray. But inside I just felt silence.
(I talk more about it in the video.)
Thank God, the thing about all deserts is that they don’t go on forever. I got out of mine eventually, so I can fully understand what this experience feels like to other people and can assure you that it is not a permanent state.
Actually, this phenomenon is well recorded in Christian history. Many of the people considered spiritual heroes in Christian history report a season in their life where a similar thing took place.
So if you’re in that condition right now, please take heart. Yes, it’s a time to ask God if you’ve done something to cause it, and if you have, you need to fix it, but it’s also very possible that you didn’t do a thing.
It’s just a process, and somehow we need it—for reasons we can clearly see and for some reasons that we may not understand in this lifetime.
Life with Jesus is so amazing, whether it’s in a desert or on a mountaintop. As long as he’s there, it’s a precious experience.
I think one of the main things Jesus came to teach us was how to be fully human—how to live a life that is fully engaged with God and others in this physical world. I want to taste my food, feel the wind on my face, and enjoy every slobbery kiss from babies.
Sherry and I love our days, and we pray God will help you to love yours also.
ReJesus Everything!
Love,
Chuck and Sherry
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Okay. In today’s quick podcast, I answer a single question that is being posed by some young people, which is: “Since all organized religion is problematic in one way or another, should we just walk away from it and have a private religion?”
What is Private Religion?
Private religion is sort of removing ourselves from a communal basis in our faith journey and choosing just to have what we might call privatism—me keeping my personal ideas about faith and religion private. This is one option, and many people are suggesting it. In this quick video. I give my reasons why I don’t think that’s the best path forward and why I believe it is very much possible to re-JESUS everything on a small and larger level.
This past weekend, I was at the Emerging Leaders Gathering at Lee university, it was really exciting to see young people who were passionate about serving Jesus and wanting to do it in a communal way. Hats off to Mark Swank and others at Church of God World Missions, who have been leading this charge to raise up a new generation of missional young adults in a denomination that is over 100 years old.
Time really is a factor in any organization, whether it’s a family or a faith-based mission. Time allows lots of cultural currents and trends and strong personalities to emerge and change the course of the original group. Sometimes this is healthy evolution and sometimes not so healthy, but what it always is is entropy, because age slows things down, makes them more institutional, and much less likely to bear fruit.
That’s why the story of Abraham is such a miracle: an old man and woman had a baby. It’s just as remarkable for an old church to have a youth movement.
In both cases, this was only accomplished with great intentionality.
God wanted this baby, and Abraham and Sarah had to want this baby and bend their life around having future generations flow from them.
We have to care about things like this, or they’ll never happen.
I really appreciate the work of Dr. Propes, Mark Swank, and many others in generating some momentum among young people regarding global missions.
Hope you enjoy the video. i’d love to hear your ideas too.
Let’s keep this discussion going. Let’s read Jesus everything in our lives. There’s so much life in Jesus, and we can all have it, and we can all continue to bear fruit even in our mature years.
Every blessing!
Chuck
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Writers Note: This is a question with the power to set you free — or make you deeply uncomfortable. Maybe both at once, Please stick with us till the end. It’s a crucial discussion. Thanks for helping us spread this conversation widely so we can help others ground their faith.
Did Jesus Found Christianity?
Most people assume the answer is obvious. Of course he did. His name is in the title. But at the risk of being misunderstood, I still want to make the case that the answer is no — and that this is one of the most liberating thoughts you will ever consider as a devoted follower of Christ.
I say this as a lifetime insider. I believe with everything in me that the life and teaching of Jesus is the most extraordinary gift ever given to this humanity. The principles he embodied are the very foundations of the civilization we inhabit today. The chaos we see in the world now is not caused by those principles. It is caused by our abandonment of them.
But whether Jesus founded a religion called Christianity? That is a different question. Here are three reasons I believe he did not.
Reason #1: History Simply Doesn’t Support It
There is no historical evidence that Jesus founded any form of external religion. What the records show, consistently, is a man pushing against almost every institution of his day — family structures, Roman political arrangements, and most dramatically, the Temple of Judaism itself.
He did not model how to build the best religion. He modeled a new way of living. Everything he said and did was about humans living in a direct, unmediated, loyal relationship with their Creator. His conclusion, demonstrated over and over, was that religion can actually become a barrier to the very God it claims to represent. When pious performance, priestly clothing, and theological gatekeeping replace direct encounter — Jesus doesn’t just disagree. He despises it.
He was not anti-structure as an ideological position. He was anti-anything-that-comes-between-humans-and-God.
That is not the posture of a man building a new religion. That is the posture of a man tearing down the walls that keep people from the presence they were made for.
Reason #2: His Mission Was a War of Liberation, Not Institutional Formation
Jesus was not building an institution. He was fighting a war.
He believed this planet had come under the influence of an intelligent, malevolent heavenly being whose strategy was hateful and relentless: push the leaders of every major pillar of society toward the accumulation of wealth, the abuse of power, and a fascination with physical pleasure at the expense of everything higher. The result is what we know well: disease, broken relationships, injustice, cruelty, death.
Jesus spent his public ministry tearing down that kingdom piece by piece. He cast out demons. He healed people in the streets. He raised the dead. Every act of human restoration was a declaration of war.
Does that sound like someone primarily concerned with founding a religion with creeds, hymns, ceremonies, temples, rituals, and liturgical practices?
He didn’t build a religion. He didn’t teach his followers how to build one either.
What he did build was people. An inner circle of three. Twelve. An outer network of five hundred. Community? Absolutely essential. A ceremonial structure of institution? Probably not.
In his own words, those systems in Judaism had become tools of the enemy. He said the Pharisees’ determined religious efforts actually produced people who were twice the children of hell they were.
Structure is never satisfied. It always wants more structure.
Over time, the life gets squeezed out by the effort to control. That is why Spirit movements keep arising — hermits in the desert, prophets in the wilderness, reformers nailing documents to cathedral doors.
Jesus himself regularly walked away from civilization into uninhabited places to be alone with God. That is not the behavior of an institution builder.
Reason #3: “Christianity” Doesn’t Exist as One Organization
There simply isn’t one central thing called Christianity. There are more than 47,000 separated Christian groups — each with their own doctrines, mandatory practices, and expectations.
Some believe Jesus is the only way. Others that he’s a noble example but that any sincere path will lead equally to God.
Some believe Jesus was virgin born and raised from the dead. Others believe neither. Some believe in salvation based on works. Others through faith only. Others that it’s through mystical grace flowing through the sacraments.
Some look for an eternity in the clouds. Others doubt there is an afterlife at all.
Which of these did Jesus found? The answer, I believe, is none of them.
Here is the formulation I keep returning to: Jesus is the standard. The Christianities are the attempts.
The way of Jesus is not something you do alone — it demands community. To follow Jesus we have to build communities that align with his values and mission.
The problem is in the cycle that usually attends movements. Every movement begins with hope, fire, fresh wine in fresh wineskins. But movements are messy and, eventually, have to be organized. Some become so rigid that no life remains. Others stagnate into comfortable fellowship that has forgotten the mission.
The task of disciples is to build our Christian communities in alignment with his value system and for his purposes.
The Kingdom belongs to Him. Building Christianities belongs to us.
Jesus is the standard. Christianities are the attempts.
Why This Matters
This is not an attack on institutional Christianity. It is a safety measure.
Most of the truly toxic things that happen in religious communities — the abuse of power, the manipulation, the cultic control, the cruelty done in the name of God — most of it begins with grandiose thinking.
When a leader starts to believe their church was founded by Jesus himself, they become significantly less accountable. They can come to believe themselves as the special “anointed ones” largely above question.
The downward slide of is not a rare fringe case. It is the almost inevitable trajectory of all religious institutions that confuse themselves with the Kingdom of God.
But when we accept — truly accept, in our bones — that our churches are our feeble human attempts to imitate Jesus in an organized way, something shifts in a vital way. We become accountable.
We hold our structures humbly, knowing they are ours, not his, and that we will constantly need to revisit and correct them. The church is not the kingdom. The minute we confuse the two, we are on dangerous ground.
I know that I’ve opened up a can of worms with this, and that touching this topic can seem like an attack on the entire Christian world. I really hope this can lead to some discussion. I do not offer this as doctrine, but as my reasoned opinion on this matter.
I am NOT saying that we should abandon all organized forms of Christian religion. You cannot walk as a disciple without binding yourself to the community of disciples.
I AM saying that every one of our forms of Christianity is a minority position, and that each of us treating them like ours is the correct one, the only one truly established by Jesus and that all the others are false Christians is one of the most toxic aspects of global Christianity.
Three Things I’m Asking You to Consider Doing
First: Stop defending your version Christianity as if Jesus founded it. Humans launched yours and we generally know their names whether it’s Wesleyan, Lutheran, Moravians, etc. Sincere humans founded our tribes, not Jesus himself. Just own that. It will make all of us more humble, more open, and consequently more dangerous to the enemy.
Second: Ask honestly whether your Christianity is actually producing disciples — people growing in loyalty to God in how they handle money and power, how they treat others, and how quickly they apologize when they are wrong. That is the fruit Jesus was after. Healthy churches produce it.
Third: If you have allowed any institution to stand between you and direct access to your Creator — if you have outsourced your relationship with God to a pastor, a doctrine, a ritual, or a sacred building — today is the day to walk back toward the wilderness a bit to find the quiet place. Go there and speak to your Father without an intermediary.
Because that is what Jesus came to give you.
Not a religion. A relationship. Not a Christianity. Himself — leading you into deep, direct communion with the God who made you.
Let’s pursue that together and build faithful communities in the process.
Every Blessing!
Chuck
PS: I’m not trying to give answers, and I’m really not trying to destabilize anyone’s faith. I just hope that we can have an honest, respectful conversation about the nature of the thing we’ve built all over this planet. That is called collectively Christianity. My solution to everything is a ruthless return to Jesus over every form of institutional religion, so that we can rebuild communities that reflect him more perfectly. I hope you feel my heart in this. I would love to hear what you have to say.
Chuck Quinley is President of Emerge Missions and author of ReJesus Everything.
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Hi! Hope you’re having a great week!
Since our last episode, we’ve got more great questions. I will answer three of them in this episode.
The first one is: “What if someone has suffered so deeply in abuse from a church that they have difficulty separating Jesus from the abuse?”
I will address this directly and offer to anyone wounded by their experience in a church or Christian organization the only path to healing I have ever discovered.
We’re into a really great discussion, and I hope you’ll join us inside this week’s grounded podcast question and response session.
If you send me your questions and comments, I will do my best to respond to each of them.
Every Blessing!
Chuck
PS: I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but our Substack has this really cool feature so that if there’s even a sentence or paragraph that you like in a newsletter like this, you can highlight it and then right-click to share. It will create a really cool looking way for your friend to receive your message. Please help us grow the reach of this newsletter. No algorithm pushes it out. It depends on the people who read it to share it with their friends. Thanks so much!
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Writer’s note: I want to give my personal thanks to the 20 of you who recently signed up as paid subscribers. I really appreciate your support. It’s encouraging to know that people find value in the work, and it helps me build the team I need to continue and grow the podcast. Thanks again!
Hi Friend!
The hardest thing in discussing how to fix dysfunctional elements within Christianity is simply determining what Christianity even is today.
What even is Christianity?
It’s a question that sounds simple until you try to answer it. Most people assume the answer is straightforward. “Christianity is the religion about Jesus.” That seems clear enough.
But when you begin to look closely at the actual landscape of Christianity, the answer becomes far more complicated.
Christianity today is not just a religion, it’s also a cultural identity, a global movement, a massive institutional network, a political influence, and a sprawling economic ecosystem. It contains sincere discipleship movements, centuries-old traditions, humanitarian organizations, political activism, and millions of business ventures, to name a few elements. Let’s unpack this.
The Warehouse
In my upcoming book ReJesus Everything, I describe Christianity as a giant warehouse.
Picture the largest warehouse on earth — a building stretching miles in every direction. Inside are countless aisles, stacked floor to ceiling with everything associated with Christianity.
Yes, Christianity is a Family of Religions
If you walk into the section labeled Religions, you will find an astonishing number of shelves. Scholars estimate that there are roughly 47,000 distinct Christianities around the world.
Walk the aisles and you’ll pass
* Roman Catholicism
* Eastern Orthodoxy
* Greek Orthodoxy
* Ethiopian Orthodoxy
* Coptic Christianity
* Lutheranism
* Calvinism
* Methodism
* Presbyterianism
* The Mennonites
* Baptist denominations in every variety
* Pentecostalism
* non-denominational Christianity
* Prosperity gospel churches
* Liberation theology
* Christian nationalism
* Progressive Christianity
* House church movements
* Emerging church movements, and many more
Then you hit the fringe religion section (which grows every year): Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Seventh-day Adventism, Christian UFOlogy, and hundreds of radical cult groups that claim Jesus while holding beliefs most traditional Christians would flatly reject. (Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown mass suicide cults had a Christian theology as their base).
And if you keep walking, you’ll run into ancient Christian spiritual systems like Gnosticism, which portrayed Jesus as a messenger from the gods revealing a radically different version of the biblical story where the serpent is the good guy, the creator is not to be trusted, and Jesus is sent by the gods to be the one who reveals all this to us and delivers secret knowledge that helps us ascend to join the sky gods as spirit beings freed from our human shell. This group almost took over early Christianity. It’s still out there.
All of this sits inside one section of the warehouse labeled Religions where
* Every group claims the name of Jesus.
* They read the same Bible.
* All believe their understanding is correct.
Christianity as a National Identity
Christianity is more than a religion. For hundreds of millions of people, Christianity is a national and cultural identity that has nothing to do with personal faith. This is the case in Europe.
Those with a Christian cultural identity may have never prayed directly to God and only attend church for funerals and weddings. But they live in a historically Christian nation, and that makes them Christian in the same way it makes someone Iranian or Greek.
Many nations enshrine this idea in their constitutions with the naming of a state religion. The King of Great Britain is authorized to rule by the Anglican Church. This is Christianity as ethnicity and civilization.
To draw a parallel from largely agnostic modern Israel, Naor Narkis says, “What defines us (Jews) is our language, and our heritage, but doesn’t involve faith in a god.”
3.5 Million Parachurch Organizations
Then there’s the parachurch universe. According to research from Gordon-Conwell University, there are 3.5 million Christian agencies worldwide — organizations addressing everything from lack of access to the gospel, to clean water, to inclusion of LGBTQ in clergy, to homelessness, drug addiction, human trafficking, orphan care, right to life, legal reform, and political action.
It’s an industry.
It’s hard to know where to draw the line on what is and is not part of Christianity. For example, is an orphanage run by Christians part of Christianity? Sure.
How about the non-profit that runs the fundraising that runs the orphanage? Okay, that also.
How about the Christian credit card processor that serves churches and non-profits so they can receive donations? Is that Christianity?
How about the Christian investment company that oversees the retirement fund for the missionaries who run the orphanage?
How about the funds they invest in?
It’s hard to see the exact line.
Then, There’s Christianity, Inc.
There are millions of corporations and profit-driven businesses generating billions of dollars in revenue directly or indirectly attached to Christianity.
The fish sticker business alone is a blood sport.
There’s big bucks in fish stickers. Millions have been sold. It’s a contact sport. When Evolution Designs released “the Darwin fish” with feet (as a mockery of those who don’t believe in evolution), 3D Witness Enterprises responded with their Jesus fish eating the Darwin fish. Glorious.
In the United States alone, 350,000 Christian communities are legally incorporated. They own billions of dollars of real estate and receive billions in cash flow annually with very little reporting.
Add to that hundreds of universities, publishing houses, retreat centers, music labels, television networks, hospital systems, Christian law firms, sound and lights companies, church security companies, and companies making those tiny communion wafer packets that are generally impossible to open.
You want more?
* Christian safari companies in South Africa. You can do a mission trip and also bag a rhino.
* Clerical clothing manufacturers (You won’t find backward collars at Macy’s)
* Companies making hand-cranked transistor radios for underground churches.
* And of course, Chick-fil-A — which some call, “God’s fast food”. (Shout out to Chick-fil-A—how about some gift cards?)
We’ve got
* Christian T-shirt companies
* Agents handling only Christian comedians & ventriloquists
* Christian Greeting Card companies like Precious Moments
* Christian dating sites
* Christian cruises with the Gaithers, etc. etc.
There’s Christian Tourism: Branson, MO, the “Christian Las Vegas”. Entire industries revolve around pilgrimage destinations in Israel, Turkey, and other historically significant locations, with busses, tour guides, olive-wood carving companies, relic makers, anointing oil bottlers, museums, etc.
The best analogy I have is this: imagine McDonald’s with no rules. Anyone, anywhere in the world can put up the golden arches and call it McDonald’s — and they can do whatever they want inside the building. Make it a skating rink, a day spa, a hardware store, or serve food of any type. No quality control. No governing body. No one to call for permission. Anyone anywhere in the world can start any enterprise they want and attach it to the Christian cause through their branding and activities.
That’s Christianity today.
Some parts of the Christian Enterprise are sincere and beautiful. Some have gone badly off track. Some started faithfully but then unraveled as they went along, maybe at the peak of their visible success.
This is not a new problem. The church has wrestled with the tension between the institutional and the spiritual since its earliest days. But the scale of it today is genuinely unprecedented.
Humans Organize Things
Over the centuries, human beings did what human beings always do. We organized the movement. First, it was a movement, and then it was a governmentally empowered church system which spawned those trades that were attached to supporting Christian causes like builders, stone masons, weavers, candle-makers, etc. Over the past two millennia things just kept mushrooming in every direction as people got one great idea after another.
None of this was malicious. Organizing is simply how humans handle ideas they care about deeply. But over time the headless structure grew unbounded and lost its focus.
And today Christianity has long overwhelmed the boundaries of any known religion.
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My Working Definition of Christianity
So here is my honest, eyes-open definition of Christianity:
“Religion, culture, businesses, initiatives, and assorted enterprises somehow related to the story and person of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Not inspiring, I know. I’m just trying to be accurate so we can begin to discuss Christianity intelligently.
Now you might think that all this crazy human chaos is rubbish and we should all repudiate it and walk away, but here’s what’s ironic….
Astonishingly, through these ungoverned, unplanned, random, and sometimes corrupt human creations — God has done extraordinary things anyway.
Do you think I’m overstating?
I’m not just talking about small good deeds scattered around the edges of history. I mean that there’s a mystery in this mess.
Yes, mistakes have been made, and people within this enterprise have gotten a million miles off course. Yet somehow this headless enterprise has created things that fundamentally reshaped life on this planet for everyone, including people who want nothing to do with Jesus.
Here are just a few.
The concept of universal human dignity — the idea that every person, regardless of race, gender, class, or ability, bears the image of God and deserves to be treated with dignity — that is a Christian idea. It is not found in ancient Greek philosophy or Roman law. It was Christianity that first insisted that slaves were full human beings made in God’s image. It was Christianity that built the first hospitals, the first orphanages, the first universities.
The abolition of slavery in the Western world was driven overwhelmingly by Christians — William Wilberforce in England, the evangelical abolitionists in America. The civil rights movement was led by a Baptist preacher whose entire vision was drawn from the Sermon on the Mount.
Modern science was largely developed by Christians who believed that a rational God had created a rational universe that could be understood through rational inquiry. The rule of law, limited government, individual conscience — all deeply shaped by Christian thought.
Christianity is the foundation of Western civilization, which has brought two thousand years of growing prosperity to this entire planet. Every single one of us — whether we follow Jesus or have never heard of him — owe this ungoverned, messy, sometimes embarrassing enterprise called Christianity an enormous debt.
I say this after 45 years in ministry, having seen the church at its absolute best and its absolute worst. Yes, you can travel the world and find people who have been deeply, genuinely wounded in churches and Christian organizations. That is real and it matters. That’s what this podcast is about.
But you can also find millions — I mean millions — who are now free from an unbreakable bondage because of the actions of people within Christianity. They are free from addiction, rescued from trafficking. They’ve been cared for after war took everything from them. Like so many, they have found a local community that consistently held them up while they the hard work of living out their lives.
All because— somehow—our amazing Jesus does his work even through this ungoverned, imperfect enterprise. Sit with that for a moment.
That alone is a miracle.
Unlike a franchise system such as McDonald’s — where a central authority controls how each location operates — Christianity has no global governing structure, and yet….the mystery and the mess.
The Paradox
There is always this deep paradox at the heart of Christianity.
On one hand, the Christian world itself is fragmented, disorganized, and sometimes so deeply flawed and contrary to the very values of Jesus. On the other hand, through this very imperfect system, extraordinary good has somehow been accomplished.
It’s like a tile mosaic of life. The individual pieces might not actually match the project but step back from the tiny broken pieces and look at the whole mosaic created by Christianity, and something remarkable appears.
Despite its flaws, Christianity has often been a powerful force for compassion, justice, and human flourishing. I find that so amazing.
But here’s the thought I’ll leave you with today.
The early church had no buildings. No banks. No benefactors. No publishing houses. No political action committees. No fish stickers.
They had one thing: a living connection to Jesus. He held all authority. He was the magnetic north around which everything else oriented.
With that single center, a small group of fishermen and tax collectors spread a faith across the entire Roman Empire within 300 years.
The power was not in the complexity of their enterprise. The power was in the centrality of Jesus, which may be the most important lesson for the modern church.
That’s the only way forward. And that’s exactly what ReJesus Everything is about. That is the challenge before us today:
If the first Christians turned the world upside down with nothing but a living connection to Jesus, what might happen if the modern church found its way back to that center again?
Here’s our discussion question for today:
“The early church had no buildings, banks, or institutions — just a living connection to Jesus — and turned the world upside down.
What do you think the modern church would have to give up to get back to that kind of center?”
Drop your answer in the comments. I read every one, and I’d love to hear your story.
Thanks for joining me on Grounded. Let’s ReJesus Everything!
Send me your questions and I’ll respond.
The Next Episode
Which brings us to the question that this whole season is building toward: Did Jesus establish Christianity? And can it be saved?
I’m going to tackle that question fully in the next episode.
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Well, we are almost ten episodes into season two of the Grounded Podcast. By now I’ve been getting a lot of questions, both privately and in the comments sections. I wanted to take time and have a special episode in which to respond to two or three questions.
Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
One of our main objectives is to create a context for a healthy discussion about where we’re at as Christian people and how we can take our movement into greater alignment with Jesus. An aligned church is a healthy church, and that’s what we all want. I hope you enjoy this episode. Please share it with your friends.
Please send me your comments and questions. I really want to know what you’re thinking about and how I could be helpful to you in your own journey with Jesus.
Thanks again for everything, and thanks to all of you who have converted from free members to paid members. You are helping fuel this initiative, and we thank you deeply. If anyone wants to know more about Emerge Missions, you can check our website at emergemissions.org.
Every Blessing,
Chuck & Sherry
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Writer’s note:
As I mentioned last time, the newsletter version of this podcast will no longer be a straight transcript. I will summarize it in about a thousand words for those who prefer to read. There’s a lot more content in the video, so I hope you’ll enjoy that version also.
We are gaining traction, but we still have not broken the thousand subscriber mark, so please share this episode with your friends to help us reach a broader audience. Thanks!!!
From Lord to logo
When I was a child growing up in Georgia (the state, not the country), our family had a Bible that sat on the coffee table more as symbol than book. It was a way of declaring that we were a Christian family. On the cover was a romanticized painting of Jesus — The colors were muted and earth tone. Jesus was tanned, lovely, serene, and glowing with golden light.
If I had grown up in Africa, the cover would have shown a different Jesus. Latin America or China, yet another. Jesus, you see, is customizable in Christianity.
The problem is so extreme that a few years ago, MacLean’s magazine ran a cover story showing a traditional image of Christ surrounded by labels ranging from “revolutionary” to “”a mad priest” to vengeful prophet” to “ordinary guy.” (These are the various ways different forms of Christianity and scholarly coverage characterize Jesus.) The headline declared, “Jesus has an identity crisis.”
That headline captures something real. Because across 2,000 years of Christian history, in every culture and every century, the very person of Jesus has been edited so he will match our cultural expectation.
A History of Customization
After Emperor Constantine converted in 312 AD and the Roman church stepped into the power vacuum left by a crumbling empire, Jesus appeared in paintings wearing ecclesiastical robes, his hand raised in the pose of priestly benediction. He was the divine endorser of hierarchy — the one whose authority legitimized bishops, kings, and popes. That Jesus served the system. He didn’t challenge it.
During the colonial era, Jesus was presented to enslaved Africans as the one who taught, “Slaves, obey your masters.” But something remarkable happened: when those same enslaved people learned to read the Gospels for themselves, they found a completely different Jesus. They found the brown liberator, the fulfillment of the Exodus story, the one who came to set captives free. Same Gospels. Same person. Two opposite Jesuses — because each group encountered him through the lens of what they desperately needed him to be.
In Latin America, Jesus became the face of Communist liberation theology in some places and a pro-establishment, anti-communist figure in others — sometimes within the same country.
In America, he’s been recruited by both political parties. For one side, he’s pro-military, anti-abortion and anti-tax. For the other, he’s woke, empathetic, pro-environment, and pro-immigration. How can the same person endorse completely contradictory agendas?
Honestly, he can’t. But a logo can. Somewhere along the way, in culture after culture, Jesus as become more logo than Lord.
A Lineup of Compromised Customized Christs
Every version of Jesus that Christianity has produced contains something real, a genuine aspect of who he is. That’s what makes each one so convincing. The problem isn’t that people found something true about him. The problem is that they stopped there, and in stopping there, lost the rest of him.
Prosperity Jesus is wealthy and wants you to be wealthy too. He preaches abundant life and his most devoted representatives fly private jets to demonstrate the blessings available to the faithful. Is it true that Jesus cares about our wellbeing? Yes. Does he promise abundant life? He does. But the abundant life he describes in the Gospels looks nothing like a private jet. It looks like a cross. That part gets quietly left out.
Warrior Jesus is fierce and powerful, commanding authority over darkness and promising socioeconomic victory to those who follow him. Jesus is the one who will fight the devil so you can rise in society. Is it true that Jesus has authority over evil? Absolutely, but Jesus used his power to deliver others, not just to win a position on the top of the pile for himself.
Friendly Neighbor Jesus wears jeans and a hoodie and drops by with golden nuggets of wisdom to make your week a little better. He’s warm, encouraging, and never says anything uncomfortable for more than thirty seconds. Is it true that Jesus is approachable? Yes — children ran to him. But this is also the man who took a whip to the bankers and kicked their tables over in the temple yard. That part tends to get softened.
Therapeutic Jesus is your personal life coach and heavenly encourager. He meets you right where you are and never asks you to go anywhere else. He validates your feelings, affirms your worth, and ensures you leave every encounter feeling good. Is it true that Jesus heals and restores? Deeply. But Bible Jesus also said, “Forgive everyone for everything they’ve ever done to you. Move on past it and start obeying God.” Emotional healing was never the destination, just a step along the way to being strong and mature. The Bible’s Jesus makes us grow up.
Political Jesus is as liberal or conservative as the situation demands. He endorses whatever power structure invites him in. Is it true that Jesus has something to say about justice and governmental power? Profoundly. But the Jesus of the Gospels made both sides of the political aisle deeply uncomfortable. He still does — when we actually let him.
That we dare to edit the very person of Jesus in these ways is an indication of how little authority we truly give Christ over our cultures, our nations, and our local versions of Christianity.
What We Lose When We Edit Jesus
The problem with these customized Christs is that they are, in their own way, much more comfortable than the real one. OK, comfort is not nothing. We all need a Jesus who meets us in our exhaustion and fear and pain. But when we edit him down to only the comfortable parts we lose the sharp edge of God that shapes us into everything we were made to become.
Jesus is Our Sculptor—let him cut
A sculptor doesn’t just caress the marble — he cuts it. He removes what doesn’t belong. He works against the resistance of the stone to reveal the form hidden inside all along. The cutting isn’t cruelty. It’s the whole point. Without it, there is no way for the hidden destiny of the statue to rise forth. Otherwise, a block of marble that never becomes what it was meant to be.
Jesus is Our Husbandman—let him prune us
Jesus described the Father as a vine dresser who prunes the branches — not to harm them, but so they bear more fruit. He said he came to earth to start a refiner’s fire. He’s the Word of God and the Bible says that the word of God is sharper than a double-edged sword, penetrating to the division of soul and spirit.
The true Jesus of the Gospels is not a Jesus who exists just to make us feel better about ourselves. He is a Jesus who loves us too much to leave us as broken as we are. He is bringing “many sons and daughters to glory.” Moving from glory to glory is exhilarating but it’s a strenuous, challenging, paradigm-smashing process too. The heart of the gospel is the premise of change.
A Jesus we have edited cannot edit us.
And that is the real cost of the Malleable Messiah — not just theological inaccuracy, but forfeiting our transformation and the chance to fulfill our purpose in life.
Back to the Source: The Jesus of the Gospels
The real Jesus has the integrity to challenge us. He’s tender enough to receive and heal us, and powerful enough to transform us. You will find him in original form in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I made a decision during our time in the Philippines that I would study and preach from the Gospels alone for 10 years. This decision was one of the most important things to ever happen in my life as a disciple. I encourage you to also follow this practice. Master Jesuses’ words.
I determined to build my core doctrine upon his words alone and to let him explain himself and not make his words fit into some other doctrine that just needed his endorsement. “Jesus is Lord” was the core doctrine of the New Testament church and I want it to be that way in my life also.
The real Jesus will make you do things you don’t want to do. He will call you out on your selfishness and need for the approval of others. He’ll call for you to go the extra mile, give away your stuff, sacrifice for others and do good works in secret. But in doing this he will also offer you himself and the extraordinary possibility of becoming, through his forceful shaping work, the person you were born to be.
And that is worth everything.
Let’s ReJesus everything this year!
Every Blessing,
Chuck
PS: Thanks again for all those who converted from free to paid memberships. Your support helps us continue this ministry. We’re grateful!
Discussion Question:
Which customized Christ hits closest to home? Prosperity Jesus, Warrior Jesus, Friendly Neighbor Jesus, Therapeutic Jesus, Political Jesus — which version have you been most tempted to settle for, and why is it so appealing?
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So, someone comes to me — usually a young person, and they say, “I’m confused. I’ve been reading the Bible seriously, and I’m getting completely different answers depending on who I ask. My church says one thing. My friend’s church says the opposite. I found a theologian online who says something else entirely. And they’re all quoting Scripture. How is that possible?”
My answer is always the same: “Welcome to Christianity.” Christians disagree on almost everything that matters. And they don’t disagree quietly.
The Bible Battlefield
Let’s run through the list.
Salvation — are you saved by faith alone, or does obedience matter? Can you lose your salvation? Is it available to everyone, or only those God predestined?
Baptism — infant or adult? Immersion, sprinkling, or pouring? Does it save you, or is it just a symbol?
The role of women — can they preach, pastor, teach men, serve as elders?
Politics — is Jesus conservative or progressive? Should the church be involved at all?
The nature of Scripture — is every word literally and historically accurate? How do we handle the parts of the Old Testament that seem morally troubling?
The mission of the church — is it to save souls, transform society, care for the poor, make disciples, or plant more churches?
On every single one of these questions, sincere, Bible-believing Christians who love Jesus and take scripture seriously arrive at completely opposite conclusions. They fight about it. They split churches over it. They declare each other heretics over it. Throughout history, people have literally died over it — tens of thousands of lives lost in the name of theological conviction.
This is doctrinal chaos, theological anarchy. And it didn’t happen by accident.
Jesus Doesn’t Divide Us
After 45 years in ministry, I’ve come to a conclusion that the doctrines that divide us do so because they are built on the work of theologians other than Christ himself. Practically nobody argues about what Jesus meant with his words.
The issues that have fractured Christianity into 47,000 denominations: predestination, free will, baptism, the role of women, the proper church governance system, etc. are not primarily arguments about what Jesus said.
They’re arguments about what Paul said, what Augustine concluded, what Calvin systematized, what Luther insisted. These are brilliant men. Serious men. Men who loved God and gave their best efforts to understanding him. But they are not Jesus.
Jesus spoke in what you might call bumper stickers. “Follow me.” “Love your enemies.” “Seek first the kingdom of God.” “The greatest among you will be your servant.”
Christ made no effort to create neat theological packages tying together everything about life and God. He didn’t produce a systematic theology. He didn’t deliver a creed to memorize or five pillars to observe though he was clearly competent to do so.
He gave us a life to follow.
Jesus Was Not a Theologian — On Purpose
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were professional theologians. The Pharisees and Sadducees were deeply divided in their theological positions, and they constantly tried to bait Jesus into their endless sparring — about the law, about divorce, about Roman authority, about resurrection. They wanted him to pick a side.
Which side did Jesus join? He refused. His only concern with their disputes seemed to be showing them how foolish it was to spend their energy warring over words while neglecting their personal actions and their walk with God. He wasn’t interested in the debate. He was interested in alignment with God.
Jesus understood something that centuries of theologians have worked hard to obscure: human beings don’t need more correct thinking. They need a different way of living.
The ways and teachings of Jesus are primarily concerned with human actions, not human thinking — because human actions are the cause of everything beautiful and horrible on earth. We are our planet’s greatest problem. We are also its only hope.
Becoming a Child.
Consider how children learn. They don’t learn to walk by reading biomechanics textbooks. They don’t learn to love by studying psychology. They learn by watching. By imitating. By following. Jesus trained his disciples exactly the same way — not with a systematic theology, but with a life. “Come and see.” “Follow me.” He showed them how to pray, how to serve, how to forgive, how to face opposition, how to die. Then he said, “Go and do likewise.”
That’s the entire curriculum. Follow the Father’s ways every day. As Jesus put it: “I only do whatever I see the Father doing.”
Three People Paying the Price
When a faith fractures into doctrinal chaos, real people get hurt. Three kinds in particular.
The first is the confused believer — the person who genuinely wants to follow Jesus but can’t figure out which version of Christianity is correct. They’ve read the Bible. They’ve sat under teachers. They’ve attended different churches. And they’re more confused than when they started. They don’t know what to believe or who to trust. They’re exhausted by the contradictions. Some give up entirely — not because they’ve rejected Jesus, but because they can’t navigate the theological maze his followers have built around him.
The second is the tribal warrior — the person who has chosen a theological camp and now spends their energy defending it against all comers. They’ve confused their tribe’s doctrines with the gospel itself. They’ve made secondary issues into primary ones. They’ve decided that anyone who disagrees with their theological system is either ignorant or apostate (probably apostate). They win their arguments and lose their relationships with other Christians, with seekers, and with the manner Jesus himself manifested toward those sincerely seeking to do right with God.
The third is the seeker who walks away. They were drawn to Jesus — his life, his teachings, his character. But when they looked at the church, they saw a thousand contradictory imitations of him. They heard Christians fighting bitterly over issues that seemed to have nothing to do with love, grace, or transformation. And they concluded that Christianity wasn’t worth their time. They walk away from the chaos surrounding him — and miss a chance to know him. That’s the greatest tragedy of all.
All three casualties share the same root cause: a faith built on the work of theologians rather than the words of Jesus.
The 40,000 Words
The Bible contains 783,137 words. Only 40,000 of them were spoken by Jesus himself.
Those 40,000 words are the foundation for everything that matters — the way he came to establish, the community he founded, the path away from sin and into the kingdom of God. No other human being has access to greater revelation than Jesus possessed as the Word of God in flesh. The apostles’ words are valuable — deeply so — but they are supplementary to his, not alternatives equal to or surpassing his own.
The solution to doctrinal chaos is not more theology. It is less theology and more Jesus.
When Christ’s words, his practices, and his example become the standard against which everything else is measured, the chaos begins to quiet. Not because all questions are answered, but because the right questions are finally being asked.
Not “What did Calvin say?” but “What did Jesus say?”
Not “What does John Piper teach?” but “What did Jesus teach?”
Not “What do Catholics believe?” but “What did Jesus believe and how did he live?”
The divisions that have splintered Christianity for centuries were not inevitable. They are the predictable result of building a faith on secondary voices while treating the primary voice as one among many. We elevated the commentators above the author.
Jesus didn’t say “Study this system.” He didn’t say “Master this theology.” He said two words that contain everything:
Follow me.
That’s still the way out.
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For Discussion
The 40,000 words. If you committed to building your core theology on that which is clearly taught by Jesus Christ alone in the Gospels, the book of Acts, and the Revelation (this is where all the red letter quotations in the Bible come from)…What's one belief or practice in your current faith life that might need a second look?
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Writer’s Note: Starting with this episode, the newsletter version will be a summary of the video, not a transcript. There’s lots more in the video. Feel free to listen to it at 1.5 speed if your time is short. (That’s what I always do with podcasts.) Please help us grow this podcast. The crisis facing our faith is a crucial issue, and we’ve got to build a better church going forward.
The Everything Religion: Christianity’s Crisis of No Center
Imagine walking into a restaurant and being handed a 200-page menu with 847-items — breakfast, sushi, tacos, French cuisine, barbecue, Moroccan, African, and Chinese cuisine. Maybe you’d love it, or maybe you’d turn around and walk out.
A kitchen that tries to make everything usually does nothing well. There’s no identity, no specialty, no standard of excellence. Just an overwhelming array of options designed to keep everyone happy. Would you trust it? Probably not.
That’s what Christianity has become.
It is the world’s largest spiritual buffet. Walk in and take whatever you like — grace without repentance, heaven without hell, Jesus without the cross, community without commitment. You can construct a Jesus who endorses your politics, blesses your lifestyle, and never once asks you to change. And nobody, anywhere, is in charge of the kitchen.
A City Without a Government
In my book, ReJesusEverything which is coming out in about a month, I describe Christianity this way: if Christianity were a city, it would be Tokyo.
If you’ve ever been to Tokyo, you know it’s overwhelming. It’s the largest metropolitan area on the planet — 40 million people. Ancient Shinto temples sit in the shadows of glass skyscrapers. Buddhist monks in robes walk past businessmen in suits. Robots clean floors while women serve tea in traditional kimonos. It’s simultaneously ancient and futuristic, orderly and chaotic, beautiful and bewildering.
Christianity is like that.
Christianity holds one-third of all humans on earth. It’s richer in money and history than most nations. Long ago it overwhelmed the boundaries of being a religion and became something else entirely — a global enterprise, a civilization, a culture, a political force, a business ecosystem.
But here’s the critical difference: Tokyo has a government. Christianity doesn’t.
Tokyo has a mayor, a city council, laws, courts, and enforcement mechanisms. When disputes arise, there is a system to resolve them. Christianity has none of that. There is no global authority. No universal council. No mechanism to resolve disputes or enforce standards. And the result is that Christianity has become whatever anyone wants it to be.
Whatever You Practice Is a Minority Position
Here’s something that may surprise you: whatever version of Christianity you practice is followed by no more than 25% of the world’s 2.4 billion Christians.
Think about that. If you’re a Pentecostal, your understanding of baptism, salvation, church governance, and spiritual gifts is shared by a small minority of global Christians. The same is true if you’re Catholic, Baptist, Reformed, Eastern Orthodox, or Non-denominational. There is no majority position. There is no standard version.
Simply said, there are many Christian faiths — all using the same name, all claiming the same founder, all reading the same Bible — and all arriving at dramatically different conclusions. Christianity today encompasses every denomination you can name, plus seventh-day Adventism, Universalism, Christian Science, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and dozens of other groups that claim the name of Jesus while holding beliefs traditional Christianity would consider heretical.
Is Jesus the chairman of the board of all of this? Honestly, no. He’s the logo on the letterhead, but he’s not running the organization — because there is no organization. There aren’t two or three Christianities. There are 47,000, and they contradict each other in doctrine and lifestyle, even on foundational questions like: how does a person come into a right relationship with God?
The Buffet Problem
The buffet metaphor cuts deeper than it first appears. A buffet feels like freedom. It feels like you’re being respected, like your preferences matter, like you’re not being forced into a box. But what it actually produces is a faith with no spine.
A Christianity constructed from a buffet line can’t challenge you, because you’ve already pre-selected everything that confirms what you already believe. It gives you a Jesus who endorses your existing lifestyle rather than calling you into transformation.
The Apostle Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would not endure sound teaching, but would accumulate teachers to suit their own passions and turn away from truth. That time has arrived. Most people standing in the buffet line don’t realize what they’re doing. They think they’re being discerning. They think they’re following their conscience. But they are actually constructing a customized religion that costs nothing and demands nothing — and therefore produces nothing.
The Symptoms Are Everywhere
When I was a kid the churches we attended were normal except for one curious item. In these simple, humble buildings, filled with working-class people hungry for God — one thing was nearly universal: the pastor’s chair. Not just any chair. A throne. Velvet fabric. Elevated on the platform. No one else permitted to sit in it. Who thought this up? I never knew, but they were pretty much universal.
Spend one hour reading the Gospels and you know Jesus would have hurled those chairs out of the building. He spent his ministry turning upside down every system that elevated the powerful over the humble, especially within Judaism. And yet the chairs were everywhere, unchallenged, for decades — because there was no center to measure them against.
The chairs eventually got moved when churches built massive performance stages and the thrones no longer fit the aesthetic. But it shouldn’t have taken a stage redesign. It should have taken Jesus.
The Way Back
The early church had a simple doctrine: Jesus is Lord. That was enough. Everything else had to fit inside that one conviction. Jesus held all authority. His word was final. That was the center, and everything else orbited around it.
We’ve lost that center. And without it, we have no compass, no magnetic north, no authoritative voice to settle disputes or call us back when we drift.
The way forward is not finding the right denomination, the right pastor, or the right theological system. The way forward is returning to the source — to the Jesus of the Gospels, to his own words, his actual practice, his mission.
Hitting the Bullseye
Think of it as a bullseye. Jesus at the center. Everything else — traditions, theologies, denominations — existing in concentric circles around that center. They have value. They carry wisdom. But they are never the center.
When Jesus is the center, you have your magnetic north. You have a standard against which everything else can be measured. You have an authority that can speak into the noise and be heard.
After 45 years in ministry, one thing has become clear: the doctrines that divide Christians almost always divide because they are built on the work of theologians other than Christ himself. Practically nobody argues about what Jesus actually said.
That’s worth sitting with.
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Not to the thousand opinions. Not to the buffet. Not to the theological systems built by brilliant men who died 500 years ago.
To him. That’s the only way out of the Everything Religion.
Let’s ReJesus Everything!
Every Blessing,
Chuck
Here is the discussion question for the week.
“In this episode, I pointed out that whatever Christianity you follow, it’s a minority position, held by no more than 25% of Christians. How does that change — or not change — your confidence in what you believe knowing that three out of four sincere Christians globally see things differently and are just as certain they are correct?”
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What’s in this Newsletter:Christianity is fracturing under the weight of 40,000 denominations, burned-out leaders, and mass exodus — and most diagnoses focus on the symptoms while missing the root cause. In this episode, I’ll make the case that the real crisis is a stolen microphone: Jesus, the founder and only true authority of the faith, has been systematically subordinated by 2,000 years of brilliant but competing voices. If you've ever sensed that something is deeply off in modern Christianity but couldn't name it, this episode will give you the diagnosis — and point toward the only cure.
There’s a moment in the Gospels that should settle forever the position Jesus should have in our lives.
Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration, radiating the glory of God. Moses and Elijah appear beside Him. And Peter—good old Peter—starts nervously yammering about building shrines for these holy men, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing.
And then the Father interrupts. A voice from heaven shouts:
“This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”
Not “Listen to Moses.” Not “Listen to Elijah.” Not “Listen to the prophets” or “Listen to the religious leaders.”
“Listen to Him.” To Jesus. Alone.
But here’s what’s happened over the last 2,000 years: we’ve stopped listening to Him alone. We’ve added other voices. Lots of other voices. Important voices. Brilliant voices. Voices that have shaped Christianity for centuries.
The Apostles. Paul. The Church Fathers. Medieval theologians. The Reformers. Denominational founders. Celebrity pastors. Theologians. Authors. Podcasters. And in listening to all that noise, Jesus has been reduced from THE voice to ONE voice among many.
He’s become an elective rather than the core curriculum. A consultant rather than the CEO. One opinion among thousands.
And that’s the root of our crisis.
Today, we’re beginning Act II: The Noise. My goal is that we will start paying attention to the noise. We will notice the noise and decide to silence it. We start here: with how Jesus went from being the singular teaching authority to being subordinated by a chorus of competing voices.
Jesus has been subordinated. Despite all of our songs and nice words about him, he’s no longer the central authority of Christianity. He’s one voice among many. And when there are multiple voices claiming authority, you get chaos which leads to fracturing. Today we have 40,000 versions of Christianity.
Let’s trace how this happened.
In the Beginning, There Was One Voice
When Jesus walked the earth, there was no confusion about who had authority.
Jesus spoke, and people listened. He didn’t quote other rabbis to establish His credibility. He didn’t build elaborate theological systems. He didn’t defer to the religious authorities of His day.
He simply said, “You have heard it said... but I say to you.” That phrase—”but I say to you”—was revolutionary. It was scandalous. Because Jesus was claiming authority above all other voices, an authority that belonged to God alone.
The religious leaders noticed this. They said, “Who does this man think he is? By what authority does he say these things?” And Jesus’ answer was clear: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Not some authority. Not shared authority. All authority.
When Jesus taught, He spoke with clarity and simplicity:
- “Follow me.”
- “Love your enemies.”
- “Seek first the kingdom of God.”
- “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
- “If you love me, you will obey my commands.”
There was no theological maze. No complex systematized theology. No endless debates about predestination or free will or the role of women, or the nature of the atonement. Just Jesus. One voice. Clear. Authoritative. Uncluttered.
His sheep hear His voice. And for a brief moment in history, that’s all there was:
* Jesus and His disciples.
* The Teacher and His students.
* The Shepherd and His sheep.
But then Jesus ascended.
And other voices began to speak.
The first of the new voices belong to the Apostles. Peter, James, John, and others were personally trained and discipled by Jesus himself for almost four years. He empowered them to extend the movement that he had founded so we expect and deeply need their voices. Jesus was a speaker, not a writer, so it was left to the apostles to record his words for us in the gospels and Acts. (Imagine what Christianity might be today if we had absolutely no written records of the life of Jesus!)
After Jesus ascended, the apostles took on the role of spreading His message. And they were crystal clear about their secondary role. They were disciples of Jesus, not His colleagues. They traveled around repeating Jesus’ words, describing His practices and lifestyle, and calling people to repent and follow Him as Earth’s rightful King.
As the faith spread, their role included sharing what they felt Jesus’ position would be on contemporary issues. But here’s the key: they weren’t unquestionable in these judgments. Their reliability depended on how much they could push aside their biases and cultural expectations and apply what they knew of Jesus’ heart to the matters before them.
To an apostle, Jesus was the hermeneutic.
You use the totality of Him to interpret everything’s meaning and find the way forward. You see this in Acts when the apostles gather to discuss under what conditions Gentiles could enter the community. They have differences of opinion on this. They debate. They pray. They seek to discern what Jesus would say about this matter. You see this also in the writings of Paul, John, Peter, Jude, and Hebrews. They did their best to apply Jesus’ teachings, lifestyle, and stated mission to the ongoing experience of the discipleship community as it spread culture to culture.
The Bible contains 783,137 words. We have poems, letters, historical accounts, and tons and tons of stories written by over 40 different authors. It’s an anthology of sacred literature that took over 2,000 years to come together. But of all these words, 40,000 are words spoken by Jesus Himself.
If he is the word of God in the flesh, those 40,000 words are the foundation for all core knowledge about the new Kingdom of God. In these words Jesus reveals what he has come to establish, the community He is building, and the one true path that will take us away from sin and Satan into family of God.
No other human has a path to greater revelation than Jesus possessed as the Word of God in flesh. Even the apostles’ words must be seen as commentary supplementary to His, not as alternative ways of thinking equal to or superior to His own.
The Mighty Voice of Paul
Paul of Tarsus, unlike the others, was not personally discipled by Jesus. In fact, he never met him, physically. Never heard him teach. Never saw him do miracles or debate the scholars. He had a mystical encounter with him and had access to the living apostles for many, many years to hear their first-hand accounts.
Ironically, though he did not know Jesus while he walked the earth, Paul has, by far, greater influence over today’s Christianity than any of the original apostles simply because he was a prolific writer.
Had Paul never picked up a pen, we would have a radically different Christianity today.
Paul’s voice lives on because while others taught in person, he used his times in prison to put his thoughts in writing. And writing wins over speaking in the battle against time.
The books in the Bible I wish we had
I thank God for all that Paul has written, and I have studied his letters all my Christian life. I really wish the apostles had written more. I wish we had an eyewitness recording of what Jesus taught them in the six weeks after His resurrection. Maybe all of this once existed but has been lost to us through time. We have the Bible we have.
It’s a miracle that we have the Bible at all. We should all cherish the privilege of owning one for ourselves and reading it any time we want. Only in the last two hundred years have Christians had this ability.
After the apostles and their contemporaries (Paul and whoever wrote Hebrews) died, the next generation of Christian leaders began to interpret and systematize the faith. And with each generation, more voices were added. That’s where things got complicated.
The “Church Fathers”
First there’s a group we call The Church Fathers (100-500 AD) Men like Augustine, Origen, Jerome, and Athanasius wrote extensively about theology, doctrine, and practice. Their writings became foundational for later Christian thought about things like the nature of the Incarnation.
These were brilliant men, deeply committed to Christ. But they also brought their own philosophical frameworks, cultural assumptions, and personal biases. Augustine’s theology was shaped by his background in Neoplatonism. Origen’s was influenced by Greek philosophy.
And their voices began to shape how Christians understood Jesus—sometimes clarifying, sometimes obscuring.
The Medieval Theologians
After the fathers came the medieval theologians (500-1500 AD)—Thomas Aquinas, Anselm—who built massive theological systems. They asked questions Jesus never asked and gave answers Jesus never gave. They debated the nature of the atonement, the mechanics of salvation, the relationship between faith and works, the role of the sacraments. They created elaborate doctrines that required years of study to understand. More and more, Jesus’ simple, clear voice became buried under layers of theological complexity.
The Reformers
Then came the Reformation. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and others challenged the corruption of the Catholic Church. They were heroes in many ways—calling the church back to Scripture, to grace, to faith. But they also created new complex theological systems. Calvin’s five points. Luther’s doctrine of justification. The Westminster Confession. The Augsburg Confession.
Protestant theology was largely built on the writings of Saint Paul, not the words of Jesus in the gospels. Reformed theology is built on the concept of “determinism,” the idea that God largely controls the actions of humans as part of his mysterious sovereign plan. We just act out what God has already predetermined. Even our eternity in heaven or hell was already decided (according to this system) before the world was even formed.
Reformed theology mutes the microphone of Jesus.
This theology has a problem with Jesus when He holds the microphone. His words mess up the meticulous theological package the Reformers packaged in the 1500s. They’d rather let Martin Luther and John Calvin explain Paul explaining Jesus.
They need to mute Jesus’ speeches, because if you confine yourself to His direct words, He won’t allow anyone to build theology where humans have no true freedom of choice. Jesus’ direct words won’t give you unconditional election, limited atonement, or irresistible grace. Those doctrines come from other sources (notably Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin).
They say it’s easy to “misunderstand Jesus” when He declares that you have capacity and responsibility to choose to follow God. Jesus says that your actions, not your doctrinal beliefs or sovereign election, will be weighed in judgment before God. James, who grew up in the same household with Jesus, repeats this emphasis on actions with great conviction—leading Luther to call his part of the Bible “an epistle of straw” and wish he could delete it.
For the Reformed, Paul, not Jesus, is Christianity’s best thinker. I think Paul would be aghast. He wrote in Philippians, “For me, to live is Christ.” It’s completely unacceptable that Jesus isn’t the central teacher of His own disciples.
The modern Christian scene.
But it gets even worse in the modern era. After, and perhaps because of the multiplication of “authoritative voices” in the Reformation, Christianity splintered into thousands of denominations. Each one claimed to have the right interpretation of Scripture. Each one claimed to be following Jesus. But they all said different things.
The power of the written word, again.
We’re back again to the power of writing. The printing press changed everything. Suddenly, anyone could publish their theological ideas. Books multiplied. Pamphlets spread. Sermons were printed and distributed. And with each new voice, the noise grew louder.
Cult group leaders
Then came the cult leaders—Joseph Smith and the Mormons, Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science, and countless others. Each one claimed new revelation. Each one claimed authority. Each one said, “Jesus is important, but you also need to listen to me.”
Today, we have over 40,000 Christian denominations worldwide. Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Reformed, Wesleyan, Anabaptist, Non-denominational—the list goes on and on. And each one has its own doctrines, practices, and interpretations. Each one claims to be following the Bible. But they can’t agree on what it says.
So let me ask you a question as a thinking person. How central should the words of Jesus be for those who would be His disciples? Did He just come to die and rise again, leaving theological development to each generation of Christians? Or does Jesus have a unique authority over us as our teacher?
An example of modern theological logic
Ask a question like, “Can a Christian divorce their partner?” You’ll likely hear, “Well, Christ says not, but Paul says...” Wait. Stop right there. “Christ says not, but Paul says...” Do you not hear what’s happening in that sentence? Jesus is being subordinated. His words are being treated as negotiable, as one opinion among others.
Here’s the core crisis we’re facing: Jesus has been reduced from THE voice to ONE voice among many.
The doctrinal maze we find ourselves trapped in arises from the continued practice of allowing our focus to diffuse by elevating the thoughts of the many great thinkers among us—which relegates the voice of the one called the Word of God to being just one voice among many. We have libraries filled with 2,000 years of doctrinal contributions from each generation of Christians.
The founder’s voice has been drowned out. And if we’re ever going to reconstruct a faith that can sustain us, we have to restore that one voice—the direct words of Jesus alone.
Recap
We’ve identified the first source of our Noise problem: the noise of multiple voices. Multiple voices have subordinated Jesus. He’s gone from being THE authority to being ONE authority among many. The Apostles voices. The Church Fathers voices. Medieval theologians. Reformers. Modern denominations. Cult leaders with new revelation. So many words. All considered binding on the people. And somewhere in all that noise, Jesus’ own clear, simple, authoritative voice has been drowned out.
The Christian Buffet
So today, we have no central authority to resolve theological disputes. Christianity has become a buffet where everyone picks and chooses what they like, discarding what makes them uncomfortable.
What’s coming up in our next episode?
In our next episode, we’re going to explore the carnival-like noise of “Christianity—the Everything Religion.” We’ll see what happens when there’s no center, no magnetic north, no authoritative voice that can provide direction. Because when Jesus isn’t the center, Christianity becomes whatever we want it to be—and in doing so becomes nothing at all.
Here’s our discussion question for this episode:
When you have a question about the Bible, faith, or theology, whose voice do you turn to first—-Google? John Piper? A Podcaster? ChatGPT? Jesus, Paul, your pastor, or someone else? And why?
Drop your answer in the comments. I read every single one, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Until next time, I’m Chuck Quinley. Thanks for joining me! Let’s get grounded.
PS: thanks so much to those of you who forwarded the last episode to your friends. I’m hearing from some of those people about how timely, this topic is for them and their life. Thanks for joining me in this ministry in God’s Word!
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There’s a reason heroes always pay a price.
They have convictions. It is the primary thing that sets them apart. All heroes, in order to be heroes, have to have convictions they’re willing to sacrifice and maybe even to die for.
To have convictions is one of the highest and most noble things a human can do. It is evidence that we are not just animals, but that we are indeed made in the image of God Himself. We do moral reasoning, not just answering a question about which thing is more efficient or which thing gets us the better result, but which thing is right.
Convictions acknowledge that we find ourselves not just in a physical universe but a world made by a righteous God who has given us a conscience that perceives our existence in moral and ethical terms as well.
It is the highest and most godlike level of our existence. We sit enthroned as the lord of our own value system, Master of our actions, controller of our own free will thinking about what we believe and what we don’t believe, and what we are going to allow ourselves to do and what we must never do.
The meaning of the word “Conviction.”
The word comes from the Latin convincere—”to overcome, to prove wrong, to conquer.” There’s something inherently victorious about a conviction. A conviction isn’t just a belief you hold casually; it’s a belief that has conquered your doubts, that has overcome alternatives. You arrive at convictions through some kind of inner struggle—a contest— and those convictions emerge triumphant. It’s beautiful.
To have convictions is both a privilege and a burden. It’s a privilege because its completely up to you and me to have convictions or not. It’s our choice. If we choose to have convictions, we are blessed with drive, meaning, purpose, and direction.
Today we’re talking about the privilege and the burden of having convictions. We’re going to talk about what it means to have convictions in a world that doesn’t want you to. We’ll explore why conviction is both a gift and a cost. And we’ll ask the question: Is it worth it?
Recap
If you missed the past three newsletters, we’ve been exploring the pain at the heart of the current faith crisis:
- Episode 1: The quiet exodus—40 million Americans leaving the church
- Episode 2: The paradox—being drawn to Jesus while repelled by Christianity
- Episode 3: The slow erosion of energy—ministry burnout and exhaustion
With this newsletter, we’re completing Act I: The Pain by talking about the privilege and pain of having convictions.
It’s important in our discussion because—if you’re questioning, deconstructing, reconstructing, searching for authentic faith—it’s, hopefully, because you have convictions. You believe something deeply. You’re not willing to settle for a version of Christianity that doesn’t align with Jesus. You’re not willing to just go along with the crowd. And that conviction is both a gift and a burden, it is privilege and it is pain. So let’s talk about it.
Here’s what I’ve learned over four decades of ministry: the only people who bring change are the people who have convictions and are willing to pay the price for them.
The Legacy of Convictions
We honor Martin Luther King Jr today because he had convictions about justice and equality and he was willing to sacrifice for these convictions. Mother Teresa had convictions about the level at which we are called to serve the poor and she was willing to endure the tension her proposals created with the catholic hierarchy. William Tyndale had a conviction that every human has a right to read the Bible in their language. It cost him his life.
What’s the difference in a conviction and an opinion?
A conviction is not the same as an opinion. An opinion is something flexible—you can and should change your opinion as you get new information. A conviction is your inner foundation, a core belief, a value.
Convictions are the non-negotiable. They’re the hills you’re willing to die on. They’re the truths you won’t compromise, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it costs you something. So why is having convictions a privilege?
What convictions give us:
1. Meaning
Key to having a life of meaning and purpose is knowing the reason for your existence. You cannot know your purpose until you know your “Why?” and then live by it. This is the only way to a life that has meaning and purpose. So if you are floundering in your life. This is where you start. Find your central convictions. They give us our center so we can focus our energies and build our life around them.
We find our purpose in that for which we are willing to sacrifice ourselves.
Knowing our convictions and then following up by sacrificing our short life for them gives us the spine of our life. Without convictions, we may survive, but we don’t really live as a human. We just react as the animals do, moving from impulse to impulse, avoiding pressure, seeking comfort.
Our life can’t have a spine without convictions. They let us live toward something that demands something of us. We invest our energies and burn our days toward these ends. At the end of our life, our convictions, if we live them out, will define us and create the message we leave behind with our life.
When you believe something deeply, your life has purpose. You’re not just drifting through life, reacting to circumstances. You’re living intentionally, guided by principles that matter to you. You are choosing. You are driving your life according to a higher set of noble principles. You are reflecting the nobility that God has given to mankind. You are living as the image of God. Your convictions give you a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to keep going when things get hard.
2. Direction
Convictions are our life’s compass. When you’re faced with a decision, your convictions help you know which way to go. Should I take this job? Should I stay in this relationship? Should I speak up or stay silent? It’s your convictions that provide clarity in a confusing world of endless choices. If you repeatedly follow your convictions, it gives your life direction. Your convictions are the shaft in the arrow of your life. When you know what you believe, you are no longer paralyzed by confusion and indecision. You can move forward with confidence, ignoring endless options and choosing only the ones that match your convictions.
3. Identity
Your convictions shape who you are. There’s a coherence and a predictability that settles into who you are as a person. This predictable pattern eventually is the definition of who you are to yourself, and also to others. They’re like an unyielding blade that shapes who you are, how you live, and what you make yourself do and forbid yourself to do.
They’re not just beliefs you hold—they’re part of your identity. When you say, “I’m a follower of Jesus,” you’re not just stating a fact—you’re declaring your identity. Your convictions define you.
4. Community
Convictions connect you to others who share them. When you find people who believe what you believe, who value what you value, who are willing to sacrifice for what you’re willing to sacrifice—you’ve found your tribe. They empower you to stand firm with your community in difficult circumstances. When you believe deeply in something, you can endure opposition, criticism, and hardship because you’re rooted in principles that matter to you more than comfort or social approval.
5. Legacy
When you live by your convictions, you leave a mark on the world. You don’t just pass through life—you shape it. You influence the next generation. You change the world because your life has been grounded in something transcendent, and you have moral authority. Your convictions outlive you.
This is the privilege of having convictions. It’s a gift. It’s what makes life worth living. But, like everything valuable, it also comes at a cost. So what’s the cost?
But…convictions cost us
To have convictions is to pay a price. Here’s what it costs:
1. Comfort
Convictions always demand something of you.
Convictions create an obligation in you. Once you know what is right, you are responsible to act on it—although it is going to be inconvenient, costly, and uncomfortable.
They introduce friction, and they make your life harder. Once you believe something, you are no longer free to do whatever is easiest or safest. Your convictions disturb your comfort by putting you in tension. You have to constantly navigate a world that is indifferent to or disagreeable with your convictions. Part of this discomfort is having to deal with the gap that always exists between what we believe and how we actually live. This gap is painful because our convictions won’t let us hide from ourselves.
2. Social Cost
Convictions costs us socially. When you have convictions, not everyone is going to like you. Some people will think you’re too rigid, too judgmental, too extreme. They’ll say you’re “making everything about religion” or “taking things too seriously.” You’ll lose friends. You’ll be misunderstood. When you stand for something, you inevitably stand apart from someone else. For creatures wired for belonging, that really hurts.
3. Your Life
Throughout history, people with convictions have suffered the loss of reputation, the loss of relationships, the loss of comfort and security.
Followers of Jesus have often paid the ultimate price. Stephen was stoned to death. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul was beheaded. Millions of Christians in the last century have been martyred for their faith. And even today, in many parts of the world, following Jesus can cost you your life.
And here’s the question: Is it worth it?
Let me tell you a story that might help answer that question. I want to tell you about a woman I’ll call Maryam. She lives in Iran, where converting from Islam to Christianity is illegal and punishable by death.
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Convictions: Imagine having to choose between Christ and your child.
This is a true story I heard from someone who knows “Maryam” personally. It has impacted me deeply and I want to share it with you.
Maryam grew up in a devout Muslim family. She prayed five times a day, fasted during Ramadan, and followed all the rules. But she always felt like something was missing—like there was a distance between her and God that she couldn’t bridge.
Then, through a secret house church, she heard about Jesus. She heard that God loved her so much that He sent His Son to die for her. She had a powerful encounter with Jesus and became his disciple. This is where the power and pain of convictions started for her.
Maryam’s story illustrates something profound: Conviction costs, but it’s also the most valuable thing you can have.
Maryam’s husband demanded she renounce Christ, but she refused. He took her before a judge calling for him to grant a divorce and to strip her of contact with her daughter. It was a horrible test—follow Jesus and lose your child, or go back to Islam and renounce your relationship with Jesus.
She told the judge that her connection with Jesus was real. He told her to just say the words of renunciation even without meaning them in her heart and he would let her keep her relationship with her daughter. She replied, “What are my words then? God is listening to my words even now. I cannot deny Jesus.”
The judge sighed, granted the divorce, and stripped her of her child. She had to flee Iran for her own safety. All she could do now was to pray diligently for her daughter and trust Jesus to support her in her convictions.
Over the years she was allowed to speak regularly to her daughter by phone. When the child was old enough, she also became devoted to Jesus and joined her mother abroad. Her mom’s convictions were the light that guided her life from halfway around the world.
I’m so glad that story has a happy ending, but the point would be the same even if it did not. Convictions are the power that brings change in our personal world.
Here’s what I’ve learned about living with conviction:
1. Know what you believe and why.
Don’t just inherit your convictions from your parents, your pastor, or your culture. Examine them. Test them. Make sure they’re yours. Because when the cost comes—and it will—you need to know that your convictions are worth it.
2. Be willing to stand alone.
There will be times when you’re the only one standing for what’s right. When everyone else is going along with the crowd, you’ll have to stand firm. And that’s lonely. But remember: you’re not really alone. Jesus is with you. And throughout history, the people who changed the world were the ones who stood alone first. That’s what leaders are.
3. Count the cost—but don’t let it stop you.
Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” He didn’t sugarcoat it. Following Him will cost you. But He also said, “Whoever loses their life for me will find it.” The cost is real, but the reward is greater.
4. Find your people.
You can’t do this alone. You need a community of people who share your convictions, who will encourage you, challenge you, and stand with you. Find them. Build deep relationships with them. Because conviction is sustained in community.
5. Keep your eyes on Jesus.
When the cost feels too high, when you’re tempted to compromise, when you’re wondering if it’s worth it—look at Jesus. He had convictions about the kingdom of God, and He was willing to die for them. And because He did, we have hope. We have life. We have a future.
6. Don’t give up because of your own failure to live up to your convictions.
Simon Peter became the great early leader of the persecuted followers of Jesus. He was known to have a great marriage. He and his wife were inseparable. Despite the dangers they both faced, they roamed the Middle East together, encouraging the people of God until he was arrested and martyred leaving a powerful legacy until this day.
Peter built this life after one of the most extreme moral failures in the history of the church, denying Jesus three times out of fear.
People with convictions get back up, even when they fail to live up to their own standards. We are serving the God of the second chance.
That’s the privilege and the cost of having convictions.
What does conviction have to do with deconstruction and reconstruction?
The reason we need to talk about convictions on this podcast is that one of the reasons some sincere people are walking away from institutional Christianity is that the form of religion they’re experiencing does not align with their convictions about the way of Jesus.
They are voting with their feet to walk away. That’s one step, but embracing a more satisfactory way of following Jesus than some of the institutional systems you aren’t aligned with is going to take a lot more effort than just leaving the church you attend.
It’s a lot easier to just go to church and sit and follow along. If a person is just leaving Christianity because they got mad about something or someone wasn’t nice enough to them, or they think that the failure of another person is reason for them to walk away, then that’s up to them. But I’m convinced there are people out there that are walking away because of a deep set of personal convictions concerning Jesus.
You see, to really be a disciple of Jesus requires you to have convictions.
Wrap Up
So here we are, at the end of Act I: The Pain.
We’ve talked about:
- The quiet exodus—millions leaving the church
- The paradox of faith—being drawn to Jesus while repelled by a form of Christian religion
- The slow erosion of energy—ministry burnout and exhaustion from trying to prop up a failing system you no longer believe in.
- The privilege and cost of convictions—what it means to stand for something in a world that doesn’t want you to.
We’ve acknowledged the pain. We’ve named it. We’ve sat with it. But we can’t stay here.
Because pain without diagnosis is just suffering. And diagnosis without solution is just despair.
The Next Movement in This Series
So starting in our next episode, we’re moving into Act II: The Noise. We’re going to diagnose the problem. We’re going to look honestly at what’s gone wrong with Christianity and why so many people are feeling disconnected from it.
We’re going to talk about:
* - Multiple voices and the chaos of having so many authoritative teachers and yet no central authority
* - The Everything Religion and how Christianity has become a buffet where everyone picks and chooses
* - Doctrinal chaos and the theological anarchy that results
* - The Malleable Messiah and how we’ve recreated a Jesus in our own image
* - Influence without authority and why Jesus has been subordinated in Christian systems around the world, despite all of our songs and nice words about him,
This next part might be a bit uncomfortable. We’re not going to belabor it and look for a million things done wrong, but we are determined to define the central problem that has introduced new corrupting code into the Jesus movement. We’re going to have to be honest about what’s broken.
But here’s my promise: diagnosis leads to solution. And the solution is coming.
It’s called ReJesus Everything! We’ll spend the last half our energy in this season unpacking how we can return to the simple (but challenging ) way of Jesus.
My deep desire is that this becomes a true discussion among us. You don’t have to agree with me. It’s just that some very large gears are turning within the Christian community globally, and mature people have to engage the forces causing millions of our youngest to look to other forms of spirituality, turning their back on the faith of their childhood.
Join the Community!
This topic is very close to our heart. Some of us are losing our children from the faith, and we are deeply disturbed about it. Some of us are very close to leaving Christianity ourselves, and we need the support of a group to process our thoughts openly. I really care about what’s happening in the faith lives of people around the world. That’s why I’m dedicating so much of my time and energy to this discussion.
Let’s take this as an opportunity to build a robust community of faith online. I will be deeply engaged in the comment section on these episodes which also play out a few days later on my YouTube channel. I will try to monitor the social media channels, but they move too quickly for me to keep up with.
If you want to get into deep discussion, please stay here on Substack at Quinley.com where I will put most of my energies this whole year.
Here’s our discussion question for the week: What conviction has cost you the most—and was it worth it?
I look forward to hearing from you in the chat box.
Let’s get Grounded!
Chuck
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Grounded S02 E03
There’s a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from working too hard. It comes from working on the wrong things.
Imagine you’re a marathon runner, but instead of running the race, you’re spending all your energy maintaining the track, organizing the water stations, managing the volunteers, and promoting the event. You’re exhausted, but you haven’t actually run a single mile.
That’s what’s happening to millions of Christians in ministry today.They’re not tired from doing kingdom work. They’re tired from running the church machine.They’re not exhausted from making disciples. They’re exhausted from managing programs, budgets, buildings, and committees.
They’re not burned out from encountering Jesus for too many hours each week. They aren’t weary from all the disciples they’ve been training. They’re burned out from maintaining an institution that increasingly feels disconnected from His core mission.
This is the relentless slow erosion of our energy. And it’s one of the most dangerous crises facing the church today. Because when the people who are supposed to be leading us closer to Jesus are themselves running on empty, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Today’s topic.
Today, we’re going to talk about what it’s like to serve in ministry while feeling increasingly disconnected from the presence and power of Jesus. We’ll explore why so many faithful servants are burning out, and what it means for the future of the church.
Quick Recap: In our first episode, we talked about the quiet exodus—the 40 million Americans who have left the church. In our second episode, we explored the paradox at the heart of that exodus—how you can be drawn to Jesus and repelled by Christianity. Today, we’re turning our attention to those who haven’t left. Those who are still showing up, still serving, still leading—but who are slowly dying inside.
Maybe that’s you.
Maybe you’re a pastor who started ministry with fire in your heart, but now you’re just trying to survive another Sunday. Maybe you’re a worship leader who used to feel God’s presence when you sang, but now it feels like you’re just performing.
Maybe you’re a volunteer who used to love serving, but now it feels like an obligation. If that’s you, I want you to know that what you’re experiencing is a symptom of a much larger problem—a problem with the system itself, not with you.
So let’s talk about it: Running the Church Machine We’ve All Inherited
The Experience Business
Imagine sitting down with a friend of yours named David. David planted a church 15 years ago with a vision to create a community where people could encounter Jesus, grow as disciples, and serve the world. He was passionate, energetic, and deeply committed to following Jesus. If you sit down with David recently he looks exhausted. Not the kind of tired you get from a long week—the kind of tired that comes from years of carrying a weight you were never meant to carry.
He says, “I didn’t sign up for this.”
“For what?” you ask.
“For running a business. For managing staff conflicts. For fundraising. For building maintenance. For navigating denominational politics. For keeping the board happy. For competing with the megachurch down the street.”
He pauses, then says, “I wanted to make disciples. But I spend 90% of my time managing an experience business.”
David’s story isn’t unique. It’s the norm. Here’s what happens: You start with a vision to follow Jesus and help others do the same. But over time, the institution takes over. The programs multiply. The budget grows. The staff expands. The building needs maintenance. The staff need managing. The donors need stewarding.
And before you know it, you’re not a pastor anymore—you’re a CEO.
You’re not making disciples—you’re managing a machine. And the machine is hungry. It demands more time, more energy, more resources. It never says, “That’s enough.” It always says, “More.” So you give more. You work longer hours. You sacrifice time with your family. You neglect your own inner life. You push through the exhaustion, and slowly, imperceptibly, the fire that once burned in your heart begins to dim.
But it’s not just pastors who are experiencing this. It’s also many who are trying to faithfully serve in the church system as staff or volunteer.
Five Signs of Ministry Burnout
If you’re serving in ministry—whether as a pastor, a staff member, or a volunteer—you probably recognize some of these symptoms:
1. You’re emotionally exhausted.
You used to feel energized by ministry. Now you feel drained. Even thinking about Sunday morning makes you tired. You’re going through the motions, but your heart isn’t in it anymore. You’re running on fumes.
2. You’re bone dry inside.
You used to encounter Jesus in worship, in prayer, in Scripture. Now it feels like He’s distant, silent, absent. You’re teaching others about Jesus, but you’re not experiencing Him yourself. You’re giving out of an empty well.
3. You’re becoming cynical.
You used to believe that the church could change the world. Now you’re not so sure. You’ve seen too many scandals, too much hypocrisy, too many people leave. You’ve become jaded, skeptical, disillusioned. You don’t trust the system anymore
4. You’re quietly resentful.
You used to serve with joy. Now you serve out of obligation. You resent the people who don’t show up, who don’t give, who don’t volunteer. You resent the demands on your time, the expectations placed on you, the lack of appreciation. You’re angry, and you don’t know what to do with it.
5. You’re questioning everything.
You used to be certain about your calling, your theology, your purpose. Now you’re not sure about anything. Is this really what Jesus wanted? Is this really what the church is supposed to be? Am I even making a difference? Should I just quit?
If you’re experiencing these symptoms, as a couple with over 25 years in pastoral ministry, Sherry and I can empathize with you. You were never meant to run a machine. You were meant to follow Jesus and help others do the same.
Faith That Requires Constant Effort Is Unsustainable
One of the quiet assumptions in many Christian spaces is that faith is supposed to be hard in the sense of constantly demanding more energy, more commitment, more resilience. But when faith consistently drains without restoring, something is misaligned. Jesus spoke often of rest, lightness, and renewal—not as exceptions, but as the daily reward for walking in His way.
Jesus Calls to the Weary
Jesus once said, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Notice what He didn’t do:
* He didn’t scold the weary
* He didn’t question their sincerity
* He didn’t tell them to just push through
He assumes weariness is part of the human condition, but he points those who are weary to a sure solution.
Jesus is Our Oasis
In this verse, Jesus positions Himself, not a system, a retreat center, or a long vacation, as the place of rest, the shelter…direct fellowship with Jesus is the oasis for weary seekers.
If you are weary from your ministry, my friend, let Jesus fill you up right now. Let his strong arms comfort you. Just stop reading now and let him do his work of restoration.
So how did we get here? How did ministry become so exhausting?
From Movement to Institution
Jesus didn’t start an institution. He started a movement. He gathered a small group of disciples, taught them how to live in the kingdom of God, and sent them out to make more disciples. It was simple, organic, reproducible. But over time, that movement became an institution.
And institutions have a way of prioritizing their own survival over their original mission.
Here’s how it happens:
Step 1: A movement grows. More people join. More communities form. More leaders emerge. This is good—it’s what Jesus wanted.
Step 2: The movement organizes. To manage the growth, structures are put in place. Roles are defined. Processes are created. Buildings are built. This is necessary—organization isn’t bad.
Step 3: The organization becomes an institution. This is where things change. To an institution, perpetuating the structure, even enlarging it, becomes priority. More departments, more buildings, more employees, more budget. Any institution will prioritize its own survival over its original purpose.
Step 4: The institution demands maintenance. Now, instead of making disciples, we prop up a massive, aging institution. Instead of being the church, we’re doing church. We run the machine.
This isn’t a new problem. It’s happened a million times throughout history.
The Cost of the Erosion
What happens when the people leading the church are running on empty? When ministry leaders become exhausted from institutional maintenance—running the machine, here’s what we lose:
1. We lose prophetic witness. Prophets challenge the status quo. Institutions ARE status quo. The older and bigger they are the more fiercely they resist change, or correction, or downsizing.
2. We lose authentic community. Community requires presence, vulnerability and …the most scarce resource of all—spare time. When you’re running from meeting to meeting, managing crisis after crisis, you don’t have time for deep relationships. You have transactions, not transformations.
3. We lose spiritual vitality. You can’t give what you don’t have. If your own soul is dry, you can’t water anyone else’s.
4. We lose the next generation. Young people can smell inauthenticity a mile away. They can tell when you’re going through the motions. They can see when the institution matters more than the mission. And they’re walking away in droves.
5. We lose the presence of Jesus. This is the most tragic cost of all. You might think this is impossible, I mean, how can you have church or Christianity without Jesus?
The answer is in the first few chapters of the Revelation of Saint John, where Jesus addresses fledgling Christian communities across Asia Minor, and points to character and obedience flaws within this earliest example of Christianity.
His threat to them is always the same. “Fix it or you can do this by yourself. I will remove your candlestick.” As far as I can tell, that means their participation in his presence and mission.
So what do we do? How do we stop the erosion?
In the coming episodes, we’re going to explore what that looks like practically. We’re going to talk about how to ReJesus everything—theology, mission, church, discipleship. We’re going to rediscover the simple, life-giving way of Jesus.
But first, we have to acknowledge the cost of staying where we are.
Because the slow erosion of energy isn’t just a personal problem—it’s a systemic problem. And it’s killing the church from the inside out. We are standing at a crossroads as Christian people. We will either reform our ways and the systems we have created, or we will watch them crumble in our lifetime.
Charting Our Discussion Progress So Far
We’ve talked about the quiet exodus—the people who are leaving. We’ve explored the paradox—how you can be drawn to Jesus and repelled by Christianity. And today, we’ve looked at the slow erosion of energy—what it’s like to serve in ministry while being depleted by institutional maintenance .
But there’s one more piece of the pain we need to address.
It’s that we’re living in a time when having convictions—really believing something and standing by it—comes at a cost.
In our next episode, we’re going to talk about the privilege and the cost of having convictions. We’ll explore what it means to hold firm beliefs in a culture that demands conformity or silence.
We’ll look at why conviction is both a gift and a burden. And we’ll ask the question: Is it worth it?
Because if we’re going to ReJesus Everything, we’re going to need conviction. We’re going to need people who are willing to stand firm, even when it costs them something.
If you’re someone who’s tired of compromising, tired of going along with the crowd, tired of staying silent—this next episode is for you.
Discussion Question: What part of your faith currently requires the most effort to maintain, and what do you think that effort is costing you?
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There’s a question that puzzles millions of people today, and maybe you’re one of them:
How can I love Jesus and cringe at Christianity?
It feels like a contradiction, doesn’t it? How can you be drawn to the object of a religion and repelled by the religion itself?
But here’s what I’ve discovered over 40 years of ministry: this isn’t a contradiction at all. In fact, it might be the most healthy thing you could feel depending upon your circumstances.
Because Jesus and Christianity are not the same thing.
In our last episode, we talked about the quiet exodus—the 40 million Americans alone who have left the church in the last 25 years. Today, we’re going to explore the paradox at the heart of that exodus: how you can be drawn to Jesus and still be repelled by Christianity.
And more importantly, why that’s okay.
Maybe you read the Gospels and you’re moved by Jesus’ compassion, His radical inclusion, His challenge to religious hypocrisy. But then you look at Christianity today—the culture wars, the scandals, the obsession with power and money—and you think, “This isn’t what Jesus taught.”
And you’re right. It’s not.
So today, we’re going to quickly explore three things:
1. What Jesus modeled
2. What Christianity has become
3. Why the gap between them is so painful—and what it means.
The Jesus of the Bible
If you want to know what Jesus is really like, you have six sources in the Bible: the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Plus the beginning of the Book of Acts and Some scenes within the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of St. John. These are the earliest and most reliable accounts of Jesus’ life, teaching, death, and resurrection.
And when you read them for yourself, here’s what you observe:
Jesus Modeled Compassion for Anyone Suffering
When you reflect the heart of God you don’t become a harsh legalist. His heart draws you to the suffering of others and you do whatever you can to make things better for them.
* It could be suffering from the result of our own sins and unwise actions as in the case of the woman taken in adultery. Her pain was her own doing, but Jesus had compassion anyway.
* Jesus seemed to have deep awareness of mental suffering. He resonated with what it felt like to be afraid and worried and often said to his followers, “Do not worry…” and “Don’t be afraid little ones…”
He was a powerful man, but he was full of compassion.
Jesus Welcomed Outcasts
Christ took delight in helping outsiders become insiders. Every society has outsiders. They feel the walls of rejection raised against them. Jesus created a door in those walls and helped them enter and function in society.
Jesus challenged hypocrisy, especially within institutions.
Jesus’ harshest words weren’t for drunkards and “sinners”—they were for religious leaders. He called them “whitewashed tombs,” “blind guides,” and “hypocrites.” He said they “shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces” and “travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”
Strong words. But Jesus wasn’t being mean—He was being truthful. He saw how the structures of religion can actually function as a barrier between people and God, and He refused to let that stand.
Jesus prioritized people over rules.
Understandably, every society needs a set of behavioral rules and guidelines in order to function. These rules improve the general tone of behavior and regulate what you can expect to encounter when you go out each day.
But the rules should protect the weak and broken. When he was criticized for allowing his followers to gather wheat to eat on the Sabbath, He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus consistently prioritized the practical circumstantial needs of humans over any system of rules.
Jesus taught radical love.
“Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Give to everyone who asks. Forgive seventy times seven.” Jesus’ ethic of love was so radical, that even today it sounds impossible.
Jesus confronted the entitlement of those in power.
In every society, power corrupts those who hold it. This is true in government, education, finance and even in religion. Jesus stood up to the establishment, the Roman Empire, and rebuked the religious authorities of His day. He overturned bankers tables in the temple. He refused to bow to political or religious pressure. He spoke truth to power, even when it cost Him His life.
Jesus offered grace and forgiveness.
To the woman caught in adultery, He said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” To the thief on the cross, He said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” To Peter, who denied Him three times, He offered full restoration. Jesus’ message was always grace first, then transformation will follow.
This is the Jesus of the Gospels. This is the Jesus people are drawn to.
But then we look at Christianity today, and we often see something very different. That’s probably enough said.
The Disconnect
I’m not here to bash Christianity. That’s too easy, doesn’t fix anything, and frankly, seems juvenile to me. I’m not a deconstructor.
In fairness, it must be stated with conviction that Christianity has done immense good in the world. Because of core concepts, patterns and initiatives taken by forces within Christianity, we have hospitals, universities, orphanages, and the concept of universal human rights in most of the nations of the world. Christianity in it’s many forms continues to be a blessing to humanity in countless ways.
But all is not well in Christianity. And if we’re going to be honest—if we’re going to have integrity with Jesus—we have to acknowledge that much has gone wrong. There is a growing gap between the clear teachings of Jesus and the actions of leaders representing Christian institutions. So many scandals. So many coverups. Millions of dollars misappropriated. Preachers with private jets. Christian groups selling out to politicians, to a million money-making schemes, etc., etc. It’s just too much and everyone is nauseated.
Cognitive Dissonance
So why is this gap so painful? And what does it mean for those of us who are caught in the middle?
Psychologists have a term for what happens when you hold two conflicting experiences at the same time: cognitive dissonance. It’s deeply uncomfortable. Your brain wants consistency, coherence, alignment. When you believe one thing but your experience of it is different, it creates internal tension.
And that’s exactly what millions of people are experiencing right now.
They read the Gospels and they see Jesus—integrated, compassionate, righteous, radical, grace-filled. They’re drawn to Him. They want to follow Him. They love Him.
But then they look at the ongoing flow of experience in their particular form of organized Christianity—and they think, “This doesn’t match.” The cognitive dissonance squeezes them.
What makes it even more painful mentally is to say that if you have a problem with Christianity, you also have a problem with Jesus because it His Christianity and founded it. They’re trapped.
Because if this Christianity around you is the system Jesus personally established and you have trouble with it, then you have trouble with Jesus. If you reject your church, you’re rejecting Christ. Sometimes you might even be told that your questions alone are evidence of rebellion against the Lord.
So, in that case, you feel guilty for saying anything from that point on. You wonder if something is wrong with you. You try harder to make it work, to ignore the disconnect, to just have a faith life.
But the dissonance doesn’t go away. It gets louder.
And eventually, you face what feels like an impossible choice: “I can stay and live with the belief that all this is fake and I’m participating in it, or leave my Christianity and risk losing my relationship with Jesus too.”
But I think that’s a false choice. There’s a third option. You don’t have to choose between blind compliance with flawed human religion, and wholesale abandonment of Jesus.
Because Jesus and Christianity are not the same thing.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
Here’s the key insight that changed everything for me:
Jesus is a person. Christianity is a system.
Jesus is alive, dynamic, personal, relational.
Christianity is a set of beliefs, practices, organizational structures, activities and traditions.
You can have a relationship with Jesus.
You can’t have a relationship with a system, even if it’s Christianity.
Christianity is the circumference. Jesus is the bullseye.
Everything else—Christians, church history, traditions, denominations, theologians—are the outer rings.
Jesus is the center.
When there’s a conflict between Jesus and Christianity—and there are many— Jesus must win. Always.
Internally, if there’s a conflict between how Jesus says to live and how I actually live, Jesus must win if I'm to be his disciple.
Jesus is the Standard.
Christianity is the Attempt.
Perfect vs Imperfect
What I mean is that Jesus is the perfect revelation of God. He is God in the flesh. Christianity is humanity’s numerous imperfect attempts to follow Him in an organized way. It’s a human thing.
Jesus is eternal and divine. “Christianity” is a jumble of traditions, organizations, rituals, political alliances, and businesses, organized by at least 40,000 separate groups of humans attempting to live out the Jesus way.
We’re going to get it wrong sometimes. We’re going to mess it up. Humans always do. But that doesn’t change who and how Jesus is.
Here’s the bottom line: You can be drawn to Jesus and repelled by your local form of Christianity because they’re not the same thing. And recognizing that distinction isn’t a sign that you’re backsliding—it’s a sign of healthy discernment.
It means you’re paying attention. It means you’re reading the Gospels.
It, hopefully, means you’re refusing to settle for a version of Christianity that doesn’t align with Jesus.
And that’s exactly what we need today. So what do we do with this? How do we move forward?
A Path Forward
If you’re experiencing this disconnect—if you’re drawn to Jesus but repelled by Christianity:
1. You’re not alone.
Millions of people are experiencing the same thing. This isn’t a fringe movement of angry ex-Christians. This is a massive, global reckoning with what Christianity has become.
2. You’re not crazy.
The disconnect is real. The gap between Jesus and Christianity is real. You’re not imagining it, and you’re not being overly critical. You’re seeing clearly.
3. You’re not weak.
In fact, the opposite is true. It takes courage to question, to push back, to refuse to settle for a version of Christianity that doesn’t align with Jesus. That’s strength, not weakness.
4. There’s a way forward.
You don’t have to choose between staying in a broken system or leaving Jesus behind. There’s a third way—a way that involves neither blind compliance nor wholesale abandonment.
It’s the way of “ReJesusing”* everything.
*Disclaimer: His way is much harder than the other two options, but if you pay the price you’ll get to experience what Jesus brought to our world. It’s the pearl of great price, but it will cost you all you have to own it.
And that’s what this podcast is all about. Stick with us.
So here’s where we are:
We’ve acknowledged the quiet exodus—the 40 million in the USA alone who have left the church in the last two decades. In this episode we’ve explored the paradox at the heart of this exodus—how you can be drawn to Jesus and at the same time repelled by your surrounding Christianity. We’ve established that this disconnect between the Jesus of the Gospels and the reality of institutional Christianity is real, it’s painful, and it’s not your fault.
But there’s even more going on in this story,
Because it’s not just people on the fringes who are feeling this disconnect. It’s also people in the trenches—pastors, ministry leaders, missionaries, church staff. People who have dedicated their lives to serving Jesus but are finding themselves emotionally exhausted from running the machine they’ve inherited.
In our next episode, we’re going to talk about the slow erosion of energy—what it’s like to serve in ministry while feeling that your institution is increasingly disconnected from the presence and power of Jesus. We’ll explore why so many faithful servants are burning out, and what it means for the future of the church. Stay with me one more episode as we acknowledge the depth of the struggle behind the curtain in many of our churches, schools, and organizations.
Because the crisis isn’t just about people leaving. It’s also about people staying—and slowly dying inside.If you’re in ministry and you’re exhausted, this next episode is for you. If you know someone in ministry who’s struggling, share this podcast with them. It could save their ministry.
Discussion Question:Where do you sense genuine attraction to Jesus—and where does your form of Christianity feel more like friction than fuel?
Thanks for joining me on Grounded in this season, Let’s ReJesus Everything!.
I look forward to meeting you in the chat box and online…
Something NEW: I’m going Live 12 noon EST Thursday to answer questions and reply to some comments on this episode, I particularly want to explore the possibility that Jesus might not have started Christianity.
That’s not to discredit it or say it should be abandoned. There’s just a lot to unpack here conceptually and it won’t fit in a newsletter so hopefully you can check in here at NOON Thursday Feb 12. I’ll send you a link by email.
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Hi Friend! Welcome to the Grounded Podcast 2026! We’re naming this season, ReJesus Everything! We’re going to explore the current crisis going on within Christianity worldwide, the reasons for it, and work to recover the original foundation of the Christian movement—Jesus himself. I hope you’ll stay with us throughout this series and add your perspective in the chat and comment section. Let’s dive in!
47,000 is a Big Number
Last Sunday 47,000 Americans walked out of church for the last time. They didn’t plan it. They didn’t make a big announcement. They just... didn’t go back. And here’s the thing—most of them still love Jesus.
They’re not rejecting Him.
They’re rejecting This system that has grown up around Him. If you’ve ever felt that tension—if you’ve ever wondered whether it’s possible to love Jesus and still feel deeply unsettled by Christianity as you’ve experienced it—then this season of the Grounded podcast is for you.
The Data
According to research from The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham, 40 million American adults—16% of the U.S. population—used to go to church but no longer do. This represents the last 25 years, roughly from 1998 to 2023.
Let me put that in perspective. This is the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of the United States. More people have left the church in this period than all the new converts from the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham’s crusades combined.
And it’s not just happening in America. Across Europe, church attendance has also plummeted. In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and even among Chinese house churches, the story is the same. Traditional Christianity is in decline across most of the world.
But here’s what’s important to understand: this doesn’t seem to be primarily a story of people rejecting Jesus. It’s a story of people rejecting what their local form of Christianity has become.
According to the Barna Group, 42% of all U.S. adults say they have deconstructed the faith of their youth.
Why We’re Devoting This Season to The Topic of Reconstructing the Christian Faith
This isn’t a fringe movement of angry ex-Christians. This is happening in the pews, in Christian colleges, in pastors’ families, and in missionary communities around the world.
The quiet exodus is real. It’s massive. And it’s accelerating.
Sherry and I’ve spent more than four decades in full-time ministry—inside churches, seminaries, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations. We’ve seen Christianity at its best.
We’ve also seen it drift—sometimes far—from the person it claims to follow.
This is the first episode in a new season of the Grounded podcast. It’s is not about defending Christianity. And it’s not about abandoning faith.
It’s about re-centering everything—belief, discipleship, spirituality, mission—directly on Jesus, not the religion built around Him. The living person Himself.
Most conversations about this subject leave you with two choices:
* Defend Christianity as it is
* Leave everything entirely
But I believe there is a third way: to reJesus everything. (More on that later.)
The Global Exodus from Institutional Christianity.
Okay, so let’s unpack this.
Something historic is happening beneath the surface of Christianity that many Christians haven’t noticed. Large numbers of people raised in Christianity (we’re talking millions here) are no longer finding spiritual nourishment within its institutions.
In the last five years alone (basically since Covid), approximately 15 million regular church attenders in the USA alone have stopped going to church.
Many others are still attending occasionally, still listening to sermons online, still praying—but with a growing sense of distance and fatigue. They are fading out. This is not rebellion; it’s disillusionment.
Losing Faith in the Train
It’s like being in a once-busy train station late at night. The lights are still on. The signs still work. The announcements are blaring, but fewer and fewer people are boarding the train. There’s no big protest going on. It’s just that fewer and fewer people still believe that train will take them home.
The good news is that despite popular narratives, most people in the current faith crisis are not rejecting Jesus. They are stumbling over the gap between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Christianity they experience in real life.
When belief systems, practices, power structures, or cultural battles seem to contradict Jesus’ words and way, something inside us resists. That resistance may actually be a sign of spiritual integrity.
The Anatomy of a Faith Crisis
Faith crises rarely happen all at once. They begin with small questions, quiet disappointments, unresolved contradictions. Over time, the weight accumulates until the structure can no longer hold. What feels like sudden collapse is often a long, invisible unraveling.
Think of a rope under tension. It doesn’t snap immediately. Individual fibers begin to fray—one by one—until eventually the rope can no longer carry the load. I’m bringing this up because millions of sincere Christians around the world are under that tension, and for many of them, it’s more than their rope can support.
In case you’re thinking of walking away
Many people assume they must choose between staying in Christianity as it is or abandoning faith entirely. But that may be a false choice. Before walking away, it’s worth asking a deeper question: am I leaving Jesus—or am I leaving a system that no longer reflects Him? That distinction changes everything for me.
It’s the difference between leaving a noisy, overcrowded marketplace—and leaving the person you came there to meet.
If you’re listening to this and thinking, “This is me,” I believe that your questions are not a failure of faith. They may be an invitation to return—not to a simpler religion—but to the center of it all. I believe God is moving around the world, responding to those who are reaching out to him even if they feel really disconnected to the institutional forms of Christianity they may have grown up in.
This is a life journey. No rush. No pressure. It’s too important for that.
In this season, we just want to make an honest return to the question that matters most: Who is Jesus—and what does it actually mean to follow Him?
In this season, our series is entitled “Re-Jesus Everything.” If you think this discussion could be important to someone you know and love, please forward a link to them.
In the next episode, we’re going to talk about that strange inner experience many people are having right now—feeling drawn to Jesus, but increasingly alienated from Christianity. Why that split exists. Why it’s growing. And why it might be the beginning of something healthier, not the end of belief.
I would love to hear from you in the comment section on YouTube and on Substack, which is my home, at Quinley.com. Thanks for reading!
This week’s discussion question is: In your opinion, what are the friction points causing so many to drift away? I look forward to hearing from you.
Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. No pressure. I just want to keep the conversation going.
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Hi Disciple!
Money. In 2 Corinthians 8-10 Paul spends three whole chapters just talking about giving money away. There's tipping, then there's truly sacrificing something you love to meet the true need of another person who is suffering and stuck.
I was raised in an ascending lower middle class family. My dad's people were hard-working farmers and turpentine gatherers. Not much money in that. My dad's generation got more education and all of them left farming for factory and professional jobs. My dad became an accountant and rose to become the head of the entire international firm. That’s America. This journey took a lifetime.
My generation across the extended family got the benefit of our parent’s steady rise. I think all of us got the education we wanted and with it all the opportunities we could pursue. Like all other families, we had times when money was short and we had to work harder to have the things we wanted.
We always had food, shelter, and clothing, however. For this, I'm so grateful.
For the past 35 years Sherry and I have lived in Southeast Asia and in the last 10 years we’ve been working closely with a ministry focused on trafficking which connects to the deepest kind of poverty.
I sat at a table in a communist country with ministry friends talking to a young lady, modestly dressed, about her current work as a prostitute. She said she was from the mountains, doing this job to try and get the money to pay someone to take her to Malaysia so she could get a job in a factory.
Poverty is complicated. I’m not sure there’s a clear formula for eradicating it. In general, good food and a chance to get an education seem to be a working prescription.
This young lady’s entire life story could've been rewritten had she just been embraced by a local church that loved her and saw her potential and would help her find transformation through Jesus. There she could have put her chaotic childhood to good use as fuel for a determination to break the cycle in her own life and for her family members. She intended to send her factory wages home to them.
The body of Christ is so powerful when it pulls together.
At other times there’s a disaster and God’s people sacrifice and throw their tools and extra beddings and food in the backs of pickup trucks and fly out to give help in those crucial first hours after a tornado, flood or fire.
We can feel God’s smile on us in those times.
Paul’s Counsel to the Corinthians
If you read 2 Corinthians 8-10 you'll find Paul telling the church that they need to put some system into their good intentions. Most people have good intentions. They sincerely want to be a blessing on the Earth.
Paul reminds this gifted, wealthy church that good intentions are not enough. They need to make a plan as givers, set giving goals, and start pooling the money up, not waiting for a moment of inspiration.
Sherry and I have been able to give every day of our lives to world evangelism and the training of a new generation of leaders because of a set of friends who emerged in the first ten years of our journey (you know who you are). These friends made a plan and told us, “You can count on us monthly for X amount. We won’t stop as long as we have jobs.” We’ve watched our friends return from the field year by year because they lacked a group of friends like ours.
Systems matter. Systems make things happen.
Maybe it’s an extra 5% set aside to create your giving pool. Maybe it’s that emergency $100 in your wallet. Some kind of plan so that when you see someone pumping gas into a milk jug to carry to their broke down car you can put some money in their hand and give them a ride back to their car.
This Jesus Quest is about stepping up your level of sacrifice for those who are in trouble so you can be God’s hands extended to them.
It’s a happy lesson, because it’s one of the big ways we can all fulfill our purpose as humans created to be the image of God.
Hope you Enjoy this Quest and work on it daily!
Every Blessing,
Chuck
PS: Your daily prompt questions are below the video for this week.
Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Here are the prompts for your devotional time this week:
## Jesus Quest Week 4: Making Genuine Sacrifice for the Poor
### Day 1: Recognizing the Poor Among Us
**Scripture Reference:** Deuteronomy 15:11
> "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land."
**Reflection:** This week Jesus Quest has us trying to decide how to rewrite the life story of other people by intervening in life conditions caused by poverty. For example, no little girl dreams of being a prostitute someday—that life generally comes to the poor. Some families suffer from generational poverty and they just can't reach high enough to unlock the door to a better life. God will bless us so we can be a blessing to them and boost them up through interventions so that they can escape the poverty that has trapped their family for generations.
**Prompts:**
1. How does God's command to be "openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy" apply to your community today?
2. Who are the poor that you know? Is anyone you know under a financial burden or limited from pursuing their development because of a lack of resources?
3. Are there specific people or families you feel God is calling you to help in some way?
4. What is stopping you from reaching out or offering help to those in need?
5. How has God opened your eyes to see poverty and need in places you might have previously overlooked?
6. What assumptions about poverty or the poor might be preventing you from engaging with compassion?
7. How can you develop a heart that truly sees and responds to the poor as God sees them?
---
### Day 2: Understanding Genuine Sacrifice vs. Comfortable Giving
**Scripture Reference:** Mark 12:41-44
> "Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.'"
**Reflection:** Sometimes our intervention hardly affects us—we have extra money or things and we share them with others. This week we're focused on genuine sacrifices that we need to make on behalf of others. Jesus distinguished between giving out of abundance and giving sacrificially. True sacrifice costs us something significant and requires faith that God will provide for our needs as we provide for others.
**Prompts:**
1. How does the widow's sacrificial giving challenge your understanding of what constitutes genuine sacrifice?
2. What valuable resources (money, time, skills, influence) have you been given that you can honestly say you are willing to put on the altar for others' benefit?
3. What's the difference between giving out of your abundance versus giving sacrificially? Which characterizes most of your giving?
4. What would genuine sacrifice look like in your current financial and life situation?
5. What fears or concerns hold you back from making sacrificial gifts to help the poor?
6. How might God be calling you to trust Him more deeply through sacrificial giving?
7. Are you willing to sacrifice anonymously, without recognition or acknowledgment?
---
### Day 3: Empowerment vs. Dependency - Wise Intervention
**Scripture Reference:** 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12
> "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: 'The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.' We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat."
**Reflection:** True love for the poor requires wisdom in how we help. Our goal is not to create dependency but to provide genuine intervention that lifts people up and helps them escape the cycles that have trapped them. This requires discernment, relationship, and sometimes tough love that encourages responsibility alongside provision.
**Prompts:**
1. How does Paul's teaching about work and responsibility inform your approach to helping the poor?
2. How can you ensure that your help empowers people rather than creating dependency?
3. What is genuine intervention that lifts people up versus help that might actually harm in the long run?
4. What skills, connections, or opportunities can you provide beyond just financial assistance?
5. How can you build relationships with those you help rather than just providing charity?
6. What would it look like to address root causes of poverty rather than just symptoms?
7. How can you help people develop their own capacity to escape generational poverty?
---
### Day 4: Examining Your Heart and Motivation
**Scripture Reference:** 2 Corinthians 9:6-7
> "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
**Reflection:** Our motivation for helping the poor matters as much as our actions. God desires cheerful, generous hearts that give freely rather than grudgingly. When we examine our hearts honestly, we may discover mixed motives—seeking recognition, alleviating guilt, or maintaining control. True sacrifice flows from a pure-hearted desire to serve like Jesus.
**Prompts:**
1. How does Paul's description of cheerful giving challenge you to examine your heart motivation?
2. What is your attitude or motivation when you consider giving sacrificially—do you seek recognition, relief from guilt, or a pure-hearted desire to serve like Jesus?
3. Are you willing to sacrifice anonymously, never receiving acknowledgment for your generosity?
4. What would it look like to give "what you have decided in your heart to give" rather than giving under pressure or compulsion?
5. How can you cultivate genuine joy and cheerfulness in your giving to the poor?
6. What fears, pride, or selfish desires need to be surrendered before you can give with pure motives?
7. How does your giving to the poor reflect your understanding of how God has given to you?
---
### Day 5: Commitment to Ongoing Impact and Transformation
**Scripture Reference:** Isaiah 58:6-7, 10-11
> "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? ... and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a dry and scorched land and will strengthen your frame."
**Reflection:** God's heart for the poor is not about occasional charity but about systemic change and ongoing commitment. When we "spend ourselves" on behalf of the hungry and oppressed, God promises to guide us, satisfy our needs, and strengthen us. This is about lifestyle transformation, not just one-time giving.
**Prompts:**
1. How does Isaiah's description of true fasting challenge you to think beyond occasional charity to systemic change?
2. How will you measure whether your sacrifices are truly making a difference in someone's life?
3. Are you willing to commit to ongoing support rather than one-time efforts?
4. What would it look like to "spend yourself" on behalf of the hungry and oppressed in your context?
5. How might God be calling you to address not just individual poverty but systems of injustice?
6. What lifestyle changes might be necessary to sustain long-term commitment to helping the poor?
7. How does God's promise to "guide you always" and "satisfy your needs" encourage you to take greater risks in sacrificial giving?
8. What specific commitment are you willing to make this week to begin or deepen your genuine sacrifice for the poor?
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