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  • What do you do when God feels completely silent? (and two other great questions)

    What do you do when God feels completely silent? (and two other great questions)
    May 5 2026
    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 OutWe 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 ManSherry 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 ModeHe 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 DesertIn 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 ...
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    22 min
  • Should we walk away from organized religion?

    Should we walk away from organized religion?
    Apr 28 2026

    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

    Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



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    11 min
  • Did Jesus Establish Christianity?

    Did Jesus Establish Christianity?
    Apr 21 2026
    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 ItThere 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 FormationJesus 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 OrganizationThere 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...
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    36 min
  • Question & Response #2

    Question & Response #2
    Apr 14 2026

    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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    17 min
  • How Do You Even Define Christianity Anymore?

    How Do You Even Define Christianity Anymore?
    Apr 7 2026
    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 WarehouseIn 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 moreThen 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 IdentityChristianity 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 OrganizationsThen 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 ...
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    21 min
  • Special Question and Response Episode

    Special Question and Response Episode
    Mar 31 2026

    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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    22 min
  • Our Malleable Messiah. How Christianity has customized Jesus

    Our Malleable Messiah. How Christianity has customized Jesus
    Mar 24 2026
    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 logoWhen 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 CustomizationAfter 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 ChristsEvery 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 ...
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    26 min
  • Doctrinal Chaos: How Theology Replaced Jesus

    Doctrinal Chaos: How Theology Replaced Jesus
    Mar 17 2026
    AUTHOR’S NOTE: I want to say thanks again to everyone who has been sharing our posts with your friends and relatives. These are important discussions, and entering into them in a spirit of humility will help churches in many places. Please share the content and help us break the 1,000 subscribers mark. I deeply appreciate it. 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 BattlefieldLet’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 UsAfter 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 PurposeThe 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....
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    20 min