))
The UnSunday Show asks honest questions about the origin and validity of institutional church rules, traditions, and practices. These religious rules and practices lead us away from the simplicity of the gospel and into an exhausting performance-based experience that is designed to perpetuate itself by placing ever increasing demands on its people and are of no value in Christ. If you're exhausted from trying to keep all the religious rules that have been placed on you, listen in to these co ...
…
continue reading
Send me a text I recorded this conversation with my wife on The Grace Cafe podcast but am posting it here as well. It's a short health update from yours truly. Push play and give it a listen and thank you for following my podcasts! I was recently invited to speak on the Grace at Last podcast with Corinne Kinstler on the subject of women in the chur…
…
continue reading
Send me a text I was installing a couple of lights in my garage and when I opened one of the boxes, a paper fell out with the heading at the top that read: FCC's Supplier's Declaration of Conformity So naturally, my mind went to formal church membership because at its core, formal church membership is a declaration of conformity. So let's talk. Lin…
…
continue reading
Send me a text I asked Trent Antle to join me on this episode of the UnSunday Show because I wanted to hear more his story and I wanted others to have that same opportunity. After 20 years as a pastor in the institutional church setting, Trent began to see through the facade of propped-up religion as his eyes were being opened more and more to the …
…
continue reading
Send me a text Why is the modern church so captivated by the 10 Commandments when the New Covenant scriptures tell us plainly that the Law has been fulfilled and abolished? One reason is the theological systems we subscribe to that have the Law and the 10 Commandments as their centerpiece. One such system is Covenant Theology. I also mentioned in t…
…
continue reading
Send me a text This episode is the audio I pulled from a video I just did. I came across a post in one of my social media feeds where a church had posted Joshua 1:8 as a memory verse for its people to memorize this week. The passage reads, "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be care…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Welcome to episode 91 of The UnSunday Show. In this episode I take a hard look at top-down authority and the use of honorific titles in the body of Christ. These things are not neutral and in fact, they do harm to the body of Christ by choosing to ignore the clear directives of Jesus concerning these important topics. In short, they …
…
continue reading
Send me a text In this episode of the UnSunday Show, I ramble on about some important things that have been on my mind recently concerning institutional church and its inability to reflect the heart of Jesus and his kingdom in the world. Other Places You’ll Find Me The Grace Cafe Podcast: https://www.gracecafepodcast.com TikTok https://www.tiktok.c…
…
continue reading
Send me a text This is a short announcement to let you know I was interviewed on the Grace at Last podcast and that episode is out! I had a great conversation there with Corinne Kinstler, host of the Grace at Last podcast as we talked about church, the New Covenant, and a host of other topics along the way. Go check it out at: https://www.lastminis…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Welcome to episode 88 of The UnSunday Show. Today we're going to talk about 2 Timothy 2:15. This is another verse in a long list of verses that has been taken out of context and weaponized by institutional religion to mean something that it was never intended to mean. Here it is in the King James Version: "Study to shew thyself appro…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Welcome to episode 87 of The UnSunday Show! What is sanctification? Is my sanctification progressive and ongoing, or is it already complete? Much of organized religion would have us believe that our sanctification isn't guaranteed and that it's progressive, relies on me, and I'm supposed to be getting better at doing as time marches …
…
continue reading
Send me a text In this episode of the UnSunday Show, I share with you the recent conversation I had with Corinne Kinstler. Our paths crossed several month ago as Corinne was exploring the possibility of starting a new grace-centered podcast that would reflect her changes in thinking as she had moved out of a legalistic, religious environment into a…
…
continue reading
Send me a text I'm way overdue for another morning coffee session with you so I thought I would remedy that with this episode. So let's talk about pastors and elders as I give you an update on where my thinking on this topic is going. This episode is also available as a video by visiting https://www.unsunday.com/videos/85-morning-coffee-pastors-and…
…
continue reading
Send me a text In this episode of the UnSunday Show I want to talk about sermons and sermonizing. If the body of Christ is a kingdom of priests (and it is) where everyone who wants to, can actively participate, sermon centrality is certainly one of the biggest factors in preventing that from happening. Sermons and the art of sermonizing are a produ…
…
continue reading
Send me a text When we read our Bibles without regard to whether the passage we're reading resides in the Old Covenant or the New Covenant, we're mis-reading it. It's common today to give little or no consideration to a New Covenant/Old Covenant context and by doing so, we end up flattening out all of scripture as though every verse or passage is o…
…
continue reading
Send me a text The recently released movie, The Jesus Revolution, brought back many memories for us of the early days of our lives as Jesus People because we were both there to experience some of it. Mike came to Jesus in January of 1973 in the Calvary Chapel tent at a Saturday night concert and Susan met Jesus in the summer of 1973 at an ocean bap…
…
continue reading
Send me a text What has centuries of pastor-centered practices done to the body of Christ? Why is the institutional church so pastor-centered? How has pastor-centrality contributed to the crippling of the body of Christ? Do pastor-centered practices enhance or hinder the functioning of the body of Christ? Is pastor-centrality what Jesus has in mind…
…
continue reading
Send me a text the Judaizers in Paul's day insisted that the Old Covenant law of Moses had to be obeyed in addition to faith in Jesus. They mixed law with gospel. Unfortunately, there are modern-day Judaizers who do the same thing to varying degrees with the same outcome: by adding law to grace, they have fallen from grace. Let's talk. Other Places…
…
continue reading
Send me a text What is spiritual growth? What does that term mean? More often than not, it's a term that gets weaponized to force conformity to a preset standard of rules or activities. But is there such a thing as spiritual growth in the New Covenant scriptures? If so, how is it gauged? What's the standard and how do I know if I'm doing it or doin…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Religion diminishes who we are in Jesus by adding layers of obligations on top of the finished work of Jesus on the cross and in his resurrection. There is no rest in religion but in Jesus, rest is part of our new identity. Much like oil and water, religion and rest don't mix. I want to give a much overdue shoutout to Joel Brueseke a…
…
continue reading
Send me a text My wife Susan joins me in this episode to talk about five regrets of a former pastor's wife. These speak to the damage done as a direct result of having spent years in institutional church leadership. Grab your favorite beverage, pull up a chair, and listen in. Here they are in the order we talked about them: Being Silent and Not Spe…
…
continue reading
Send me a text The UnSunday Show podcast website has received a major makeover and there are new features and tools there now that make it easier for us to communicate. Among the new tools, there's now a voice mail feature that enables you leave me a voice message up to 2 minutes long. You can use this to ask questions, leave comments, suggest new …
…
continue reading
Send me a text This episode sprang from a conversation Susan and I had about the impact Christian nationalism has had on the body of Christ throughout its history. The use of military jargon within institutional religion has given us a military-style pecking order of top-down authority in the body of Christ. A quote I share in this episode is a cle…
…
continue reading
1
Justification by Faith or Works: Did James and Paul Disagree? (74)
1:02:30
1:02:30
در پخش در آینده
در پخش در آینده
لیست ها
پسندیدن
دوست داشته شد
1:02:30
Send me a text James: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." (James 2:24) Paul: "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." (Romans 3:28) Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke from the Growing in Grace podcast join me in this episode as we examine the topic of justification. Is our justification …
…
continue reading
Send me a text I lost all my drive and passion to write following my crash and burn in 2009. As a pastor who spent years in performance-based Christianity, I hit a wall of performance in 2009 and I went from full-on to full-stop overnight. Relationships were lost, friendships were lost, and in the process my passion for writing and speaking evapora…
…
continue reading
Send me a text In this episode I talk through some additional thoughts and recap some topics from last week's episode with Joel Brueseke on the law abolished. In addition to what I talk about in this episode, my biggest question concerning this issue of the law is simply "Why?" Why do we tend to think the law, defined in scripture as "weak and usel…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Joel Brueseke of the Growing in Crace Podcast joins me in this episode for a conversation about the Law of Moses, as we explore the important question, "Has the Law of Moses been abolished in addition to being fulfilled?". While most within the grace community would agree that it has been fulfilled by Jesus, not all agree that it has…
…
continue reading
Send me a text If there's one thing reading church history has shown me, it's that we're swimming (or drowning) in 2,000+ years of religious traditions that we've been told are a necessary to stay in a good place or in good standing with God. But the problem of religious tradition has been around longer than that. Jesus confronted this issue with r…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Did you know that at least 3 times in the Old Testament book of Joshua, we're told that under Joshua's leadership, the Israelites rested in the Promised Land? But when we come to the New Testament letter to the Hebrews, we're told he didn't give them rest. So what gives? Why does Joshua tell us they experienced rest but Hebrews tells…
…
continue reading
Send me a text The New Covenant, the cross, Jesus, church, grace, faith, a believer's identity, false ideas about the Bible and God's view of us, Matt's new podcast and YouTube channel, and Matt's story are some of the topics Matt and I talk about in this episode. This episode is packed with content that I hope encourages you and challenges you as …
…
continue reading
Send me a text A friend reached out to me recently asking about what's commonly called once saved, always saved. The mixed messages we hear in institutional religious settings can cast doubt on the sufficiency of Christ's once-for-all-time sacrifice for sins and the permanence of our salvation. In my experience, religion does this in two primary wa…
…
continue reading
1
Five Words That Drove The Church to Kill William Tyndale, Pt 5: Love, not Acts of Charity (66)
14:16
Send me a text This episode is the last of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’ve been concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I have been about the religious c…
…
continue reading
1
Five Words That Drove The Church to Kill William Tyndale, Pt 4: Acknowledge, not Confess (65)
22:35
Send me a text This episode is the fourth of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’m concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I am about the religious climate of t…
…
continue reading
Send me a text This episode is the third of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’m concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I am about the religious climate of th…
…
continue reading
1
Five Words That Drove The Church to Kill William Tyndale, Pt 2: Congregation, not Church (63)
24:37
Send me a text This episode is the second of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I'm concentrating more on the meaning of the words and their intent, than I am about the religious climate of t…
…
continue reading
Send me a text This episode is the first of five episodes exploring William Tyndale's use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. The five words are: Elder instead of Priest Congregation instead of Church Repent instead of Do Penance Acknowledge instead of …
…
continue reading
Send me a text How did we get to where we are today in an institutional church culture so firmly planted in the centrality of the pastor? This episode is a look at a few key moments in the history of institutional Christianity that have brought us to where we are today - into a church culture of top-down authority where the pastor has been handed a…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Greetings everyone! This last-day-of-2021 episode is an unscripted rambling by yours truly about the dawn of a new year, what is ours in the New Covenant, the importance of having an Old Covenant/New Covenant distinction when reading Scripture, and how much gospel is actually in the gospels? Push Play to join in! Links I mention in t…
…
continue reading
Send me a text My wife Susan joined me on this episode as we delved into our thoughts together about institutional Christianity and institutional religion and the effects and impact it leaves on people. Our view of institutional Christianity isn't neutral. Our view of God is directly impacted by our view of institutional Christianity in so many way…
…
continue reading
Send me a text This is the concluding part of what I introduced last week concerning how modern institutional religion requires pastors to be something we don't see in the New Covenant scriptures. Church tradition tells us that Timothy was a pastor, carrying out the duties we see modern institutional church pastors doing. They insist that Paul's di…
…
continue reading
Send me a text I received a note from David, one of the listeners to this podcast, who asked for my take on Timothy as a pastor and how the function of modern church pastors differs from the function of their New Testament counterparts. I flipped the order of this to talk about the differences first and then next week, I'll be taking a look at Timo…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's talk about institutional church and the ekklesia because one of these is not like the other. Did you know Jesus never used the word church? And yet the word church is all over our New Testaments. How did it get there and what does it imply? This episode is a bit of a rant as I talk about a couple of differences between church a…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's talk about obedience. Doesn't that sound fun? I've found it to be true that in almost every institutional church setting, the topic of Christian obedience in one form or another, dominates the landscape. It's peppered throughout sermons to varying degrees (most of the time, overtly), it's written into our church membership cont…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's continue talking about pulpits and institutional religion's obsession with the pulpit and how it's been elevated to such a place of prominence in institutional Christianity. Charles Spurgeon said this concerning pulpits: "The moment the church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her." This quote is one example of …
…
continue reading
Send me a text This is part one of two on the subject of pulpits and institutional religion's requirement of keeping the pulpit at the center of its Sunday events. I have a lot to say about this but my laptop battery ran down as I was recording this and I wasn't near my charger, so I stopped where I was, making this part one of two. Part Two will d…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's talk about some of the pitfalls of professionalizing Christianity and relegating our time together to the professionals we've hired in our institutions and relying on them to do what all of us should be doing. The body of Christ suffers in this scenario because it's impossible for every member to function and exercise their spi…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's talk about how institutional religion often uses the small group setting as another way to promote itself by making the group agenda-driven and insisting that the agenda remains at the heart of the group. Whether it's to review Sunday's sermon, have an institutionally-sanctioned Bible study or book study, or to discuss the inst…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's talk about spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are a group of activities that vary from group to group or church to church, that we're told we need to be doing to ensure spiritual maturity. It's an activity list of things like reading your Bible, prayer, giving, sharing your faith, etc. that institutional environments …
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's talk about faith. In the letter to the Hebrews we're told that without faith it's impossible to please [God]. That sounds a little daunting. Does that mean I'm responsible to fabricate a certain amount of faith every day to make sure God is happy with me? What if I fail in my attempts at faith? Is God displeased with me? How do…
…
continue reading
Send me a text Let's take a few minutes to talk about institutional religion's shady past. This is in response to a comment someone left back in episode 46 (Who Has Bewitched You?) that deserves some attention. The comment was actually in two parts. The first part was more of an observation when this person said, "Communities used to be built aroun…
…
continue reading
1
47. Have We Forsaken The Assembling of Ourselves Together? A Second Glance at an Overused Proof Text
25:03
Send me a text Let's talk about Hebrews 10:25. I don't know about you but in my experience, this verse has been used over and over again as a proof text to convince me that leaving institutional religion was more than just a bad idea. Leaving institutional religion, so the argument goes, is forbidden in the Bible and Hebrews 10:25 is proof of that.…
…
continue reading
