That NAMS Podcast

There's No Such Thing as New Testament Church Planting" — What NAMS Actually Aims to Reproduce

Description: Over breakfast, a friend who grew a church from 125 people to over 5,000 kept using a phrase Jon Shuler couldn't let stand: "New Testament church planting." So Shuler challenged him — there's really no such thing. The early church spread across the Roman Empire before the New Testament existed as a book in anyone's hands. What shaped those first congregations wasn't a text but a living pattern, carried from Jerusalem by the people who had been formed there. In episode 143, back from training church planters in Arkansas, Shuler traces that pattern from Pentecost through the Jerusalem Council to the letters of Ignatius of Antioch — and shows how, by the end of the first century, one consistent order had taken hold everywhere: a single bishop, elders, and deacons. That, he says, is what NAMS aims to reproduce — the church of Antioch by the end of the first century, under the full authority of Scripture. A rich and clarifying episode for every church planter and Great Commission Christian.

"You Seem So Focused on the Spread of the Gospel — And That's Not Normal"

A Presbyterian pastor once told Jon Shuler he didn't seem like an ordinary Anglican: "You seem so focused on the spread of the gospel, and that's not normal." In episode 142 — the third and final part on branding — Shuler takes that offhand remark and turns it into a searching question about what NAMS has become and what it could be. He faces the hard reality that by 2006 the society had helped plant over 227 churches in North America, yet most, however faithful, quietly resembled ordinary Episcopal parishes and were missing the apostolic DNA that makes a church plant churches. Overseas, where leaders expected conversion, the New Testament pattern flourished; at home, Anglican culture impeded it. So Shuler offers a vision to pray over: what if the world heard "NAMS" and instantly thought Kingdom Advance — disciples who make disciples, churches that plant churches, the kingdom of God furthered the way it was in the beginning? A candid, hopeful, and clarifying episode for every church planter and Great Commission Christian.

"It Was Easier to Understand the Koran Than to Understand Anglican"

In episode 141, Jon Shuler keeps pressing on branding — and lets a string of painful, honest moments do the work. A mission student, required to study the Koran for his degree, told Shuler he found it easier to grasp than the word "Anglican." A respected church planter turned down the NAMS family with a single line: "I really don't have energy to join your Anglican Civil War." Two senior clergy pulled him aside to say his vision of a growing, missionary church wasn't Episcopalian at all. And on two recent Sundays, preaching in two lovely, faithful, half-empty congregations, Shuler found himself asking whether a spiritually hungry stranger would ever return. He isn't offering answers yet. He's asking the question every NAMS companion now has to sit with: is the way we're understood in our culture quietly undermining the call God has given us? A candid, humble, and searching episode.

What's in a Name? — Jon Shuler on Branding, the Anglican Label, and What NAMS Really Means

In episode 140, Jon Shuler dips his toes into AI for the first time and asks ChatGPT a simple question: what does "NAMS" mean? The answers — a Korean surname, an Indian nickname meaning "to honor," and, memorably, the North American Menopause Society — launch a wide-ranging and often funny reflection on the power of branding. But underneath the humor is a serious concern: the word "Anglican" triggers an instant reaction in people's minds, and it's rarely the one NAMS intends. From a Frenchman toasting "Jack Daniels!" to a South Carolinian who thought Episcopal meant "little, old, and rich," to the dozen strangers who said "oh, you're the church that hates gay people," Shuler shows how a brand can mean one godly thing to us and something entirely different to everyone else. A thought-provoking episode for every Anglican, church planter, and Great Commission Christian.

"Are We Placing Something Ahead of Christ?" — Jon Shuler on Anglican Identity and the Danger of Idolatry

Where your treasure is, there your heart is also. In episode 139, Jon Shuler follows the money — and what he sees troubles him. So much of what the church spends is devoted not to mission, but to maintaining a distinctly Anglican identity. Watching the FIFA World Cup, he's struck by how sport becomes an idol for millions — and how the same thing can happen, quietly and unconsciously, with Christian identity. Shuler traces his own lifelong struggle with the question "what kind of Anglican am I?" — Catholic, evangelical, charismatic, biblical — until the Spirit brought him to the only identity that finally mattered: a man in Christ. Then he turns to the Anglican Church in North America and asks a question he admits he raises with fear and trembling: when our energy and resources go toward what is distinctly Anglican rather than what is distinctly Christian, are we verging on placing something ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ? A searching, personal, and provocative episode for every Anglican, church leader, and Great Commission Christian.

"Would Any of Them Die for Me?" — The Question That Took a Successful Rector to His Knees

By every external measure, the parish was a triumph: the largest in the diocese, 700 people every Sunday, 1,500 at Easter, a 17-person staff, decades of unbroken growth. Its rector was proud — and he had every worldly reason to be. Then, kneeling alone at the communion rail one evening in 1987, he heard the Spirit of God begin to ask him questions. How many of your new members are members only because they were born or married into it? How much did it cost to gain 17 new believing adults? How much should it cost to make a disciple? And finally, the question that took him from tears to weeping: would any of them die for me? In episode 138 of That NAMS Podcast, Jon Shuler tells this true story and sets it against fresh demographic numbers from the Anglican Church in North America — where half of all congregations have fewer than 50 people. The challenge he leaves with every leader is unforgettable: what is the return on investment for the congregation you serve? A searching, convicting, and unforgettable episode for every pastor, church planter, and Great Commission Christian.

"A Christian Not Making Another Christian May Not Yet Be aChristian" — Jon Shuler on the One Thing Worth Measuring

Description

Before Jon Shuler had a PhD in church history or a degree in theology, he was a civil engineer — and in episode 137 he reaches back to a diagram from that first training to ask a question every church planter must face. Every church takes in the same resources: people, money, buildings. Every church runs an internal system. Every church produces an output. So why do the outputs differ so wildly? Shuler contrasts abrother in North India who moves men from unbelief to church-planting leadership in under a year with his own Anglican diocese, where the same path takes four years or more — and lands on a line from the great New Testament scholar Raymond Brown that the early Christians believed a Christian who was not helping to make another Christian probably was not yet a Christian. If your system isn't producing disciple-making disciples, Shuler says, the system has to change. A searching, practical, and convicting episode for every companion, church planter, and Great Commission Christian.

Part 10 of the NAMS Rule & Customary Order Series.

"We relate to the Anglican Family — we serve beyond it." — Jon Shuler on the Final Two Articles of the NAMS Rule

In episode 136, Jon Shuler brings the Rule series toward its close by covering Articles IV and V — doctrine and ecclesiastical connection. On doctrine: the faith NAMS contends for is not something any generation gets to reinvent. Drawing on Jude verse 3 and the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888, he makes clear that when there is confusion or conflict in the church, the Holy Scriptures are the rule and ultimate standard — full stop. On ecclesiastical connection: NAMS is not owned by the Anglican family, it relates to it — and that distinction is deliberate. The society is committed to kingdom ministry, not denominational ministry, and seeks to serve and be in unity with any church, community, or network that truly submits to Christ, whatever its tradition or history. A searching and clarifying conclusion to one of the most important stretches of teaching in this series.

Part 9 of the NAMS Rule & Customary Order Series.

"We Are Not a Disembodied Community" — The Call to the 2027 NAMS Global Novena

A rule without purpose is just bureaucracy. In episode 135, Jon Shuler steps back before finishing Article III to ask the question that underlies everything: are we getting the results we desire? His honest answer is no — and that's exactly why NAMS exists. He then turns to the Global Society section of the Rule and unpacks the two gathering commitments every companion makes, including the NAMS Global Novena — a nine-day assembly of the whole family, last held in Devon in 2022, now being called for 2027. He traces the Novena back to an offhand remark by Bishop Alex Dickson in January 1995 and makes a direct appeal: start saving now, and come. A rallying and clarifying episode for every companion, every NAMS friend, and anyone who believes the church is meant to be a family of brothers, not a scattered collection of individuals.

Part 8 of the NAMS Rule & Customary Order Series.

"You May Not Leave Her in a Separate Room" — Marriage, Mission, and the NAMS Companion

An Anglican order of married church planters is, Jon Shuler admits in episode 134, quite unique in Christian history. And that uniqueness creates a real tension: what happens when the demands of the companion calling collide with the sacred bond of marriage? Shuler is direct — a companion who runs around the world making disciples while neglecting his own wife is an unfaithful companion. Full stop. This episode unpacks two commitments from the Married Companions section of Article III: the path of spousal discipleship and the requirement that a wife not merely tolerate the calling but genuinely understand and believe in it. A searching and pastoral episode for every married companion, Anglican church planter, and Great Commission Christian.