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 for his people? Who put pastors in charge? The answer might shock you: Other pastors.

Here's a link to the episode I mentioned. I hope you'll take the time to listen. https://www.unsunday.com/the-long-and-winding-road-of-institutional-christianity/

Later....

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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.

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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 doing it right? Let's talk.

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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 at the Growing in Grace podcast. He was kind enough to have me on his podcast for 2 episodes several months ago. In fact, it was last year! We had a fantastic conversation that went a little long so Joel made it into 2 episodes. Thank you Joel! Here are the links to those 2 episodes:

• The State of the Church, Part 1
• The State of the Church, Part 2

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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:

1. Being Silent and Not Speaking Up
2. How Much it Cost Me and My Family
3. Driven to Being Liked and Accepted
4. Compliance to Misogyny and Patriarchy
5. Stuffing My Anger

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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 topics, etc. Just be nice.

This episode is also available in video. You can find the video on YouTube at https://youtu.be/jlDUX4SKJLw 

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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 clear illustration of this where the pastor is said to be the Company Commander who gets his or her orders directly from the Commander-in-Chief (Jesus) and we're obligated to follow them without question. Seriously. Just push Play. 

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• 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 by faith alone as Paul said or is it a combination of faith and works as James said? Did James and Paul disagree on this important subject of justification? Listen in as we open the scriptures and compare the writings of both James and Paul concerning justification as well as the historical accounts dealing with this topic recorded in Acts 15, Acts 21, and Galatians.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Growing in Grace episodes 778-799 (excluding the Christmas episode 786)
• Clash of the Covenants by Michael C. Kapler

Enjoy!

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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 evaporated. Recently, that passion has returned. There's a lot more to that story but perhaps another time.

Today, I'm announcing the launch of my new blog, the UnSunday Blog. The UnSunday Blog is a companion site to the UnSunday Show and should complement it well. For those of you who prefer reading over listening to a podcast, the UnSunday Blog will give both you and me an opportunity to dive deeper into the topics I share. Here's the link to the UnSunday Blog:

https://www.unsundayblog.com/

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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 useless", and given only to a specific people group in another obsolete covenant, is in some way binding on us today in the New Covenant? Some theological traditions slice the law up into sections in order to get some of it into the New Covenant, calling part of it "moral law" and insist that only this "moral" section applies to us in the New Covenant. But why do we tend to be so preoccupied with bringing Moses into the New Covenant? Where did this come from and why is it there? 

I also correct something that I believe I said in error in the last episode during my conversation with Joel. This has to do with being dead to the law. 

-Enjoy!

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