Grounded with Chuck Quinley

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 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 SherryGrounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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! ChuckGrounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 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 MattersThis 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 DoingFirst: 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!ChuckPS: 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.Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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!ChuckPS: 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! Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 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 ThingsOver 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.Grounded Podcast is a 100% reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work please join us as a free or paid subscriber.My Working Definition of ChristianitySo 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 ParadoxThere 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 EpisodeWhich 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. Please help us share the Grounded podcast with your friends. There’s no algorithm driving the expansion of our audience, only you sharing the value you find in this discussion with your friends. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 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 JesusThe 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 cutA 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 usJesus 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 GospelsThe 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,ChuckPS: 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?Thanks for reading Grounded Podcast! Please share it with as many people as possible to help us grow our impact. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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.”Three People Paying the PriceWhen 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 WordsThe 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.Grounded Podcast is a reader-supported publication. I’ll send you posts directly if you’ll simply become a free subscriber. If you appreciate my efforts and would like to support my work, please become a paid subscriber. Thanks!!For DiscussionThe 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? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 CenterImagine 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 GovernmentIn 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 PositionHere’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 ProblemThe 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 EverywhereWhen 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 BackThe 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 BullseyeThink 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,ChuckHere 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?” Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 VoiceWhen 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 PaulPaul 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.RecapWe’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! Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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?RecapIf 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 exhaustionWith 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 ConvictionsWe 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. MeaningKey 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. DirectionConvictions 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. IdentityYour 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. CommunityConvictions 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. LegacyWhen 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 usTo have convictions is to pay a price. Here’s what it costs:1. ComfortConvictions 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 CostConvictions 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 LifeThroughout 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.Sorry to break in like this, but Grounded is currently at 650 subscribers. Please help me boost this to 1,000 by the end of next month. This is important to give the ReJesus Everything book launch its needed momentum. You can help by sharing this publication with people in your address book you feel it may help. Thank you so much for joining the reJesus Everything team! This is such an important matter and can have truly eternal consequences in many lives as we help our families and friends avoid spiritual shipwreck and anchor their lives completely to Jesus. Thanks!!!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 UpSo 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 SeriesSo 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 Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Grounded S02 E03There’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 InheritedThe Experience BusinessImagine 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 BurnoutIf 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 anymore4. 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 UnsustainableOne 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 WearyJesus 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 throughHe assumes weariness is part of the human condition, but he points those who are weary to a sure solution.Jesus is Our OasisIn 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 InstitutionJesus 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 ErosionWhat 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 FarWe’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? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 modeled2. What Christianity has become3. Why the gap between them is so painful—and what it means.The Jesus of the BibleIf 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 SufferingWhen 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 OutcastsChrist 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 DisconnectI’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 ImperfectWhat 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 ForwardIf 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. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 NumberLast 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 DataAccording 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 FaithThis 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 entirelyBut 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 TrainIt’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 CrisisFaith 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 awayMany 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. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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 CorinthiansIf 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, ChuckPS: 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? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Humans Need Community Humans require community in order to survive. We are not like sharks or some other solitary animal which can do just fine on their own. From the dawn of time, we survive because we build communities that develop into civilization. With that arrangement, there will be security from predators, more than enough food, and extra hands to help everyone survive. The greatest threat to human survival is not a T-Rex, it turns out. We have survived every apex predator that has walked the Earth in our time on the planet. The greatest threat to humans is simply the breakdown in their feelings for one another. Friends become enemies, and the love we felt before can become channeled into a murderous rage. Fixing damaged relationships matters to God.Jesus said that we should not bother to continue with our religious practices of church going and Bible study, making prayers, or offering sacrifices to God, until we have fixed our damaged relationships. He said just leave the gift at the altar and go fix it, then come back and God will want to be with you. He will even leave his blessing on the works of your hands, but only if you fix things. Fixing things often requires an apology on your part.How to Destroy an ApologyThere are two ways to torpedo an apology even after you gathered up the courage to face the problem with someone you’ve hurt. “But”—you can spend 20 minutes, apologizing with absolute sincerity, then, as you wipe your tears and blow your nose this one little word can undo everything you have said. Do not end an apology with the word “but”. You're gonna be so tempted to offer some kind of justification for what you have done so it won't be quite as bad on you but resist the temptation. Just put a period at the end of that apology and say, "So I hope you can forgive me for doing that” and then look at them until they speak. Probably it will get really easy at that point and you may have saved your friendship, working relationship or even your marriage.“If” —this is not quite as bad as the last word, but it is a form of equivocation, sort of like a plea bargain with the judge, when you are trying to get the crime down to a misdemeanor. “I'm sorry if I might've done something that might have contributed…” :-) that's a really cowardly way to start things off.By adding the word “if” to the apology, we muddy the water. Did you do something wrong or not? If you did not, then don't apologize. If you did, then toughen up and give a legitimate apology, admitting what you did. Even if you don’t feel that you did the wrong (and who does?) if you have a messed up relationship there’s probably something you could legitimately apologize for just to get the conversation started. Apologize for any little thing you have contributed, and then say something like, “I value our friendship and I really don't want anything to mess that up.” Smile and wait for them to speak.The point is that as far as Jesus is concerned, it's not OK to scratch off relationship after relationship because something went wrong and you are not willing to go face that person and try to save your relationship.So, if we want to be a disciple of his, we have to live by a higher standard than that. Here’s this week’s Jesus Quest challenge.Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.And here are this week’s prayer prompts:## Jesus Quest Week 3: Fixing Damaged Relationships - Apologizing and Making Restitution### Day 1: Examining Your Heart and Taking Responsibility**Scripture Reference:** Matthew 7:3-5> "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."Reflection: Before we can effectively repair damaged relationships, Jesus calls us to honest self-examination. This week we are going to do some amazing repair work on our relational network, but it begins with taking responsibility for our own contributions to relational damage. The Holy Spirit will guide us in strengthening these relationships and mitigating any pain being felt by others.Prompts:1. How does Jesus' teaching about removing the plank from your own eye apply to your damaged relationships?2. Have you done anything that contributed to the problems in your damaged relationships?3. What patterns do you see in your relational conflicts that might indicate areas where you need to grow?4. Are you willing to take responsibility for your part in relational damage, even when the other person was also wrong?5. What fears or pride might be preventing you from taking the first step toward reconciliation?6. Who is the Holy Spirit telling you to contact this week?7. Do you need to speak out your apology even to someone now dead just to get it said and off your heart?---Day 2: Restoring Family RelationshipsScripture Reference: Ephesians 4:31-32> "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."**Reflection:** Family relationships are often the most challenging to repair because they involve our deepest wounds and longest histories. Yet these are also the relationships that can bring the greatest healing when restored. God calls us to approach our family members with the same kindness and compassion that Christ has shown us.Prompts:1. How can Paul's instruction to "get rid of all bitterness" guide your approach to family relationships that need repair?2. Which family relationships are currently strained or damaged? What specific issues need to be addressed?3. Who in your family network should you reach out to and affirm that you respect and value them?4. Are there family members you need to apologize to for specific words or actions?5. What bitterness, rage, or anger toward family members do you need to release before attempting reconciliation?6. How can you show kindness and compassion to family members who have hurt you, following Christ's example?7. What practical steps will you take this week to begin healing a damaged family relationship?---Day 3: Repairing Workplace and Professional RelationshipsScripture Reference: Colossians 3:23-24> "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."Reflection: Our workplace relationships are opportunities to demonstrate Christ's love and character. When these relationships are damaged, it affects not only our work environment but also our witness. Approaching workplace reconciliation with the mindset that we are ultimately serving Christ transforms how we handle professional conflicts and restoration.Prompts:1. How does viewing your work relationships as service to Christ change your approach to workplace conflicts?2. Which workplace relationships are currently strained? What role did you play in these conflicts?3. Are there colleagues, supervisors, or business partners you need to apologize to for professional mistakes or attitudes?4. Who in your workplace should you have coffee with just to try and restore the flow between you, even if there hasn't been a known problem?5. What professional promises have you broken that might require an apology or restitution?6. How can you demonstrate Christ's character in your approach to workplace reconciliation?7. What fears are holding you back from reaching out to repair professional relationships?---Day 4: Navigating Romantic and Intimate Relationship RestorationScripture Reference: 1 Peter 4:8> "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."Reflection: Romantic relationships require special wisdom when it comes to restoration, as we must be careful not to create new problems on top of old ones. Whether dealing with current relationships or past ones, we must approach restoration with deep love, appropriate boundaries, and careful consideration of all parties involved.Prompts:1. How does Peter's teaching about love covering "a multitude of sins" guide your approach to romantic relationship restoration?2. Are there current romantic relationships that need healing? What specific issues need to be addressed with love and honesty?3. Regarding your romantic past, are there apologies that need to be made while maintaining appropriate boundaries?4. What wisdom do you need from God and trusted advisors before attempting to restore a relationship with someone with whom you were once romantically involved?5. How can you ensure that attempts at restoration don't create new pain or complications for anyone involved?6. What patterns in your romantic relationships need to change to prevent future damage?---Day 5: Healing Church and Spiritual Community RelationshipsScripture Reference: Luke 19:8-9> "But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.'"Reflection: Church relationships can be the most painful to repair because they involve our spiritual family and sacred trust. Yet Jesus' encounter with Zacchaeus shows us that true repentance often requires restitution—making things right in practical ways. In our church we have a belief called "restitution where possible"—a beautiful idea that our hearts tell us to do, but how seldom done in the end.Prompts:1. How does Zacchaeus's example of restitution inspire your approach to repairing church relationships?2. Which church or spiritual community relationships need healing? What specific wounds or conflicts need to be addressed?3. Are there church leaders, fellow believers, or ministry partners you need to apologize to?4. Like Zacchaeus, is there any restitution you need to make—returning what was taken, repaying what was owed, or making amends for harm caused?5. What church conflicts or divisions have you contributed to that need your repentance and active reconciliation?6. How can you approach church relationship restoration with the same humility and generosity that Zacchaeus showed?7. What practical steps of restitution might God be calling you to make in your spiritual community relationships?8. Who in your church network should you reach out to simply to affirm your love and respect for them, even if there's been no major conflict? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hi! Hope you are having a great day today and also that last week’s focus on walking with Jesus as a true disciple has brought new growth into your life.Forgiveness WeekToday week 2 of our 7-week discipleship sprint begins! This week is about fixing our heart and cleaning out the hurts. In live we accumulate wounds. Some are suffered in our childhood. Others come through a failed romantic love. Probably the deepest and most abiding happen in our family. It could be from your extended family, or your mom and dad, your brothers, or even your children or grandchildren. There are betrayals in our career usually because money and position are involved. Then, there are those horrible hurts that occur in church. Usually we don't see these coming and they really hit us hard. Any of these that stick to us rob us of joy and interfere with the forgiveness Jesus wants to bring to us.So this week, we're gonna deal with all that stuff and get rid of it, OK? Here are your Prayer Prompts: Use one each day as your devotional time with the Lord. They are designed to unearth hidden hurts so you can follow the process of:1. Listing the person who did it2. Writing exactly what they did3. Describing how it affected you 4. Declaring them as released from all debt to youYou may think that you don’t need to do this because you did it once already, but let’s follow the program anyway and ask the Holy Spirit to do a deep healing this week in you. Long term marriage generally had lots of irritation under the skin as you repeat in your mind some well-worn criticisms of your partner. This is the week to let it all go and start living with more freedom. Prayer Prompts### Day 1: Wounds Received in Your Family**Scripture Reference:** Zechariah 13:6-7> "And they shall say to him, 'What are these wounds between your arms?' Then he will answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.'"**Additional Reading:** Genesis 44-45 (Joseph's revelation of himself to his betraying brothers. You can tell he has long ago forgiven them and sees the sovereign purpose of God even in their treachery against him.)**Reflection:** Welcome to Forgiveness Week! Today we begin our journey into forgiveness by thinking about the wounds we have all suffered in our family and intimate friendship circle. Because family is supposed to be the safe place in our life, and the one place we would never expect to receive hurt, these wounds go the deepest. They also come the earliest in our life, and since we are still in formation, the impact of these wounds is generally felt for the rest of our lives.**Forgiveness Protocol:** This week we will begin a long time of soul cleansing. This will entail something of a ceremony of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the cancelling of a debt. In order to do this we must name the debtor, state exactly what they did to us, and explain how their actions affected us. That's the debt, our of our heart and now recorded officially on paper. The only remaining step is to go before the Lord and say, "I release you" to each debtor. They owe us nothing from this point on. We are free to move on in life with the matter at rest in the lap of the great Judge of the earth.Take a blank sheet of paper and make four columns for the following headings: Name, What they Did, How it Affected Me, I Forgive them. Day by day we will carefully examine the path of our lives to unearth buried hurts we have received and release these person and the wound they caused us.**Prompts:**1. Looking back at your early childhood, can you identify a hurt or rejection that still affects how you see yourself or trust others today?2. In your teen years or young adulthood, what wounds—whether from parents, siblings or extended relatives—still carry weight in your heart?3. Were you assaulted by a family member or close friend?4. Were you hurt by a system of favoritism within your family?5. Were you betrayed by anyone in your inner circle?6. Were you sexually wounded by someone you trusted?7. Were you physically or verbally abused by family members?8. Did someone in your family introduce you to dark or harmful things?Ask the Lord to help you surface wounds received in your family as a child, young person or even now. We praying for you this week to go through the deepest cleansing your heart has ever known.---### Day 2: Forgiving Wounds Received in Romantic Relationships**Scripture Reference:** 1 Peter 4:8> "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."**Reflection:** Romantic relationships, while often sources of joy and connection, can also lead to deep emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds due to their intimate nature. Below is a detailed exploration of specific ways a person can be wounded in romantic relationships. As you survey your relational past, think on ways you might have been wounded and are just trying to ignore it instead of facing it and forgiving it.**Prompts:**1. How does Peter's teaching about love covering "a multitude of sins" guide your approach to forgiving romantic wounds?2. Have you experienced emotional neglect from a romantic partner—when they consistently ignored or minimized your feelings?3. Have you suffered verbal or emotional abuse, including harsh words, relentless criticism, controlling behavior, or gaslighting?4. Have you experienced abandonment or rejection—being left by a partner through breakup, divorce, sudden withdrawal, or being "ghosted"?5. Were there broken promises or unmet expectations that led to disappointment and disillusionment?6. Have you experienced manipulation or control where a partner used guilt, coercion, or power dynamics to control your decisions or behavior?7. Have you been wounded by a partner's lack of forgiveness or their holding grudges against you?8. Have you experienced sexual disrespect, coercion, or disregard for your boundaries?9. Have you been betrayed through infidelity, emotional affairs, or other violations of trust?---### Day 3: Forgiving Wounds Suffered in the Context of Our Work Life**Scripture Reference:** Colossians 3:23-24> "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."**Reflection:** Our workplace relationships are opportunities to demonstrate Christ's love and character. When these relationships are damaged by wounds we've received, it affects not only our work environment but also our witness. Approaching workplace forgiveness with the mindset that we are ultimately serving Christ transforms how we handle professional hurts.**Prompts:**1. Have you been betrayed by colleagues or superiors-—undermined, deceived, or had credit taken for your work?2. Have you experienced unfair treatment or discrimination based on gender, race, age, faith, or other factors?3. Have you faced workplace bullying or harassment—verbal abuse, intimidation, public humiliation, or aggressive criticism?4. Have you suffered job loss or unfair termination without clear explanation?5. Have employers or business partners broken professional promises regarding raises, promotions, equity shares, or project support?6. Have you received excessive criticism or had your contributions consistently ignored or undervalued?7. Have you experienced workplace competition and sabotage—colleagues undermining you to gain advantage?8. Have you been overburdened with excessive workloads or unrealistic deadlines without adequate support?9. Have you faced pressure to compromise your Christian values or experienced judgment for your faith in a secular workplace?---### Day 4: Forgiving Wrongs Suffered in the Church**Scripture Reference:** Psalm 55:12-14> "If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, who has done this. We took sweet counsel together and walked among the throng at the house of God."**Reflection:** Today we focus on forgiving wounds suffered in the church. This is such a sensitive matter for all of us who follow Jesus, especially for those of us who have dedicated a significant amount of our passion and energy to ministry in any form. In a church setting, we can experience a range of emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds due to the deeply personal and trusting nature of these environments. These wounds can be particularly painful because we believe churches and religious figures should be safe sources of spiritual care, and we let our guard completely down. These hurts go deep.**Prompts:**1. How does David's pain about being wounded by a close friend and companion in the house of God resonate with your church experiences?2. Have you experienced public embarrassment, judgment, or condemnation from church members or leaders for personal choices, struggles, or sins?3. Have you suffered spiritual abuse or manipulation where religious representatives misused their authority in order to control or coerce you?4. Have you been excluded, shunned, ignored, or rejected from the church community?5. Have you been betrayed by trusted leaders who violated your trust or used craftiness to disadvantage you?6. Have you witnessed or been hurt by hypocrisy or double standards where church members acted contrary to Jesus' teachings?7. Have you been caught up in unresolved conflicts, church splits, or factionalism within a congregation?8. Have you faced legalism and rigid expectations that went beyond biblical principles and were enforced without grace?9. Have you experienced neglect or lack of support from the church during personal crises when you needed care?10. Have you been hurt by moral or ethical failures of religious representatives, such as financial misconduct or sexual scandals?11. Have you been shamed or dismissed for questioning doctrine or practices, often framed as a lack of faith?---### Day 5: Forgiving Yourself**Scripture Reference:** Luke 11:4> "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation."**Reflection:** The Lord's prayer now applies to you. Today our focus is on the Lord's prayer in Luke 11 verse 4. Because you have spent this whole week forgiving others, you have the privilege to come before the Father and ask Him to forgive you for everything you have done in your whole life against Him and against your own progress. Jesus was pretty clear that without giving forgiveness we cannot receive forgiveness, so now we have a great opportunity to have all the burdens of our heart lifted off of us. What a great week!**Prompts:**1. How does Jesus' teaching that we must forgive others in order to receive forgiveness challenge you as you approach self-forgiveness?2. What sins, mistakes, or failures from your past do you need to bring before God for forgiveness?3. Are there ways you have hurt others that you need to confess and receive God's forgiveness for?4. What patterns of sin or destructive behavior do you need to repent of and receive God's grace to change?5. How have you hindered your own spiritual progress or growth? What do you need forgiveness for in this area?6. Are there ways you have failed to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength that need His forgiveness?7. What guilt, shame, or self-condemnation do you need to release as you receive God's complete forgiveness?8. Will you now extend to yourself the same grace and forgiveness that you'd offer others? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

OK, I just lifted my head from my work today (writing a book and putting the finishing touches on our two upcoming schools in Thailand (Photojournalism and Content Creation for missions) and realized there were only 18 week’s left in the entire year. This happens every year.I putt along being busy, always busy, then on some day about 2/3 through the year, I realize how short the time is if I want to make this one a “significant” year. (Mid life does the same thing in a much more scary way, right?)Jesus QuestJQ is the most amazing thing I’ve been involved with all year. We’ve seen “old time Christians” revived in their faith and newbies grounded on their journey with Jesus.So, I’d like to propose a challenge for you. I’m going to do a seven week Jesus Quest sprint via email blast and I really hope you’ll join and make it a priority. It may very well be the most important thing you’ll do all year.How it’s DifferentJesus Quest is not a Bible study. It’s a guided group experience in Action Discipleship. That means we actually DO, not talk about, one practice of Jesus each week. It becomes our focus all week in our devotions and it is the ONE item on our daily to do list. Hope you’re ready! When will it Start?More Good News! No waiting! Let’s start now.Click the Video Below. Check the CHAT below all week for our ongoing reports on what Jesus is teaching all of us as we do his teachings. We’re going to actually be disciples of Jesus, not just students of the Bible! Jesus Quest Week One: Master Your ThingsHere are the Prayer prompts for this week: Spend 15 minutes each day before the Lord working your way through an honest conversation with the Holy Spirit to answer these questions. Then get up from your prayer time and take action. The point is to do the teachings and practices of Jesus, not just study them. If you will dedicate yourself to applying the ways of God to your own life, you will see tremendous progress in your life in just seven weeks.---## Jesus Quest Week 1: Mastering Your Things - Let Jesus Help You Master Things### Day 1: Mastering Things We Ingest - Food, Drink, Medicines, and Stimulants**Scripture Reference:** 1 Corinthians 6:19-20> "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."**Reflection:** Our bodies are a gift from God, and what we choose to ingest impacts our health and well-being. Jesus invites us to trust Him for health and healing rather than relying excessively on substances or fearing unhealthiness. When we view our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, our consumption choices become acts of worship and stewardship.**Prompts:**1. How does viewing your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit change your perspective on what you choose to ingest?2. Are there unhealthy habits or fears controlling your choices about what you eat, drink, or consume?3. What substances—food, drink, medicines, or stimulants—might be hindering your physical health or spiritual well-being?4. Are there habits of hoarding, overeating, or over-relying on medications that may indicate a need to trust God more for your health and safety?5. Do you over-medicate? What does that say about you?6. Do you celebrate and honor your experience of eating good meals, savoring your meals and focusing on the power of a shared meal to build relationships?---### Day 2: Trust in God's Provision - Houses, Clothing, and Resources**Scripture Reference:** Matthew 6:25-26, 31-33> "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ... So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."**Reflection:** God provides all of us daily with all that we need—our homes, clothing, and resources. Today is an opportunity to release what no longer serves us, freeing our hearts and minds for the new days to come. It is also a time to celebrate the lifetime provision promised from our Father. We can live in peace, confident that our needs will always be met.**Prompts:**1. Despite all the blessings in your life, is there any poverty mindset still living in you that contradicts Jesus' teaching about God's provision?2. Is your space cluttered by too many possessions? Do you have an obsessive need to continually buy more things?3. Do you have expensive possessions that make you feel a trace of arrogance or superiority over others?4. Do you live in conscious gratitude for the level of house, clothing, and transportation you own?5. What possessions or attachments do you need to give away as a surrender to Jesus today?6. What fears about your needs can you release to Jesus today, trusting in His promise to provide?7. Is there something in your home, closet, or life that you need to declutter or give away?8. Is there anything you need to burn, donate, or destroy because of its hold on you?---### Day 3: Mastering Technology and Tools - Especially Mobile Devices**Scripture Reference:** 1 Corinthians 10:23-24> "'I have the right to do anything,' you say—but not everything is beneficial. 'I have the right to do anything'—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others."**Reflection:** There's never been a tool greater than the mobile phone. It can do seemingly anything! As with all things, this amazing tool has become a major source of bondage to children of God around the world, causing anxiety, depression, and becoming a gateway to materialism and harmful content. Disciples must take a serious look at the outsized role their phone has in their life and ask whether this tool is truly serving God's purposes.**Prompts:**1. How does Paul's teaching about beneficial versus permissible apply to your relationship with technology and tools?2. How often do you check your phone without a specific reason, and what do you feel when you can't check it?3. Can you go a full day without using your phone, like putting it in a box for 24 hours? If not, what stops you?4. Do you feel anxious, restless, or incomplete when your phone is out of reach or turned off?5. How much of your phone use is purposeful (e.g., work, learning, connecting meaningfully) versus mindless scrolling or habit?6. Have you ever missed out on in-person moments—like conversations or experiences—because you were focused on your phone?7. Do you use your phone right before bed or first thing in the morning? How might this affect your connection with God?8. If someone asked you to turn off your phone for a day each week as a spiritual discipline, how would that idea make you feel, and why?---### Day 4: Things Believed to Have Value in Themselves - Status, Luck, and Security**Scripture Reference:** Matthew 19:21-22> "Jesus answered, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth."**Reflection:** Some possessions we hold onto not for their practical use, but because we believe they bring us confidence, status, luck, or security. These items can become idols that compete with our trust in God. Jesus challenged the rich young ruler to examine what truly had value in his life, and He asks us the same question today.**Prompts:**1. Like the rich young ruler, what possessions or status symbols might be keeping you from fully following Jesus?2. Do you have anything that you feel brings you confidence, status, or luck apart from God?3. Are there possessions you use to impress others or establish your identity?4. Do you hold onto any objects or charms believing they will bring you luck or protect you from harm? How does relying on these affect your trust in God's protection and sovereignty?5. If Jesus challenged you as He did the rich young ruler to abandon 100% of your possessions and come follow Him with only the clothes on your body, what fears or feelings might emerge?6. Does having extra finances make you feel more secure than trusting in God's provision?7. How would your life change if you truly trusted the Father to be your 100% provision and security from cradle to grave? What fears would melt away?---### Day 5: Gratitude and Stewardship - Celebrating God's Provision**Scripture Reference:** 1 Timothy 6:17-19> "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."**Reflection:** God has richly provided us with everything for our enjoyment, but He calls us to hold these gifts with open hands. True mastery over our things comes not from accumulating more, but from recognizing God as the source of all provision and using what we have been given to bless others and advance His kingdom.**Prompts:**1. If you've ever bought a book, that action alone places you in the top half of all humans, financially. Do you feel rich? Why or why not?2. How does Paul's instruction to "put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment" change your perspective on your possessions?3. How often do you thank God for the amazing way He has always provided for you?4. How do you need to change to be "rich in good deeds" and "generous and willing to share" what God has given you?5. What would it look like to hold your possessions with open hands, ready to use them for God's purposes?6. What is God telling you to give away this week? Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Today, I want to talk about the importance of knowing who you really are.From the moment of birth we start trying to answer the questions: Who am I and why am I here? (e.g., Is there purpose in my life?) and I’m not sure most people ever fully answer it.The problem is what you use to identify yourself.Traditionally,1. Personal Characteristics and TraitsPersonality: “I’m introverted, creative, or compassionate.”Skills and Talents: Proficiency in areas like art, athletics, or intellectual pursuits can shape identity (e.g., "I am a writer" or "I am an athlete").Values and Beliefs: “I’m passionate about…”2. Cultural and Ethnic BackgroundEthnicity and Heritage: "I am Nigerian" or "I am Italian-American".Language: “I’m a native Spanish speaker…” The language(s) one speaks can be a strong marker of identity, connecting individuals to their community or diaspora.* Religion and Spirituality:Many people derive identity from their religious or spiritual beliefs (e.g., "I am a Christian," "I am a Buddhist").4. Family and Relationships:Lineage: Some find identity in their family history or legacy.Familial Roles: People often identify as a parent, sibling, or child, with family dynamics playing a significant role (e.g., "I am a mother").5. Occupation and Career: “I’m a sales rep for a northeastern paper company…”6. Social and Political Affiliations:Political Beliefs: People may identify with ideologies or movements, such as liberalism, conservatism, or environmentalism (e.g., "I am a feminist").Nationality: Citizenship or allegiance to a country often plays a role (e.g., "I am American").7. Hobbies and Interests:- Passions, such as gaming, music, or travel, can be central to identity (e.g., "I am a gamer" or "I am an adventurer").8. Nowadays we’re encouraged to identify ourselves by our traumas: “I’m a survivor of childhood abuse…” “I’m a breast cancer survivor,” OR by our victimhood in having a life condition we aren’t responsible for: “I’m bipolar, etc.”9. And the new idea that our entire identity is completely perceptual and fluid, such as Identifying as an animal or a mythical creature. (There’s a huge difference in saying, “I can identify with cats…” Vs “I identify as a cat.”The problem with all of this is that…It’s mostly external to us, just the random factors in our life (e.g., being born male).It may be dependent upon our performance and the acceptance of a social group to maintain this identity. (Nobody gets to be a pilot forever).As a Christian seeking a stable and meaningful identity you need to look no further than the first page of the Bible, the creation narrative.The Bible grounds human identity in a relationship with God, and our God-given role in this world.* Creatures made with special purpose by a loving God Psalm 139:13-14 “Fearfully and wonderfully made”* The Image of God on earth: - Genesis 1:26-27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness’… So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”This is God’s settled truth for every human being whether you love him, hate him or refuse to even accept His existence.But there’s more…Jesus takes our identity so much farther than the Genesis account alone.The Gospel declares that our identity can also become rooted in the Work of Christ—it’s our choice and depends upon our response to the finished work of Jesus for us.3. Jesus came to set us free from the bondage we have fallen into, a slavery to Sin and to Satan. If we will accept his gift and follow him as Lord, then we will feel the power of sin broken and the dominion of Satan voided.4. Purchased by blood. “I am redeemed, highly valued and deeply loved with unconditional love.”5. Re-created internally by Christ with the promise of being recreated physically after our death by resurrection into an eternal body.2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”6. Adopted into the family of God. Living forever as his child.7. Restored to dominion in life. With Satan’s rule over me ended I am again established with dominion and control over my own world.8. Authorized to use the name of Jesus to fight Satan and call down the resources I need.9. Provided with unbroken direct access to the Father. I am always connected to Him and welcomed to come before His throne.10. A member of the human family of God, surrounded by sweet people who are also walking in this light. I’m a part of the global body of Christ.11. A temple for the Holy Spirit, filled within by the mind and presence of God himself, led and empowered by the Spirit of God to do the works God has prepared for me.12. My life has a calling and a purpose as I work with my Father to invite humans to return to him and reclaim their high callingEphesians 2:10: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”Oh my friend, This Path Is Better!It's impossible to effectively live your life until you have answered the question of identity.The world's ways of approaching this question are unstable. They rest upon your success in life, and upon outside factors, and the trends of society. We cannot build our life on this sand.The word of God is a rock, and we can use it as a foundation for building our self image, but it only works if we turn our back on worldly labels.We can't make a compromise of finding purpose and worth from the world's ways and also from God’s. We have to vote and make up our mind who we believe and then build our life on that belief.I leave you with one final scripture.Colossians 3:1-3: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God… For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”Know who you are in Christ and declare it every day to yourself as you wake up and live out of this identification, and you will be an Overcomer.Love and Every Blessing,Chuck Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

We demand a lot out of God.I don't know if you have any of those one-sided relationships, maybe with a relative or even a grown up kid who is always asking for money and others kinds of help. They get miffed if you don't come through for them every time.I think we treat God like that too often. We face a circumstance that seems hard so immediately we pass it to him for help because—well that's his job right? It’s like a contract with God. We agree to worship him and he does miracles. All our lives it’s on him to heal our diseases, provide finances, and occasionally stop rainy weather or keep airplanes from taking off on time so we don’t miss our flight. Concierge service. Whatever we might need from on high.Uncle Luther’s “If Not” SermonMy uncle Luther (Earnest Quinley to the rest of the world) is a huge influence in my life. He was the only preacher in our family before me. He has a great sermon on this aspect of our relationship with God. I heard it once and I have preached the idea so many times through the years. It’s so helpful that I want to share it with you too.It comes from the story of the fiery furnace and the three Hebrew boys in Babylon. I can't imagine a greater trial. Death by fire—so horrible.You probably know this story by heart. Shadrach, Mechach and Abed-nego have been ordered to bow down before the golden statue erected by King Nebuchadnezzar. Every one of their friends, and even their elders, has prostrated before the image immediately. The three of them alone remain standing. The king was humiliated because they were the three top leaders in his government after Daniel. He cannot allow this level of insubordination, especially from foreigners serving in government positions.The Bible says he was enraged. (You can read the story in Daniel chapter 3.) He orders a massive fire to be built with a large chimney over it. Just imagine watching this fire and knowing that you were about to be thrown into it. You know these three Jewish men were hard at prayer for God to help them escape the fire.When the fire is hot enough, Nebuchadnezzar stands them up in front of everyone and shouts at them that he will give them one last chance. The symphony is going to play music again and they had better bow down before his gods or they're going to be thrown into that big fire.In verse 16 they shock the king with these words: "O Nebuchadnezzar we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us from your hand O King.”On the One Hand, You Have to Have A Bold FaithFaith is really important when you are dealing with God. You have to have absolute confidence in his power and in his love and relationship with you. You have to claim the good things that you are praying for. These boys know that and they declare their faith in God's ability to deliver them even when there is no possibility of human intervention.So that's the first part of this message. God is our lifeline for everything we need. We rely on him for our planet’s survival every day when millions of asteroids come flying at us and the Sun's radiation tries to burn us up, and diseases try to kill all our bodies. He stands up for us every day and strengthens our immune system and gives the Earth a magnetic field that pushes away the radiation and an oxygen-rich environment that burns up the asteroids. It's really so wonderful. He is a present help to all. Anyone who walks with him in faith throughout life will be rescued time and time again.Most of the time God comes through for us just as we requested. It's really amazing. Maybe his reliability is one of the things that makes it feel like a contract. We do our part he does his. But God is GodIf we are really going to have a relationship with him, we have to acknowledge that he is God and that we cannot control him completely even with prayer and that sometimes we might not get the thing we are requesting. Even if we don't, he's still good. That's the second part of this lesson and these mature men of God fully understand it. Sometimes God is at work on something bigger than you and you may even have to be sacrificed for the greater good and you may never know the details in this life. If you're going to walk with God, love him and be loved by him then you just have to trust him for the things you do not understand and still serve him even if you don't get your miracle.The “If Not” ClauseAfter their first bold speech about trusting God, they add a PS. “but if not… let it be known to you or King that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”My uncle Luther said that we all need an “if not” clause in our walk with God. So many people give up on their relationship with God because they become disappointed over one event. (OK, maybe more than one.) God is God. He's not a big man. His plans are huge. We’re not his boss.These men had a contract with God that had an “if not” clause. “We will serve you with all of our heart. We will follow your ways. We will obey your laws. You will love us and make us your children. You will be both a father and a friend. You will be our comfort and protection all the days of our life. You will answer our prayers, but if not, we will still be faithful to you. In those moments where it seems there is an exception being made and provision is scarce—healing is not happening. We lose the business. We miss the flight. We get fired. Our child does not get accepted into the great college we were hoping for, etc. etc. or even if we get thrown alive into this massive blazing fire—still, we will be loyal to you.What Does God Want?I think this brings us to a really important question. What does God really want from humans? When you look throughout the Bible stories, what is the one thing he demands from those who will have a relationship with him? Obviously, it is not moral perfection. That seems strange to say, but most of the great Bible heroes, men and women clearly have a relationship of love with God and yet are flawed morally. They are “people in development” and whether it's Adam and Eve, or Abraham, or Moses, they fail God somewhere along the way. They have problems in their character, ethics, and in their morals. They stumble, but they get back up. No, he does not demand moral perfection as the basis for an ongoing covenant relationship.What is the bottom line, then?It seems to me the one thing that is nonnegotiable with God is loyalty. Peter denied Jesus, but he came back and apologized, and when he faced the same trial again, he succeeded. He tested out as loyal. God can help anyone grow and overcome character flaws and other parts of human weakness. The link between us does not depend upon God. He loves us with an eternal love. He’s not walking away.The connection between God and man depends on the human being loyal to him, steadfastly loyal in good times and bad. Come to think of it. That's the main requirement for a marriage and for any other relationship. We have to be loyal in good times and bad. We have to think the best of each other even if the other disappoint us. We have to stand faithful even when we are disappointed at times. These men were fully committed to God whether they won or lost this particular battle.The End of this StoryAt this point in the story, it really doesn't matter whether the boys get thrown into the furnace or not. The battle has already been won. They are fully formed disciples and sons of God. In this particular case, God gives us a happy ending. They see Jesus standing the furnace with them. The fire does not affect them. They are delivered and honored. God gets the glory. The king is even converted, sort of.I like that ending.On the other hand, there are millions of Christians around the world, and over 100,000 in this year alone, who will face the ordeal of fire or the machete, and they will not be rescued from it. They will be delivered from their enemies by going through it without bending their knee to the idol. It’s happening this week in Syria and India. God is very much present with our brothers and sisters there. After a moment of pain, these who are being tested will open their eyes and see the smiling face of their Savior, welcoming them across the river. They will be grateful for the grace to be strong and loyal and to hear God say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” When they awake they won't be mad at God or sorry they had to go through that trial. They will receive from God great honor and great responsibility in the new world as they inherit their second life, the eternal one. They will be highly respected at the resurrection and regeneration of all things. This life is just the test that separates sheep from goats, faithful from unfaithful, loyal from disloyal.Those who stand in the end will be the ones who had an “if not” clause in their covenant with the Savior.The “If not” clause is the indispensable part of our agreement with God.I think this week is a good time to ask whether we have this covenant loyalty at the heart of our engagement with God.Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it.Thanks for letting me know your insights from this passage in the chat box. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Jesus seemed to consider interruption as a valuable opportunity. I wish I felt this way. I’m working on it. That’s what this newsletter is about.Whether they needed practical help, a word of encouragement, or physical healing, Jesus saw human interruptions as golden opportunity to add value to the lives of others. He lived an interruptible life.The Interruptible SamaritanLet’s zoom in today on the masterpiece story Jesus told in Luke 10:25-37. The Parable of the Good Samaritan.Jesus crafted this parable to drive home a point about what righteousness looks like in reality. The message of this story strikes such a deep chord in us that we’ve been retelling it for 2,000 years. The story is dramatic. A man is traveling alone by foot when he is ambushed by robbers who savagely beat him, steal his money and clothes, and leave him half-dead on the ground.Two religious leaders, a priest and a scholar, are shocked to discover this wounded man in the ditch. They know they should help, but they are busy and important and don’t really want to get involved so they walk on the other side of the road and leave their fellow man helpless and alone. Even as they hurry to their temple duties and Bible study it is assumed that they remain certain of their righteousness before God.Then a foreigner, an outcast, happens by. He’s someone from a group everyone thinks of as low, unrighteous people, so far from being like God. Yet, when the mongrel outcast sees this wounded man, he drops everything and rushes to help him. He gets blood all over himself, carries the man to safety, washes, and bandages the man's wounds, then transports him to an inn to rest. He recruits a caregiver for him. He even promises to pay any further costs to make sure this Jewish man (who might have despised him on any other day) recovers fully. He’s just doing what his heart tells him naturally to do. He is abundantly interruptible as a person. He reflects the nature of God. He is living as a man in God’s image. He is righteous.Our Samaritan OpportunitiesI bring up this story for myself as well as for you. We really need this teaching today because in our modern world we are just so busy. We’ve got a never-ending to-do list. Every moment counts, right?On our busiest days it still happens to us. Out of the corner of our eye we spot someone struggling. Maybe it's the old guy next door, his arms full of grocery bags, looking like he might drop them any second. Or someone who's clearly lost, looking around trying to find their way. Maybe it’s someone who gets emotional at work and clearly needs someone to talk to.There's this voice from our better self urging us, ”Go!, help out."But then there's the counterforceThe excuses:* I'm Too Busy to Stop: Helping would mean a delay, a disruption in my carefully planned day.* I'm Too Shy to Help: I have social anxiety. What if they don't want or need my help? What if it's awkward? Or Let's call it what it is -* I'm…just feeling selfish, because most times it’s not really about the time lost or any other factor. We just want to keep our bubble of comfort intact. We love our bubble more than we love others. May sound harsh, but it’s the fact with too many people. Jesus said that one of the signs of the last age was that the “love of many would grow cold.”Walking with Jesus isn't about doing grand acts of heroism; it's about responding to simple moments with the people he puts right in front of you.A Challenge for the WeekOur discipleship challenge for this week is to actually look forward to a miracle moment each day where God positions you to help someone in need. Just ask God to make it happen. Ask him to put you in position for a GSM (Good Samaritan Moment), when someone shows up with a need. Ask the Lord for the privilege of being interrupted so you can act as God’s own hands, his voice, his kind eyes. Pray it over and over till you mean it. That’s what I have to do to knock down resistance in my own mind.What an opportunity! A chance to work with God.The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us to be available for others, even when it's inconvenient. It’s a call to cultivate a lifestyle that considers interruption a golden opportunity to add value to another person’s life in the name of the Lord.So this week let’s embrace interruption. When you see a need, stop what you are doing and act on it, even if it disrupts your plans.I’m going to do it and I hope you will join me. Share the stories in the comments below or in the chat. It’s going to be amazing! (How cool if this became our actual lifestyle!)Walking With You in His Footsteps,CQ Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hi! Sherry and I just landed stateside again. It’s like shifting planets for me. We have an entire life in Thailand and SE Asia with a unique set of friends and daily occupation that goes on for months and months. Then the plane teleports us stateside and, Boom! we’re into an entirely different reality, complete with a different set of friends and family and different daily rhythms. All this to say that this will be a short writeup so I can get this post done on time this week. I put most of the work in the video version.In this episode of the podcast, I want to focus on the big picture of God's plan for your life and mine and the profound but simple training system that He has developed to help us grow into his image. You would think, that with Him being God, His training system for us would be very complex, but actually it has only one central element to it and if we can all focus on just this one thing every day we will become aligned with His heart. It's the same system, no matter where we fit in society’s hierarchy. Rich or poor, educated or illiterate, blue collar, or white collar work, every one of his children is destined to become a functioning member of God’s Royal family, extending his governance across the Earth. Our training starts now.Hope you enjoy the video and find it helpful in helping you grow into your life’s calling.Today’s discussion topic: What Bible story has had the most impact at shaping your life?Every Blessing!Chuck Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Want to know the ONE simple trick that saved my sanity? In this video podcast, I'm sharing my personal experience and the game-changing practice that helped me gain control over my life. From reducing stress and anxiety to increasing productivity and focus, this trick has been a total lifesaver. If you're feeling overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with the demands of modern life, you won't want to miss this!Join me as I reveal the one simple trick that turned my chaotic life around and saved my sanity!Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Stress Created by MultitaskingWe’re all busy people. We could use a few more hours each day to “get it all done,” right? It’s tempting to try and divide our attention. Maybe we can just juggle.Some people claim to be experts at doing half a dozen things at once, even with a cellphone in their hands sending out notification every 10 seconds. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of multitasking, but humans weren’t created to focus on two things at once. In fact, that’s the opposite of what the word focus means. It’s like saying “I have three priorities.” If there’s more than one you have no priority. That’s what the word means. The ONE thing that matters above all.More isn’t better. It just makes for more stress and who needs more of that? The Moment I Realized This System Was WorkingWe all do our best, right? In Manila, I knew that I was terribly overworked. I just wasn't sure what to do about it at the time. All I knew to do was to religiously follow the wheel concept that I share in this video. The last thing I wanted was for my family to feel neglected, or Sherry to feel unappreciated.One day we were in an elders meeting at our church, and Sherry spoke up and said to me, “Chuck, you need to share with them about the wheel.” Then she said to the group, “My husband has three jobs and he works hard at all of them. Because he follows this system I do not feel neglected and the kids have an engaged father. We're all working hard, but none of us is being left behind.” That felt so great to me. That's why I want to share this with you today.I know this focused way of living will have a beneficial impact on your life as well so I hope you’ll take the time to watch the video. Discussion: I’d love to hear from you about how this system works for you and also please share any other ideas that being sanity to your own life. Just join the chat and give us the benefit of your experience.Let’s have a focused productive year fulfilling our highest purpose!Every Blessing,Chuck Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Well, I think I’ll start the new year off doing something unusual for me, a poem. (no charge :-) Here goes… Light From Beyond “All you need to know is inside of you.”But I have lived long enough to ignore fools. I know what I know and nothing more. Experience might teach me something new... Another source is what I need. Not my thoughts. Not my mind. Revelation Light from beyond Help from aboveHearing from GodIf I could have one wish for me and for you it would be to hear from God more this year. I don't claim to hear God speak every day. When he does talk to me, it seems to be in very short sentences, but I treasure everything he has ever said to me. Nothing could make a bigger difference in my life this year than to somehow open my own awareness to him and receive more revelation from him. So today this is my prayer for you. Let's talk about revelation.The Process of RevelationMost true things are apparent. One known thing connects to another. Truth connects to truth, the way Lego bricks assemble themselves into a house or airplane. The parts are all there in front of us and, once we get the idea, we can reason out for ourselves how to fit them together.Other things require outside intervention because there is a missing piece of information beyond the scope of our own understanding or even our imagination. Without outside intervention in these cases we can never even conceive of these new things. “Eye has not seen…”"For my thoughts are not your thoughts…”"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways….”Revelation is a leap. It starts with one new truth of which we are currently unaware.This new truth is our breakthrough. It’s the key that allows us to enter a new room of truth and see things as they really are (and have always been). It will become the foundation for our future development. That moment in betweenThere is a moment where we stand at the edge of this process, on the cliff of our existing knowledge. We realize that there is something else right in front of us. Even though we cannot grasp it right now, we perceive it the same way we can feel the presence of a silent person in a room behind us. “We know in part. We prophesy in part.”We know it’s there. We just don’t see it yet.Revelation is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to humans who are seeking to move from what they know to what they should know. That crossing requires faith from the human. It requires that we believe there is more truth out there and that this truth is real, and that God is the one leading us to it.Things we gain through Revelation belong to us. They are our treasures of divine knowledge.Deuteronomy 29:29 (NIV):"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."Revelation is a delicate, living thing. It must be nurtured.What I’m Going to DoSo here’s my plan to become more receptive to God’s revelation this year.* Consciously remind myself that revelation is going on everywhere at all times. God is “streaming” 24/7.* Attempt to intentionally tune in to the revelation going on around me. According to the Bible God has always been revealing himself through everything created: humans, animals, plants, planets, stars—all of it is a channel of revelation. God also speaks through human conversations. He reveals through dreams. He reveals things directly into the spirits of his children. Amazing insights just drop into our minds and we can see things clearly in an instant. It’s all happening all the time like sunshine. We just need to tune in to it.There are so many channels of revelation. The Bible is the one we think of first, and it will yield endless depths of revelation to those who are persistent readers and thinkers, but it’s not the only channel of revelation. We know this because the Bible says so. It’s actually a latecomer to the work of revelation. Humans interacted with God directly for thousands of years before we had a written book of revelations. We honor the Bible so much, not because it is God (it’s not), but because it’s such a rich and trustworthy revelation of God.The Bible is not the end of revelation. It’s a foundation stone and a standard of truth (so we can test “ideas” that pop in our head against something unchangeable), but God has been walking with man before there was a Bible and when we don’t need a Bible in the new world, He will still be walking with us and revealing himself throughout eternity. Receiving revelation is our birthright.I want the focus of my attention directed to God Himself, knowing that He is revealing himself to me. Some are scared of this and want to limit all revelation to the words of the Bible. The problem with this is two-fold. First, it’s based out of fear (which is not the criteria for making decisions as children of God) and secondly, the Bible itself is filled with stories of God speaking and revealing things to his children outside of the technology of reading written words.If we are the children of God through the rebirth Jesus brought, then we are fully capable of hearing from God ourselves—no pastor, prophet, or bible scholar needed. * I’m going to prioritize a routine place and time daily to spend time alone with God for revelation. I was never a morning person before, but for the past year, I have been waking up well before sunrise, and I have learned to love it! I love my times in the word and I also love my times walking and talking with God in the early morning light. I consider this time the beginning of a day-long conversation with the Father. I never say, “Amen.”* As much as possible I want to avoid doing things that keep my focus distracted (like scrolling). I want to be always in the present moment, slow down my mind, and posture myself before God like Samuel, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”So that’s my devotional focus for the year. I want to tune my heart so I can hear from God.My human focus is “conversations.” I want a year full of amazing conversations with friends and random people. I heard someone say recently, “Conversations lead to conversions.” I like that too. I hope some of these conversations lead people to Christ if they don’t know him already.Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it.May God bless you in your efforts to become more tuned to revelation, light from beyond. Help from above.I’d love to hear from you on this topic: “Which of the many channels of revelation (Bible, nature, conversations, dreams, etc.) is the clearest source of revelation to you and why?” Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Well, I hope you got a good nights sleep. I'm in India and it means that I'm awake at three or 4 AM most days. Just can't get the transition right this time.Well, you can look at things as a curse or a blessing. I'm trying to find good use for all the extra time from waking up super early rather than just watching TV or looking at my phone. Today, I spent hours digging through the story of Cain and Abel. It's so tragic that in the first generation of natural-born humans the first baby grows up to be a murderer. Take a minute right now to read the story in Genesis 4Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”[d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”There’s a lot HereIt’s a very nuanced story, with lots of insights discretely woven into the way the narrative is delivered. I’m in love with Genesis 1-12. It’s a masterpiece. Every verse is important and I think this story has a lot to say to us—if we can just figure out what verse 7 is saying. More on that later.I guess the thing that's always bothered me in this story is how much Spotlight is on Cain, the selfish, entitled, stubborn, immature man-child, not Abel, the good guy who was sincere and did everything right. Abel is the first martyr, a man killed for his worship of our Creator. The scene describing the background and moment leading up to his murder is so painful. I can hardly read the story. Family is so important to me and to think that a big brother would use his little brother’s innocent trust to lure him away from the family so he could murder him just breaks my heart again and again. Which makes it even harder to understand why God spends so much time in this story engaging Cain and trying to help him process his emotions.Ruled by EmotionsEmotions, man, that’s the Gen Z theme! If the Eskimos have 1000 words for snow, young people today may end up with that many words for their feelings. In our generation, we were just told to suck it up and get on with life and not expect everything to be great. "Your attitude determines your altitude.” On the other hand, something very real is happening inside the minds of young people. New Zealand, of all places, leads the world in suicides by young men age 12 through 17.Cain was a man ruled by his emotions. In general, humans are portrayed as moral infants in the book of Genesis. God is working with us so we will grow up and assume the role for which we've been created. We are made to be the likeness of God in the world. We all have a long way to go. Perhaps Cain never got there. His name in the Old Testament is connected to the line of rebellious humans who always resist everything God wants to do.And yet, God is patient with Cain. He’s comforting him when most of us would kill him for what he had done to his innocent kid brother. (Maybe they were both teens, who knows?) How does this story affect you, emotionally? Leave a comment to share your processing of this tale.Word Salad in Verse SevenScholars tend to hover around verse seven, the most “obscure” (incomprehensible) Hebrew in the Old Testament. The English translations have simplified it by ignoring all the problems in it. The editors just come to the conclusion that the verse is about the power of sin, and they harmonize the pronouns that are out of whack. It's understandable to want to make things clear for the reader, but it's a real problem when you do it as a translator, in my opinion. I believe that everything in the Bible is there on purpose, so if a verse runs in the face of a cherished doctrine I think it's a dangerous practice to just "fix the verse”. I could show you a dozen places in any translation of the Bible where this has been done. I'm not saying that the English translation of this verse is heretical, just that the ancient writer knew his language perfectly, and if he wanted it harmonized, he would have used the proper gender in his pronouns. I explain more about all this in the video so if you're interested, I hope you will watch it. The point is whether this is a story where God warns Cain about the power of sin which is like a crouching lion ready to devour him, or maybe it’s a story where God reminds Cain that in order to walk with God, you have to do things God's way, regardless of your emotions or whether you think you have a better idea.Driven by EmotionsEither way, Cain is wrestling with his own stubbornness, and is being driven by his emotions away from a posture of humble obedience to God. He is losing his proper desire to help other people know God and worship him properly.Cain was the head of his tribe, the one whose example would set the direction for worship for future generations. It seems that the idea to make a sacrifice to God was actually initiated by him and enthusiastically joined by his little brother. How could something so beautiful so wrong?Another InsightIn at the end of verse 7 the Hebrew says something more like “His emotional urge is toward you But you will rule over him.” which could generally mean either:* Abel feels the need for your attention so even though he is in the spotlight now, you aren’t being unseated as the leader. You will continue to lead him. -or it could mean—* Even though Abel is now correcting you for doing the sacrifice wrongly on purpose, you just have to take it and do an animal sacrifice rightly. But relax, you will still end up being his leader when all this is fixed.Which is correct? What do you think? Do your own research and make a comment here.Where to look for answers?You can start with asking any Bible questions in the Google search bar (or use chat GPT from open.ai if you are brave about new technology. It may amaze you). You can also follow links to Bible scholar forums. I love the wealth of everyone bringing their best thinking to a task. We all do the work and we all celebrate in the harvest. Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it and help us reach more people.In the journey together!Chuck & Sherry Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

10,000 Years from TodayIf you believe the Bible, then you will know that you will be alive and conscious somewhere 10,000 years from today. Oh, your current existence will be behind you and you will have probably passed through death into the new creation, but you will be alive again with the memory of the year 2024. Your current concerns about a stock market crash will seem silly then. For that matter, all your worries will be exposed as a complete waste of time and energy. You will be in the new kingdom of the Lord Jesus, the undisputed victor of the war for the world. He will reign in the New Jerusalem forever.On that day, you and I are going to really wish we had done a better job with this season in our lives. We will be in the group that can tell the story of what it was like to live in the post-Covid era of total surveillance, the early dominance of technology, and the open worship of Satan at the Grammys, the Olympics, and a host of other formerly normal events. These were the beginning of the sorrows.Some disciples will be highly honored for letting their light shine and using these days to evangelize and share their testimony daily. Others won’t have much to show for their life as a believer. They basically lived as quiet and comfortable a life as they could and they went to church sometimes.Persecution Prepares us to Face the LordNo matter your view of the end times (I’m mid-trib) you cannot escape the reality of persecution.“…All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” 2 Ti.3.12 NKJVChristians have always been persecuted. Sometimes it's cultural pressure fueled by the devil. He always resists the message of Jesus and the true embrace of the kingdom of God. At other times persecution is bloody. We’ve have 2000 years of Christian blood shed across the world.When Sherry and I moved to Asia in 1990, that region of the world was averaging 250,000 martyrs a year. The 90’s saw the resurgence of radical Islam and many precious believers were killed from Saudi Arabia to Iran for following Jesus.Persecution in America???—Never!I never dreamed there could be federal persecution of Christians in the United States of America. When I heard this preached as a boy, it just seemed totally impossible that churchgoing America could ever become a place where believers might be persecuted. The behavior of the government from President Clinton using RICO extortion laws to jail abortion protesters, to the weaponization of the FBI justice department, and the collaboration of internet media giants from Google to Facebook reveals that the persecution of believers has, in fact, already started. The only question is how far, how fast?You can lose your job now for simply stating what the Bible says. In England, over 3,000 people were arrested last year for something “offensive” they said on Facebook, Twitter, or on a post-it note on their desk. One man’s crime was posting Bible verses on a screen in his small store.First, we are witnessing a campaign to silence us and get our voices off the internet. Then the narrative can be controlled and all the “breaking news” stories can paint Christian individuals and groups to be dangerous monsters, intolerant, and right-wing extremists with no one to say differently.What Should We Do About it?The #1 thing Jesus said about living in these days was to not be anxious from overthinking about it. Sherry and I have seen a spirit in people from the persecuted church that is bold and confident, hardened by their own response to the pressure that wants them to bend. Those who will not bend become stronger from the pressure. Think of the three Hebrew boys when threatened by the fire of the king. “16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Dan. 3.16-18 NKJVFire hardens steel. Persecution prepares God’s true people to shine.Let’s not waste these days. Let this early pressure steel our resolve to sit among the valiant ones 10,000 years from today. Sherry and I are determined to live more confidently and boldly than ever. We want to be more loving and careful in all our words, especially toward those who are opposed to our Lord, but to make certain that everyone in the heavenlies and those around us know that we honor Jesus for all he has done for all of us. We want everyone we meet to receive a chance to know him too. That’s what’s keeping Jesus from coming already so let’s get stronger and bolder day by day.In His Love,Chuck and SherryThe attached video is about believers overcoming the rise of the Beast in Revelation 13. Hope it ministers encouragement to you.Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

One of the best parts of creating and posting content online is the occasionally great conversation you have with someone who follows you. In the last week I’ve been talking with someone who has walked away from faith in Christ. He/she disagrees with me on most points fundamentally, but we’ve have an honest dialog that hasn’t gotten snarky. That’s a big deal in the online world.When I hear of someone walking away from Jesus and Christianity it always seems they are primarily walking away from doctrines and traditions and their family habits of church. It makes me wonder if they ever had a personal encounter with Jesus. Knowing Jesus or Going to ChurchI didn’t fall in love with the teachings of Jesus, the doctrine of the cross or how awesome our pastor’s preaching was. Jesus himself intercepted my life. He followed me around in my consciousness and would not let me go. This personal encounter started my transformation, but it didn’t stop there. He’s never left me alone since. I’m challenged, encouraged, inspired, and instructed daily by the voice of Jesus working in me through the Holy Spirit. This experience isn’t unique to me. It’s the new birth and it is offered to everyone who will return to him and submit to his lordship. Most of you reading this doubtless have your own story to tell. This is our testimony, the origin story of how we were and then what Jesus did to “fix” us once we opened to him. The stories are always so fascinating to Sherry and me. Once we know that a person is in Christ, we always ask how it happened for them. They smile immediately at the opportunity to share again all that the Lord has done for them.This installment is a video I made for newbies to help them in their first steps. Rather than saying, “Find a good church and read your Bible,” I want to say, “Get to know the LORD and spend time with him daily.” Jesus will reveal himself personally to them and guide them directly. Church and Bible are great, but knowing Jesus is essential. You can walk with Jesus even if you are illiterate, blind, deaf or isolated from others. That’s the approach we take in our missions work in SE Asia. We lead people to know the Lord personally and the rest will sort itself out.I’d love to hear your story. Medialight can teach you how to share your story through short videos online if you’d like. Just visit Medialight.network for more.Walk with Him!Chuck Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hi! I don't know if you fly much, but we’ve done millions of miles and lately we get the feeling that our airline infrastructure is crumbling. Recently, it took us 48 hours to travel from Portland, Oregon to Atlanta—four canceled flights, two overnight delays. It was clear from the stranded business crowd and the airline personnel that this was now quite normal.Then there’s this week’s big world news as the steep crash in the Japanese stock market has sent ripples throughout the stock markets of other nations also since the markets are connected.A Big Little BookThis week I want to promote another important book. It’s a lightweight 80 pager about a weighty matter. It’s called Immoderate Greatness, Why Civilizations Fail by William Ophuls. Ophuls explains what makes every attempt at building a great society fail. It starts with the dream itself. Each civilization dreams of their own greatness. To get there, they make endless growth an obsession. By demanding growth month after month, year after year, they drain their abundant resources, then enter into endless wars to take the resources of other nations. As they create new technologies, their systems become increasingly complex. When they are rich and fat, they fall apart morally. Finally, they collapse on the weight of their own unchecked “greatness” as the weight of their endlessly expanding support system pulls them under. Is there still time for us to learn this lesson?Living on the Outer EdgeComplex systems operate right at the edge of failure. “As long as nothing goes wrong” the system buzzes along, but when one part fails, the failure cascades. There has never been a more complicated system than our current civilization. Don’t Our Leaders Know?Leaders even from the Roman Empire days knew all about the past failures, yet astonishingly, each new civilization still follows the same path as their predecessors, somehow expecting a different result, because they believe themselves “special”."Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them."—François-René de ChateaubriandHard to Put it DownDespite its ominous outlook, the book is incredibly engaging. Ophuls writes with clarity and eloquence, making complex ideas easy to understand. I think it’s important to make ourselves think about unpleasant things like writing a will, getting life insurance, and going to the doctor to check on that lump. Crises will come into every life. We can’t always stop them, but by thinking ahead we might keep a systems problem from becoming a total disaster.Is There a Happy Ending?Ophuls listens to his critics who complain that he isn’t giving us a “solution.” His reply is that the only solution is for a change in the human heart. He explains that throughout the centuries and in every culture, human motivations are selfish. Our greed is insatiable. We refuse to limit our consumption. We will not cap our greatness.So, the weight of our excessive lifestyle, the cashflow it requires, and the upkeep on the massive infrastructure puts an impossible load on an ever-crumbling system. The final stage before the great breakdown, according to Ophuls, is intentionally allowing economic inflation. “Why would anyone do this?” you might ask. The simple answer is that inflation allows a nation to pay their bills and still avoid having to make sacrifices. It’s like putting all your debts on a new credit card each month, letting the interest accumulate. The ones in charge don’t want the party to end on their watch, so they play games with the economy to let the good times can go on a little while longer. It’s like watching a dam break in slow motion.Can one election solve such a situation? Sadly, Ophuls says, “No, the entire system that runs the “greatness” of the nation is the problem.” The nation would have to be willing to sacrifice so they could put things right and no civilization has ever been willing to do that.My Favorite Insight—God is SmartMy favorite insight from this book is, “The only way to avoid the bust is to cap the boom by not allowing cheap credit in good times.” It made me think about the Sabbath Year and, especially, The Year of Jubilee in the law God gave Moses for Israel. Jubilee was a total economic leveling experienced once in every generation. All greatness was dismantled. All properties reverted to the family that originally owned it. Slaves went free. All debt was cancelled. The banks had zero loans on their books. A system like this is the only way to prevent the collapse of a civilization.Sadly, we don’t find a single time in Bible history when Israel followed this law.What Can We Do?* Anchor our heart to God and His coming Kingdom. It’s the permanent solution for this recurring problem.* Pull Together as Families.* Do what we can to avoid personal catastrophic loss. This isn’t a good time to “bet the farm” on a new idea. Play defense. Cut back on your own “greatness” of lifestyle and get a solid home base for your life.* Become more self-reliant in as many ways as we can. (You can buy 90 days of dried food with 2,000 calories a day for $600 and it will keep for 25 years. Not a bad price for catastrophe insurance, I think.)* Fill Your Days With Worship. Sing boldly to the Lord and strengthen your grip on His presence. “Don’t let your heart be troubled,” was the constant reminder of Christ as he talked about the birth pains needed for His Kingdom to be born upon the earth. Exercise your faith daily and sing the King in as his Kingdom approaches us.* Reach out! Share your hope in Christ with everyone you can. Brag on Jesus and tell them what he’s done for you. People are open right now in a new way. Pagan Los Angeles saw 6,000+ young people baptized in one day at the beach recently (Yep! It was at the same beach where Jesus Revolution was filmed.) One day we’ll be known for how we lived in the last days. This is our one chance to feel we’ve done our best to be an overcomer in these challenging times. Keep the Faith!Love, Chuck and Sherry (and tribe—7 more now)Here’s the YouTube Version: Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hi! I hope you're having a great day. This is the newsletter I've been waiting a long time to create. The video is as long as a church service, so if it feels too long you can either change the speed to 1.5 (just click the arrows by the play button) or just watch it in pieces but I hope you’ll watch it. Here’s what it’s about:Why is Satan the god of this world?It is always bothered me that the New Testament calls Satan, the “god of this world,” and that no one denies this as a fact, not even Jesus. I have always wanted to know how he got into this position. No Easy AnswerThere's no Bible story where God gave the devil the key to the world. I have read widely on this subject and asked many Bible-loving people their theories, and I am largely unsatisfied with the answers. I also don't agree that the Fall of Adam & Eve in the garden gave him the keys to the planet because I don't see that in scripture either.My Working TheoryI have developed a working theory that makes sense to me and I want to share it with you in this video. To build the theory, we have to visit three different scriptures and tie them together. I do not present this as doctrine, but it is the best theory I can come up with since the Bible is generally silent about the workings of the demonic world. Satan loves attention and I think the Bible is determined to keep the spotlight off of him, but I think there is sufficient light to build a working theory. So this video is my offering to you on this subject. Next I want to develop a theology of blood and a view of the cross that focuses on the crucifixion offering as an act Spiritual War (since that’s mostly how Jesus himself talks about what he will do on the cross). Something happened on the cross that gave humans their first chance to break free from the “god (Elohim) of this world”. So that’s where we are headed in weeks to come. Why Does This All Matter So Much?Honestly, it's a fair question. I know I've been going on forever about Genesis 1-11, and I'm pretty much finished. It's just essential to get the backstory straight for the rest of it to make any sense.So many people are halfhearted in their faith. They get eight hours a day of screen time programming straight from hell and very little time spent digging through the word of God, so Yes! I'm concerned! I'm trying to help interested people build a mental framework to understand the truth about our world and the central message of the Bible.Jesus came primarily to free humans from Satan's power. When I hear him describe his own mission, this is what he says. The first thing that happens in his story is that he goes to the desert and fights the devil there. Then he starts casting out demons everywhere he goes. In the last week as he faces the cross event, he says "now the ruler of this world is cast down.” I think it's the most important aspect of the gospel and we won't understand how good the news is until we understand how bad the true situation is for the earth. There is an organized demon army in charge of every nation of the world. Every human institution is, invaded by their power.That’s where we’re headed. Here’s where we’re at today. Hope you are strengthened from this teaching.AND THANK YOU!!! to everyone who stands behind us as a couple on a mission! Your support keeps us engaged fully on mission in Asia and online as well.We love you and we pray for you,Every Blessing!Chuck and Sherryhelpkidsfindfreedom.comere’s the YouTube Version Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hi Friend,YouTube Version is Here Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

In his last years, my dad struggled with Dysautonomia which would suddenly drop his blood pressure to 50 or 60. When this occurred, something unusual happened to his sight. He said that the world went to grey except the human he was talking with. They alone remained in the image and they were clear. Our vision is a mysterious thing. Most of our brain’s power is assigned to creating images from the signals received through the eyes. Even then, we don’t see everything surrounding us. The Sun sends us at least 5 kinds of light, but the blue light is the only one we can see. Other light that bathes us is actually invisible to us.To believe the Bible is to believe that there is an entire society unseen to us, yet all around us. There are literal entities, personalities, and even the remaining consciousness of the dead surrounding us as “witnesses.” (Hebrews 12.1). Some of these entities are benevolent. They even protect and assist us at times. Other entities are malevolent. They hate us and will destroy us if they can. We survive by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus.I’ve never lived in an age where these two invisible camps were so close to being visible. Jesus said that although we cannot see the wind itself, we can see the things in the world that it acts upon. So it is with these heavenly beings. Our society is convulsing from their activity among students in colleges, leaders of tech companies, and upon those who hold the power of government and media. Maybe reality looks like this…Or something like this…We really don’t know. The Bible really doesn’t allow much of a spotlight to fall on this dimension of our world. (The powers of darkness love to be glorified so maybe that’s why we are given only the necessary details.) The Heavenly Society is FracturedOne thing we do know is that the free-willed heavenly society is broken. Some of the sons (that is what the Bible calls them) are loyal to the Father. Others are enemies of their Creator and do all they can to frustrate His will on earth. Maybe it all started when God said, “Let us…” make a world and beings in our image. They didn’t expect it when God put the humans in charge of this new world, not the heavenly sons. The heavenly sons were clearly superior, yet although this world was for everyone “in heaven and on earth,” it was the humans who were elected to have the dominion. Maybe this is what started a slow resentful rebellion among some of the heavenly beings. We can’t be sure, but there’s evidence for this theory.In this edition of the podcast we enter into the Garden of Eden and the moment the serpent/dragon is introduced into the Big Story of the Bible. It’s just the seed story, but the concept develops through the centuries of progressive revelation until the New Testament where Mark’s story of Jesus opens with Jesus in a desert doing direct battle with Satan, the dark prince of this world.Let’s explore it in the chat together. Hope you enjoy the video.Here’s the YouTube VersionThanks for reading Grounded! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hi Friend,Thanks so much for joining me in the study of God’s Word. This episode of the Grounded podcast was a labor of love. I really didn’t feel well but I had a cool paid location locked in so I rallied to do it.I started the podcast and this newsletter because I meet so many people raised in church who are becoming shaky in their faith (largely because they spend 8 hours a day watching TV and consuming other anti-God online content without spending even an hour a week feeding on God’s word).My burden for the first six months of this podcast has been on reestablishing the big story of the Bible.Once you understand the first three chapters of the Bible, you get a better feeling for who God is, what he has designed humans to be, and His plans and commitment to our world. I’m, so fascinated by the Genesis narrative. It’s bottomless, like John’s Gospel.In this episode I’ll cover:* Why it’s Not the “Tree of Good and Evil”* Why did God put a tree there if He knew they could ruin creation by eating from it?* What does God want from us anyway?* What does all this have to do with my life today?I hope you’ll watch the video and share your comments either on YouTube or here. I read them all and I’m so grateful for your engagement.What I didn’t get to talk about in the video is how often God does his business with humans around a tree.* In the garden* Moses burning bush experience (baby tree)* Abraham’s visit with God near the trees of Mamre* Gideon encounters an angel of the Lord under an oak treeOK, so that’s the game. I got it started. Trace how far this Tree concept goes throughout the whole Bible and post what you think of it in the chat here.What’s Next?In the next episode I want to talk about whether the devil/angels are really spirit creatures or also material in some way. Does the current “news” from the military and other sources about ongoing encounters with non-human beings of higher intelligence have any connection with the demons and principalities of the Bible? Lot’s to think about for another week or two.I’m praying for you if you’re on this mailing list. These are days of great upheaval and transition as we shift between the modern age into the unknown age (they’ll name it after we’re deep into it) and it’s getting pretty crazy in all directions. We can all be grounded even if the world is shaking. That’s the promise of God.Every Blessing!Chuck (and Sherry)PS: Some keep asking me what I’m reading lately so I’ll also be posting a few videos about the two latest books that have my attention.Thank you for reading Grounded. Please share it.YouTube Version Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

I don't know what challenges you're facing, but one thing I do know for certain--you are so much more than you know. In the Bible, God reveals the truth about what humans are. It's a powerfully encouraging message from our Creator who has built us with superpowers so we can bring positive direction upon the earth. Thanks for reading Grounded! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Everything in the creation narrative so far has set the stage for day six. * The three great threats to all life have been conquered and restrained. * The Universe has been filled with the Shekinah light of God’s personal presence. * A protective skydome has been established to avoid catastrophic loss* Earthland has risen from the primordial deep, pregnant with every seed the earth will ever need.* Sun, Moon, and stars have been created as a celestial metronome to set a reasonable, recurring tempo of activity and rest for all life on earth.* The life force has been released in the seas and skies and millions of creatures are multiplying.* The same power of life has been spoken across the land and new forms of life are bursting fourth in the insect, reptile, and mammalian families.Now the great moment for us occurs….And God said, “Let us make man in our image…”In the case of all the other creatures, the formula of words has been “Let them have life “according to their kind.” With humans things are different. God's creative word to them is, “You can have life ‘in the image of God.’”Whatever we think that means, it means more.At the foundation level it says:* We’re created to be so close to God that we reflect Him—our heart so aligned with His that our actions toward everything in creation would be his. We’re to love what He loves and hate what He hates.* We’re his co-regents over planet earth, wardens over all creatures, stewards over plants, seas and soil making sure everything has what it needs to thrive and protecting the creation from abuse.* We’re each accountable for our actions and the state of the world we impact, reporting directly to the Creator.* We have the Creator’s resources and authority behind us. It’s more than enough. (Paul said it was “above all that we can ask or even think.” Ephesians 3:20)I really wish we could all grasp the vision God has concerning us.So, I can confidently say to you, without fear of contradiction, that whatever you think of yourself and your capacity, your estimation is way, way too low. I worked hard on the video so I hope you’ll check it out and forward it to others. I’d love to hear your insights and discoveries from developing your own potential and champion’s mindset.Here’s the link to the YouTube Version.I’m in your corner. Every Blessing!ChuckThank you for reading Grounded. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

In the beginning technology seem like such a great idea. It liberated us from the hardest parts of manual labor.But then it just kept invading our lives deeper and deeper until most of us now feel that tech is running our lives and actually has power over us instead of just being our tool. AI is coming and things are only going to get worse. That’s what this week’s podcast is about and I hope you’ll check it out. For my part I’m on a weeklong fast from all forms of social media. This is a bit difficult for someone whose ministry involves media to a growing extent, but exactly because of that, it felt even more important to do.Once I start checking what’s happening on social, sometimes it’s hard to get my full attention back for the rest of the day. Does that happen to you?I’m on day six of my social media fast and I’m definitely going to change my interaction schedule with it going forward. I just feel more present now and more in charge of the attention of my mind. So, that’s one important part of this discussion. We need to limit the domination of screens in general so we can have a full life.How is your interaction with social media affecting your life? How are you controlling it? I’d love to hear from you about that.More Than MediaIt’s more than media, however. It’s technology in general. We’re talking about everything electric, starting with electric lights. In this episode, I talk about the massive shift that was initiated by the introduction of artificial light, lengthening the usable day to 24 hours. Artificial man-made electric light created the modern world, bright cities, nightlife, Shiftwork, the end of families growing their own food, people cocooning around their devices, living mostly inside comfortable homes, and kids hitting puberty at age 12. A lot has changed in the past 125 years since the first cities started to use electricity. Imagine that? All this change to the world in just over a century!A century later we got that other electrical invention, the personal computer, in desktop and handheld versions. Now, it’s the AI revolution. The change we’ve been through in our lifetime has disrupted the way humans have lived for 10,000 years. One of the side-effects has been a growing disconnection of humans from the normal rhythms of nature.Why Genesis MattersI think the Genesis narrative is a blueprint for living successfully. Day four of the creation story tells us to allow the Sun and moon to rule us. The two of them set a natural rhythm for each day and create the cycles of darkness and light, evening and morning, day and night, weeks, months, quarters and years. They divide life into seasons and enforce a pleasant and necessary cadence in living—if we follow this cycle vs overpowering it with technology. Now we can have light all the time if we want. We can control our climate and most of us do the same things daily regardless of the seasons. We live above nature.This is a mistake. We are part of nature, and natural rhythms are purposeful. They are part of the original creation design.Thanks for reading Grounded! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Back to NatureThere are many ways to reestablish our conscious connection with nature. I mention quite a few in the podcast. It seems like it needs to start, however, with an established daily pattern that honors the coming and going to light. It seems like an insult to the Creator not to watch the sun go down every day, like drawing the blinds to a 4th of July fireworks extravaganza. It seems like the grand finale to the day’s light show should start some cherished evening pattern of settling in with our loved ones, planning for the next day, filling our mind with good thoughts, worshipping our Maker again, then resting securely under His watchful eye and expecting revelation in our dreams while our body is restored.Actually, since sleep is so very important to our health, it seems like we ought to get some kind of parental instruction as children in how to sleep well. Never heard of anyone getting any though. Something to think about parents.Life is health and the more we flow with the ebb and flow of nature, surely, the healthier we will be. What morning and evening rituals help you to connect your body to the coming of day and night? Drop a comment in the chat.Hope you enjoy this podcast and will pass it to others. I work hard on it and I appreciate your support in the effort. Sherry and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this important subject in the comments section below and in the chat box. Blessings on every aspect of your life, dear friend,Chuck (and Sherry) QuinleyHere’s a link to the video version on YouTube============Here’s a Transcript of the Video/Audio podcast:(00:00:00):Welcome to the Grounded Podcast.(00:00:02):Today,(00:00:03):we're talking about the invasion of technology into our lives,(00:00:07):and we're looking back at the blueprint of how God designed humans to pattern their(00:00:13):life on the earth.(00:00:15):I think we're gonna learn a lot from this lesson.(00:00:17):It's got everything to do with a holistic view of what life should be like,(00:00:23):and God is leading us forward so that we can live a life that is healthy,(00:00:28):that has deep relationships and a life where we overcome our challenges every day(00:00:35):and a life that's productive and fruitful because that is the original design.(00:00:41):And in this passage in Genesis chapter 1,(00:00:43):back in the creation narrative,(00:00:45):we're going to see the way God designed life to function.(00:00:50):You know,(00:00:50):technology seemed like a great idea,(00:00:52):but it just keeps making intrusions into our life,(00:00:57):deeper and deeper invading our world.(00:01:00):And now they're talking about this little chip to go inside all of our heads so(00:01:05):that we can be online 24-7.(00:01:06):This is nuts.(00:01:12):It wasn't always like this in the beginning.(00:01:14):They were mainly labor-saving devices.(00:01:16):They helped us with the burden of our farm work, but it has just never stopped.(00:01:21):And so we've got to ask ourselves, is this how we're supposed to be living our life?(00:01:27):What is the solution?(00:01:29):Well, the solution clearly is not more technology to govern our use of technology.(00:01:34):Oh, you need an app, so you'll know if you're using apps too much.(00:01:37):or more chemicals in our body.(00:01:39):You need sleeping pills.(00:01:41):When the problem is the blue light and the constant buzz that we're getting from(00:01:46):our devices all day long.(00:01:47):What we need is a holistic, natural, God-given way to live our life.(00:01:54):And God did not create humans to swim in a sea of technology.(00:02:00):He's got a clear vision for our life, a beautiful vision for our life, but our lives need structure.(00:02:06):And that structure...(00:02:08):Humans have struggled to figure out how to best structure lives.(00:02:13):Now, about 200 years ago, we started the Industrial Revolution.(00:02:17):And when we did that,(00:02:18):we all of a sudden seized on machinery and the concept of time,(00:02:25):that we could control time.(00:02:27):We could become more...(00:02:29):time efficient and so all over the world you can see this in in towns all over the(00:02:34):planet they built these towers in the middle of the town about 150 years ago it was(00:02:40):the thing to do and they put a clock mechanism a human built machine to govern time(00:02:47):now that isn't how time was ever looked at before farmers know it's almost sunrise(00:02:52):then oh it's the dawn it's mid-morning(00:02:56):it's noon time it's the afternoon it's the evening oh it's the darkness and late at(00:03:01):night but no that wasn't good enough we had to know it's exactly 8 10 and we(00:03:06):started slicing time thinner and thinner and we started wearing this human(00:03:11):invention of the watch(00:03:13):and carrying them around on our body all the time.(00:03:15):It went from that, and it continued to go even deeper, and then we had our phones.(00:03:20):And through our mobile devices, we had all kinds of other ways to try to build a structure in our life.(00:03:27):And now they're telling us that we each need our own personal artificial intelligence,(00:03:33):a counselor,(00:03:34):a wise person with endless knowledge that knows everything there is to know about(00:03:40):about everything and you can ask them for help as you go along your day and as you(00:03:46):build your life is this how humans are supposed to live the bible is not about the(00:03:52):bible the bible is about life(00:03:55):It is a blueprint for living in the way that God intended His creation to flow and(00:04:02):function because He intends to be part of this creation and He will enter into(00:04:07):creation with us and He will be present with us and we will live in partnership(00:04:13):with Him.(00:04:14):And so that's where we come to in Genesis chapter 1.(00:04:20):Genesis chapter 1 verse 14 talks about(00:04:24):the creation of sun, moon, and stars, and the imprint of designated cycles of nature upon the planet.(00:04:37):Just really quick recap.(00:04:40):We start off this creation story with a world in chaos, a world without life.(00:04:45):It's not possible to have life because there are these threats,(00:04:48):these three great threats to life,(00:04:50):but God conquers them.(00:04:52):and he puts his presence throughout the universe.(00:04:55):He bathes the universe in Shekinah glory light, the glow of God.(00:05:02):This is not photon lights.(00:05:05):It's not any of the lights that are created later.(00:05:09):Now we're not down to day four.(00:05:12):He creates sun, moon, and stars.(00:05:15):And that begins an entirely new chapter for life on earth.(00:05:21):I'll read two verses, verses 14 and 15.(00:05:24):Then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night.(00:05:30):Let them be for signs and seasons for days and years.(00:05:34):And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.(00:05:38):And it was so.(00:05:40):Then God made two great lights, the greater to rule the day, the lesser to rule the night.(00:05:46):And he made the stars also great.(00:05:50):Let's look down at the end of verse 18.(00:05:52):And God saw that it was good.(00:05:55):So the evening and the morning were the first day.(00:06:01):So, OK, we've got sun and moon and stars.(00:06:04):We've been told we know scientifically.(00:06:07):That the sun provides us with five different kinds of light.(00:06:11):One of those is visible.(00:06:12):The other four we can't see.(00:06:14):But the one that's visible creates photosynthesis.(00:06:17):It causes our planet to be able to have life.(00:06:21):We can't exist without this light from the sun.(00:06:25):That light is not warm.(00:06:26):There's another light that is warm.(00:06:28):We feel it and we think it's all the same thing, but it's not.(00:06:31):That's infrared light.(00:06:32):It's a totally different light.(00:06:34):We can't see it, but we can feel it.(00:06:36):And then there's other kinds of light besides that.(00:06:40):So the sun is the energy pack that runs our world.(00:06:44):The moon, without the moon, the tilt of the earth would spin off.(00:06:48):And so we also could not have a living world without a moon that large.(00:06:52):It influences us and it keeps the tilt of the earth just right for our orbit.(00:06:59):It controls our climate.(00:07:01):And besides the moon, we've got the stars.(00:07:03):And the stars rain down on us every day, tons and tons and tons of elements from exploding stars.(00:07:12):That's where all the heavier metals, everything heavier than iron comes from above.(00:07:17):It filters down from the sky, and it does it every single day by the ton.(00:07:24):And so we are a planet whose elements come from the stars.(00:07:28):We have the sun every day as our energy source.(00:07:32):Without it, we die immediately.(00:07:33):We have the moon to regulate us.(00:07:35):Our planet exists and is kept in stasis because of sun, moon, and stars.(00:07:43):What is this telling us?(00:07:45):What's the spiritual lesson and the practical lesson?(00:07:48):Number one, it's that we are connected to something much bigger than ourselves.(00:07:55):We're not just the smart ape.(00:07:58):We are part of a created order.(00:08:00):It is a universe designed by a benevolent creator.(00:08:03):We look up, and up is where we see all of our source, all of our resource.(00:08:10):It's coming from above us.(00:08:12):And so that lets us know our life is more than just our life.(00:08:15):It's not just my one little life.(00:08:18):But I'm being invited by the God who made the world to reach up and connect to him.(00:08:24):And as I look up and as I connect my heart to his heart,(00:08:28):he will help me live a productive life,(00:08:31):a life that's got meaning here.(00:08:34):And he does that by establishing a natural system of light and dark in the world.(00:08:42):Now we have, as always, humans resist everything that God has done.(00:08:47):So he gives us the sun.(00:08:49):He gives us the moon.(00:08:50):He says clearly in this passage, these are to govern the way you live your day.(00:08:57):They should rule you in the day and in the night because they create a cycle.(00:09:03):They create an ongoing cycle that we've come to just call nature.(00:09:09):And this cycle,(00:09:11):if you'll let it,(00:09:12):it will govern you and it will give you the structure that you need so that you can(00:09:17):weave the fabric of your life.(00:09:20):because all of us are trying to build a life, and a life has a lot of components.(00:09:24):It's got relationships.(00:09:26):It's got a physical body.(00:09:27):I've got a certain limited supply of resources and time and strength and energy.(00:09:34):We've got the schedule that we keep.(00:09:36):We've got the activities that we do.(00:09:39):We have our family connectedness.(00:09:42):We have our calling.(00:09:43):We have our skills that we're developing and that we put to use to bring value(00:09:47):to society, and as we bring value, we are valued, and we have exchanges of goods and services that way.(00:09:55):And so we've got all this to work out how to build a life.(00:09:59):And so God gives us sun and moon and stars,(00:10:04):and these are,(00:10:05):we're told,(00:10:06):you are to live by the seasons and the patterns of the sun.(00:10:13):Well, we decided that wasn't quite good enough.(00:10:16):So we invented 150 or so years ago, we invented artificial light.(00:10:21):And here's five things that light,(00:10:23):artificial light did,(00:10:25):because up to this point,(00:10:26):the only light on planet Earth was sun and moon.(00:10:29):And then we had learned how to use fire.(00:10:31):So we had candlelight, lamplight, or firelight, but that was it.(00:10:37):And then the Industrial Revolution kicked in.(00:10:39):We invented artificial light so that we could do even better than light and(00:10:45):darkness as a pattern of our day.(00:10:48):And we would extend light.(00:10:50):So what did we do?(00:10:51):We extended our working hours to 24.(00:10:55):And we allowed for there to be night shifts and for people to move around at night(00:11:00):and even to create night life so that we didn't have to sleep.(00:11:04):And we've got city's(00:11:05):All over the planet now that never sleep.(00:11:09):activity never stops.(00:11:10):There's never a moment that someone isn't at work 24 hours a day only because of artificial light.(00:11:18):Second thing artificial light did to us is it wrecked our sleep.(00:11:23):We had a very set,(00:11:25):stable sleep schedule because,(00:11:28):say that five times quickly,(00:11:31):we had the dawning of the sun.(00:11:33):It was the wake up time.(00:11:35):We had the setting of the sun.(00:11:36):It was the calm down and everybody,(00:11:39):was inside their house because the world went dark at night.(00:11:42):It isn't safe to be out.(00:11:43):And so went home, locked things down.(00:11:47):Everybody had good long nights of sleep.(00:11:51):But now we have light 24-7.(00:11:54):It advanced puberty by five years.(00:11:57):And so now young people are coming sexually mature at a very,(00:12:02):very young age because of a combination of diet and electric lights that are always on.(00:12:09):Plants and animals,(00:12:10):because the entire planet,(00:12:11):when we electrified it,(00:12:13):we affected the life of everything that lives on the planet.(00:12:18):And so I guess the last thing that this electric light did,(00:12:22):urbanization,(00:12:23):and it's we built cities because we had a way to electrify our lives.(00:12:28):Then that drove everything else that built these huge mega centers across the world.(00:12:34):You know, my wife Sherry is from Amish country, and the Amish basically opted out of electricity.(00:12:41):When it came along,(00:12:42):they just saw all the problems and everything it would bring into their life,(00:12:46):and so they continued to farm with horse-drawn mechanical systems,(00:12:51):and you would think that they would be the most worn-out people in the world,(00:12:56):but we go back to Pennsylvania every year,(00:12:59):and in fact,(00:12:59):they seem to have a lot of time(00:13:01):to socialize and you'll see them outside by three o'clock in the afternoon playing(00:13:06):baseball and their gardens are absolutely beautiful and their families are hanging(00:13:11):out together with the neighbors because they live by circadian rhythm.(00:13:17):They let their lives be governed(00:13:21):by the rising and setting of the sun and the moon and the presence of the stars above.(00:13:27):What would happen if we live by circadian rhythm?(00:13:30):Well, number one, you have improved sleep quality.(00:13:35):And with improved quality of sleep,(00:13:37):because of the absence of electrical interference in our lives,(00:13:42):we get enhanced mental health.(00:13:46):Because we're completely down, our body has long good days,(00:13:50):dark season to restore itself and it lifts us out of depression and anxiety because(00:13:57):there is a natural sleep system that goes with the world the birds go to sleep(00:14:04):animals(00:14:05):burrow down in the night.(00:14:06):There's a thing that's going on all over this planet except among humans and you can drive.(00:14:12):I've done it.(00:14:13):I've driven through Cambodia in the middle of the night and looked and you'd see(00:14:17):complete darkness because they lacked the infrastructure and you would see the dark(00:14:23):outline of huts but in every one of those huts there was a blue light that(00:14:28):glowing inside because by battery power they were running their tv sets and cell(00:14:34):phones into the darkness so if we live by circadian rhythm we're going to have(00:14:39):better mental health because we're going to have better sleep and because of better(00:14:43):sleep and mental health we're going to have better metabolic health we're going to(00:14:48):have better(00:14:49):energy levels to deal with life.(00:14:51):This sense of fatigue is not usually something that comes out of a tired body(00:14:57):because our bodies are rested when we sleep.(00:15:00):It's a tired mind because we never give it a break.(00:15:04):And with all the technology we're surrounded by, a lot of it causes us to always be elsewhere.(00:15:11):You know, we're sitting right beside living humans, but we are somewhere else in our mind.(00:15:17):We're never where our body is.(00:15:19):And this is, it's tearing us apart.(00:15:22):And God has given us a system to get this, to get our life back together.(00:15:28):And it has to do with following the circadian rhythm of sun and moon.(00:15:32):Let the world change.(00:15:34):Keep spending and work with it.(00:15:36):It's going to give us a stronger immune system.(00:15:39):It's going to lead to more longevity of life because we'll be rested and we'll be(00:15:45):walking in step with nature,(00:15:50):following the path of the sun as God intended.(00:15:54):Well, what would it be like?(00:15:56):If the world went back to following the sun,(00:15:59):actually,(00:15:59):I don't know that we can make the world do that,(00:16:01):but you and I can do it.(00:16:02):We can choose to build our life on the movement of the natural movement of the sun(00:16:08):and moon and stars and take charge of technology and its presence in our life.(00:16:15):Well, that would mean we would align our work hours with daylight.(00:16:21):And as the daylight waned,(00:16:23):you need to have completed your work because nighttime is not a time for working.(00:16:28):And if you notice it,(00:16:29):you know,(00:16:30):in the summertime when there's more to do,(00:16:32):there's crops to plant,(00:16:34):we get more daylight.(00:16:36):It's all built into the system.(00:16:37):And in the fall and the winter,(00:16:39):our light is shortened and that's a signal of a new season for us and a new way of living.(00:16:46):So our work hours would need to be(00:16:48):Aligned with daylight,(00:16:49):we would need to be flexible with the seasons and start to live according to the(00:16:56):schedule of a season.(00:16:58):It would mean that we would have less exposure to artificial light.(00:17:02):We would allow the darkness to come on in the evening rather than flooding our(00:17:07):house with screens and artificial light.(00:17:10):We would just let the darkness gradually take over our home.(00:17:14):Hopefully this could lead to revival.(00:17:17):of some cultural festivities that we had before.(00:17:21):We had the excitement of spring and the spring festivals as new life breaks out everywhere.(00:17:28):We had the summertime,(00:17:30):just the busyness of summer and the outdoor activities and get-togethers out in(00:17:35):public picnics and family get-togethers.(00:17:39):And then in the fall, we had the celebration of harvest.(00:17:43):And we can still do that.(00:17:44):We can bring things in from nature inside our house to celebrate each of the seasons.(00:17:51):We can change our decor.(00:17:53):We can change the clothing that we wear.(00:17:56):We can change the pattern of our life because that's what Genesis said to do.(00:18:01):It said that the sun and moon were supposed to set the seasons of our lives together.(00:18:07):They're supposed to govern us.(00:18:10):And I think if we would walk with nature, we will find ourselves stronger and healthier.(00:18:17):What it says to me,(00:18:19):what I think God is telling us in this passage is,(00:18:23):number one,(00:18:24):we are part of something bigger than ourselves.(00:18:28):It doesn't matter that you can squeeze more work into an hour than anybody else.(00:18:32):He's not called you to do that.(00:18:35):He has put sun and moon above us so that we would look up and realize that although(00:18:40):we are physical creatures,(00:18:42):we are part of a universe that is very complicated and very wonderful.(00:18:48):And there is a heavenly realm and it is providing for us.(00:18:53):And there is a God who created us and he gives our life meaning and purpose and(00:18:58):protection and provision.(00:19:01):And we can rest and enjoy our physical activity of life on earth,(00:19:06):knowing that we can tap resources that are beyond ourselves.(00:19:11):the physical world.(00:19:13):We can reach into the world beyond.(00:19:15):And that's what worship does.(00:19:17):That's what prayer does.(00:19:18):It bridges this gap because we're moving in our study of Genesis to see what a human is.(00:19:27):But that's coming soon in our story.(00:19:30):But right now,(00:19:31):we're talking about the context and the world that God has built for us to live in,(00:19:39):that this world is governed by higher powers.(00:19:43):Our very existence is a constant collaboration between heaven and earth.(00:19:49):We would be destroyed every day except for the protection of God and the provision(00:19:55):God and this great provision of Sun Moon and stars and I think the second thing(00:20:01):that God is telling us through this creation story is that we are integrated into(00:20:07):the created order we are we are heavenly in a way we are earthly made from the soil(00:20:15):and returned to the soil we are this planet the earth of this planet raised up to(00:20:21):interact with God to know God to walk with God and(00:20:25):but we affect you know the sun a heavenly body affects us and we affect the rest of(00:20:33):creation we are part of one integrated system i really think christians ought to be(00:20:40):the most you know not the silly side of environmentalism but i think christians(00:20:45):ought to be tree huggers and animal lovers(00:20:48):and good to the earth and the least likely to ever pollute and the most likely to(00:20:55):take care of earth because this is our Father's world.(00:20:59):He built it as His eternal home.(00:21:03):And if you just read the rest of the story,(00:21:05):read the last pages of the Bible,(00:21:08):God very much intends that this planet be renewed and fulfill a purpose that He(00:21:14):created it for.(00:21:15):And so he has given us at this season of our life the ability to draw strength from(00:21:22):heavenly bodies and to create vitamin D from the light of the sun.(00:21:29):And for the animals and the insects and the plants to draw their life from the sun(00:21:34):and the strength of the moon and the elements that rain down on us every single day(00:21:41):from the stars.(00:21:42):We are connected to a huge system of life.(00:21:47):And it's just a beautiful thing,(00:21:48):and it ought to give us all hope and a lot of comfort that nothing's going to(00:21:53):happen to this world.(00:21:55):This is our Father's world, and we are part of it.(00:21:58):So let's just do our part to make this as much a Garden of Eden as we possibly can.(00:22:04):God has governed the circumstances around your life,(00:22:09):and you and I are born for this exact moment in history.(00:22:14):He's called us to be here and he is giving us a way,(00:22:17):even in an age of technology,(00:22:19):he is giving us a way that we can return to a more ordered,(00:22:23):natural way of living.(00:22:26):And we can govern our days by the simple waning of light.(00:22:31):darkness every day let's just start with that and start unplugging in the afternoon(00:22:37):and let our house be as as tech-free as possible in the evening go back to quiet(00:22:44):evening spent with other people go back to conversations go back to phone calls if(00:22:49):you don't have anybody living in your house and(00:22:51):and not just allow our mind to be wired to the Internet until the last second of(00:22:57):our consciousness every day.(00:22:58):It's not good for us.(00:23:00):We know that, and it's breaking us down.(00:23:02):So here we're given the pattern, sun, moon, and stars.(00:23:07):God's in your corner, and so am I. So let me know if there's any way I can help you.(00:23:12):We'd love to hear your comments or your insights on these lessons in the comments section below.(00:23:17):We'll see you next time. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

I was talking to a young person on a college campus just this week. I asked if he was worried about the future. “Anytime I get depressed about the state of the world or even my own life, I just think about all the amazing things that have to happen just to make life possible on Earth. It lets me know that it’s not all on me.”That’s what this week’s podcast is about—the divine marvel of Earth, the living planet and that way its fruitfulness inspires us to hope and work.We are working our way through the Genesis creation narrative. In previous episodes, we talked about how our Creator filled the universe with his presence. Then he built the protective skydome to shield Earth from catastrophic disaster. He conquered darkness and limited its power by 50%. He did the same to the power of the watery deep.Everything done up to this point has been preparation. Now it's time to deliver the baby. Day ThreeIn this episode, we look at the third “day” of creation, the rise of Earthland, and the gathering of the waters into Seas. You’ll find the story in Genesis 1:9-13 which begins with,“Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. Ge.1.9 NKJVGod issues the command and Earthland rises up into the spotlight from the watery deep. She is gloriously pregnant with every kind of seed earth life will ever need.Thoughts about SeedI can’t say I’ve ever given much thought to seed before researching the results of God’s creative work on day three. I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about it in preparation for today’s newsletter and I’m amazed at the wisdom of God to create something so small and yet, so vital for all of us.Seeds are essential not just for plant reproduction but also for human civilization. They are a primary source of food (grains, legumes, nuts, and many fruits). They provide us with materials such as cotton and linen. Additionally, seeds play a critical role in ecosystems, supporting the diet of animals and the creation of habitat. Seeds are unique in three ways;* Propagation: Seeds allow plants to spread to new areas, sometimes far from the parent plant, through various dispersal mechanisms such as wind, water, and animals.* Survival: Seeds can remain dormant for extended periods, allowing plants to survive through unfavorable conditions until circumstances are right for germination.* Nutrition: Seeds often contain significant amounts of stored food (e.g., fats, proteins, carbohydrates), which sustains the embryo during germination and early growth.Did you get that last part? A seed is a plant embryo.In the nucleus of the seed’s embryo, the cells have genetic instructions written in DNA code. This code instructs the cell on how to care for the development of the plant and when to make the proteins that will be needed for the plant to survive in the environment, thrive, and bear fruit with even more seedJust Add waterWhen you add water to a seed it triggers the growth of the embryo. The seed coat breaks open, and the young plant starts to emerge, using its stored nutrients until it can produce its own food as a plant through photosynthesis.What are the Odds?* Of being hit by lightening? That’s 1 in 15,000 (You would think it would be more rare, right?)* Of being hit by lightening twice? Much less odds, only 1 in 9 million* Of Winning the Powerball Lottery? Almost impossible, its only 1 in 290 million* Of planting a single seed carefully and seeing it produce fruit and multiply 1000 times? Amazingly, it’s close to 100%.That’s how much the earth rewards human care. It’s Spring, right? Experiment with one tomato plant, which comes from one tiny seed, and see how much return you receive from tending to it. Your single seed plant should easily produce fruit with between 3000-9,000 seeds. We have an invested Creator. He loves his creation and is determined to build a physical world of free beings who can thrive and develop and make full use of their creativity.Unlike the destructive powers of “the universe,” the default state on Earth is set to yield fruitfulness to those who tend to her carefully in terms of: Plants, animals, and natural resources.  You’ll probably never win the lottery, but earth will reward you richly if you care for her. That’s how God designed seed to multiply for those who sow them."The land is a gift because the people who possess it did not create it.”—Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land— The amazingly good news of Day 3 in the Genesis narrative is that life on earth is designed to flourish. You can build a wonderfully satisfying life here. In fact, you can ONLY build a wonderfully satisfying life here. After spending billions in SETI research and developing satellite listening stations to the edges of our solar system the clear verdict is that we can find absolutely no signs of life anywhere but on Earth.Our planet is alive. It literally pulsates with something called dynamic geography. It moves around like an active baby in a woman’s belly, rolling and bulging in an active exchange of minerals, lava and gasses still creating and repositioning mountains and valleys above and below the sea.The earth is alive and full of seed, just waiting to be tended by humans hands. At the end of the work of Day 3, the Creator critiques his own work and announces for the first time that Earth and Seas are “Tov” (good for life, constructive). Later He will plant a tree to commemorate all that is Good.Discussion Question for the chat: Has your media feed affected your feelings about the future? Do you dread what is coming or honestly look forward to where God is taking all of us?We look forward to discussing this with you in the chat (Yes, it’s back on! I don’t know how it got switched off. I’ve been missing your insights). Subscribe to gain access if you haven’t already. Please forward the Grounded Podcast to your friends and family so we can reach more people with God’s encouraging word. Thanks! We deeply appreciate it!Thank you for reading Grounded. This post is public so feel free to share it.YouTube Version: Click Here Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

We all want to get ahead in life. Every healthy person has dreams and visions of a better life they want to build. In the past, it was a dream about a career and building wealth, but I think people are starting to wake up to the need for a broader vision of life that starts with a healthy body, an upbeat mindset, a robust community, the anchor of family, and a meaningful body of work.You may be surprised to discover that God wants all of this for you. Humans were actually created to enjoy a wonderful experience of life. In this episode of the podcast will go deeper into the Genesis one narrative to receive God's unchanging wisdom about how to live successfully in this relational/physical/spiritual world.The Lure of Quick SuccessThe allure of rapid success is particularly strong among the youth, captivated by tales of making millions in a matter of months or achieving instant fame through clever strategies.By midlife you start to know people who were once rich but lost it all to the economy, their partners, or in a nasty divorce. We have friends who were once such strong pillars now drinking way too much. Former “alpha males” lose their health and stature overnight to a stroke.In a universe with powerful forces of destruction like entropy and “the darkness” (from our previous videos) it doesn’t take much for things to go bottom up.The First Order of BusinessThe Bible is here to guide us on a journey to knowing the God who made us, and walking with Him throughout the journey of building our little worlds in a way that reflects his values and dreams for all humans.In our last episode we witnessed the grace gift of God’s presence being seeded throughout the physical world so we can find God’s presence in the field, the house, and at work. God is everywhere for us. That makes life possible. We’re invited to dream big and bring those dreams to Him for review and blessing.We’re so excited to start on our bold vision, and ready to bet the farm on the new idea, but the first order of business, according to the Genesis narrative, is actually to mitigate loss. Not very exciting. The gun goes off and we’re double-lacing our shoes while others charge ahead.But our universe is hostile against us. That’s the first lesson to the wise. No fairy tales about “the universe” bringing our dreams true. In the Genesis story, the one thing you can count on from the default forces of the universe, is to resist your efforts, create friction at every turn, and to help you pick up so much speed going downhill that you’ll never make that curve. The universe wants to destroy all life. That’s why the moon is not a tropical paradise. To our best knowledge, there’s not a single living bacterium on Mars, Jupiter or anywhere else. Ours is a hostile universe. It kills all life throughout the galaxy—except here on Earth and there’s just one reason.God is our friend. He’s the only way we survive. If we’re going to make it to the end of the race and see our vision of a great life become a reality, we’re going to have to walk in step with Him and constantly mitigate the catastrophic loss that’s hovering above us.Ge. 1.6-7 NKJV Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters....and it was so." The “Firmament”In the Genesis story, after God seeds his presence (Shekinah light) everywhere to allow life to spring forth, He creates a defensive barrier, the Firmament (key idea is “firm”). The Firmament is a sky shield to protect us from catastrophic dangers above. In biblical language, it keeps the watery deep from swallowing earth from below and above.Again, this is symbolic language, but it has parallels in nature, like in the way our oxygenated atmosphere protects us from being struck by 48 tons of meteoroids each day (*NASA).The Lesson to UsThe point is that comfort is not our friend. We can’t coast our way to a good life. If we want a great experience on earth, we have to work against the anti-creation forces and make the life we want. In later passages we’ll learn that we have the power to make this happen, but not without intentionality on our part. To build a great life we must first establish an atmosphere of protection around ourselves and our little worlds."A disaster is an emergency poorly met."Can We Avoid Catastrophic Loss?While we can’t avoid all forms of tribulation (squeezing) in the world, the Bible’s message is that Yes!, we can mitigate catastrophic loss and seize the kind of life we dream of, because it’s the one God intends for us. We can live fulfilling lives, have strong families, and build wealth as a defense and a gift for future generations. Such ambition pleases God. He will, actually, join us on the endeavor, as He did with Abraham and use the events and challenges we face to shape us in His image.It’s just that we shouldn’t get too invested in the work of building until we create a security perimeter around the key areas of our lives. Building and maintaining, those defense structures keep our labor in play and preserves it from being brought to nothing later.* Marriage. If you are married, the universe wants to see your love die. The anti-creation forces around you will work to tear you apart and leave you hating the thought of each other, ruining every holiday for your kids. So, what are you going to have to do about that to make your good marriage become great and survive all the tests of time?* Wealth. OK, Bitcoin is the next great thing, but we need to think about capital preservation more than explosive growth in our financial strategy. If we never lose, then we keep growing our base year by year. That’s why Warren Buffet is the Oracle of Omaha.* Our bodies have to last till we hit our 90’s. A bag of chips a night and a comfy recliner insures 25 years of pain in the last half of our life. What is your daily system for keeping your body healthy?* Our minds. The physical universe is tough enough, but the digital one wants to fill you with anxiety, despair, and drift. Unless we dream of life in the Matrix, we need to turn off the screen, put our phone in a box 15 hours a day, use our brains, and develop a champion’s mindset. What’s your firmament plan to keep your mind strong?Building and maintaining a firmament at all times is job one. That’s the lesson of the firmament to me. We all need a secure atmosphere all around us in order to thrive.“The only thing harder than planning for disaster is explaining why you did not.”QuestionsConsider what persistent concerns signal vulnerabilities in your life.What can you do to take action to protect yourself in that area?CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VERSION Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

I hate election years. I didn’t always feel like this, but since 2016, elections have become a blood sport and all the power of the internet and traditional media is honed to do maximum damage. Families and friends have become divided. You can lose your job for just saying what you think. It’s never been like this in my lifetime. I’m not sure what it will take to change it. Changing the behavior of even one other adult is a challenge—unless that adult is me. The question is, “Can I develop an inner source of light and just drive by that guidance throughout life without needing any outside reference?”That’s what this episode of the newsletter and podcast is about. The Bible Opens With Darkness in ChargeThe Big Story of the Bible opens on a universe bathed in darkness, making life impossible.  Nothing can survive, much less thrive. We are absolutely dependent upon Light for our physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual life. Tragically, we cannot produce it.This episode is about the grace gift of light. In Genesis 1, God walks on the stage and His first words are the command,  “Let there be light!” That's when hope enters the story. The power of the darkness is broken and life can now begin.Light is the central hopeful symbol of the BibleGenesis 1:3-5 NKJV  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.What we learnThe immediate thing we learn is that light wins. Even in a tomb of darkness, one match can light your way. Darkness can’t extinguish light. There's nothing the darkness can do to turn itself up and become more dark. Light defeats darkness instantly. The Bible introduces the Creator as the champion of life in our universe.  He rises up and defeats the darkness in an instant with his own inner light, allowing life to burst forth. This isn’t the light of the Sun or Moon. (In the narrative, they aren’t created for three more days). This light is the radiance that comes out of God himself. It is the presence of God bathing the universe. There is no place you can go in the galaxy without being bathed in the Shekinah light of God’s presence. It’s the Creator’s first, and most essential, gift.David pondered this.Ps. 139 NKJV 7Where can I go from Your Spirit?Or where can I flee from Your presence?8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;If I make my bed in [c]hell, behold, You are there.9 If I take the wings of the morning,And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,10 Even there Your hand shall lead me,And Your right hand shall hold me.11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall [d]fall on me,”Even the night shall be light about me;12 Indeed, the darkness [e]shall not hide from You,But the night shines as the day;The darkness and the light are both alike to You.Before there anything could live anywhere, the presence of God had to saturate the darkness and weaken its power. The thought of God’s presence being everywhere to guide, comfort, protect and provide security is one of the great sources of hope for those who are walking in submission with Him.God glows and so do his peopleIn the Bible, everyone who encounters God faces an overwhelming radiance as bright as lightning. Those who spend time in an encounter with God glow from the experience. One way to get more of God’s light is to hang out with those who glow. There’s so much more to say. The podcast is a better place to share it. Hope you’ll give it a listen so you can hear the answer to the question of whether we can, in fact cultivate inner light that guides us without additional help.And so, dear friend, I hereby deliver to you this week’s video podcast. This substack is very convenient. You can watch the video above or on YouTube. You can also listen to the audio version on your computer or on your phone through Spotify or Apple Podcasts or by clicking this link. If you find value in these podcasts please share this newsletter with your friends. I deeply appreciate those who help Grounded to grow. It’s a ton of work, but it’s worth it all to know that others are being helped by it.DiscussionThis week, let’s read 1 John every day and post what we get from it in the chat. Everyone who has subscribed has access to the chat box. See you there!Walk in the Light! ChuckYouTube Version Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Each of us has a life battle to fight against the intelligent darkness that is seeking to pull us away from God and his righteous path. Sometimes the darkness appeals to something unnoticeable to others like nursing a grudge against a family, member or coworker. There are so many dark emotions, and any of them can become a lever to move us from our grounded position into a place of greater vulnerability.The devil does his work in darkness.In this episode of the podcast we're going to break down eight ways the Bible describes the work of darkness, eight layers of it’s presence. It begins with simple ignorance and ends with an eternity in darkness. Will we escape the darkness? Thankfully, that’s up to us. Jesus is the light of the world and he has come to give light to everyone. We can leave the light and walk with him in the light. He gives us the power and the invitation to come to him and escape the darkness.“In your light, we see light” Ps. 36.9Even if you don’t watch the whole video please pay attention to the first two points. They show how darkness generally works in people with religious convictions—people trying to do the right thing. It’s an important point.Check out the video or audio and put your thoughts in the chat here. What are your favorite Bible verses related to darkness versus light? I’d love to hear from you on this.Walk in the Light!Love,CQListen to the audio podcastWatch the YouTube Version Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Hope you are ready for another amazing insight from the Word of God! The creation narrative is the foundation for our understanding regarding who we are and what’s going on inside and around us. In Ge 1.3-5, the creation of Earth begins with the defeat of darkness by a light that comes from within the Creator—not the sun (not created till day four). This is His Shekinah glory.Darkness vs LightThe concept of Darkness is an idea seed that is planted in this third line of the big story. It germinates and spreads throughout the rest of the Bible. Unpacking this idea of “darkness and light” gives us a very deep insight regarding the human condition. The problem of the power of darkness is the core issue of every human life. We feel it and it seems inescapable.Your attempted escape from the darkness is the central plot of your life. It is your calling. It will take courage, discipline, and sacrifice to walk in the light and have light grow inside of you. Sadly, most people will not escape the world’s darkness. They will quickly surrender, make their peace with it, and settle into a respectable slavery. As Oscar Wilde wrote, "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."God has better things in mind for you, my friend, but you are the one in charge of your story, so only you can decide your path regarding the darkness.The battle between darkness and light is the central plot throughout literary history. Novels, movies, fables, and songs in every culture revolve around it. In this episode, I describe the ceaseless war between these two great opposing forces of spiritual authority, for that is what they are.The Hero’s JourneyThe hero’s journey begins in darkness and moves ever into light. First, we must move beyond our ignorance into belief, but then we must face the fact that there is yet darkness inside of us. For this we need that liberation only found through enlightenment from Jesus. The Apostle John, in both his gospel and epistle, does a masterful job of celebrating Jesus as the Light of the world. Some Christians read 1 John daily. It’s short and so powerful.The Father limited darkness in the creation and Jesus defeated the prince of darkness on the cross. In Him we have light, but we have to choose to walk in that light in our daily actions. What’s Coming NextThere’s so much to chew with this big idea that it will take three episodes to cover. In today’s video, I’ll unwrap the idea of darkness as a spiritual force. The next video is, “8 Layers of Darkness” revealed in the Bible’s teaching. In the third episode we celebrate the Bible’s teaching on the unbeatable power of light over darkness. As always, I welcome your comments, contributions, and feedback. This episode was surprisingly difficult to do for some reason. Thanks for your prayers as I endeavor to bring solid spiritual food in a new online way.Every Blessing, Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

*Subscribe for free below. This podcast is available on video above or as an audio version with hour favorite platform like Apple or Spotify podcasts. It is also on video on YouTube. Get the front row seat and let me send it directly to your mailbox weekly so you’ll get it first and never miss an episode. It’s Free!Hey! Hope you’re having an amazing start to your week. A positive attitude is the great thermostat in life. Gratitude is the foundation for a positive outlook on life. In this episode of the podcast, I’m going to talk about three great constant threats to our survival at every level. Once you hear about them you’ll see them all around you trying to get at your life and turn it to powder, yet our Creator protects us from these threats every day. Seeing His mercy should help us develop a more conscious sense of gratitude to our creator for protecting us daily against these three great threats.Even if you don’t usually watch the video, how about giving this one a try? (You can even click the little gear and up the speed to 1.5x to make it go faster if it seems too long for you.) This teaching is important foundational stuff for establishing a truly biblical mindset in life.Please help us reach 1,000 subscribers within the next two months. You can do this by forwarding Grounded to a friend with the button below. THANKS!!!Thank you for reading Grounded. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Click here for the audio podcast version. The hardest part of understanding the Bible for modern people is transcending the mental categories we have all inherited by being raised in the age of science and technology. New Glasses Will Allow us to See New Truth We go through life with the automatic mental programming of our generation, sort of like wearing a pair of purple lens glasses. We've been wearing these glasses all our lives and so we just don't see certain colors accurately. Only by intentionally removing these glasses and putting on a different set can we read the Bible and really see what is being revealed. This is our first episode of actually opening the Bible to the first page so we can start to build our world narrative. This narrative must be trustworthy. I'm basing mine on what is revealed to us by the Creator about the true nature of our world. This is a fascinating study! We will go slow and make sure we take time to savor all the implications of the foundational truths revealed in Genesis 1-3. Remaining Unmovable in our New LifeThe current world moves ever deeper into an always-connected, tech-required experience. We are never truly offline now. Rest is a luxury.The most important life skill for all of us living in this generation is grounding—stability of mind, relationships, and actions. I believe there's no single thing you can do to ground your life. Grounding is the reward for maintaining four networked stabilizers:* A trustworthy Narrative to map out the reality of this world and define who we are and our role in it. * A resilient mindset where we meditate on the truth and implications of that mindset and use it to build our hope and expectation. * A robust interpersonal network of relationships. We live out of the resource of this relational web, and our life finds value as we serve our network and add value to the lives of others within it. * A meaningful body of work, and by this I mean the sum total of our actions as sovereign individuals who have dominion over our actions. We build our own little world, and this act of building, a beautiful life for ourselves, and those who are in it, sustains and supports us. It is where our satisfaction comes from. Some people in this generation are going to thrive. I want that person to be you. “In the Beginning…”The first line of the Bible is a perfect first sentence. In Hebrew, it has seven words, but in just seven words it outlines the entire content of this collection of revelation that will take thousands of years and over 35 different authors to express. Here’s what it tells us:* We live in a universe which is not eternal. It began at a moment in time.* Our universe was created by a single intelligence.* Our universe exists to express the desire of its Creator.* Our universe was intentionally created according to a careful design.* Our universe has two levels to it. Heavens (Skye) and Earth. Material and Immaterial. Seen and Unseen. The rest of the Bible is devoted to stories that illustrate the interplay between the seen and unseen worlds. We will meet characters from both worlds, and we will see how these two dominions are intertwined and affect one another. The Bible will teach us that universal harmony and perfection of life will come when everything in the Heavens and the Earth are completely unified, “As in Heaven, so on Earth.”Our calling as humans is to use our dominion and free will to bring earth into alignment with the heart and values of its Creator. God’s Spirit will be with us giving us the power and resources we need to make this happen in the parts of the world we control. The Story Leads to JesusUltimately, the story will lead us to Jesus who heals both dominions and unites them as one unified whole. Only then will the Creator King return to his creation and make it His home. With His presence (the Reign of God) the envisioned Utopia will become an eternal physical reality on Earth. “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;And a little child shall lead them.7 The cow and the bear shall graze;Their young ones shall lie down together;And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.8 The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LordAs the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11: 6-9 NKJV)It’s the Big Story. Let’s open it up and live it out!* If this content is meaningful to you please help us grow our audience. These are our early days. Please help us reach the 1000 milestone by sharing this podcast and newsletter with your friends and family.*Thank you for reading Grounded. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

This is the first in a series of podcasts about the Bible’s use of symbolism, story, and mythology as the Truth’s best container. This is not to say that the Bible is a book of fables like Aesops or moral stories like those of the Brothers Grimm. The Bible uses symbol to contain meaning because story is the operating system of the human mind and symbol the perfect container for truth.I have much more to say on the subject, and it will take a few additional podcasts from time to time to adequately cover it, but here's a start. Jump in on the chat if you are a subscriber. If not, sign up here. It’s free!You can find the audio podcast version in any podcast platform like Apple podcasts, Spotify or my own player right here.Pleeeeeeeze help me hit 1,000 subscribers by sharing Grounded with others on your social media feeds, OK? Thanks!!! (We have 500+ right now)Thank you for reading Grounded! Please help us grow our community with your amazing friends. Thanks!!!Watch the Video on YouTube Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Are you genuinely excited about the direction of your life in the coming year? You can be. The life God has for us is, "above all that we can ask or even think".I guess we've all figured out by now that although planning our destinations (goal setting) is important, “living” is more about the process of finding enjoyment in the journey itself as we do life with others. I go on my first big tripWhen I was eight and living in LaGrange, Georgia, Mom and Dad announced that we were going on a road trip. I would get to see where they had started their life together in Washington DC, our nation’s capital. It was going to be a long, long journey. They gave me a gift for the road, a small transistor radio with an earpiece to help me deal with the endless hours of riding in the car. They were smart enough to give it to me a month before we left so I had time to explore what a radio was and fall in love with the magical thing. (Did you have one of these as a kid?)All the way to DC and back I was plugged into radio magic and expanded my mind with all the things I heard city by city.Our journey through life is long and demanding, so God has given all of us some gifts too. Our First GiftImagine being trapped in a life where others chose our thoughts, words, and direction. It would be like one of those nightmares where there’s an attacker and you can’t run or hit them or even shout out (don’t tell me I’m the only one).Thank God, we aren’t trapped in such a powerless existence! The first gift God gave humans when Adam and Eve opened their eyes was dominion, rulership over their own existence. Their thoughts, words, plans, and actions would be under their sole control.In other words, our first great gift is the key to the car. It’s your life and you can drive it anywhere you decide. Slow or fast. In the middle of the road or off a cliff. It’s completely up to us and only us.This has to be our journey and the sooner we take charge of our direction the better it will be for us. We should all be forever grateful for this gift alone.Our Second GiftThe second power is the ability to conceive a favored future in our mind, and then focus on it until it comes into being. It’s called belief or faith. We would all do well to expand our awareness of the power of our own faith and vision for our near and longterm life. Before Jesus laid hands on people he often asked them, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” After their miracle, he would say, “Your faith has made you whole”. Medical science has long recorded the amazing ability of placebo medications to cure serious diseases although the pills were made of nothing beneficial. It was the faith that brought the cure. Self-healing.According to Jesus, faith has the power to kill fig trees, move mountains, and allow a normal human like Simon Peter to walk on water. Your own vision for your life, if you lean into it, can bring that God-honoring future into existence. So let me ask you again, are you genuinely excited about the direction of your life in the coming year? Let’s Get Our Vision OnWe all need to get a compelling vision of ourselves in a better state 12 months from now. Imagine yourself physically healthy, taking long walks and full of energy. See your closeness with your family, especially if you don’t click well with them. Describe out loud the life you know God wants for you. Then put it in writing as a declaration on a card and tape it to your bathroom mirror. Believe it. Have confidence in it.Then take your dominion and align your gifts and abilities—your mindset, your attitude, your speech, your actions, your relational ability—and drive into that future.Dominion, plus a compelling vision of a favored future—that’s powerful stuff! Dominion and Faith in World MissionsIn urban barrios, mountain villages, and college campuses in Southeast Asia, we and our partners watch repeatedly in happy wonder as these two great divine gifts completely rewrite life stories. Time and again we have watched kids from the hardest backgrounds you can imagine catch a vision of themselves in a different life. They start to see themselves through God’s eyes of unlimited possibility. They accept our word to them, that they are the child of promise, and they take on the vision of lifting their family out of spiritual and material poverty. They see themselves as the hero in their family’s story, of God giving them the breaks as they apply themselves with all their might. They say no to destructive friendships, no to drugs, no to sexual immorality. They use their dominion and rise from brothels, from the generational poverty of the barrio and from the despair and depression that is sweeping across college campuses everywhere.Jesus changes lives, but this is how he does it. He empowers humans to live as the image of God on earth. And that, my dear friend, is how we get ourselves equipped to face the next 12 months with genuine excitement.This Week’s VideoThis week’s video was shot in the raw borderland of Thailand and Myanmar. Denzel Washington’s breakout hit, American Gangster, tells the true story of the drug cartel that was (and is) operating in that region. The actual village is just over the mountains behind me. It produced 70% of America’s heroin during the Vietnam War.Many, many lives have been destroyed in this place, but many amazing stories of transformation are also being written there as well. I hope you enjoy the video and will put the power of dominion and faith to work in your own life this week.This post is public so feel free to share it with your friends.*If you would like to be part of Emerge Missions initiatives in Southeast Asia you can donate here. On behalf of the thousands of young people impacted weekly, we thank you. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

Welcome friends! I’m Chuck Quinley and I want to welcome you to my new podcast, Grounded. In this episode I’ll explain what the podcast is all about and why I feel it’s important. A bit about me. My wife, Sherry and I have been living in Southeast Asia for the past 34 years, developing the broad work of a lean nonprofit called Emerge Missions which you can learn about here. such work is a lot more dramatic than you might imagine. We’ve been through three governmental overthrows, a killer earthquake, the great Tsunami, and the kidnapping and murder of good friends. Then there are the normal pressures of living across cultures, raising six kids, and narrowly avoiding burnout many times. So we’ve been around. We’ve tried many experiments that failed and even more that succeeded marvelously. We’ve journeyed with the rest of humanity from the world as we’ve always known it to this new tech-driven media age that is taking us to??? The jury is still out on that one. I would imagine it will be someplace wonderful with pockets of horrible like most ages. As in every time of massive disruption, the good news is that you can be steady even as the world tilts! Yes, it’s true! God has given us all we need to survive and thrive in times of great transition. This podcast is dedicated to finding stability for the journey of the next ten years. Being grounded comes from four stabilizers:* A trustworthy narrative, that you truly believe. I mean you have to go all in on this narrative and stick with it through your darkest hours.* A mindset that gives you mental toughness* The effective support of a carefully curated human network* A meaningful body of work, the sum total of your life’s actionsI’ve come to believe that category four is the most important by far. The others provide the strength, guidance and courage for it. I label content for category four as “Changemakers”. Because podcasts and YouTube videos, where this discussion is also hosted are consumed a piece at a time rather than in a series like a book I will bounce around from topic to topic.If you subscribe to my feed on chuckquinley.substack.com you can get in on the conversation and behind-the-scenes thinking that goes into each episode. The chat is for subscribers only so please join us!Subscribe for free to receive new postsMost episodes are done in video as a podcast. A few of them are concept videos that stand alone.I look forward to getting grounded together!Every Blessing!Chuck Quinley. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

[Video Versions at the Bottom of the Page—Join the discussion in the Chat] Mentoring is key to advancement in life no matter our age. It’s the best way to make sure the advantages of the last generation’s experience in life aren’t lost so they can benefit the next generation.Hopefully, you’ve had some good mentors in life. I know Sherry and I have. The benefits we gained from these interactions made us determined to be the best mentors we could even when we were just in our early 20’s. It became our life’s calling. We call it, “Building Big People.” It’s not a transactional thing. It’s something more like friendship. If someone comes up to you and says, “Will you be my friend?” it feels like they might be emotionally unstable. Just spend some time together and if you are a fit, a friendship will emerge. If a friend gets jealous or shows up too often it usually leads to a cooling in the connection. Mentoring is like that too. It has a natural flow to it and if you make it official, like calling someone your “best friend,” you might just mess it up. A mentor isn’t an official job, it’s a kind of influence we recognize as beneficial on our momentum in life. Mentoring gives our life meaning and helps us pass on the ancient wealth of wisdom we have gotten from our elders throughout life. (Their’s is 100 year old wisdom, folks, so it’s the good stuff!)Mentoring is the most important thing we do as leaders at Emerge Missions. It is now the foremost thing our next generation leaders request of us. 10 Characteristics of Great Mentors* They intend to mentor. The best mentors have accepted this as a calling from God. It is their high work in life and a focus their intent on doing an excellent job as a mentor for the next generation. * They “see you”. There's a patients to them. They are not working so hard to be seen so they have more capacity to see others and where they are in their development.* They “read” you. Maybe the best word for this is discernment. They don't just scan people to see how attractive they are, or if their clothes seem to be expensive. They read deeper, and they analyze people that they interact with, but they do it with mercy, remembering themselves in all the various stages of their own development and awareness.* They have a hopeful vision for you. They are generous and upbeat. It is easy for them to become excited about the potential in another person's life. They have learned what works and they will quickly spot your tools and special abilities.* They don’t take you over. This is what separates them from cult leaders. Anyone who uses the vulnerability of you opening up to them to “power up” on you and start taking over your life has no business in this kind of work. Anyone who would say things like, “As your (sponsor/mentor/pastor/father/leader/discipler/coach), I’m here to help you but also to kick your butt if you do stupid things…” is toxic. Such people have unmet personal needs for power. Get away from them. The people who truly change your life for the better have no interest in dominating you. Your own dominion is what they want to see flower and expand. The ones who change your life have their own power. They rule their own world and they don’t need to rule yours.* They create time boxes for you where you get 100% of their attention. They take your call and whenever you speak, even if it's just for five minutes, you can tell they are completely tuned in to you. Your conversations matter to them.* They really listen whenever you speak. They show with their body posture and their eye contact so strongly that you open your heart even more than you had planned. When they listen they listen with a third ear. Our words are just one layer. Wise mentors recognize how much of human communication is done through tone and gesture and timing. After selling them on your big new plan they might pause for a minute and say something like, “It’s exciting to start new things in life, isn’t it?! But, it feels like you aren’t completely sold on this idea yourself.” That’s when you realize that you only made that bold plan to impress your father in law whose approval you’ve never felt. You don’t even want to do it. Your mentor saved you a ten-year detour in life. That’s the power of a person in your life who simply listens deeply to you and asks questions.* They call out the strengths they see in you. Most of us see our weaknesses already. We don’t need another voice in our head about that. We win in life because of our strengths. The good mentor has a keen sense of what we’re good at. They notice things, like attention to detail, courage, working well with others, or bringing a six-pack of “enthusiasm” every day. These might not seem like important stuff, but a seasoned leader knows that so called, “soft skills” are the truly irreplaceable ones. Most hard skills can be gained through training and many of them become instantly irrelevant through one technological advance. The soft stuff is our core. It fuels our greatest contribution to the teams we serve in life.* They connect you to other healthy people, resources, and opportunities. In other words, they invest in you, sharing their accumulated lifetime social and professional network. They open doors for you if they can. Their network, like yours, is the backbone of their life. Meaning comes from making a valuable contribution to the network we build throughout life.* They cheer for you from the shadows backstage, versus stepping out to share the stage with you. Mentors have had lots of victories in life. They’ve won awards and been on stage. They don’t need more of that. Their joy is in watching you earn your moments in the spotlight.The Ironic GiftThe mentor will ask for little from you except to also pay attention and put wisdom into practice. There’s a bit of universal magic here, however. Although the good mentor asks for nothing, they really get the most benefit out of the relationship. Leadership studies have shown that having a dedicated mentor changes your upward trajectory by 15% in terms of the general markers of success. Becoming a mentor, however, has an upward push of 45% or more!So, if you’re only 15 years old, you should try to mentor some 12-year-olds. They will think you hung the moon and the posture you assume will begin transforming you into a life-giving leader. That change in perspective then sets you up for all kinds of success in life. Mentoring as MissionMentoring is the key to the success of the Batang Sidewalk program in Metro Manila. Kids mentor kids. It has been tested for 25 years now and the results are breathtaking. Hundreds of kids from families under the crushing weight of generational poverty have been mentored and later become mentors for kids younger than them. They all go to Jesus camp. They stay in high school and become the first in their family history to graduate college and move up in life. Then they return to the barrios every weekend in search of the next hungry generation and bring the gospel to them as well.This system is the ancient core of the Jesus community. “Making disciples” is about having a holistic concern for other people. You want them to be set free from their sin and their destructive habits. You want them to feel the embrace of their savior and to become aligned with their Creator so life works for them. You want to see their faith built up so they believe God is behind them, giving them dominion in life so they can crush the works of the devil and rise up as children of God.Mentoring changes us at every age. There’s always someone just a little bit younger than us, and behind us in our development in life. It can give retirement age individuals,It can give retirement age individuals a new purpose.This year my father passed away. It was agonizing to watch his body breaking down system by system over his last three years. He had been my mentor throughout life. The deepest investment he made in me was to share his personal mistakes and failures with me. He could have covered these things and persevered the legend, but he was committed to my development so he gave this costly treasure to me. I will always cherish this gift and be wary to avoid those same traps along my path.In his last year, I said, “Dad, you’re my mentor in all things. You are teaching me how to do the last hard mile of life. Any advice for me when I get to your stage?” Without missing a beat, he said with his wry smile, “I’d skip it if you can.” Mentors are with us forever. I love ya, Dad.Watch the video in this player:Watch the video on YouTube Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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