Grounded with Chuck Quinley

Hi there! I hope you’re having a great day. This newsletter will be the short version of what I go into much greater depth in the video version. I noticed that there are two kinds of learners on this mailing list: some who just want to read it and others who enjoy the video version. So here we go. In forty+ years of ministry I’ve seen a lot of things go wrong inside churches, organizations, and mo...

Hi there! I hope you’re having a super good day. Are you good at imagining things? Can you, for example, get an idea about the furnishing of a room so that it comes alive and becomes a place with a purpose? Can you see it before actually dragging furniture into the space? I think we all have this ability, but some people use it more and so it becomes stronger with them. Anyway, we’re always trying...

Hi friend! Sherry and I are back in Thailand, so I’m back in the studio, able to produce again. Thanks for your patience. Let’s dive in. There’s a scene at the very end of the Bible that has always amazed me. It’s my new favorite Bible verse, and you’ll find it in the last chapter of Revelation — God’s final word to the world. You’d expect something tender. Something like, “Please, my children, co...

Hi! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I wanted to share with you this interview which was released this week on the Medialight Substack page. It’s a conversation I had with Ross about where the next generation finds themselves in relationship with the church and the Bible and Christianity globally. One of the concepts we talk about is the need to re-establish the central authority of Jesus and...

Hey! I have exciting news, the book is finally live! ReJesus Everything is available on Amazon worldwide! We have a Kindle version already up, and we will produce an audiobook within a month or so. This has been a passion project for many years. In some ways, I feel like I’ve been writing this book all my life because I have been thinking the thoughts that I was finally able to release along the j...

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...

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 ca...

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...

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 o...

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 d...

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. O...

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 yo...

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 con...

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 Everythin...

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 bri...

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 Go...

Grounded S02 E03 There’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’...

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 th...

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...

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 d...

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...

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 Week Today 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....

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...

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 Traits Personality: “I’m introverted, creative,...

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 h...