Next Level Church - Charlotte

The ground under us won't hold still. What was settled five years ago is up for debate now, and it's exhausting trying to figure out what to believe when the answers keep changing depending on who's talking. We start wondering if there's anything solid left to stand on, or if we're just supposed to keep adjusting forever. In this second message of our series, Unshakable: Building a Faith That Stan...

Two houses look identical—until the storm comes. Most of us don't lose our footing in one big, dramatic moment. We lose it slowly: when the ground keeps shifting beneath us, when a hard season makes us wonder if our faith was ever real, when devotion quietly fades without us noticing. We assume we're fine because we know the right things—we've heard the teaching, we agree with it, we could explain...

The power of the Spirit isn't something we're waiting on. It's something we've been given and haven't learned to live from. In this final message of the series, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus walks through Ephesians 1 and Paul's astonishing prayer — that we would grasp the power already at work in us. The same resurrection power that defeated death is alive in every person who follows Jesus. If you've sp...

The Spirit doesn't make our lives safer. He makes us brave enough to do what we couldn't do before. In this message, Pastor Bradley Medford walks through Acts 4, where the early church — facing real opposition — prayed not for safety but for boldness. The Spirit's power isn't for comfort. It's for courage. If fear has been holding you back, this message is for you. The same Spirit that emboldened...

The Spirit's power isn't primarily emotional. It's transformational. In this message, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus walks through Galatians 5 and challenges the way we often measure God's presence — by how we feel in the moment. Real Spirit-power shows up somewhere less flashy but far more lasting: in the slow, stubborn growth of becoming a different kind of person. If you've ever chased the spiritual h...

Pentecost wasn't a one-time event. It was the beginning of a new way of being human. In this message, Pastor Christian Nichles walks through Acts 2 and the moment everything changed — when the Holy Spirit arrived like fire and wind and transformed frightened followers into bold witnesses. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and available to you right now. If you've ever felt l...

Every series eventually has to reckon with the hardest question faith faces: what do you do when you believe all the right things, and it still doesn't get better? In this final episode of More Than Sunday, Pastor Brad Medford brings the series home in the most pastoral and unflinching way possible. The text is Lamentations 3:21–24 — one of the rawer passages in all of Scripture — where a man crou...

Exhaustion has become so normal that most of us have stopped noticing it. We wear our busyness like a badge, push through the fatigue, and quietly assume that one day — when things settle down, when the project ends, when the kids are older — we'll finally rest. But the threshold keeps moving. And the pace never really lets up. In this episode of More Than Sunday, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles...

There are a lot of ways to measure what someone actually believes. But few are as reliable — or as uncomfortable — as money. The way we earn it, spend it, hold onto it, and give it away tells a story about our deepest convictions that our words rarely match. In this episode of More Than Sunday, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens Luke 19:1–10 and sits with one of the most quietly radical moments in the...

What happens when everything you’ve built your life around… is gone? In this episode of the Cutting Room Floor Podcast, Clay and Christian have an honest conversation about identity and how easy it is to tie who we are to what we do, and what happens when that foundation starts to crack. From ministry and career success to parenting, failure, and starting over, this conversation gets real about th...

Most of us are living inside an identity we didn't fully choose. It got built over years — out of what we achieved, what we failed at, what people expected, and what we learned to perform to stay accepted. And somewhere along the way, it started feeling like just... who we are. In this episode of More Than Sunday, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus brings the resurrection into one of the most personal places...

For most people, faith and work exist in completely separate compartments. Church on Sunday, grind on Monday, and never much overlap between the two. It feels normal. It might even feel responsible. But according to Paul, it's not how any of this was supposed to work. In this episode of More Than Sunday, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles opens up Colossians 3:23–24 — a passage written to ordinary...

What if the most world-altering event in history has been hiding in plain sight — tucked into one morning a week, dressed up for Easter, and mostly left out of everything else? In the first episode of More Than Sunday, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens a six-week journey with a message called "This Changes Everything." Drawing from Romans 6:4, Clay unpacks what Paul meant when he wrote that we were bu...

n this Easter sermon, Pastor Clay gets unusually personal — sharing the story of resigning his church in 2007, stepping back from faith entirely, and spending two years asking the hardest questions he'd ever faced. At the center of it all was one question he'd been avoiding: Did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Using the analogy of a load-bearing wall, Clay makes the case from 1 Corinthians 15 a...

Unmet expectations might be one of the quietest and most painful sources of pressure we carry. We expected God to show up a certain way—and He didn't. Or so it seemed. In the final week of Under Pressure, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles brings us to the triumphal entry in Matthew 21, where crowds welcomed Jesus with enormous hopes—and He deliberately chose a different path than the one they had...

Comparison is sneaky. It rarely announces itself, but it quietly drives more of our decisions—and more of our exhaustion—than most of us realize. In week four of Under Pressure, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens Galatians 1:10, where Paul flatly refuses to live for human approval. It's a short verse with enormous implications. When your identity is rooted in Christ rather than in how others see you, t...

Burnout doesn't always look like a breakdown. Sometimes it looks like a person who has given everything they have and simply has nothing left. In week three of Under Pressure, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus looks at the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19—a man fresh off a mountaintop moment who collapses in total exhaustion and despair. God's response isn't disappointment or correction. It's compassion, prese...

Trials are easy to resent and hard to make sense of—until someone reframes them entirely. In week two of Under Pressure, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens James 1:2–4, where James writes to scattered and persecuted believers not with an escape plan, but with a perspective shift. Pressure, James says, is the pathway to perseverance and spiritual completeness. The hard season isn't a detour from your gr...

We live in a time when the pressure never really turns off—and most of us are carrying more than we admit. In the first message of our new series Under Pressure, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens Philippians 4:6–9 to show us that peace isn't something that just happens to us. It's practiced. It's cultivated. And according to Paul—who wrote these words from inside a Roman prison—it's available to anyon...

We've reached the finale of our Meant for More series, and Lead Pastor Clay Monkus brings a message that ties it all together: the Church is at its best when everyone is engaged in their God-given role. Using Romans 12:4–8, Clay unpacks Paul's powerful metaphor of the body. Just like a physical body needs every part functioning to be healthy, the Church needs every member using their gifts with di...

Continuing our Meant for More series, Digital Ministries Pastor Bradley Medford tackles a common misconception: that serving God's mission is about having the right title, position, or platform. Using Mark 10:42–45, Bradley takes us to the moment when Jesus' disciples argue about status and greatness. Jesus responds by completely redefining what greatness looks like—not authority over others, but...

Jesus isn't just part of life; He's the One who holds life together. Most of us treat Jesus like a helpful add-on—someone to invite into the hard moments, the Sunday mornings, the moral decisions. But the rest of the week? We're on our own. In this message, Digital Ministries Pastor Bradley Medford unpacks Colossians 1:15-17 and shows us what happens when we stop compartmentalizing our faith and s...

Rest isn't earned; it's received. Most of us are exhausted—not just physically, but spiritually. We're constantly chasing relief through distraction, entertainment, or just powering through. But relief is not the same as rest. In this message, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus explores Jesus' countercultural invitation in Matthew 11:28–30 and shows us what it looks like to trade temporary fixes for lasting...

In this episode, Clay and Christian talk about what it means to experience Jesus — not just know about Him. They explore why our culture is starving for peace, why outrage and speed are spiritually corrosive, and why stillness and presence are essential to real faith. The conversation touches on peacemaking, prayer, shared spiritual experience, and how slowing down helps us hear God more clearly....

You can't rest in a God you never notice. In a world that runs on hurry, noise, and notifications, most of us have forgotten what it feels like to be truly still. We believe in Jesus, but do we actually experience Him? In this opening message of our new series, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus explores Psalm 46:10 and invites us into a different kind of reset—one that begins not with doing more, but with w...