The UnSunday Show

This episode of the UnSunday Show is a conversation from the 2018 archives of The Grace Cafe podcast that Mike had with Mike Kapler of the Growing in Grace podcast. It centers around the content of Mike Kapler's book, Clash Of The Covenants: Escaping Religious Bondage Through The Grace Guarantee. We talked about many topics that often lead to confusion for believers, including the Sermon on t...

I recorded this conversation with my wife on The Grace Cafe podcast but am posting it here as well. It's a short health update from yours truly. Push play and give it a listen and thank you for following my podcasts!    I was recently invited to speak on the Grace at Last podcast with Corinne Kinstler on the subject of women in the church. I would really appreciate it if you would give it a l...

I was installing a couple of lights in my garage and when I opened one of the boxes, a paper fell out with the heading at the top that read:    FCC's Supplier's Declaration of Conformity    So naturally, my mind went to formal church membership because at its core, formal church membership is a declaration of conformity. So let's talk.    Links I mention to my previous episodes on c...

I asked Trent Antle to join me on this episode of the UnSunday Show because I wanted to hear more his story and I wanted others to have that same opportunity. After 20 years as a pastor in the institutional church setting, Trent began to see through the facade of propped-up religion as his eyes were being opened more and more to the New Covenant gospel of grace. He eventually walked away, not from...

Why is the modern church so captivated by the 10 Commandments when the New Covenant scriptures tell us plainly that the Law has been fulfilled and abolished? One reason is the theological systems we subscribe to that have the Law and the 10 Commandments as their centerpiece. One such system is Covenant Theology.    I also mentioned in this episode that we've combined the Instagram, Facebook,...

This episode is the audio I pulled from a video I just did. I came across a post in one of my social media feeds where a church had posted Joshua 1:8 as a memory verse for its people to memorize this week. The passage reads,    "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be pros...

Welcome to episode 91 of The UnSunday Show. In this episode I take a hard look at top-down authority and the use of honorific titles in the body of Christ. These things are not neutral and in fact, they do harm to the body of Christ by choosing to ignore the clear directives of Jesus concerning these important topics. In short, they prevent the body of Christ from fully expressing Christ to the wo...

In this episode of the UnSunday Show, I ramble on about some important things that have been on my mind recently concerning institutional church and its inability to reflect the heart of Jesus and his kingdom in the world.  -------------- Other Places You’ll Find Me: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unsundayshow

This is a short announcement to let you know I was interviewed on the Grace at Last podcast and that episode is out! I had a great conversation there with Corinne Kinstler, host of the Grace at Last podcast as we talked about church, the New Covenant, and a host of other topics along the way. Go check it out at:  https://www.lastministry.org/grace-at-last-podcast/022-what-i-should-know-about-churc...

Welcome to episode 88 of The UnSunday Show. Today we're going to talk about 2 Timothy 2:15. This is another verse in a long list of verses that has been taken out of context and weaponized by institutional religion to mean something that it was never intended to mean. Here it is in the King James Version:    "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be asham...

Welcome to episode 87 of The UnSunday Show ! What is sanctification? Is my sanctification progressive and ongoing, or is it already complete? Much of organized religion would have us believe that our sanctification isn't guaranteed and that it's progressive, relies on me,  and I'm supposed to be getting better at doing as time marches on. But is that the New Covenant version of sanc...

In this episode of the UnSunday Show, I share with you the recent conversation I had with Corinne Kinstler. Our paths crossed several month ago as Corinne was exploring the possibility of starting a new grace-centered podcast that would reflect her changes in thinking as she had moved out of a legalistic, religious environment into a better understanding of grace and the New Covenant. I think you&...

I'm way overdue for another morning coffee session with you so I thought I would remedy that with this episode. So let's talk about pastors and elders as I give you an update on where my thinking on this topic is going. This episode is also available as a video by visiting  https://www.unsunday.com/videos/85-morning-coffee-pastors-and-elders/ -------------- Other Places You’ll Find Me: Y...

In this episode of the UnSunday Show I want to talk about sermons and sermonizing. If the body of Christ is a kingdom of priests (and it is) where everyone who wants to, can actively participate, sermon centrality is certainly one of the biggest factors in preventing that from happening. Sermons and the art of sermonizing are a product of church history. They're an add-on to the body of Chris...

When we read our Bibles without regard to whether the passage we're reading resides in the Old Covenant or the New Covenant, we're mis-reading it. It's common today to give little or no consideration to a New Covenant/Old Covenant context and by doing so, we end up flattening out all of scripture as though every verse or passage is of equal weight and that all of it applies to us to...

The recently released movie, The Jesus Revolution , brought back many memories for us of the early days of our lives as Jesus People because we were both there to experience some of it. Mike came to Jesus in January of 1973 in the Calvary Chapel tent at a Saturday night concert and Susan met Jesus in the summer of 1973 at an ocean baptism in Pirate's Cove. If you've seen the movie, or if...

What has centuries of pastor-centered practices done to the body of Christ? Why is the institutional church so pastor-centered? How has pastor-centrality contributed to the crippling of the body of Christ? Do pastor-centered practices enhance or hinder the functioning of the body of Christ? Is pastor-centrality what Jesus has in mind for his people? Who put pastors in charge? The answer might shoc...

the Judaizers in Paul's day insisted that the Old Covenant law of Moses had to be obeyed in addition to faith in Jesus. They mixed law with gospel. Unfortunately, there are modern-day Judaizers who do the same thing to varying degrees with the same outcome: by adding law to grace, they have fallen from grace. Let's talk. -------------- Other Places You’ll Find Me: YouTube: https://www.yo...

What is spiritual growth? What does that term mean? More often than not, it's a term that gets weaponized to force conformity to a preset standard of rules or activities. But is there such a thing as spiritual growth in the New Covenant scriptures? If so, how is it gauged? What's the standard and how do I know if I'm doing it or doing it right? Let's talk. -------------- Other...

Religion diminishes who we are in Jesus by adding layers of obligations on top of the finished work of Jesus on the cross and in his resurrection. There is no rest in religion but in Jesus, rest is part of our new identity. Much like oil and water, religion and rest don't mix.  I want to give a much overdue shoutout to Joel Brueseke at the Growing in Grace podcast. He was kind enough to have...

My wife Susan joins me in this episode to talk about five regrets of a former pastor's wife. These speak to the damage done as a direct result of having spent years in institutional church leadership. Grab your favorite beverage, pull up a chair, and listen in.    Here they are in the order we talked about them: Being Silent and Not Speaking Up How Much it Cost Me and My Family Driven to Bein...

The UnSunday Show podcast website has received a major makeover and there are new features and tools there now that make it easier for us to communicate.  -------------- Other Places You’ll Find Me: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unsundayshow

This episode sprang from a conversation Susan and I had about the impact Christian nationalism has had on the body of Christ throughout its history. The use of military jargon within institutional religion has given us a military-style pecking order of top-down authority in the body of Christ. A quote I share in this episode is a clear illustration of this where the pastor is said to be the Compan...

James: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." ( James 2:24 ) Paul: "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." ( Romans 3:28 ) Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke from the Growing in Grace podcast join me in this episode as we examine the topic of justification. Is our justification by faith alone as Paul said or is it a co...

I lost all my drive and passion to write following my crash and burn in 2009. As a pastor who spent years in performance-based Christianity, I hit a wall of performance in 2009 and I went from full-on to full-stop overnight. Relationships were lost, friendships were lost, and in the process my passion for writing and speaking evaporated. Recently, that passion has returned. There's a lot more...