The UnSunday Show

Welcome to episode 28 of The UnSunday Show. At its core, The UnSunday Show is a podcast about the system we call church. To a very large extent, this system has come to us via church history, religious tradition, and theological distinction, not from the New Testament. Mike talks about that system we've inherited in this episode. He also makes an exciting announcement about the future of The...

Welcome to episode 27 of The UnSunday Show podcast. Way back in episode 9 we talked about 1 John 1:9 and what John meant when he said if we confess our sins [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We concluded that John was targeting unbelievers within the group - those who were sin deniers and outside of the family of faith. But what about tho...

Welcome to episode 26 of The UnSunday Show. Today's episode is a look at William Tyndale and his authoring of the New Testament in the English language. He wanted the people of his day to have a New Testament in their own language so they could read and interpret it for themselves instead of having to rely solely on the church hierarchy of the day to tell them what it meant. In his desire to...

Welcome to episode 25 of the UnSunday Show. Let's talk about your options when living in a Christian sacral society where conformity to the church's rules is required on the threat of punishment and death for non-compliance. Such was the environment the Anabaptists found themselves in as the Reformation progressed. Like their Roman Catholic counterparts, the church the Reformers created...

Welcome to episode 24 of The UnSunday Show. Since I've been absent for a while, I thought it would be a good idea to have a short refresher on some of the topics I've talked about in the past before moving on. In this episode I ask the question, "Who put pastors in charge?" How did we get so pastor-centric and pastor-dependent? Let's talk about it... -------------- Other P...

Welcome to episode 23 of The UnSunday Show. In this episode, I turn our conversation to how church became church by introducing Constantinianism and how through the Roman Emperor Constantine and his impact on Christianity as the official religion of Rome essentially moved the church from being one segment of society, where personal faith determined membership, to being all of society where persona...

Welcome to episode 22 of The UnSunday Show. This episode is a short return to the topic of how we view church informs our view of other things. In this case, the gospel. I wanted to mention a couple of things that I didn't get to in episodes 19 and 20 and present them to you as an addendum of what Greg and I talked about in those episodes.      Thanks to all of you who have reached out to me....

Welcome to The UnSunday Show. We turn 21 today with this, our 21st episode! That means were legal in all 50 States and around the globe. Partay! As most of you know, I co-host another podcast called The Grace Cafe Podcast with my wife. We recently interviewed J.D. Zomer from The Jesus Unfiltered Podcast and I asked J.D. if I could post that conversation here as well because while there is some ove...

Welcome to episode 20 of the UnSunday Show. This episode is a continuation of my conversation with Greg McInturff from the previous episode as we continue our dialog regarding ways our view of church informs our view of what God is like, either good or bad. In this second part, we talk specifically about the downsides of formal church membership and Bible verses that get taken out of context and u...

Welcome to episode 19 of the UnSunday Show. My friend Greg McInturff joins me in these next two episodes as we talk about how our view of church informs and/or mis-informs our view of God. Now that I'm a Christian, is God really satisfied with me? Am I enough? Am I doing enough? Should I be doing more and giving more? Is God watching and waiting for me to mess up?      Often, the moralistic m...

Welcome to episode 18 of The UnSunday Show. This episode is a conversation I had earlier today with my friend, Bonnie Petroschuk about her recent journey out of the institutional church and into Ekklesia. In her own words, Bonnie was known as "Mrs. Church" and was shocked by her own journey as she began to see and understand the significant differences between the two and realized she co...

Welcome to episode 17 of The UnSunday Show. I've listened to two different podcasts over the last couple of weeks that asked the question, "Can fallen pastors be restored?" One was from a former mega-church pastor who had an emotional affair with someone and in the process of working through that, several people surfaced with other charges of arrogance and pride that led to his bein...

Welcome to episode 16 of The UnSunday Show! I'm taking a short break in this episode from my interaction with Jon Zen's book because I'm recovering from pneumonia and I don't have much of a voice right now. So instead, I'm bringing over one last episode from my old Ekklesia Podcast and I'm calling it Bringing Moses To Church , because I think that's what we do an...

Welcome to episode 15 of The UnSunday Show. In this episode I continue my interaction with Jon Zens' book, A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick? as I look closer at the top-down authority structure of the clergy/laity system. In my opinion, this system is not neutral but adds an intentional, built-in layer of division within the body of Christ. The pastor-ce...

Welcome to episode 14 of the UnSunday Show! In this episode, I continue my interaction with Jon Zens' book entitled, A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick? In Section 5 of the book, which is called Why Has Church Become So One-Part Driven? , Zens shares the following quote from David L. McKenna, "[The pastor] is like the cerebellum, the center for commun...

Welcome to episode 13 of The UnSunday Show . I finally bought a book that I first saw in 2008. It's called A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile by Jon Zens. It's subtitled, What Makes American Christianity Tick? I think the title says it all. It's an excellent book that I really enjoyed reading so I thought I would share it with you by way of interacting with short excerpts from it. Thi...

Welcome to episode 12 of the UnSunday Show! I caught two of my friends at a weak moment and they both agreed to come on the show and talk with me about their individual journeys out of the institutional church. My conversation with Rocky Glenn and Jim Gordon centered around their reasons for leaving that religious environment, their experiences along the way, and what community looks like now, apa...

Welcome to episode 11 of The UnSunday Show. Let's talk about community and accountability. Most of us think community and accountability are two sides of the same coin, or that one (accountability) is necessary for the other (community) to function. Community is the agreed upon goal and we think accountability is the bus that will take us there. But it's not. That bus is traveling in the...

Welcome to episode 10 of The UnSunday Show. We've reached double-digits! In this episode I talk about two phrases in scripture that religion has successfully convinced us are spiritual disciplines: dying daily and bearing our cross. Religion has turned these into closely related spiritual disciplines where I need to be killing myself off every day and learning to hold up under the weight of l...

Welcome to episode 9 of The UnSunday Show. Let's talk about 1 John 1:9 and the confession of sins. This passage says, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness ." The question I address in this episode is does John mean believers need to repeatedly confess sins in order to experience forgiveness up to that poi...

Welcome to episode 8 of The UnSunday Show. My wife joins me in this episode from our old Ekklesia Podcast as we talk about our journey out of the institutional church and the events and circumstances surrounding it. We both hit a wall of performance about 10 years ago within the institutional church environment that resulted in a crash and burn for each of us from performance-based Christianity. W...

Welcome to episode 7 of the UnSunday Show. "Preach the word" were Paul's words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2. This short phrase presents two concepts that I talk about in this episode by asking the questions, what is preaching and what are preachers, and what did he mean by "the word"?      We take what we know in our modern-day pastor-driven model, and superimpose it back i...

Welcome to episode 6 of the UnSunday Show! This is a bonus episode, published outside of my normal Thursday posts. If you like what's going on here, please share it with a friend. In this episode, I talk about formal church membership. Formal church membership is an accountability contract the institution will require you to sign in order to have leverage over you as motivation to keep suppor...

Welcome to episode 5 of the UnSunday Show. " Wherever the pulpit is going, that's where the church is going ."   That statement appeared in my Twitter feed not long ago. Unfortunately, it's true. In our modern-day top-down hierarchal church structures, one man or one woman is at the helm, driving the entire institution. Far from being an accomplishment to be celebrated, this st...

Welcome to episode 4 of The UnSunday Show. Let's talk about leaders and leadership. I believe we read our 21st century model of institutional Christianity back into Scripture when we talk about leaders and leadership. I believe our present-day top-down authority systems are in conflict with the model we've been given in the New Testament. Our top-down hierarchy model in modern-day instit...