You’re Probably Not Going to Like This
If you've ever walked out of church thinking, "Something feels off, but I can't explain it," you're not alone.
For years, I assumed the problem was an occasional bad sermon, a weak Bible class, or a church that had simply lost its way. The more I studied, however, the more I realized those weren't the real problem. The deeper issue was that many of us have inherited assumptions we've never stopped to examine. They become so familiar that we mistake them for Christianity itself.
Every few weeks another article appears online promising to reveal some new truth bomb about faith, church, or God. "The Ten Most Misused Bible Verses." "Five Things Your Pastor Never Told You." "The Secret to Spiritual Growth." Read enough of them and you'll notice something interesting. They all recycle the same ideas, quote the same passages, and rarely ask the deeper questions. We keep treating the symptoms while ignoring the diagnosis.
So let me be upfront. You're probably not going to like this article. Not because it's written to offend you. It's written to challenge some assumptions that most of us have never been invited to question.
Everything you're about to read comes from years of observation, study, conversations, and more than a few uncomfortable moments where I realized I had been confidently wrong. This isn't an attack on churches, pastors, or sincere Christians. It's an invitation to look beneath the surface and ask whether some of the things we've accepted as "normal Christianity" are actually helping us become more like Jesus.
Because if we're honest...Sometimes the greatest obstacle to spiritual growth isn't the culture around us. It's the assumptions we've stopped questioning.
A Quick Disclaimer
Before we begin, I should probably explain who this article is for.
This isn't written as a critique of every church or every Christian tradition. In fact, I'm intentionally focusing on churches that claim to be centered on Scripture and open to continual growth and reexamination. If a church has already decided that its theology and practices are settled beyond discussion, then this conversation probably isn't for them.
This article is for people who still believe discipleship is a journey. It's for people who aren't afraid to ask difficult questions, revisit long-held assumptions, and keep growing in their understanding of God.
If that's you, then keep reading. If your goal is simply to defend everything you've already concluded, you're probably going to find this article frustrating.
The goal isn't to prove anyone wrong. The goal is to become more like Jesus, even if that requires us to rethink things we've believed for years.
The Real Problem
Most Christians think the greatest obstacle to spiritual growth is a lack of knowledge.
I don't. I think the greatest obstacle to spiritual growth is believing you've already been taught the whole story.
Read that again.
We inherit ways of reading the Bible long before we ever learn to read it for ourselves. We inherit definitions of worship, repentance, obedience, faith, and church. Over time those inherited ideas become so familiar that we stop seeing them as interpretations. They simply become "what the Bible says."
That's why these assumptions are so powerful. They're invisible.
And invisible assumptions shape everything. The following observations aren't meant to tear down your faith. They're meant to expose some of the invisible assumptions that may be quietly shaping it.
So are you ready to climb into the washing machine? Here we go.
1. The Nugget Syndrome
One of the most common phrases I hear after a sermon is:
"I got one good thing out of it." Really? That's our standard?
Imagine saying that after a marriage seminar, a leadership conference, or a semester-long college class. "Well... I got one good nugget." We'd call that disappointing.
Yet somehow we've convinced ourselves that if we can find one encouraging thought buried inside thirty minutes of teaching, the lesson was a success.
Here's the problem. Healthy people can often find value almost anywhere. That says something wonderful about the listener. It says almost nothing about the quality of the teaching.
But what about the person who came desperate for hope? The young believer trying to make sense of faith? The couple whose marriage is hanging by a thread? They need more than a nugget.
They need formation.
I've often said you can get a nugget almost anywhere. You can get one from a podcast, a conversation with a friend, the lyrics of a song, even a fortune cookie. The goal of biblical teaching was never to hand out nuggets. The goal is to shape people into the likeness of Christ. Those are not the same thing. If your standard for a sermon is simply, "I got one good thing out of it," your expectations for spiritual formation may be far lower than Jesus intended. Maybe the reason we're satisfied with nuggets is because we've forgotten what a feast looks like.
2. Repentance Isn't the Starting Line
If you've spent any time around church, you've heard someone say, "You need to repent." Usually what follows sounds something like this:
"You're doing bad things, and you need to stop before you can become a Christian."
Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's the version of repentance many of us inherited. But here's the question almost nobody asks. When does repentance end? Seriously. If repentance simply means changing your mind and turning toward God, when do you stop doing that? At baptism? After your first year as a Christian? When you finally "get your life together?"
Of course not. Repentance isn't a one-time event. It's the rhythm of the Christian life. The Bible is filled with journeys, not finish lines. Abraham didn't arrive in one day. The disciples didn't become like Jesus in one conversation. Paul didn't stop growing after Damascus. Every story keeps moving. Because disciples keep changing.
Maybe that's why repentance is so beautiful. It isn't God's way of making you prove yourself before you're accepted. It's God's invitation into a lifetime of transformation.
Baptism doesn't mark the end of repentance.
It celebrates the beginning of a journey that never stops shaping you.
Baptism is our public way of saying, "I'm choosing this journey, and I hope you'll walk it with me."
We've reduced repentance to the doorway of faith when Scripture describes it as the pathway of faith.
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3. Obedience
If I asked a room full of Christians, "What does God want from us?" I already know what many of the answers would be.
"To obey the Bible."
It's a sincere answer. It just may not be the complete one. We focus so much on obeying the Scriptures that we sometimes overlook something remarkable Jesus said after His resurrection:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."
Think about that for a moment. The Bible points us to Jesus. Jesus doesn't point us back to a checklist. He simply says, "Follow me."
That's a very different invitation. For centuries, Israel struggled under a growing list of laws, traditions, and interpretations that were intended to define faithfulness. Jesus didn't come to add another layer to the list. He came to reveal what faithful living actually looked like.
He invited people to walk with Him, watch Him, question Him, trust Him and to become like Him. That's why one of the ideas behind the Hebrew word Shema is what I like to call listening well. (it will redefine how you read Matthew 28)
Not simply hearing words. Not simply following instructions. But listening so deeply that trust naturally changes how you live. A child can obey because they're afraid of punishment. A disciple learns to listen well because they trust the One speaking.
That's a completely different relationship. Maybe we've struggled with obedience because we've started in the wrong place. Instead of asking, "What rule am I supposed to obey?" Jesus first asks,
"Will you follow me?"
Everything else grows from there because the goal of Scripture isn't to create experts at following rules. It's to create disciples who trust the One to whom Scripture points.
We've reduced worship to ninety minutes, when Scripture describes it as a way of life.
4. Worship
If I asked a room full of Christians, "Where do you go to worship?" Most people would answer, "Church." Or maybe, "Sunday morning." It's such a common answer that we rarely stop to question it.
But what if worship isn't primarily a place you go? What if it's a life you live? Somewhere along the way we've reduced worship to a ninety-minute gathering once a week. We sing, pray, take communion, and listen to a sermon. Then we say, "Worship is over."
But is it? One of the richest biblical ideas behind worship is found in the Hebrew word Avodah. It's a word that carries the ideas of worship, work, and service all at the same time. That should make us pause.
Because if worship and service are intertwined then maybe worship doesn't end with the closing prayer. Maybe it begins when we leave the building. Imagine if a church measured worship not by how many people attended Sunday but by how many lives were served during the week.
Imagine if helping a struggling family, painting the home of a widow, feeding someone who couldn't repay you, mentoring a young father or even sitting with someone in grief or despair was understood as an act of worship every bit as meaningful as singing on Sunday morning. Suddenly worship becomes much bigger than an event. It becomes a way of participating in God's work of restoring the world.
Don't misunderstand me. Gathering together matters, so does singing and communion as well as teaching and being part of a community. But Sunday was never meant to carry the entire weight of worship. It was meant to equip us to live worshipfully the other six days of the week.
Maybe we've been asking, "How was worship today?" when the better question is, "How did we worship this week?"
We've reduced worship to a service when Scripture invites us into a life of service.
5. When "You" Isn't You
One of the easiest mistakes we make when reading the Bible happens before we even finish the sentence. We see the word... "You."
And without thinking, we quietly replace it with: "Me."
After all, that's how we read every other book. But the Bible isn't every other book. Here's the question almost nobody asks: Who was God actually talking to?
Think about it. Every time you read the words: you, we, our, us, or I, those words belonged to someone before they belonged to you. Letters had recipients. Prophets had audiences. Jesus had listeners standing in front of Him. Paul wasn't writing letters to twenty-first-century Christians. He was writing to real churches wrestling with real questions in real places.
That doesn't mean the Bible has nothing to say to shape us. Quite the opposite. It means we first have to understand who was being addressed before we can responsibly ask what it means for us today. Otherwise, we skip one of the most important context questions in Scripture.
Who is speaking... and who are they speaking to?
It sounds almost too simple to matter. But this one habit has shaped thousands of interpretations without us ever realizing it. Maybe the most misunderstood word in the Bible isn't grace or faith or salvation, maybe it’s simply “You”
The moment we stop making ourselves the center of every conversation, we finally begin to hear what God has been saying all along.
6. The Cost of Asking Better Questions
Curiosity has always made people uncomfortable. Not because curiosity is dangerous, but because it has a way of exposing assumptions we've stopped examining. Every meaningful movement in history began with someone asking a question everyone else assumed had already been answered.
Jesus did it. Again and again. "Who do you say that I am?" "Which is lawful?" "Have you not read...?"
He didn't simply give people answers. He challenged the questions they were asking in the first place. The Bereans did the same thing. They didn't reject Paul, but they didn't blindly accept Paul. They searched the Scriptures to see if what he was saying was true. That kind of curiosity wasn't rebellion. It was faithfulness.
Somewhere along the way, however, we've become suspicious of questions. Questions are often mistaken for doubt. Curiosity is mistaken for rebellion. Innovation is mistaken for compromise. But asking a better question isn't the opposite of faith. Sometimes it's the beginning of it.
The healthiest communities aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones where people aren't afraid to ask honest questions. Questions don't weaken faith. Avoiding them often does.
Healthy faith doesn't fear good questions. It fears comfortable assumptions.
A better question isn't one that tears faith apart. It's one that helps us see more of the truth than we could see before.
7. Why We Mistake Certainty for Maturity
If I asked a room full of Christians, "What does a mature believer look like?"
I suspect many of the answers would sound something like this: Someone who knows the Bible well. Someone who has answers. Someone who isn't easily shaken. Someone who is certain.
It sounds reasonable. After all, certainty feels like confidence. Confidence feels like strength, and strength feels like maturity. But are they the same thing?
One of the things that has surprised me most about reading the Gospels is how often Jesus invited people to wrestle instead of simply handing them answers.
He asked questions. He told stories. He challenged assumptions. He let people think. Even His own disciples misunderstood Him repeatedly. Yet He didn't throw them away because they hadn't figured everything out. He patiently walked with them while their understanding grew.
The goal of discipleship isn't reaching the point where you have all the answers. It's becoming the kind of person who knows how to keep learning.
Maybe maturity isn't measured by how quickly we arrive at an answer. Maybe it's measured by our willingness to keep learning. The longer I study Scripture, the less impressed I am with people who are absolutely certain about everything. I'm far more interested in people who are deeply rooted, humble enough to admit they don't know everything, and courageous enough to keep seeking the truth wherever it leads.
Ironically, certainty can become the very thing that keeps us from growing. Once we believe we've arrived, we stop listening, stop asking questions and stop discovering. Real maturity doesn't eliminate wonder. It protects it.
Certainty ends conversations. Wisdom keeps asking better questions.
8. Growth Is Always Personal
One of the most common questions people ask when leaving a church is, "Am I being fed?"
It's a fair question. Healthy teaching matters. Healthy community matters. Healthy leadership matters. But here's the uncomfortable truth. No church can grow for you. A church can create opportunities. A teacher can explain Scripture.
A friend can encourage you. A mentor can challenge you. But none of them can become like Jesus on your behalf. Spiritual growth has always been deeply personal.
Growth is not accidental. It's the result of thousands of small intentional choices made consistently over time.
It's choosing forgiveness when resentment feels easier. It's practicing generosity when no one is watching. It's listening well. Repenting again. Serving quietly. Returning to the story. Asking another question. Opening your Bible one more time.
Following Jesus has never been something we consume. It's something we practice. That's why two people can sit through the very same message. One leaves unchanged. The other leaves determined to become more like Christ.
The difference wasn't the message. It was the posture. Churches don't manufacture disciples. They create environments where disciples can grow. But every disciple eventually has to decide:
"Will I actually walk this path?"
Nobody can answer that question for us. Nobody can believe for us. Nobody can trust for us. Nobody can grow for us.
Churches create environments. Disciples choose whether to grow.
9. The Church Is Bigger Than We Think
If I asked a room full of Christians, "Which church is the right one?" I'd probably hear the name of a denomination, a movement or perhaps the congregation they attend each week. It's an understandable answer. We naturally identify with the communities that have shaped us.
But have you ever noticed something interesting? The New Testament spends far more time talking about who belongs to Jesus than which group belongs to Him. Jesus never invited people to join a brand. He invited them to follow Him.
The apostles planted churches in different cities. Those churches looked different. They Faced different challenges, they asked different questions, yet they were all part of the same story. Somewhere along the way we've become very good at drawing lines.
Who's in. Who's out. Who's right. Who's wrong. Those conversations have lasted for centuries. Meanwhile, Jesus gave His followers a much simpler challenge.
Love God. Love your neighbor. Make disciples. Bear one another's burdens. Become more like Him. That doesn't mean doctrine doesn't matter. It does. Truth matters so does faithfulness and convictions. But humility matters too. When our identity becomes rooted more in our movement than in Christ, we begin protecting our tradition instead of pursuing the truth.
The moment we believe God can only work through people who think exactly like we do, our view of the Kingdom has probably become too small. The church has always been bigger than any one congregation. Bigger than any denomination, or any movement. Because the church doesn't belong to us. It belongs to Christ.
Jesus never promised to build our brand. He promised to build His church.
10. The Puzzle Pieces Are Scattered
Have you ever noticed that churches often teach wonderful individual subjects. Repentance, Grace, Faith, Worship, Communion, Obedience, Prayer and Service. Each lesson can be biblically true. Each can be encouraging. But too often they're taught like individual puzzle pieces dumped out on a table.
One week we study repentance. The next week we move on to worship. A month later it's prayer, then generosity, then evangelism. Each lesson stands on its own. But rarely do we stop long enough to ask, "How do these pieces fit together?"
The Bible wasn't written as a collection of disconnected topics. It's one unfolding story. Context isn't just about understanding individual passages. It's about seeing how every piece contributes to the larger story God is telling. That means repentance shapes the way we understand obedience. Obedience changes the way we think about worship. Worship influences how we serve. Community gives context to communion. And all of it points us toward becoming more like Jesus.
When we separate the pieces, we unintentionally shrink the picture. We know individual truths, but we struggle to see how they work together. That's one of the reasons so many Christians feel like something is missing. Not because the pieces are wrong. Because they've never been shown the picture on the front of the box. Once you see the whole picture, the individual pieces finally begin to make sense.
The church doesn't have a puzzle problem. It has a picture problem. The pieces were never missing. We just stopped putting them together.
11. Many Christians Are Quietly Deconstructing
If you've spent any time online, you've probably noticed the word deconstruction. Some celebrate it, others fear it. Most simply argue about it. But beneath the debates is a much quieter reality. Many Christians aren't trying to abandon Jesus. They're trying to make sense of a faith that no longer fits the questions they can't ignore.
Something doesn't add up. A sermon doesn't match what they read. A tradition doesn't match the story. A verse is taken out of context. An assumption begins to crack. So they start pulling things apart.
Honestly, Sometimes that's necessary and healthy. You can't rebuild a house without first removing what doesn't belong. But here's what concerns me. Most conversations stop there.
We talk endlessly about deconstruction. Very few people talk about reconstruction. Taking something apart is only valuable if it helps you put it back together more faithfully. Otherwise you're just left with a pile of pieces. The goal was never to leave people with less faith, the goal is to help them build a stronger one. That's why asking better questions matters. That's why context matters. That's why story matters. That's why the Berean Project exists.
Not to convince you to throw your faith away. To help you rebuild it on a foundation that can actually support it.
Taking your faith apart is courageous. Rebuilding it is transformative.
The Bigger Story
If you've made it this far, you've probably noticed something. None of these conversations stand alone. Repentance, obedience, worship, context, questions, growth, community. In fact you will notice that each one hyperlinks to other discussions, articles or podcast episodes on this site.
They all point to something bigger. That's because the Bible was never intended to be a collection of disconnected lessons, rules, or inspirational thoughts. It's the unfolding story of God's work in the world. Once you begin reading it that way, the puzzle pieces begin fitting together.
The questions become invitations instead of threats. Context becomes beautiful instead of complicated. And discipleship becomes less about trying harder and more about learning to faithfully participate in God's story. If there's one conversation I'd encourage you to have next, start here.
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