2026 Grounded Direction
A New Podcast Direction and a Book Finally...
Hi! Well, we are already one month into 2026, and I must say it’s looking like a very exciting year. Sherry and I are full of hope about our personal lives, our ministry, and the ministry opportunity before us all. Shaky times are great for outreach! People are listening. The young are really seeking for guidance right now. We can lead them to Jesus and the joy and stability he brings. He will keep us grounded even if the world is shaking.
The Global Faith Crisis
This year on Grounded, I want to address the global phenomenon of people feeling frustrated with Christianity and the church. It has never been perfect, and people have always been frustrated at the gap between the beauty of the gospel we preach and the reality of what we end up building as Christianity across the world.
What’s happening now is something new. The scale is unprecedented. It’s got that old frustration, but on a nuclear level. 40 million Americans have walked away from church. This is not only an American story. The same thing is happening in Korea, Chinese house churches and other churches all over the world.
The problem is the growing gap between the many Christianities that exist today and the Jesus of the Gospels. This perceived gap has gotten so wide that an entire generation is falling into it, and out the back door, predictably never to return.
There’s Good News Too
I believe many of the people making this exodus, actually still love Jesus. They’re just frustrated with the organized systems of a religion in his name. The good news is that young people in 2025 were searching for meaning and spirituality-related themes at a rate that is 40% higher than last year. Also, 50% of those who have stopped going to church say they would consider returning.
I’m planning a weekly podcast for 2026. I’ve had a podcast for many years, but I am aggressively expanding the amount of energy I’m going to give to this aspect of our ministry. The podcast is the most powerful influence shaping technology in the world. I want to use it for the kingdom. I encourage you to do the same.
I want to explore:
The pain. So many families are being affected by this. Our children are becoming more secular, some have completely abandoned even Jesus himself because of right-wing politics connecting to white evangelical churches.
The tiredness. Those who run the church machine are exhausted and many are becoming cynical and burned out, trying to prop up churches and systems that no longer seem to be serving the purpose for which Jesus was so passionate.
The Drift. The historic changes after the early Jesus movement died and new voices rose, began building theologies and systems. I want to show how many different streams of thinking have now entered the river of Christianity. We now have thousands of independent authorities who have built 40,000 different denominations in Protestant Christianity alone.
Doctrinal confusion. For every declaration of faith, there’s another church group out there that believes the exact opposite. They all use the same Bible. They all believe they are correct. This includes Christian cult groups like Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, in addition to deadly cults in Asia and the West who also use the Bible.
I’m not going to belabor the mess much of Christianity has become on a global scale. We do however need to put our finger on the elements that have caused our current situation.
If you are slowly drifting away from church and worship and the scriptures and from time spent directly with God I hope you’ll dedicate 2026 to retaking ground you’ve lost and finding a new personal intimacy with the God who created you.
I sincerely believe there is a way to recover ourselves. Most of the season will be spent on the fix.
I believe the core problem in Christianity is that Jesus is no longer the central authority. For all our songs and nice words about him, he’s not even the leading theologian in his own movement. We don’t even get our explanation of salvation from His lips. Our vision of the afterlife, spirituality, mission, the church, do not match his. We need to reJesus everything. And we can, at least individually.
Reconstruction, not Deconstruction
Most of this season, I will dedicate to the discussion of reconstruction measures and things that can build us up in our connectedness with Jesus. I want to grow in my own sense of his presence and I want to use his anointing to help other people. And I want to be part of a movement of Christians making an intentional recovery of the ancient path of Jesus.
This is where I’m really going to need your help. One-way conversations can’t change anything. I really want to hear your heart on these subjects. This stuff is important to all of us. The church has shaped our lives. You have your own lifetime of experience and your own journey with the Lord, and I really hope you will take some time and invest the energy to share it in our conversation areas. I want to use the next 12 months to genuinely build a community. We spend over six hours a day in screen time now, and being the church has to extend to the online space. One of the most powerful things you can do is to stop scrolling and actually type something meaningful and put it out there.
I believe that Jesus and Christianity are not the same thing, and that you can have problems with Christianity without having problems with Jesus. I believe knowing and walking with Jesus in unbroken daily fellowship is the birthright of every human who will reach out and take it.
I promise an upbeat season. I hope you will share it with your friends, and with your children, and with your grandchildren.
We pray that these episodes will help those who are struggling in a faith crisis to settle the matter and realign themselves with Jesus, even if they are deeply disappointed or even wounded by actions taken in the local church setting.
The first podcast will drop February 3, and every Tuesday thereafter for the rest of the year. We’ll start dropping some short content in the social media platforms. Please help us grow the podcast. There are thousands of people whose spiritual path would be different if someone intervened and put before them a book or today, a newsletter or podcast link that helps them think differently.
Sherry and I believe that Jesus is the rightful king of the world, that he has the answer to all of our problems, and that his arms are open wide to all of us if we will fall into them. Let’s be part of helping that happen for thousands of people this year.
Every Blessing!
Chuck and Sherry
PS: The ReJesus Everything book will hopefully be ready by the end of May. It addresses the same subject in an orderly way for readers. Podcasts are a place to share your heart and are a lot more of a living document, but a book grounds ideas. And the cement of the published page, so both have their roles. More about the book as it comes together.
