I saw a video once where someone said, “You have consumed enough already.” That really struck me hard because I am very much a media person. He said confidently from the Lord that if I never consumed another book, movie, or song, I have seen more in my lifetime than any previous generation. I don’t need to consume any more. It doesn’t help me grow. It just piles more learning on top of old learning. A lot of which we were never actually going to put into practice anyway.
What will change you, however, is creating. It’s kind of amazing God math. One of those “Give, and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” kind of things. In real world math, it should say, “TAKE, and you will have more.” But in God’s way, if you create something new with Him, you’ll end up richer than if you consume.
No one learns more than a teacher.
It has certainly been true in my life concerning the Bible. No one learns more than the teacher, and I thank God for giving me the opportunity to serve in the role of teacher for so many years. Most of the things I have learned have come because I was living inside that position, and I had to create presentations of Bible thought blocks every week as a pastor and seminary leader for 20 years.
So now I find myself a pastor without a church for the last 18 years. Thankfully, I have had Medialight. I’m the primary teacher there, but we have many others, and that’s been one of our major goals, creating more teachers.
Online is a New Space for Ministry
I’ve been doing face-to-face ministry for almost 50 years, but only three years ago did I start treating the online world as a real place that deserves my best effort. That’s when. I started making online content weekly, whether I had time or not. I’m embarrassed to look at my earliest efforts. It’s always like that. You learn by doing, and it’s the only way to learn, so you just have to push through those early stages to learn the workflow and production systems of a TV station, basically.
In the last year, I have increased my flow, an episode a week plus a book, and we’re just now in September. It’s been a very demanding load, and it’s starting to feel like about 50% of my ministry. The online space allows you to reach people in different time zones when it’s convenient for them, and I think it has so much to offer beyond just being marketing for people to attend the Sunday service.
I want to say how much I thank the people who support us personally through the emergemissions.org website and also as subscribers here on Substack. We are servants of the church, and we have always done our best to put our efforts where we feel they will be the most fruitful and appropriately spent. The online space is one of those places. The time to learn how to use it was made available to us because of the sponsorship of faithful friends, and again, I am so very grateful. Thanks for freeing me so I could create for the Lord.
I want to explore the fruitfulness of the 24/7 decentralized online environment, and also I want to share my journey with the next generation of creators and help launch dozens of new voices online. We really need effective, skilled gospel communicators online to combat the flood of antichrist values and pure-out news lies that flood through our phones into our minds every day. Half of what we read is probably not even true or has been done just to create a news story. It’s really crazy.
Becoming a public person is scary.
Becoming a public person is a very powerful thing. It’s scary, but it yields a harvest of personal development. I would encourage everyone to do it, even if all you do is think seriously and make five-sentence Facebook posts designed to encourage other people. Just stop mindlessly consuming and try to add something of value to the net.
Anyway, each week I have really poured my life into careful study of the Bible, and I have done my best to bring credible research to you. ReJesus everything is sort of my manifesto.
This year I want to adjust down a little from being a Bible scholar type creator (there are a lot of those already in all our lives) and tune my attention to the real purpose for this platform: Grounded is about forming resilient disciples of Jesus who stand firm while the world shakes. I want to explore what the worldview, practices, commands, and mission of Jesus mean for all of us in the decade we’re entering. I want to try to turn this into an opportunity for a true gathering online of young disciples, and that our discussions can become part of their formation, not just information.
The next ten years will be the wildest ride of our lives. I’m pretty certain of that. All the forces of change and destabilization are building up behind the dam, and eventually something’s going to break. I want to push Grounded into action to help a younger generation deal with that.
You might sense a change in my tone and my topics. There are lots of great Bible teachers out there. The Bible will still be central to what I’m doing, but I’m not going to try to bring a deep and careful Bible study to every episode this year.
But I hope to bring a flow of younger people join this space and help them become resilient disciples, even as they raise elementary and middle school kids, try to figure out how they’re gonna ever own a house, and work hard to shine a light for Jesus in a culture that is becoming aggressively anti-Christian. So you might feel my content and topics starting to turn a little younger.
One thing I promise is not to turn this into a Christian self-help podcast and newsletter. no easy answers—just disciples learning to follow Jesus together into whatever comes next. I really hope you’ll join me, and I hope for some of you that I can turn this into a place where your children and grandchildren feel comfortable.
Thanks for praying for me and Sherry. There are so many moving pieces in our lives, and we are listening carefully to the Lord, as I’m sure you are also, to discover the best way to focus our time and energy in 2027. It’s time to start making that plan already.
Love and every blessing,
Chuck and Sherry Quinley
PS: The shirt is Japanese. The brand means to say “Old School” although I do have an old skull also by now—just trying to keep my brain young. It’s possible.
