Institution building vs. movements

You will find many books on the biblical and practical importance of the local church. I wrote one myself a few years ago with Jonathan Leeman called Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ Is Essential. But few books can match the way Brad Edwards shows us the need for the church amid rampant anxiety, division, and individualism. Not only our churches but even whole societies would be transformed by implementing the wisdom found in this book, called The Reason for Church. 

Brad is the church planter of The Table Church in Lafayette, Colorado. His debut book has been justly acclaimed. He won the 2025 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award and also finished first in the Church and Pastoral Leadership category. He was the winner of The Gospel Coalition's award for First-Time Author that year as well. I’m grateful that he joins me now to talk about everything from authority and institutions to anxiety and whether unity should be the goal for a church.

In This Episode:
00:00 – Opening: power, trust, and the temptation toward conformity
00:26 – Introducing Brad Edwards and The Reason for Church
01:41 – Ranking the causes behind declining trust in church authority
04:05 – Accountability, social media, and the limits of online justice
08:25 – Churches, institutions, platforms, and marketplace logic
11:17 – What changes people’s minds about the need for church?
13:27 – Church planting in Boulder County and Colorado’s anti-institutional culture
17:01 – Therapy culture, spiritual abuse, and what the book could not fully address
22:19 – Institution building, movements, and building a remnant
26:30 – Technology, schedules, and the challenge of spiritual formation
29:09 – Individuality versus individualism
34:39 – Should unity be the goal of a church?
37:49 – What surprised Brad most about becoming a pastor
39:21 – AI, agency, and the future of formation
43:07 – Hartmut Rosa, resonance, gambling, and the desire for control
46:55 – AI, education, responsibility, and authorship
52:05 – The church as remnant and refuge in a changing world
53:19 – What pastors want their congregations to know
56:41 – Closing and Gospelbound outro

Resources Mentioned:

• The Reason for Church by Brad Edwards
• Rediscover Church by Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman
• Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam
• Yuval Levin’s work on institutions
• Bully Pulpit by Michael J. Kruger
• GIRLS® by Freya India
• The Reason for God by Tim Keller
• Center Church by Tim Keller
• Dominion by Tom Holland
• Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah
• The Uncontrollability of the World by Hartmut Rosa
• PostEverything, Brad Edwards’s podcast with John Homsher
• Harper’s Magazine article on young AI founders

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