You show up. It still feels like work.
You read your Bible some mornings and feel guilty on the mornings you don't. You give. You serve. You are there when the doors are open. From the outside, it looks like the whole thing is working.
Underneath, you are tired. You are not in crisis. You are not packing up and leaving. You are just worn out from carrying a version of faith that was never built to be carried by one person.
Most of us were handed a system. Habits to keep, boxes to check, a quiet scoreboard running in the back of the mind. Keep the system running and you feel close to God. Let it slip and you feel like you lost ground.
If you have ever done everything right and still felt farther from God than when you started, this book is about why that happens and what is waiting on the other side of it.
Managed Inhabited
Faith isn't a project you manage. It's a relationship you inhabit. Once you see the difference, you can't unsee it.
Managed faith
- Something you maintain
- Measured in habits and streaks
- Rest has to be earned first
- Tired, and quiet about it
- You carry the weight of it
Inhabited faith
- Somewhere you live
- Measured in nearness
- Rest is where it starts
- Honest, out loud
- The weight is carried for you
"The exhaustion you feel is not evidence you're doing something wrong. It's evidence you were handed a version of faith that was never built to sustain a person."
Come. Not perform. Not manage. Come.
About Clay
Clay Monkus is the lead pastor of Next Level Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 2007, after twenty-five years as a Christian and fourteen years in full-time ministry, he stepped away from his church for two years to take his entire belief system apart and see what was actually true. He came back through that season rather than around it, and has spent the years since helping others do the same.
He lives in the Charlotte area with his wife, Jody, and their three adult children.
Read chapter one, free.
See what the book is actually about before it's on shelves. We'll send the first chapter straight to your inbox.
Early praise
"I have read a hundred books that tell Christians to try harder. This is not one of them. Clay Monkus writes with the honesty of someone who has burned out and found his way back, and he hands that honesty to the reader without flinching. If your faith feels like a job, start here."
Dr. Christian Nichles, D.Ed.
Pastor, Author, National Speaker