There's a point where the church, the answers you were given, and your own bootstrapped faith stop being enough. Ken Roberts calls it "the wall," the breaking point every Christ-follower eventually faces, whether it comes through personal tragedy, disappointment in leadership, or questions no one around you will really sit with.

Ken walks through the six-stage framework behind that moment, why most churches handle the first three stages well and stumble hard at the fourth, and what it took for him personally to survive his own breaking point: losing his wife at forty-seven, and watching his church unravel soon after. We talk deconstruction versus real depth, micro-church, and what it actually means to finish well.

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See the full episode transcript below.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Hitting the Wall: The Breaking Point Every Christ-Follower Faces with Ken Roberts

There's a point in every believer's life where the answers stop working. Ken Roberts calls it "the wall," and in this conversation with Brian, he lays out why it's the breaking point almost every Christ-follower eventually faces, and why the church is so often unprepared to walk with us through it.

The De-churching Moment

Ken opens by naming what's happening across the West right now: a wave of people quietly stepping back from organized church. "They're not finding the depth, the relevance, the abundance in going to another meeting," he says. It's not one cause, Ken says, but a soul hunger the church often doesn't have language for.

Six Stages, One Critical Wall

Drawing from the book The Critical Journey, Ken lays out six stages every believer moves through: being introduced to God, baseline discipleship, giving back to a spiritual community, hitting "the wall," a deep inner life with Jesus, and finally a life defined simply by love. Most churches, Ken says, do well with the first three.

It's stage four, the wall, where things fall apart. "Our evangelical equations don't seem to work," he says. "Two plus two is supposed to be four, and suddenly it's not." A leadership failure, an unanswered doubt, a trauma nobody knows how to sit with: any of it can trigger the wall.

Ken points to two places the church especially struggles here. The first is honest theological doubt, questions like whether Genesis 1 and 2 are meant to be read literally. "That should be the safe place to have that dangerous conversation," Ken says, "but it's not. You either get shut down, or you get the pat answer they already have ready." The second is trauma. For years, Ken says, the church's default response has been prayer, a Bible verse, and a referral to outside counseling. People carrying real pain come back into the same setting and find nobody quite knows what to do with them, because worship stays "rah-rah" every week and there's no room made for lament.

Ken's Own Wall

Ken shares his own version of this story candidly: losing his wife in a car accident at forty-seven, after forty-something years of following the Lord and pastoring a church. "It just doesn't make sense," he says. The church he'd been pastoring began unraveling shortly after, and within six years of her death, it no longer existed. "That was my wall. That was my critical season."

He could have let it end there. What got him through wasn't a program or a fresh set of answers. It was a handful of mature believers willing to enter the pain and the dialogue with him instead of preaching at him, giving him room to work it out rather than handing him stock answers. Ken calls it a big "if": most people who hit the wall never quite make it through. "Anecdotally, it's not very many," he says, "especially not less than half who actually come through it and don't just get stuck doing the religious Christian thing."

Where Is Jesus in All of This?

Brian pushes Ken on the obvious question: if the organized church struggles this much with stage four, where does that leave Jesus's own promise to build his church? Ken's answer comes in two parts. Individually, he says, Jesus is always right beside us, and the longer you walk with him, the more you sense it's actually Jesus living in you. But Jesus also built the church to be a body, not just a collection of individuals. Ken's own resolution isn't to abandon organized church but to hold both: a home church he's planted in and gives to, alongside a smaller, more relational expression like the Gathering House for the depth that stage four and five require.

From the Wilderness to Real Depth

Those who make it through the wall, Ken says, move into stage five: a simpler, deeper walk with Jesus, stripped of a lot of the "scaffolding" that gets built up around faith over the years. He compares much of modern Christianity to the U.S. Capitol building under renovation, wrapped in scaffolding and black mesh so thick you'd never recognize it underneath. "We need to take some of that scaffolding down," he says, "so we can return to the purity of what it is."

That's also how Ken thinks about deconstruction, a word that makes a lot of believers nervous. He draws a clear line: deconstruction that ends in walking away from the faith is one thing, but questioning the scaffolding built up around the faith is another. "I don't think all deconstruction is wrong," he says. Stage five isn't about needing the church less out of pride, Ken is careful to add, but about needing it differently: less as scaffolding to hold you up, more as an interdependent family you freely belong to.

That doesn't mean walking away from church, Ken is careful to say. It means finding what he calls "micro-ecclesia," smaller, deeply relational expressions of church that can sit with people in stage four in a way a Sunday service often can't, alongside a home church rather than instead of one. He and his wife host something twice a month called the Gathering House: no pastor, no platform, just a small group gathered around Scripture, the creeds, and communion. "There's no talking head," Ken says. "It's the work of Christ."

Ken also draws a sharp line between what a church builds people into and what it should. "If we're not building people up into Christ, we're doing them a false service," he says. Build people around a vision, a doctrine, a personality instead, and you get codependency. Walk through the wall, and that codependency gets replaced with something healthier: interdependence.

Finishing Well

The conversation closes on what Ken calls his life's real mission now: finishing well. He breaks it into three marks. First, an open, pliable, faithful heart toward God, the kind C.S. Lewis had in mind when he said God wants "a grown-up mind but a childlike heart." Second, being someone whose life genuinely draws the people closest to you, your kids, your grandkids, your spouse, toward Jesus rather than away from him. Third, staying faithful to whatever assignment you're in for as long as you're in it, rather than checking out once retirement hits. "We all want to hear the Lord say, well done, good and faithful servant," Ken says. "We're all contributing to the Lord's story."

Ken Roberts coaches leaders and consults with churches through what he calls the three C's: caution, crisis, and convergence, the defining moments most believers have to navigate to keep moving forward instead of stalling out. His new course, FORM, is a guided, cohort-based journey toward spiritual formation. Find him at kenlroberts.com.

Scripture referenced: Genesis 1–2 · Genesis 3:8 · Genesis 1:28 · Ephesians 4:15–16 · John 15 · 1 John 4 · Hebrews 10:25 · 1 Peter 4:17 · Matthew 25:21 · 2 Timothy 4:5

Yeah.

I think one of the things that's interesting in the world that we live in today, you know, especially in the west, that's my context primarily.

So I'll be talking from that, you know, angle, Brian, is that been a lot of shifts in spirituality and Christianity and what that is and what it isn't.

And I see also, I think also, you know, it's just within the church world and we've had a lot of conversation, we read a lot of material, people know the kind of the D church that's happened, a lot of people leaving church.

And how do you define the D church movement?

I would say they basically no longer find that the church in an organized fashion.

Yeah.

Is helping them in their spiritual life.

Okay.

They're not finding the depth, the relevance, the abundance of going to another meeting.

And the same thing's happening from up front.

Okay.

Okay.

So they're, they're, they try to find what.

Yeah.

Why is that?

Why is it?

There's a hunger.

They're exactly.

A boredom.

Something.

Yeah.

Some things push that out and there's different reasons for it.

We know it's not a one blank deal.

Yeah.

So one of the things that I've that's helped me is this book that I'm talking with you about a little bit.

It's called, you know, it's called this, the Critical Journey.

Yeah.

And what this study shows, and it started back in the 80s and it's had a resurgence because of the context of the culture we're in today.

You know, it's in it with our spirituality.

Second way hunger for there's a subway hunger.

As you're really plucking people deeming this in a language.

Okay, good.

You know, for maybe where they're at.

So what the study shows is that there's generally six stages in the developmental, in the, in our inner spiritual journey.

Okay, I'll give you those real quick.

The first one is, the first stage is being introduced to God in some way.

So there's teaching about God, there's salvation experience.

We have some type of introduction to God.

The second one then would be some type of baseline discipleship.

Yeah.

We start to learn about the Bible.

We learn where Ephesians is at.

We go to Bible study.

We're getting taught the Word on Sunday morning.

So we're getting some basic foundations.

We go to a foundations class.

Yeah.

That would be stage two.

Stage three then is, then we are giving back.

Okay.

So we start serving.

We start leading a Bible study ourself.

We become a council member.

We're a worship leader.

So we're now involved in the spiritual journey in a collective means.

Okay.

In a collective fashion.

Right.

Then stage four is the critical part of this whole six stages.

And stage four is what's called in some way we hit the wall.

Now this is language that's been from different people, but they use basically this idea.

And the wall is when we have a loss that we don't understand, we have a torpedo hitter life.

And our.

I call it.

Our evangelical equations don't seem to work.

Like two plus two is supposed to be three at this time.

And it's not people that we've entrusted in, in spiritual leadership who end up disappointing us.

Failures, abuse, whatever it would be things that we maybe have been taught that we later find out maybe are not totally biblically or biblically truths.

Mental illness hits our home.

So it can be a lots of different things.

All right, so it could be a.

Personal crisis, a church crisis, family crisis, family crisis of faith.

Basically it brings a crisis of faith.

I don't understand this.

Yeah.

That's where many people end up either getting check out of their faith or they get cynical in their faith or they just kind of go neutral.

They still go, but they're, you know, they're going out of obligation.

Yeah.

That's stage four.

And here's where, here's where I'm going.

The organized church in whatever way where people in a routine wake gather together, whether that's 5,000 a big auditorium or 50 in a basement or any branch of the church.

I'm just using in general.

Yeah.

Most churches do well in the first three stages.

Okay.

Most churches have a real challenge in stage four.

Now what does that praise?

You used baseline discipleship.

Baseline discipleship?

Yep.

Being introduced to God.

Baseline discipleship and then being involved, giving back to the spiritual community.

You're a part of making a contribution in some way.

Sure.

And then stage four, some type of a thing.

Crisis of faith hits us in some way.

Okay.

Can be a lot.

It can, you know, it can be.

It can be triggered by lots of different things.

Yeah.

I mean, everybody's an individual and they have their own journey.

Is there any typical range of years where this could happen?

But stage four, do you.

Have you noticed that or did they.

Talk about that in some of the work?

I don't know if it's in this book or others.

I've done that.

Okay.

You know, I'm.

I coach leaders and, you know, kind of coach people through.

Right.

Sometimes they're crisis season, the wall season, almost.

You'd say, okay, Brian, it's interesting that, you know, giving ages are kind of.

We don't want to make it a broad brush, but in leadership for 42 to 47 is the critical stage because a leader's had enough accumulation of life and leadership.

And a lot of times it's something will happen and that's their critical moment, how they're going to navigate through it.

Now, a person of faith, I don't know what that is, but I would say it's generally later.

It's after we've been on this journey for 10, 20, 30 years where some of these accumulations and we've had things in our journey where it's like, oh, my goodness, what do I really believe here?

Okay, what's this really about?

You're talking there about just the average price follower.

Yeah.

Not a leader.

Yep.

And we know these can happen on either end of the age spectrum.

And then, so what happens is stage four is the most critical.

Okay.

And in general, the organized church is not really good with stage four.

I'll give you some examples.

Stage four is when you have critical questions about theological issues.

Possibly is the Genesis 1 and 2 account a literal, you know, account or not?

And again, a lot of the younger generation are having this type of conversation and the church can get threatened.

That should be the safe place for to have that dangerous conversation.

Yeah.

But it's not.

Yeah, you can't do that because you're either going to get shut down or you're going to get the vital answer that they already know.

You're not going to get honest dialogue around that.

Here's another one.

Someone who experiences trauma.

And the church is changing a little bit today, but for many, many years it was, we'll pray for you, give you, give you a Bible verse, maybe go to counseling outside the church and maybe you'll be okay.

And people that go through trauma end up finding that coming back in the same setting, people don't know what to do with them because they're in stage four.

And again, I'm not trying to be cynical here, but I'm trying to be honest here.

Yeah, well, worship, that's rah rah re every week.

And there's no place for lament for a person who's going through trauma, that's a disconnect in stage four.

Yeah.

For the church who doesn't understand trauma or mental illness, and we keep using the same message language and methods that aren't going to the depth of the soul.

Yeah.

For healing, the organized church is okay.

In stage three, they're now really stumbling in stage four.

Yeah.

See where I'm going there, I do agree.

And, and that of a ceiling there, then the church is.

Yes.

And that's the critical season for many.

For many people.

Sure.

My own story real quick.

You.

You know it, but, you know, some of yours wouldn't.

I was 47 when my late wife was killed in a car accident.

Yeah.

I've been following the Lord for 40 something years, pastoring a church, trying to do the right thing.

You know, it just doesn't make sense, you know, like in your own.

Then the church that I've been pastoring, shortly after that started unravel and within six years of her death, it was no longer even in existence.

That was my wall.

That was my critical season.

See, I could either navigate that and it totally throw me off course.

Yeah, Forget this.

Yeah.

This doesn't work.

I don't have any.

Relate.

I don't.

I don't relate with the church anymore because of what they're rah rah re all the time.

So that's why it's so important.

If a person makes it through stage four, which is a big if, because you need the right people around you.

You know, you need some mature brothers and sisters in Christ who will walk with you, not preach at you.

Yeah.

Who will enter into the pain, who will enter into the dialogue, who will give you margin to let the shepherd help you figure this out and not give you the stock answers or all those type of things.

So if you make it through stage four, and we could go back if we want, talk about a little bit, what often happens in a person's life in stage four, then you move to stage five, and the stage five is the depth of the inner life with Jesus, you know, and you've done some interviews, some podcasts with a lot of people who are writing books, and this is their message today, which is why it's being so affirmed with people.

What does it really mean from the inside out to walk with Jesus.

Yeah.

Let's not talk about all the other scaffolding and structure that's been built around, you know, the Christian form.

Yeah.

We don't have to tear all that down.

But let's get back to the core.

How do I actually, me and Jesus, I need others.

But Paul said in Ephesians, you know, that we're to be built up into Christ.

Am I personally being built up?

Well, what happens when you go to the wall, which I would also say is the wilderness?

You find Jesus in a New way.

Okay.

If you can make it through the wilderness and then when you come into stage five, you have this whole new depth of life and maturity and reality.

Is there any statistic on how many make it work?

No, that's a good question.

I don't, I don't, I don't know.

Do you have any sense on that?

It's just.

Oh well anecdotally it's not very many.

It's less than half.

Oh, less than half.

Without a doubt.

Especially less than, less than half that actually come through it and don't just get stuck and kind of do the religious Christian thing.

So.

Meaning they haven't got to the depth but they may still be doing the stuff.

And then there's others who are not even doing stuff.

Forget this.

This is.

I'm not going to follow this anymore.

Yeah.

I would say the stats are low.

The anemicness, that's a word you know, of, of the church and the Christian expression oftentimes.

So that's 5, 6 then is just is a pure life of love.

That's the sage.

That's the saint.

I use saint in a general.

You.

You know and we've been around those people where they know God loves them so deeply and they just so lovely.

They so deeply love everyone else.

They're not mean spirited, they're not judgmental, they're servants, they're humble and they live a true, you know, first John love.

They just like, they just live a life of love.

Well that doesn't happen apart from this journey now you can't make sharp lines obviously.

Like every one of these are chapter like oh, I turned the page.

Yeah.

But it's our recognized season.

Recognize seasons in our journey.

Yeah.

And I've been at it now for 67 years of my own life.

Yeah.

I'll be 70 in a couple months.

And then I coach a lot of people who are, who are in different seasons seeing it in the field.

And so I see it on the field a lot and that, that grid is extremely helpful now when I share that with people or give them the book to read, the critical journey, give them the book to read.

Many people go, aha, I can find myself on the journey.

I at least know where I'm at.

Sure.

I'm not as blind now.

I understand the importance of the season.

Absolutely.

I understand where I may be.

Yeah.

The other thing with that, Brian, that I would say, you know, we talked about earlier regarding, you know, the church, so many people, if they can't find in stage four, the ECCLESIA that's needed because it's been shaped for a different reason.

It's been shaped for the first three stages, more than four, five and six.

Okay.

What happens is they either they come, they're there, but they're not there, you know, like they're still showing up, which.

But they're.

They're halfway unplugged because it's more the same for them and it's.

And they're at a different place.

That's why I don't throw stones at the church when I understand this grid, because I realize that churches in general are halfway decent with the first three, but when you get into four, it takes a different level of maturity, involvement, Koinia, Spiritual sensitivity to walk through the wilderness with somebody together.

Yeah.

And going to another Bible study.

I believe in Bible studies, but going to another Bible study isn't the remedy for somebody who's in stage four unless.

They find it at another supplementary level.

That's a great way to put it.

And where is our friend Jesus in all of this, though?

Because he obviously has a dream for building.

It's his ecclesia.

He said, I will build it.

There's two questions with that.

For me, individually, in our own journey, he's always right beside us.

That's the reassuring thing to me.

And actually, the longer you go with him, I think the more you are aware that it is Jesus of me.

You know, the union is truly.

Yeah.

John 15.

And yet he wants us in his body.

We are members one of another.

Right.

Yep.

That's where I feel like, I think, you know, a couple of things have to happen.

I mean, you know, again, I. I'm not the doctor to give prescription on all this, but my thought would be, I think that's where the.

The organized church today, I don't know, that has to be turned upside down its head, but at least has to be expanded.

Are we giving place for stages four?

Yeah.

And stages five?

Yeah.

Stages six is a whole different thing.

Okay.

So I think that would be the question there.

I'm gonna.

I go to church right now.

It's a very good church.

We have really good worship, great teaching, good communication.

I mean, you know, so in that area, I think it's doing well.

Yeah.

I don't know how well it does at stage four and stage five, leading people to a really, really deep, deeper journey with Jesus.

So that would be one thing I would say.

The other thing I would say, then the other side, that coin of that is I think that's where this micro ecclesia comes in other.

Other expressions of the church that are the church.

It's a spiritual community, but it's formed in a different way and has a different outcome.

And the outcome is more to help people, help all of us.

Here's the way.

How.

Here's how I define the church.

And I use this to try to.

Yet people think, what if we went back to the core and the church was a band of disciples going back to Jesus?

A band of disciples on journey together.

Because there is movement, there is mission, there is.

This isn't a static walk.

Abandoned disciples.

That's what he called on journey together with Jesus in the center.

Yeah.

And to think about that as a basic definition or idea of what the church in some form should be.

So I think some of the micro, you know, eclissy is you're trying to return to that.

All of us in this room, around this table or whatever the, you know, our objective, our focus is to be a follower of Jesus.

Yeah.

Not a churchgoer, not a Christianese.

Yeah.

Christianizer, whatever you want the word.

But we want to be disciples of Jesus and we're now in it together.

We're a spiritual community and together.

But what's at the center has got to be Jesus.

Absolutely Christocentric.

Not an event, not a platform, not another person.

Person.

None of those things are long.

But what happens is.

And again, I'm being very raw here.

Get in the way of it, though.

They get in the way of it.

Yeah, they get in the way of it.

And so there is a return back into some of the Orthodox expressions of faith.

Okay.

Anglican, Greek Orthodox, even the younger generations.

Right.

Much of the younger generations, many of my nephews, who are sincere followers of Jesus.

I mean sincere.

They've returned to the Anglican Church because they find the historic truth anchored in a deep way and a return to Jesus in the center, meaning communion.

Yeah, the sacraments.

Now, we know there's dynamics in all those words I just threw out, but at the essence of it is a return to a spiritual community built around.

Yeah.

The person of Christ.

They're also doing, as you're aware, you know, the duty, Regina Gabbard, to the people.

There's.

There's the confessionals, you know, so there's participation.

Affirm a creed or they affirm a creed in a public.

They have.

They have times of repentance and confession.

Yeah.

In a public.

In a.

In a.

In a spiritual community around the sacraments.

So that's why I believe there's a return to that because again, in Some expressions, we don't find that at all.

And it's less.

It's more and more moves away from that.

You asked me a big question.

I went in a lot of different directions.

I mean, just zooming out.

I mean, it's like what you say, that church world's a very dynamic place right now.

There's a lot of movement and shifting.

And the Lord's at work.

And it seems like things are being exposed.

You know, judgment must begin with the.

Highest of the Lord.

It seems like a reckoning of sorts going on.

Is that true?

It sure seems that way.

It sure seems that way.

Yeah.

I think the whole conversation around deconstruction, which of course, has been around now for quite some time, that.

That could be dangerous.

But here's.

Here's how I think about it.

I'll give you a brief illustration.

I used to go into D.C. quite a bit.

Washington D.C. yeah.

And I was going in there for about 18 months, almost two years every other week.

Really.

Yeah.

And I was helping the church out and doing some, you know, some stuff there.

But at the time, the U. S. Capitol building.

Yeah.

Was being refurbished on the outside.

Okay.

And so they had the scaffolding and the black mesh so things wouldn't fall.

People's heads all around the building.

Wow.

Yeah.

And if you drove by it and you didn't know it was a U.S. capitol building, you wouldn't know it was the U.S. capitol building.

Yeah.

And I believe that's how much of Christianity has become over.

Over times we.

Over the time, we've built things around it.

So there needs to be some removing the scaffolding and the black mesh so we can refine the core again of what it means to follow Jesus and what it means to be in a spiritual community.

So I don't think all the deconstruction is, you know, is wrong.

I mean, honestly, I'm not talking about deconstruction where we no longer believe the faith.

Yeah.

So there's a line between the two of those.

But ask taking some of the scaffolding down today.

We need to take some of scaffolding down today.

Yeah.

So we can return to the purity of what it is.

And I think there's a real hunger for that.

Hey, just on a practical note, like.

Like if somebody's laboring in stage four.

Yep.

And yet their church is.

Their church's Canadian faith that they're still rooted in as a. Yep.

There's a ceiling.

It's.

Yes.

Three, so to speak.

Yeah.

Is it okay for them to find Another layer of affiliation to lay on top of that.

Yeah.

Perhaps a sort of micro expression.

So they have both really going.

They have a church that they're planted in as we know it.

That would be a great way to do it.

And that's what I would recommend.

Yep.

You know, so we need a spiritual family that we're affiliated with.

You know, we're not just floating in and out.

This is my spiritual home.

And yet in stage four, finding others who can help you in that stage is really important.

Somebody who knows the terrain, even somebody like yourself as a coach, as spiritual director, really, that can walk them through that.

But, but also maybe they could be connected, find themselves connected with a smaller expression ongoingly.

Yep.

It'd be a wonderful way to do it.

I mean, that is what I do.

You know, my, my mission right now, Ryan, is to, I want to, I want to finish well.

That's my number one goal, is for me to finish well, finish well.

You know, and then I want to help as many followers of Jesus as I can in this season finish well.

To navigate any of these defining moments that we just talked about.

That's really the big theme of what you do finish well.

Yeah.

So you don't get stuck and you got to navigate these things wisely, got to make it through these things because these are where we usually get stuck, stall out, or we, we abandon the faith.

Oh yeah.

Navigating these defining, I call them defining moments.

And that last stage, as you were talking about it, the sage like stage.

Or the love of God, the deep,.

Pure love of God, Stage six.

And individuals are just in another level, aren't they?

They're just in another place with the.

Lord and with loving others.

And what, what I really thought of.

As you, as you mentioned, that was what confidence they would have for the Lord's coming.

When you're full of the love of God like that.

Absolutely.

Presence of God.

Absolutely.

And you're facing the new heavens and the new earth and you're not shrinking away from him in shame at his coming because you're stuck.

Your faith has been truncated in some way and you're really not in a place where you should be.

That's the signs to me because the longer we go, you, you know, there's more than one outcome.

So I don't want to over but let's just say two outcomes.

And the one is that the longer we go in our faith, we can become jaded, judgmental, mean spirited.

Yeah, we don't want that narrow minded.

And we've, you know, we, we all can, we all know people, but like, wow, that's the result of following Jesus for 70 years.

You know, we could see that in the mirror, right?

Oh, we could see it in the mirror.

There we go.

Or the other way is the stage six, where it's just what you talk about.

People that have navigated life with Jesus, transcend that.

That's such a deep transformation.

Love, wisdom, thought, judgmental.

They're comfortable with the mysteries, the mysteries of life, the mysteries of God.

There's this face to face, you know, relationship that isn't religious, but it's true.

That's kind of the, the testing points.

Almost like you're still in the church, of course, but you transcend it.

I'm not transcending it as in leaving it or like you're better than it or anything of that nature, but in your experience with God, you're just flying above church world.

Yes.

As we know it.

Absolutely.

So to speak.

Absolutely.

And a lot of people don't understand that.

So even that can become a threat to the powers that be in the church world.

Meaning.

Because they're at a different stage.

I'll give you example.

Yeah.

If you go through the wall properly, I mean, you know, God leads you through it.

It takes time.

Yeah.

A lot of that scaffolding is dismantled because of the vortex you're in.

It's blown off.

You know, it's like.

Oh, you know, the rocking of your world.

Yeah.

And a lot of the, A lot of the things had blown.

So when you get to stage five, there's a, there's a simplicity and a purity of now your, your life with Jesus without the scapula.

Ah.

And it's attraction.

Attractional.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean that you don't.

How would I say it?

You don't need it as much.

Now I know again that I'm not trying to be heretical there, but if you're in stage three, you need the scaffolding quite a bit.

Yeah.

You get in stage five and you're in a different, little different place.

Yeah.

Now humility would be.

I still need the church.

Oh, yeah.

And.

But I need it in a different way.

I believe, and I say it this way, the church is, you know, it's to be interdependent and sometimes the organization.

Almost passively or subconsciously wants that.

Absolutely.

Because I.

They may not say that.

And if you, if you said that to them, they would be offended at.

Keeps the budget, it keeps the seats filled, it keeps you coming back Sunday to Sunday.

Yeah.

I I think very few do it intentionally, but I do think almost a survival.

Yeah.

Mindset.

Well, another way to think about it.

If we're not building people up into Christ, then we're doing them a false service.

So we got.

Then what happens?

We end up building them into a vision.

A doctrinal.

Yeah.

Statement.

Social causes.

Yeah.

A personality.

Yeah.

And what happens is that becomes the codependency.

Codependency.

But you can see what happened if you.

When you go through stage four law, those things are blown off.

Okay.

When you get to stage five, you're not codependent.

You want the interdependent part.

Yeah.

But you're no longer codependent.

That's a big difference on the system.

You.

Big difference.

That's a book, man.

Well, maybe you could write it for me.

So just to circle back around, then you can.

So I'm involved in a local church with a pastor.

Go to church on Sundays.

I'm a member there.

I pay my tithes there.

Yeah.

That's a whole different conversation.

But anyhow, what I'm trying to say is.

So I haven't checked out of that, but I'm in stage five.

I want to get to stage six by God's grace, but I'm in stage five.

I know that where I at my life.

So for me, the micro ecclesia is more attraction.

It's more of where I'm at.

You and I right now are having church.

So I don't.

I mean, it says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.

Yep.

But we have.

We limited it to corporate gathering.

The brick and mortar.

Yeah.

On the Asperger ants that we created.

Absolutely.

And we define that as the totality of assembling ourselves together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My wife and I, you know, we have a.

Twice a month, we have a thing called the Gathering House, and we host it here.

And it's not a small group and it's not a church, you know, with authority and pastors and government.

It's to offer the place of a little bit more of the micro, where we.

Together in the living room.

We do liturgy together.

We're sitting face to face, and everybody's at the same level, the interdependent.

And we're confessing the creeds.

We're doing a reading together.

You know, we're meeting it with prayer and intercession and worship.

The way we like to say it is.

It's like the.

The.

The box accordions.

Remember the old box accordions?

Nothing.

When you fold your shoulder with a Box that we have.

Structure your hands.

Yeah.

With your hands.

Yeah.

So we have structure that's flexible.

Okay.

That's the idea.

So it can breathe and get space.

It can breathe and get spirit too.

But it has, it has liturgy to it that's hubs around the person of Jesus Christ.

Wow.

And communion is what's in the middle.

Interesting.

Every time we gather.

Yeah.

Okay.

So there's not a talking head.

It's the.

It's the work of Christ.

It's a painful conversation at some level, but it is.

It's just a little uncomfortable for me.

A little bit.

Really?

It's hopeful and uncomfortable because.

Just because of.

I've been in church too long.

Yeah.

You know, I do know.

Yep.

It's just like too bomb.

Yep.

I do know.

So I think there's a lot of people that can resonate with this at some level.

Yep.

I do too.

Like a lot.

Yep.

There's a lot of people that love God who want, you know, to really be equipped to fully fulfill their ministry.

Paul said the Archer pistols make sure you fulfill your ministry.

You know, that's part of finishing well, isn't it?

That's.

That's who I would use.

It's okay.

It's not just our, like our personal relationship with God, but out of that.

Walking with the Lord, in the cool.

Of the day comes assignment and commissioning him.

Fill this garden, extend this garden.

You know, here's how I define finishing well.

I give it three sub points when I talk about finishing well because I think it's something that needs to be defined.

Is for me is it's the area that the longer we go, we still have an open, pliable, faithful heart toward God.

There's still that spiritual sensitivity.

Yeah.

There's still that he can touch our heart and we know it.

There's still that we haven't got crystallized.

We haven't got, you know.

Yeah.

Hardened.

Sure.

And that's.

There's A, you know, C.S.

Lewis, one of the quotes, everybody quotes it.

But one of my favorite was God wants a grown up mind but childlike heart.

Wow.

As much as I've heard him, I haven't heard that one yet.

That is great.

So we need to be though we believe.

We, you know, we don't, you know, but we need to always have the childlike heart.

That's a person who's finished well.

And we talked about earlier, some of these people in stage six that you could, you know, you're around.

He's like, man, they are still just loving God.

They're so sensitive.

They're so in union.

You know, they haven't just gone to church forever.

You know, they are like, that's one of them.

Open, faith filled, pliable heart toward God.

Okay.

The second one would be that those around us, in our spirits, our kids, our grandkids, our brothers and sisters in Christ or whatever, and the inspiration that would move them to where she's.

Absolutely.

That's a huge thing.

That's a huge thing.

We just had two daughters that were.

Married in the past year and a half.

I mean, it's great.

But they're looking at us.

Yep.

Yep.

They are taking a bearing off of us.

Exactly right.

And so that's the second thing of somebody who's finishing.

Well, I've got three grandkids right now.

Grandkids right now.

10, 6 And 4.

They live about 20 minutes away.

We're with them a lot.

Their parents are followers of Jesus.

My daughter is.

I have two kids.

Not religion, not churchianity.

Not churchianity in me.

And so to finish well, that's the second sub point I put.

And then the third one is we're being faithful to the assignment in the season that we're in.

Absolutely.

Because, you know, the assignments will change.

Yeah.

But we should be making a kingdom contribution.

Absolutely.

Until we cross over into the ultimate kingdom.

And so, you know, checking out, retiring at 72.

And now I'm, you know, McDallas Willis.

Says our lifetime now is a seed.

In a seed of what's going to be, what will be.

Yep.

So those, you know, I mean, you.

Know what the younger generations, they can hook into that vision.

Absolutely.

But if it's about just going to heaven.

Yep.

Or church.

Right.

It's not enough for them.

No, I'm telling you, it's not at all.

It's not all.

So those are the three sets.

When I talk about finishing well, it's those three things.

That's what I mean.

Yeah.

They're still loving God, leaning forward.

They're influencing others in a pure, you know, journey toward Jesus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they're still being faithful in their assignment.

And whatever I see is on Maria is so good.

So appreciate this and I'll finish.

Well, we do.

We, we.

And we want to bring EW1 the.

People in our circle of the.

Well, we're all running a race, you.

Know, it's a long journey before the.

Even those who have preceded on you and so good.

So it's Ken lroberts.com it's your site.

Yeah.

And you coach people.

Yep.

And do you also consult with churches still?

I do.

Okay.

Yeah.

I appreciate that.

You know, the, the three things I'm doing real quick is I, I coach me.

True warning.

The three.

I call them three C's.

These defining moments.

They're either in a caution zone and what I call the caution zone.

The wheels are still on, but they're wobbling.

And a person knows this is, I'm an important season.

This isn't sustainable.

They're in a caution zone.

Okay.

Second C is crisis.

They've hit.

They've been.

Their life has been hit by a torpedo in some way.

All right.

The third one is called convergence.

Convergence is when the person is trying to figure find that next season, how do I find that next season and get there, I'm going to continue to move in that area.

Convergence.

Those are the three defining moments that most people, you know, need to navigate well.

And that's really what I help people do.

But I do it with the whole objective of let's not get stuck, let's stay on the right path.

Because we all want to finish well.

We all want to hear the Lord say, well done, good and faithful, sir.

We're all contributing to the Lord's story, right?

Yep, absolutely.

Personal life story.

And there's a sense in which he's counting on us.

Yes.

A.B.

Serious.

So that's what I do.

I help some churches in their scholarship process.

And then right now I'm launching a course called form and it's a journey of becoming more like Christ.

I believe that people are looking for a clear path with a trusted guide in a like minded community to intentionally move towards spiritual formation.

That's so good.

Coil is so good for that.

It gives a pathway to also provide a community.

Right.

Those who are in the course.

Yep.

Thank you, Ken.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, man.

I love talking to you.