NAKED FAITH

I am Konrad Hölé (pronounced hu-la) My journey began as a third-generation Pentecostal preachers' kid, ultimately morphing into what would be a very successful 30-plus year national ministry. One evening while speaking at a conference in Harlem New York, I began to teach from 1Samuel 17 and the world as I knew it shifted. I could no longer wake-up after that encounter and strategize how we were going to keep doing the same thing but on a grander scale, with followers who were mostly the equivalent of food-snobs who had amassed their church resumes as though it was a career. It was at this point I discovered a new favorite word; OBSOLETE. Obsolete means when things no longer serve the person you have become. This is what happens when the truth of the person it is okay to be ascends beyond the truth of the person you always believed you had to be. God created humanity to dwell amongst. To lead us, enlighten us, unfold us, position us; even perfect us. Not traffic us to the nearest mega-mall worship complex to be raised like spiritual foster care for adults. Must be why God did not create religion. Humans created religion to control other humans via the desire of oneself to know God. And what makes weekly church sheep by the mega-millions are people desperate to be approved, accepted, and governed. The journey that is somehow not relevant until people who seem relevant welcome us. And we will pledge whatever tithe, volunteerism and tribal loyalty required just to never feel outside of that herd. Then our pulpit heroes fall, and the same sheep just wander to the next pasture and the next shepherd to start the sheep experience all over again. This is what makes them sheep. Congregating is a wonderful thing…because community is a wonderful thing; until it becomes the cover for our own identity crisis. The quality of our walk with God starts with who we are with God alone. A vertical walk. From there it must mean more than just our devotion to being in the studio audience every week. When a person knows what their pastor is saying every week and what he/she might say next week, more than they can articulate what their own role is in changing the world around them, then we have a failed gospel. Amazon is changing the world; so is Apple, Google, AI, Meta and Elon Musk. The church is changing nothing except for trend and people retention data science and a cooler barista bar in the lobby. Postmodern hip cool church believes that amassing crowds of doing the same thing every week is actually a sign that God is moving amongst His people. It's not. Really it is God's people that are the ones doing the moving…as in moving out. People are waking up to the reality that it is okay to want something more than funding the same thing that has been around since Constantine was building it in prior millenniums but without the skinny jeans and the hoodie and a laser light show during worship. What I realized more than anything in my vertical path with God is just how astounding it is when you realize how few attachments and obligations and tribal bubbles that the freest self requires. This is how God sees us. The naked self. The world needs difference makers, not pulpit makers. My prayer is that you will spend the rest of your life emersed in the problems you have been placed here to solve more than the church pew you have been told you should never want to leave. You may see the world like you never imagined. KH