1. Mere Churchianity
By Michael Spencer
Chapter 1-4

2. Chapter 1: When Church Signs Lie
• Pg. 12: Jesus shows up a lot of places we do not expect Him to.
• Pg 15: Behind the “Jesus is Here” sign is a health wealth and
prosperity Gospel that removes God from the status of sovereign
Lord and turns him into a convenient vending machine.
• Pg. 17: 28% of adult Americans have left the faith of their childhoods
some in favor of a different religion or no religion at all.
• Many of these still hold to God/Jesus but have rejected American
Christianity
• Pg. 19: Religion is our negotiation with God to try and get his help in
exchange for our good behavior.
• Pg. 21: Religion wants justice when one does wrong, but God knows
what the person needs is grace and mercy.
• Pg. 21: Perhaps those leaving churches are sending a message to
others that we should take… that Christianity has done more to
alienate people from Christianity then all the best selling books
written by Atheists.
• In fact I would add that people frustrated by the church run to these

3. Chapter 2 The Jesus Disconnect
• Pg. 23: Evangelicals believe the growing number of young adults who grew up in church-
attending families and then abandoned the ship of faith is the fault of Hollywood, liberals,
rock music, and sex. Riiight.
• Pg. 24: Many churches have a score card that is impossible for them to receive less then
straight A’s. However, it overlooks the obvious thing: a meaningful connection to Jesus.
• Pg. 25: Thousands, and possibly millions, of people are walking away from any
association with the religion known as Christianity.
• There has to be another reason other then premarital sex, cheap beer, and great
Sunday-morning programing on television.
• However many people who remain on the ship want to blame those who flee rather
then the ship itself.
• Many of those at the top of the pecking order- pastors and other leaders who are most
sought after as experts on what Christianity is- are, in fact, the leading practitioners of
religion that denies Jesus-shaped spirituality.
• Pg. 26: it’s more like a fraternal lodge with its own language, rules, requirements,
rituals, and secret handshakes.
• They are looking for authenticity, honesty, and spiritual integrity. Sadly they won’t
find it in most churches.
• Pg. 26-29: a church that has disconnected itself from Jesus is like a pecan pie without the
pecans.

4. Chapter 2 The Jesus Disconnect
• Pg. 30: many evangelicals preach a prosperity Gospel, which means
God can get you rich in the Western church.
• Many churches also use sex as well, and if that does not work then
patriotism.
• Pg. 31: If you have read the Gospels have you ever seen Jesus with
the following:
• .44?
• Wearing camo?
• Reading Solider of Fortune?

5. Chapter 2 The Jesus Disconnect
• Pg. 31: Its more like evangelicals are interested in so many other
things:
• Gays
• Culture war
• Coming elections
• Gays
• creeping socialism
• How to raise better kids
• How to beat stress
• Gays
• How many people got baptized last month
• Vision
• Leadership
• Destiny
• But Jesus is seldom mentioned and they have missed what the
Jesus movement is about

6. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 34: Saying, “I don’t believe in God… the god of my own ideas,
concepts and preferences.”
• Pg. 34: what if all this time, we’ve simply formed an idol in our mind,
called it God, and worshipped it because it’s more convenient and
more comfortable that contending with a God who doesn’t fit in a
display case or make scheduled appearances at the religious mall?
•

7. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 34-35: Wrong ideas about God are, themselves, false gods. They
are idols just as much as a graven image. The following gods need to
go:
• The god that smilies benignly and endorses my gradual
submersion into the pursuit of the American dream needs to go.
• The god that inspires the culture of evangelical compromise
• Gods of big churches are better
• America is always right
• Our sins are less sinful than their sins
• You have to look and sound like me to be acceptable

8. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 35: these need to be replaced with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is
God. Lord and God. God revealing himself to human beings. The
God-man. God in a bod. God in human flesh. God as a baby, a
carpenter, a Jewish Healer, a crucified falsely accused criminal, a
risen conqueror, and a reigning King.

9. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 36: if your notes say the following tear up your notes:
• Its wrong to touch a leper
• Its wrong for women to speak in church
• You know how to pray
• You know who God is punishing and rewarding
• You think you are clear on God’s attitude toward the Roman
occupiers and other Gentiles

10. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 36: Jesus came claiming to be God, but had most of the old
Jewish traditions and teachings all wrong… or so it must have
seemed to his disciples.
• Pg. 37-38: Most of what the disciples had been taught about the long
awaited messiah was blown out of their minds… in particular when
Jesus revealed at Passover that the blood of goats and sheep were
not sufficient and that one person’s death would atone for all of it:
Jesus.
• Pg. 39: But if were are followers of Christ as were the original 12
disciples then should we not be forced to continually re-evaluate what
we “know” about God as they must have on a near daily basis when
He was with them?

11. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 40-41: the disciples were continually blown away on a near daily
basis and were stretched and even were awe stricken by a man
named Jesus who turned a passover meal into prophecy, forgave an
adulterer woman, forgives sins of a paraplegic, that he will replace
the temple codes, that He will be killed and rise from the grave and
finally that they would go and teach the Roman Empire and the rest
of the world what He taught them.
• Pg. 41: the passionate message of the Gospel is to abandon all hope
in any other god, god substitute, or god-replacement

12. Chapter 3: What if I were wrong about God?
• Pg. 43: Jesus shakes me up and I can’t get it together on my won.
• Pg. 44: What we need is a personal transformation by the real Christ,
not the one that is manufactured by organized Christianity.
• Pg. 45: We need a Christ centered community based on Jesus. Not a
church centered community based on what they perceive about God.

13. Chapter 4: A Christianity Jesus would Recognize
• Pg. 48: Anyone can know God in a vague sense, but when we
embrace words such as justification and covenant, our appreciation
of God grows.
• Pg. 48:Jesus shaped spirituality involves three things:
• Jesus
• Having a genuine experience of God
• Figuring out how a life gets transformed

14. Chapter 4: A Christianity Jesus would Recognize
• To just about anyone life transformation is sought by all and matters
pg. 49
• Pg. 49 we can easily find something to disagree about when we start
comparing churches… its a waste of time.
• Pg. 50: Our big problem with Jesus is that we want to control things,
and he turns out to be remarkably difficult to control.
• Pg. 51: Jesus was an expert on including those who were officially
excluded. He knew all about illegals, at least a far as first-century
Judaism was concerned. His personal outreach to the people who
religion officially avoided was one of the most distinctive and socking
things about Jesus.