Why Deep Spirituality Exists—and What’s Coming Next

Russ Ewell:

Deep spirituality is a vision that I had some years ago when I began it to help our church. It was really an effort to help the part of the church. I was in the very Christian church. And I did it so that people would be able to have studies that they could do that would really cause them to reach for a deeper level of spirituality than might normally be reached on our own, or even from reading even some Christian materials, which oftentimes can be, uh, in working to be accessible. Uh, they can not necessarily be able to take people to the depth.

Obviously, there are some people that some books that do a great job of that, and some writers do a great job of that, but we felt like there was a space for that, and that was just in our local church. And then it expanded and it got became bigger and getting bigger. We started seeing more of the possibilities and the needs for deep spirituality. Obviously, we practice in deep spirituality. Biblical Christianity is what we call it. It’s not connected to or supposed to be part of any particular group. It’s really just about getting back to the Bible and asking ourselves the question, what does the Bible say? And putting away our own preferences and our own traditions.

And what we found is, thanks to many of you out there, that there’s a great audience for wanting to know what the Bible says, for wanting to explore it, to wanting to discover it. Uh, over time, we’ve expanded into devotionals. We obviously have videos that we use, and a lot of the times we’re trying to get to make spirituality accessible, but we’re also trying to get to depth. That’s why we added recently the chemistry lab. And obviously, if you’ve been reading that, you know, that’s a personal passion of mine. It’s not meant to necessarily increase or be big time in subscribers or people watching with popularity. It’s actually meant to lay a foundation, not for being right. I don’t think I’m right about everything, and I feel like some days I write something or work on something, and then a week later, I disagree with myself. It’s meant to discover, and I think the Bible, from beginning to end, Genesis to Revelation, is really about us being able to discover God. If you’ve been reading Chemistry Lab, you know that one of my goals is to make God audible.

So what’s this podcast about this particular episode? It’s really going to be part of maybe two part episode, just to explain to you, if you have the patience to stay with me for a minute, why we’re doing what we’re doing and how you can help us, because we think that we are creating a community. It’s a community of people who really want to advance the Bible and make God known. We don’t want to get into battles about particular traditions or particular doctrines. We just want to try to do the best we can to read the Bible, take it as it is, and then live it out to the best of our ability, knowing we’ll always fall short of our vision, but it’s in the striving for the vision that we’re able to transform our own lives and the lives of others.

In Luke 647 it says, in the New Century version, I will show you what everyone is like who comes to me and hears my words and obeys. That person is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not shake it because the house was well built. Well. When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not shake it because the house was built well.

We live in times that shake us politically, economically and religiously. And yet Jesus promises that if we build on the Rock, the rock of His Word, the rock of his life will be unshakable. That’s our goal. And so one of the things I want you to know and hopefully stay with us on, is we’ll be working over the next couple of months to provide you with Scripture playlists. These are scriptures you can listen to, and you can be able to hear and and follow along with. Not with someone else necessarily telling you what to think, but just maybe someone sharing. These are scriptures along this theme. Then we have deep reads on Spotify where you actually can go and listen to articles we’ve written audibly through audio on Spotify and not have to read it. That’ll be particularly helpful for many of you who are reading the chemistry lab. Or maybe you want to read the chemistry lab, but it’s too long to read, and I understand that. Well, we now have deep reads and you can read all of them audibly on Spotify.

Then there’s the Best Life series. We’ve got that out now. One of the things about the Best Life series, it’s actually meant to teach life skills and you can use that. Here’s one of my recommendations that we use that with our friends. I know one story of a young man who got with his friend, and they were working on finances, and he helped his friend get better at finances, is using the Best Life financial literacy study. These are Bible studies that are not just studies to study, but they’re Bible studies to help us practically share with others the skills that we are trying to grow in, or maybe a skill that you’re good in, and that you can mentor someone else to be able to grow effective.

In our podcast presence, we need your help, and I’m going to be asking you to subscribe as much as you can. Why? The more you subscribe, the more the message gets out there. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of podcasts. I’m sure you know that one of the reasons we have ours is because we want to make God known. We want to make God audible. We want to give his voice an opportunity. Sure, there are lots of different podcasts that are Christian podcasts, but we do think ours is unique. The reason we think ours is unique is that biblical Christianity and depth point. And every time you like it, every time you watch something, every time you share something, you don’t just help someone, you help the algorithms that are on the platforms out there that are digital to recognize that people are interested in what we’re talking about, and that makes them share it with people who are searching for depth, for spirituality, and for Bible. And so please subscribe to this podcast on YouTube. Get as many of your friends as you can to subscribe. Subscribe to the Chemistry Lab newsletter. Even if all you’re going to do is maybe listen to the Spotify audio versions, the deep reads, subscribe as much as you can and share as much as you can. It really does help us.

And remember, our goal is to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to know, how can I live in Biblical Christianity? Now, now, why is that important? I just want to share a few things with you. An article called The Quiet Revival a huge increase in young people attending church. The results are pointing to community being key. Doctor Rhiannon McClure says, we’re looking at young adults coming along with friends. They’re not totally unchurched. Sometimes grandparents have had an impact on their faith. But there are a lot of young people who are trying to find out what are real answers to life, what’s real purpose and real meaning.

Barna research with new research on belief in Jesus fueled by younger adults. David Kinnaman. Here’s a quote. The pandemic undeniably disrupted life for everyone, creating space for existential questions and the pursuit of meaning. Undeniably, there’s renewed interest in Jesus. Jesus is still attracting people, even those who have left the pews or never sat in them. We know that a lot of you aren’t necessarily churchgoers, but you want to know about Jesus. You want to know about the Bible, and you want to be spiritual. In fact, you are spiritual. And so one of our goals is to provide that content again, for those I’m asking to subscribe and share this. This is why there are people looking don’t don’t doubt it. Jesus said, open our eyes and look. The fields are ripe for the harvest. He’s saying people are way more open and searching, far more than we know or realize or can conclude on our own. We have to trust him.

Springtide Research Institute. Gen Z and service attendants. Why? They don’t go more often. I do not attend any church. This is a direct quote. I do not attend any church. I still consider myself someone of faith and someone who has spiritual affiliation. But I do not believe in organized religion. We don’t want people to lose out on the power, majesty, importance, depth, and inspiration that comes with knowing God and walking with him. And so we want to provide a spirituality, an opportunity for people like Chris, who’s 19, to be able to make a spiritual affiliation with the community even if he doesn’t attend church. Even he doesn’t believe in organized religion. And I believe that once someone understands the Bible and looks at it, they’re going to get inspired and they’re going to want to be part of a community. I’d rather discover my own answers. Sentiment of many Gen Z preferring personal exploration over being told what to believe. You know, that’s what the chemistry lab is about. The more you subscribe to it and share it, the more we’re able to reach people like Chris and like others in Gen Z.

Finally, Axios. Young men are leading a religious resurgence. This is from Ryan Berg. He’s a researcher who I follow. Gen Z is not that much less religious than their parents, and that’s a big deal. I think it’s important that we know that there are people searching all the time. And so deep spirituality is not just for you, though. We appreciate you reading it, sharing it, listening to it. We really do. But it’s for so many millions of people out there who do not know, who have never, ever, ever had an opportunity for someone to explain to them not the tradition, not the church, not organized religion, but explain to them what it means to obey and live by the Bible. Just that, and I believe it’s really attractive. And coming from an agnostic, agnostic background myself, I stand as a testament to what can happen when you get someone to go from Nietzsche to Jesus. It can happen if they are put in contact with the Word of God instead of the word of man.

And so those are some things for to think about in the next months ahead. Our goal is to provide you with ever increasingly awesome content. Podcast newsletters. We’ll have some creative newsletters coming out in August, but all this is to explain we’re trying to reach, over the next ten years, at least a million people that subscribe and read our content. You can help us do that. And if we do that, we’ll have changed the world. Thanks so much for being a Deep spirituality subscriber, listener and viewer. Please help us reach more people and share with them the great things that God has in mind for their life.