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Today I share my story of this blog and ministry since 2012 and what I will be working on in the coming year.

When I reflect back on my transition from “brick and mortar” church ministry to online ministry in 2012, I had no idea where I would be after so many years. Prior to leaving church ministry, I was on staff of a successful but small church in Denver, called L2. As the executive pastor, it was my job to ensure smooth operation of the church, its staff, and as an elder, I was tasked with leading the ministry direction of the community. I remember sharing my vision with the leaders and showing my rendition of the next big expansion on the church. They were expecting a new ministry, an additional annex, or some typical “next step” of church growth. When I showed them this picture of a room full of blade servers, you could have heard a pin drop…and then came the push back.

The fundamental disagreement was whether transformational influence required a building or took place in the hearts and minds of people. I was betting on the latter. Prior to Covid, a “virtual church” was an abomination. Now we are all part of virtual feeds which shape our spiritual growth and we think nothing of it. I wanted to create a ministry experience that all my peers across the country could participate in. I just wasn’t on board with focusing solely on an insular community when the world was so desperate for a bigger gospel message, so I stepped away from serving and was shocked at how many interpreted that as me abandoning my faith.

I launched this online community with this very blog asking in my first post: “What if the church has so highjacked peoples lives that liberation from it seemed sinful?” I didn’t realize what a ride I would be on. I began this with the vision of building a ministry/service based business not realizing how it would build me.

Like all of those who venture into online space, my goal was followers and subscribers. I sought out the best coaching possible and learned all the nuances of managing my own content, warehousing it, producing it and ways to expand it. That’s what I thought I wanted. My list grew into the thousands and I jumped onto the podcast bandwagon in 2015 with my first episode of “the KevKast.” This would grow slowly until 2018 when I repurposed my content for radio and launched in the Denver market “Beyond Everything Radio”. Immediately I was reaching over 80,000 people per week. The station loved my show because it was edgy and pushed the envelope of conservative Christian radio. However, the audience wasn’t a fan. My message of deconstruction was not welcome, and was a perceived threat. Despite the station giving me free additional re-airings twice a week, and generating more feedback than any other program, we eventually agreed that my content wasn’t a fit for their audience and key sources of funding.

Now my list was pretty large and all the coaches said I was ready to go to the next level. But inside, I didn’t feel like I was hitting my stride. I wasn’t there to tear down the church, my heart was to re-awaken it to it’s central calling and free it from two thousand years of overreach and power plays which make it so impotent. During this time, I had been a student at the Living School for two years and was introduced to the contemplative life, and that was having a profound impact on my need for subscribers.

I made the decision toward the end of 2018 to scrub nearly my entire list. Only those who had stayed engaged within the last six weeks would make the cut, everyone else was unsubscribed. It was an online business assassination. I was disturbed by the ethos of the online world because it wasn’t any healthier than that of brick and mortar ministries who are essentially trying to get people into pews. My love for scripture and its message which I believe had been coopted by religion, needed to find people who had already experienced this in life but didn’t have a place to go for deeper exploration. Instead, the world of deconstruction seemed to take people not to the brink, but well passed it with no chance of a safe landing.

So I began in earnest focusing solely on my teaching. It felt really good, really natural. I never lack for content and I enjoy long form series and I just taught as part of my rhythm of life. Over time, my audience grew again but this time with a very different crowd. Instead of industry average open rates of 1-3%, my audience remains between 40-80%. My audience rolls in new people at a predictable rate and those who make it three months will likely go on to stay, whereas most unsubscribe much quicker. For the last 7-8 years, I have don’t little to no promotion. I have enjoyed a manageable amount of feedback, questions, and coaching, and none of it has become out of balance. I’ve witnessed numerous life transformations, healings, deliverances, and this steady flow is a great measure of real success for me…far better than mere numbers. In the course of a month, I will reach the same number of people as a very large church, averaging around 3,000-5,000 people, but based on posts, I’ve seen spikes to over 35,000.

I’m the most frustrating person to all of the younger online business coaches and to many of my audience members who want me to “go big time” or “reach the next level.” I receive ten requests per week for vendors and coaches to scale things and begin monetizing my list. They see all the content and the subscribers and then proceeded to tell me: “You need to be in IG, TikTok, and YouTube.” They all want to sell me their widget that will perfectly place a video and my message into the “conversation” and then sell me their SEO, speaking gig connections, and all that noise. More, more, more, more. Be more visible, become an influencer, broadcast your voice, louder, do more, and you can become more.

My contemplative life leaves me so full and satisfied, that I don’t find myself drawn to the phototropic ego game of “look at me, listen to me, trust me, follow me, like me, need me.” I do not draw any of my identity from my work, or from my content, or from my platform. I have no design to become a “full-time” influencer…that died in 2015 along with my false self that I slayed on the alter of silence. Sure, I’ll take advice and integrate it here and there to make helpful changes, but I don’t share confusion as to why I don’t want to be popular, or famous, or bigger for the sake of being bigger. Sorry Satan, you can have that kingdom of the world. I want nothing of it, when I can possess the kingdom of heaven right here, right now, in every moment of my life. Nothing to reach for when it surrounds you like air.

This leads me to what is next.

Instead of marketing and promoting my way into relevance, I am going to keep my rhythm of life, continue my teaching, although perhaps on a slightly lesser cadence, and begin inviting all comers into obscurity, silence, stillness, and contemplative prayer. I had originally thought I’d find some old tiny chapel or run down church and buy it in my retirement and then just lead a small congregation entirely for free of course. But that felt like a step backward, and a move towards walls felt like a move toward a prison cell. Besides, when I reach out to pastors about collaborating on this type of endeavor, they literally want nothing of it.

My next endeavor that is in my heart to build is called The Old Stone Chapel. It’s a virtual gathering for training in stillness and contemplative living. I will do this entirely for free. There will be no advertisements, promotions, and I have no intent to even introduce myself by name. I simply want to serve as a concierge into the depth dimension of life where all comers, from all ages and stages, denominations and traditions, all experiences, can come and learn how to just be. It will be a virtual sanctuary from the noise and distraction of life, with what I will call “metaphorical” training to help us to all see and experience life in the subtlety of prayerful awareness. It is freedom from religion and freedom in God. I will aggregate, along with others in the group, all the best metaphors that we can find in our abundant world that points us to the presence of God’s kingdom right in the midst of us. I’ll use art, poetry, sacred text, silence, and a few surprises that pop up in rock music, to help us learn how to live life its divine flow and not skim over it in anxious distraction.

Instead of a linear flow or order of service, think of this as an evergreen menu that is presented to each member. I’ll be a voice in the background of your noise cancelling headphones that invites you to consider this, then reflect on that, then hear this, then look at that, then sit with this… A person is free to partake of the whole offering, or each can take a piece according to their ability to possess it. It will seem very unconventional, even confusing, until we are freed from the constraints of our thinking, assumptions, and emotions. This inner surrender is a skill to which we are largely oblivious, and The Old Stone Chapel has the potential to be an experience unlike all others, that we can possess within the sanctity of our own minds and hearts, and on our own timeframe, as our spirit is ready.

The Old Stone Chapel will be all about experience and I suspect it will feel like a complete waste of time for many people, until we each discover and experience what I’m inviting people into. If we remain numb to God’s attendance with us in this experience, it will be an obvious empty failure. However, when God appears as He has in my life and the lives of so many others over the last decade, then this will be the online community that people have long awaited to find a refreshing drink. The goal is not to create any more structure than what is needed to bring people to a prayerful pause and reflection, and then the goal is to get out of our own way, so that we can begin living from this sacred place instead of trying to get there when we die.

I’m not trying to create anything new. I’m trying to take the necessary deconstructive work that exists at the highest levels of all religions, and provide us the most optimal way of being taken over so that we can learn how to habituate this inner surrender in and through our lives. We will transform our inner space, so that we can transform everything we touch. This flow of Word becoming flesh is the promised fulfillment of ancient scripture, here and now, coming again in and as our own lives. It’s the best I can offer at stripping all non-essentials away and leaving all comers with a naked soul, where God as our Lover and we as the Beloved can experience the joy of unity.

Humanity keeps trying this over and over again because God continues to put this within the hearts of his people. I intend to create only the bare minimal framework with the lowest barrier to entry as possible so that the most number of people stop trying to go on spiritual quests, and begin experiencing the goal of that quest at any moment that we are awakened to do so.

I hope you’ll consider joining me. If you are interested, the only place to join will be through this entirely new distribution list found at the bottom of this link.

The Old Stone Chapel