WHEN YOUR FAITH GOES BEYOND YOU

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. — 1 Thessalonians 1:6–8

Bottom line upfront: The believers in Thessalonica had a faith that left the building. Most of us have a faith that stays home. Our own research says so — and the people who have walked with Jesus the longest have gone the quietest.

Paul loved these people. He had poured himself into them like a father. They received the Word in the middle of real affliction — and found the joy of the Holy Spirit anyway. They imitated Paul. They imitated the Lord. And before long, other people were imitating them.

Then comes the line I can’t get past. Their faith went out everywhere, Paul says, “so that we need not say anything.” Think about that. The apostle — the professional, if you want to call him that — didn’t have to open his mouth in those towns. The ordinary believers had already talked.

That is what we mean by being influenced to be an influence. Their faith didn’t stop with them.

So let me ask you. Whose faith made the first impression on you? Maybe, like Timothy, it was a mother or a grandmother. Maybe, like Sylvana, it was a ministry like Back to the Bible coming through a radio or a mailbox. Or maybe it was a friend whose joy was so obvious you finally had to ask where it came from.

Somebody’s faith went beyond them. That is why you are reading this newsletter.

Now the harder question. Has yours?

Did your faith become something you kept — a private comfort, a way to be a better version of yourself? Or did it actually get loose in your relationships?

Here is what you have told us.

In our 2025 State of Christianity study — more than six thousand American adults — nine out of ten believers said sharing their faith matters. Yet only about two in three said they were even looking for an opportunity to do it. And fewer than half, forty-seven percent, could say they are mentoring or discipling anyone at all.

We have now run the same study in Kenya and Zambia. Different continents, different cultures, countries far more “Christian” than ours on paper. The number barely moves. Roughly three in ten believers are actively making disciples. Everywhere. It doesn’t matter how Christian the nation is. Reproduction stalls at the same place.

And when we ask why, the single highest-scoring answer isn’t fear, or busyness, or not knowing enough Bible. It is this: “Someone else is better suited to help.” Somebody else. Somebody younger. Somebody with a pulpit, a platform, a seminary degree. Somebody who isn’t me.

Here is the part that keeps me up at night. The people saying that are not the spiritually shaky. When we surveyed our own readers, eighty two percent were over fifty-five. Two-thirds read their Bible every single day. Ninety-five percent could tell you they are saved by grace through faith. You know the theology cold. Yet, many of you are the ones who have gone silent.

I know what that silence costs. I spent twenty-seven years running from God and resenting every Christian I met. I did not need a better broadcast. I needed somebody’s faith to go beyond them and land on me.

If you are over fifty, hear me on this. Nobody took your voice away. You set it down. Somewhere in the last twenty years, a marketing culture convinced you the future belonged to younger people with better music, and you stepped back so they could step up. You were gracious about it. And the church quietly accepted the trade.

It was a bad trade. Pew tells us that for every one person who comes into the Christian faith in America, roughly six walk out. No ministry, including this one, is going to fix that ratio with reach. It gets fixed the way it got fixed in Thessalonica — by the known person. The neighbor. The friend of forty years. The one who has already walked through loss and cancer and a marriage that nearly didn’t make it and came out still trusting Jesus.

You are not “the past” of your church. You are the only people in the building who have been through enough to be worth following.

So here is my challenge: Write down one name. One person within reach of your ordinary week who is not walking with Jesus. Pray for them by name every morning this month. And before the month is out, tell them one true thing God has done for you — not a sermon, one sentence, face to face.

That’s it. That is how the statistic changes. Not forty-seven percent to fifty. Zero to one. In your life. This month. Then do it again.

Your faith was never meant to end with you. Let it sound forth.

All in, eyes up!

—Arnie