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Sojourn: Post-Everything (Part Six)

Sojourn: Post-Everything (Part Six)

Last updated on: November 2, 2025 at 11:00 pm by Jeff McLain

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Sojourn: Post-Everything (Part Six) 2025-11-02T23:00:09-05:00 Jeff McLain

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Learning how to follow Jesus in a post-everything world — small, honest, rooted, and present.

This post continues my Sojourn Series. You might enjoy reading the first five chapters before this one, as I reflect on my spiritual journey through Vineyard belonging, Anabaptist convictions, and a renewed missional imagination. This chapter picks up where Becoming Vineyard Again left off and explores the “post-everything” season I now find myself living in.

A few months ago, I was walking out of a large-scale evangelical event. I was walking with a friend who had a similar journey. As we chuckled about some of the fluff of the event in which we were attending, I confessed, “I think I am post-everything in this era.” That term has continued to define the season of life in which I currently find myself.

This evening, my kids and I watched the new movie Sketch, produced by Steve Taylor. Let me tangent and tell you, you’ll need to watch this video. It’s a great family movie. However, from watching Sketch, one thing led to another, and suddenly we found ourselves down a YouTube rabbit trail, watching Steve Taylor’s music videos, which led to old Cornerstone Festival clips. It struck me how much of who I am now can be traced to those strange and beautiful years spent on the road, among misfits and dreamers, in fields full of tents and distorted guitars. I was being formed even when I didn’t know it.

Some of what I’ve wrestled with recently, I lost along the way. And some of it was there from the beginning.

For a long time, I tried to fit my story neatly under one banner or another. Vineyard. Anabaptist. Missional. Charismatic. Activist. Perhaps even the ideas others had about Christianity. Although I am grateful for each season, I now find myself in a place where the labels, or tribes, or identities no longer quite fit.

I’m not against them. I’m… post everything.

A Quiet Kind of Movement

I recently made a list of the values I hold most dear. I asked myself, “What kind of church, community, or movement actually feels like home now?” I think we spend a lot of our lives looking for people who understand us, who make us feel normal when we feel like we belong. As I processed my list, these are some of the things that rose to the surface:

Believes in low-church simplicity and small gatherings
Values peacemaking and justice without becoming partisan
Embraces the gifts of the Spirit without hype, stage lights, or showmanship
Holds traditional Christian ethics, especially around sexuality, without losing hospitality
Practices a few sacramental rhythms without becoming overly mystical
Roots ministry in relationships and place
Believes in quiet, subversive faithfulness
Champions the local church over celebrity influence
Seeks mission without chasing the latest trends
Is anti-celebrity

That list gives you an idea of what I am finding describes where I am in this season. For a more logical look at what I want, I asked ChatGPT to suggest some networks or relationships for me to explore. There were a few that surprised me, such as the Christian & Missionary Alliance, but at the top of the list that ChatGPT suggested I check out was a network I had forgotten about: The Ecclesia Network. I reached out to my acquaintance JR. Briggs, who helps lead The Ecclesia Network, and from that conversation to now, I have taken some steps to begin dipping my toe into this movement. It feels familiar in the best way — like a family of wanderers who are done trying to impress anyone, and want to follow Jesus together in values like those I mentioned above.

Who I Am (Still Becoming) in This Post-Everything Era

Here’s the honest truth.

I’m a dad still learning how to be a good parent. I fail a lot.
I’m a husband who loves deeply, but sometimes I grow frustrated and tired too much.
I’m a pastor who gets things wrong more than I’d like to admit.
I’m someone who tries to pay attention to what matters and keep saying yes to Jesus, even when I fail.

I’m convinced I no longer need a tribe that requires me to wear its colors. Nor do I believe there is someone or something that encompasses all the things I am and that I struggle with. I’m not applying for membership. I’m just trying to live. Honestly, I am just trying to say “yes” to Jesus each day.

I’m trying to be a faithful presence in the places God has planted me. I want to lead others into that same quiet life — a slower way of being that resists the noise, anxiety, and performance of our moment.

I don’t want a movement that demands hype.
I want one that practices hope.
There are no stages to be danced upon; there are only walks of life to be explored.

The Voices That Helped

If you have been following this blog series, you are familiar with the stories and chapters of my journey. I’m grateful for the Vineyard — for grace, worship, and trusting the Spirit to show up in grocery stores and living rooms. At the same time, from the outside, I have watched the identity battles and the many who have become overly invested in overrealized eschatological practices, as well as those who lived in the glory years and those growing towards a dominionist kingdom theology of nationalism, which I cannot get on board with.

I’m grateful for the Anabaptists — for teaching me simplicity, peace, and the power of the local church. At the same time, this movement is holding on to the past in unhelpful ways. Far too often, it is something cultural rather than convictional. The struggles between the conservative and liberal sects seem to persist without end. It is a slowly dying movement that continually seeks to latch onto a new idea to bring about life.

I’m grateful for the discipleship and missional world — for reminding me that God is always already in the neighborhood. For far too many, though, this has felt like a brand, a course, a platform, or a trendy cultural expression for the church.

I’m also grateful for the journey into academic learning. I didn’t take the traditional route into higher education, but starting later in life has given me a different kind of gratitude for it. My studies at Fuller Seminary, City Vision University, and now Kairos University have stretched my mind and deepened my heart. They didn’t make me an academic — they helped me love Jesus, the Church, and people more thoughtfully.

I’m also grateful for the cohorts, conversations, and learning communities that helped shape me along the way in some very encouraging and memorable ways. The conversations have always mattered to me. Learning Communities with Mike Breen and 3DM, Exponential, Caesar Kalinowski, the rural pastors cohorts at Campbell University, and the groups that gathered around compelling preaching through Point University and other missional imagination conversations have all served to give language to my longing. They helped me see the Kingdom with new eyes when I was tempted to give up or conform.

And now, in this season, I am finding encouragement in new voices and networks, such as Ecclesia and LK10, with John White — movements less interested in hype and more interested in presence, community, and the actual way of Jesus. These are movements, like me, that are a little “Post-Everything.” These spaces remind me that God is still forming creative, faithful people who are trying to live the Kingdom right where they are.

But now I’m more interested in kitchen-table conversations than conference halls. More interested in those wrestling with faith on a street-level than a know-it-all one.

Ordinary Faithfulness

My academic journey has taken me through multiple degrees and into a doctoral program, where I am exploring the Lord’s Prayer at Kairos University. I’m grateful for it. But I’m not an academic at heart. This is not who I am. I am learning (slowly) that I don’t need big platforms or next-big-thing strategies. Although it can feel lonely, I don’t need the acceptance or affirmation of others.

I need to be present — to God, to others, and to my own soul.

I want a life that is small enough to see the people right in front of me. And big enough to believe God is transforming the world through ordinary, steadfast love.

Some days, I feel like a kid still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. But I know this much:

I want to follow Jesus.
Not perfectly. But faithfully.
Quietly, if that’s what it takes.

Though the punk and hardcore scenes shaped my youth, theology and contemplation my middle years, my dream is to grow old drinking coffee by the beach, selling t-shirts on the boardwalk, and spending more time in a hammock than I probably should—ideally with reggae playing in the background.

Post-Everything & The Way of Quiet Resistance

As I mentioned in the post before this one, I felt a huge encouragement towards 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 a few years before, where Paul tells us to make it our ambition to lead a quiet life. That verse has become a guiding light for me. It feels like the final summary of my story so far. The “quiet” life isn’t a retreat. It’s resistance to what the world, and sometimes the church, has defined as “normal.”

It is about choosing to stay human in a world that is trying to turn us into consumers.
It is choosing smallness in a world addicted to scale.
It is choosing love in a world shaped by outrage.
It is choosing Kingdom over empire — every single day.

This is the post everything era for me.

Some days, I still feel like a kid figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I’m still learning what it means to follow Jesus—not always getting it right, but trying to say yes to Jesus a little more each day. I love encouraging others along the way and would be glad to have a conversation over coffee.

I guess I am still a sojourner.

I believe that the quiet life is a resistant, faithful way of being present to God and others—and maybe even a vision of renewal for those who are disillusioned but still hopeful for what Christianity could look like in this chaotic world.

Come With Me If You Want to Live

In the movie Terminator 2, there’s a famous line:

“Come with me if you want to live.”

That’s how I feel now. Not like a hero offering rescue — but a fellow struggler offering companionship. Come with me, not because I know where this road leads, but because I refuse to walk it alone.

This isn’t the last chapter. It’s the beginning of something quieter, slower, and — somehow — more alive.

If you’ve ever felt disillusioned but still hopeful… still believing Jesus has something beautiful for His Church… then maybe this is where our stories meet.

Let’s keep walking.

Let’s reflect together

Where have you outgrown old labels but still love the people who gave them to you?
How has God met you in the small things — the slow things — the ordinary places?
What does “leading a quiet life” look like where you live, work, worship, and play?

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About Jeff McLain

Through 'Lead a Quiet Life,' Jeff McLain explores his pursuit of simplicity in a tumultuous world as he serves as the Director of Pastoral Ministries at Water Street Mission and as pastor at River Corner Church. Jeff's commitment to Jesus as been shaped by an unconventional journey from activism to hitchhiking, is reflected in his academic pursuits and throughout his involvement with various initiatives. Residing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Jeff, along with his wife and three daughters, embraces family moments outdoors, while his love for baseball, boardwalks, beaches, and books adds depth to his vibrant life. You can read more about the author here.

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Sojourn: Becoming Missional (Part Five)

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