The UnSunday Show

Mike Adams

1 Creator

The UnSunday Show asks honest questions about the origin and validity of institutional church rules, traditions, and practices. These religious rules and practices lead us away from the simplicity of the gospel and into an exhausting performance-based experience that is designed to perpetuate itself by placing ever increasing demands on its people and are of no value in Christ. If you're exhausted from trying to keep all the religious rules that have been placed on you, listen in to these conversations as we rediscover the freedom we've been given, apart from religion and empty religious obligation.

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Top 10 The UnSunday Show Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The UnSunday Show episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The UnSunday Show for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The UnSunday Show episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

14. Captain and Commander?

The UnSunday Show

05/01/19 • 38 min

Welcome to episode 14 of the UnSunday Show! In this episode, I continue my interaction with Jon Zens' book entitled, A Church Building Every 1/2 Mile: What Makes American Christianity Tick? In Section 5 of the book, which is called Why Has Church Become So One-Part Driven?, Zens shares the following quote from David L. McKenna,

"[The pastor] is like the cerebellum, the center for communicating messages, coordinating functions, and conducting responses between the head and body.... The pastor is not only the authoritative communicator of the truth from the Head to the Body, but he is also the accurate communicator of the needs from the Body to the Head."

Later in the chapter he quotes C. Peter Wagner as saying,

"The army has only one Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ. The local church is like a company with one company commander, the pastor, who gets his orders from the Commander-in-Chief. The company commander has lieutenants and sergeants under him for consultation and implementation, but the final responsibility for decisions is that of the company commander, and he must answer to the Commander-in-Chief... The pastor has the power in a growing church... The pastor of a growing church may appear to outsiders as a dictator. But to the people of the church, his decisions are their decisions."

Let's talk about it!
Zen's book and my blogs mentioned in this episode:

Enjoy!

Other Places You’ll Find Me
The Grace Cafe Podcast: https://www.gracecafepodcast.com
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06. Rethinking Formal Church Membership

The UnSunday Show

03/03/19 • 50 min

Welcome to episode 6 of the UnSunday Show! This is a bonus episode, published outside of my normal Thursday posts. If you like what's going on here, please share it with a friend. In this episode, I talk about formal church membership. Formal church membership is an accountability contract the institution will require you to sign in order to have leverage over you as motivation to keep supporting the institution. That's not a description you'll see on any church website, but it cuts to the chase and it's true. Make no mistake, what you're signing is an accountability contract designed to keep you in conformity with the institution's established requirements using rewards for compliance and punishments for failure to comply.
There are usually 3 areas covered in most formal church membership contracts that are there in order to secure conformity to the established rules of the group. They are:

Money and Personal Resources
Power, Authority, and Accountability
The Threat of Excommunication For Failure to Comply

This episode is a re-post of one of my Ekklesia podcasts from about a year and a half ago. I'm reposting it here because it says everything I wanted to say in this episode, so why re-invent the wheel? There are a couple of small things in it that I would reword today, but those aren't show-stoppers. I also present some foundational thoughts on how we've brought Old Covenant imagery into the New Covenant ekklesia (church) and how detrimental that is to both our view of God and the church.
Enjoy!

Grace Alone: The Freedom of Bringing Nothing to the Table (105)

The UnSunday Show

03/23/25 • 10 min

The gospel isn’t a group project. If grace is free, why do we try so hard to add to it? In this episode, I talk about how bringing nothing to the table isn’t a burden but is ultimate freedom. Grace apart from works is a death sentence for institutional religion that can't be tolerated there.

Let's talk about grace!

Twisting the Truth: How Church Uses Scripture to Silence Women - Part Two (109)

The UnSunday Show

05/18/25 • 43 min

In this episode we continue talking about the topic of how the institutional box church misrepresents and misinterprets passages of scripture that mention women in the body of Christ. We take a look at the historical and cultural context of Paul's first letter to Timothy and specifically, 1 Timothy chapter 2. In giving his reasons for writing this letter to Timothy, Paul instructs him to dispel myths that had arisen in the assembly (1 Timothy 1:3-4). In chapter 2 of his letter we see Paul begin to dismantle some of those myths and those myths centered around the worship of the pagan idol, Artemis. The culture in Ephesus was heavily influenced by the worship of Artemis. Artemis was a female goddess of Greek origin and the worship and culture of Artemis was female centric. While males could participate in the worship of Artemis, women were dominate and men had a lesser role (kind of the opposite of what we see today in most churches).
Here are some of the myths Paul addresses:

In the Ephesian culture, Artemis was looked to as the protector of women in childbirth.
Women stood a better chance of Artemis hearing and answering their prayers if they wore expensive clothes and jewelry when petitioning Artemis.
Artemis was born before her twin brother Apollo, meaning woman was created before man.

We also need to keep in mind these important points:

Timothy was not a pastor. There's no indication of that anywhere in Scripture. That's a church history-driven idea that is incorrect.
The letters of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are not "pastoral letters" written to pastors. Calling them pastoral letters is another false assumption delivered to us from church history.
The letters to Timothy and Titus are not across-the-board manuals for doing church. They address specific problems that arose in specific locations involving specific people at a specific time. Failure to recognize this and instead promote the false assumption that everything in them is applicable to every generation without regard to the historical and cultural context they were written in, has led to the muzzling of half of the body of Christ.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Artemis: Virgin Goddess of the Sun and Moon - https://tinyurl.com/2p9cfykc
What's With Paul and Women? https://tinyurl.com/yp6n47xn

I brought this episode over from the Grace Cafe podcast. It's part 2 of a 4-part series I'm re-posting here on the UnSunday Show. The link to the Grace Cafe podcast is below if you would like to see other episodes on this topic.

Enjoy!

What Happens When You Stop Going To Church? (107)

The UnSunday Show

05/05/25 • 95 min

Let's talk about what happens when we stop going to church. This is from the livestream that I did on May 4th, 2025 on YouTube. Here's the link in case you want to watch the video:

https://www.youtube.com/live/CHWejf9tjwk?si=tQtWdw1Jzf3VubJe

You can follow the UnSunday Show on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/@unsundayshow

Do Pastors Have a Special Calling? (98)

The UnSunday Show

01/25/25 • 31 min

Do institutional church pastors have a special calling to be pastors? Let's take an honest look at this in light of the New Testament scriptures.

44. Relaunch of the UnSunday Show

The UnSunday Show

04/30/21 • 3 min

I'm checking in with you on this episode to let you know I'm still here and that the UnSunday Show is going to get a facelift soon. These last few months have kept me busy with things like launching a new business, developing a new podcast editor's course, and life in general. But all the while, I've had some ideas floating around in my brain for retooling the UnSunday Show ever so slightly. So look for that in a couple of weeks.

I recorded this episode on the front porch of our friend's cabin in the tall pines of Arizona, using the memo app on my phone. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but it's not bad. I was able to edit out most of the wind the annoying raven that wanted in on the action. We'll talk again soon.

37. Did God Abandon Jesus at the Cross?

The UnSunday Show

05/28/20 • 5 min

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" These words of Jesus on the cross have led many to the conclusion that God left Jesus while he was dying on the cross. That because Jesus had become sin for us, the Father turned away from him because he can't look on sin. But is that what was happening? Let's talk about it.

35. What The Law Couldn't Do, God Did

The UnSunday Show

03/29/20 • 36 min

Let's talk about the Good Samaritan. In response to Jesus' reminder that he was obligated to love God with all his being and to love his neighbor as himself, a lawyer, in an attempt to justify himself, asked Jesus who his neighbor was. This conversation took place in Luke chapter 10. Because the lawyer was living at the time of the Old Covenant, he was under obligation to obey these commands perfectly. But he couldn't.

Jesus' answer revealed the failure of the Law to empower anyone to obey it while at the same time, showing that what the Law couldn't do, God did by sending his Son. Let's talk...

The Lie of a Deceitful and Desperately Wicked Heart (101)

The UnSunday Show

02/23/25 • 19 min

Let's talk about Jeremiah 17:9 and his statement that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Is it true? Are our hearts deceitful and wicked and not to be trusted or is there more to that description that needs clarification? Let's talk.

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FAQ

How many episodes does The UnSunday Show have?

The UnSunday Show currently has 110 episodes available.

What topics does The UnSunday Show cover?

The podcast is about Christianity, History, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts, Religion and Church.

What is the most popular episode on The UnSunday Show?

The episode title '57. Institutional Church Pastors and Their New Testament Counterparts' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on The UnSunday Show?

The average episode length on The UnSunday Show is 27 minutes.

How often are episodes of The UnSunday Show released?

Episodes of The UnSunday Show are typically released every 9 days, 2 hours.

When was the first episode of The UnSunday Show?

The first episode of The UnSunday Show was released on Jan 31, 2019.

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The UnSunday Show

Mike Adams

Top 10 The UnSunday Show Episodes

FAQ

How many episodes does The UnSunday Show have?

What topics does The UnSunday Show cover?

What is the most popular episode on The UnSunday Show?

What is the average episode length on The UnSunday Show?

How often are episodes of The UnSunday Show released?

When was the first episode of The UnSunday Show?

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