The Numbers Tell a Story

Here’s what the latest research reveals: 56% of U.S. Christian adults say their spiritual life is entirely private. And here’s the kicker: those who hold this view are significantly less likely to report regular time with God, a strong sense of spiritual progress, or a belief that their faith is very important in daily life.

Let that sink in for a moment. More than half of Christians believe their faith is a completely private matter. And when faith becomes private, it becomes weak.

But there’s a twist in this story. Bible reading is actually up - risen to 42% of adults reading Scripture weekly, the highest in over a decade. Young men are leading this surge. Gen Z men showed a 15-percentage-point jump in commitment to Jesus between 2019 and 2025.

So we face a paradox: interest in Jesus is rising, but disciplined pursuit of holiness isn’t keeping pace. People are reading the Bible more but believing it less. They’re curious about Christ but confused about what spiritual maturity actually looks like.

Half of churchgoers can’t even identify how their church defines spiritual maturity. Less than one in four Christians is currently being discipled by someone. Only 13% participate weekly in prayer groups or Bible studies.

The headline? We have spiritual openness without spiritual depth.

What Baxter and Wesley Saw Coming

Richard Baxter faced this same problem in 17th-century England. He inherited a parish full of people who attended church but whose lives showed little evidence of genuine conversion or ongoing sanctification. They knew the forms of religion but not the power of it.

His solution wasn’t to preach harder sermons and hope for the best. He went house to house. 800 families. Every single one. He examined their spiritual state personally, catechized them, applied Sunday’s sermon to their particular circumstances, prayed with them in their homes.

Why? Because Baxter understood what many have forgotten: spiritual formation requires both structure and relationship. You can’t mature in isolation. You can’t grow strong in privatized faith. You need the means of grace - Scripture, prayer, worship, communion - and you need them practiced consistently in community where people actually know you.

John Wesley saw the same pattern a century later. Nominal Christianity everywhere. People attending services but unchanged in character. So he created the class meeting, small groups of about twelve people who met weekly for ruthless accountability.

They asked each other: What known sins have you committed? What temptations have you faced? How did God deliver you? What are you doubting?

These weren’t comfortable conversations. They weren’t “how’s your week going?” small talk. They were surgical examinations of the soul. And they worked. Because Wesley understood what the research confirms: faith that stays private stays shallow.

The Root Problem

Here’s what’s happening. Some of us have reduced Christianity to a personal consumer choice rather than comprehensive discipleship. We’ve made Jesus our Savior without making him our Lord, which is functionally soothing, but ontologically impossible. We want the benefits of faith - forgiveness, comfort, hope - without the demands of discipleship.

So we show up on Sunday, consume the sermon like a TED talk, maybe sing a few songs, then go home and live the other six days exactly like our unbelieving neighbors. Our “spiritual life” is a compartment we visit weekly, not the foundation that shapes all of life.

The research bears this out. Faith’s importance in daily life has dropped 20 percentage points since 2000. Only one in three Christians says they feel a responsibility to share their faith. When asked what spiritual maturity looks like, most can’t answer.

We’ve lost the script. We’ve forgotten what we’re aiming for. We’re running a race without knowing where the finish line is.

And here’s the honest truth: you can’t become what you can’t define. If you don’t know what spiritual maturity looks like, you’ll never get there. You’ll just drift, hoping somehow you’re making progress, never sure if you’re actually growing or just getting older.

What Scripture Actually Teaches

Jesus prayed in John 17:17: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Notice that word, sanctify. Present tense. Ongoing. God is actively making you holy through his truth.

But sanctification isn’t automatic. It’s not something that happens by spiritual osmosis just because you showed up at church. Paul tells Timothy: “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7). There’s effort involved. Discipline. Intentionality.

Hebrews 10:24-25 commands us: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.”

Notice the assumption: you’re part of a specific community where people know you well enough to stir you up, where you’re present consistently enough to encourage others. This isn’t casual attendance. This is covenant commitment.

The writer of Hebrews continues in 13:17: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.”

Watch over your souls. That requires relationship. Proximity. Knowledge. You can’t watch over someone you never see. You can’t give an account for someone who remains anonymous.

The Path Forward

So how do we move from privatized, shallow faith to the kind of robust, transformative Christianity that Scripture describes and history validates?

First, reject the lie that your spiritual life is entirely private. It’s not. It’s personal, but not private. You were made for community. You need brothers and sisters who know your struggles, ask you hard questions, and won’t let you drift. Find them. Join a small group. Get in a band meeting. Submit yourself to real accountability.

Second, practice the means of grace consistently. Don’t just read the Bible when you feel like it. Develop a daily rhythm. Even if it’s just ten minutes. Even if you don’t “feel” anything. You’re not waiting for inspiration, you’re positioning yourself where God’s grace can reach you.

Third, get clarity on what you’re aiming for. What does spiritual maturity actually look like? Galatians 5:22-23 gives you the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That’s the target. Not activity. Not busyness. But character that increasingly reflects Christ.

Fourth, find someone to disciple you and someone you can disciple. Less than a quarter of Christians are in either relationship. Be different. Seek out a mentor who’s further along the path. And find someone younger you can pour into. This is how faith gets transmitted - person to person, life to life.

Fifth, stop treating church like a vendor and start treating it like family. You don’t bounce from family to family when someone disappoints you. You commit. You stay. You work through conflict. You bear each other’s burdens. That’s covenant, not contract.

The Key Principle

Your interior life, the state of your soul before God, is the wellspring from which everything else flows, and it cannot be cultivated in isolation but requires the means of grace practiced consistently in accountable community.

This is Practical Christianity. Not vague spiritual aspiration but concrete practices that form you into Christ’s image. Not privatized faith that withers in isolation but social holiness that grows strong through mutual encouragement and accountability.

The research shows we’re at a crossroads. Interest in Jesus is rising, especially among younger men. Bible reading is up. But without the structures to form that interest into mature discipleship, it’ll fade like every other spiritual fad.

We need what Baxter and Wesley knew: clear teaching + structured encouragement and accountability + patient pastoral care = disciples who actually look like Jesus.

The harvest is ready. But we need laborers who know how to form souls, not just count conversions.

Reflect

• Head: What does spiritual maturity actually look like? Can I describe it clearly? If not, how will I know if I’m growing?
• Heart: Have I treated my faith as entirely private? Where do I need the courage to invite others into my spiritual struggles and growth?
• Hands: What’s one concrete step I’ll take this week to move from isolated faith to accountable community?

This Week

Choose one person this week and ask them: “Would you be willing to meet regularly to talk about our walks with Christ? Not superficially, but honestly: struggles, victories, what God’s teaching us?”

And commit to one daily practice of the means of grace, even if it’s just ten minutes of Scripture and prayer before your day begins. Not when you feel like it. Daily.

Closing Prayer

Father, forgive us for treating our faith as private when you’ve called us to community. Forgive us for settling for shallow spirituality when you’ve offered deep transformation. Give us courage to be known. Give us discipline to practice the means of grace. Give us clarity about what we’re becoming. Form us into the image of your Son, not through our effort alone but through your Spirit working in us as we position ourselves where your grace can reach us. For your glory and our good. Amen.
​
Remember:

• Christianity is practical because Christianity is true.
• Christianity is practical because Christianity works.
• Christianity is practical because Christianity was meant to be put into practice.

Soli Deo Gloria

I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be wise.

We often hear that word thrown around pretty loosely. We call someone wise because they’re clever, or educated, or experienced. We admire the person who can analyze a problem from every angle, who knows all the theories and can cite all the experts.

But Jesus defines wisdom differently.

According to him, wisdom isn’t primarily about knowing, it’s about doing. The wise person isn’t the one who merely hears his words, but the one who hears and acts. The wise builder doesn’t just study architecture; he builds on solid rock.

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “Everyone who understands my words is wise.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who can explain my words to others is wise.” He says, “Everyone who does them.”

This is the heart of what I’m calling Practical Christianity.

Truth That Demands Practice

Here’s the foundation we have to get straight: Christianity is practical because Christianity is true.

This isn’t some “whatever works for you” approach to faith. We’re not talking about pragmatism that’s divorced from reality. We’re talking about truth - objective, revealed, God-breathed truth - that corresponds to the way things actually are.

When Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 17:6), he’s not offering one option among many. He’s declaring reality. And when he prays to the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17), he’s telling us that our transformation, our sanctification, comes through aligning ourselves with that reality.

The Christian life works because it’s built on truth. When we live according to God’s Word, we’re living according to how we’re made. We’re swimming with the current of creation rather than against it. We’re building on bedrock rather than sand.

Richard Baxter understood this deeply. In his Christian Directory, he wrote that Christians must learn “how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties.” Knowledge matters. Truth matters. But knowledge that doesn’t lead to practice is incomplete, and ultimately, useless.

The Pattern of Wisdom

Look again at Jesus’s words in Matthew 7. He’s not giving us abstract theology. He’s painting a picture we can see: two builders, two foundations, one storm.

The storm comes for both men. That’s important. Following Jesus doesn’t exempt you from trials. The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. The winds blow. The floods rise.
But here’s the difference: one house stands, and one house falls. And the difference isn’t in the storm, it’s in the foundation. It’s in whether the builder heard and did or merely heard and admired the words of Christ.

The Apostle James echoes this same truth when he writes, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). There’s a kind of self-deception that comes from knowing without doing. We think we’re fine because we’ve heard the truth, understood the truth, maybe even taught the truth to others. But if we’re not living it, embodying it in how we think, speak, act, and desire, we’re building on sand.

John Wesley spent his entire ministry fighting against this kind of dead orthodoxy. He watched nominal Christians across England, people who knew their catechism, attended church, and held right doctrines, live lives utterly unchanged by the Gospel. That’s why he insisted on “scriptural holiness,” not just scriptural knowledge, but holiness of heart and life.

Wesley wrote, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.” He meant that authentic Christianity can’t remain theoretical. It has to work itself out in love, love for God and love for neighbor, expressed in concrete ways in every sphere of life.

Truth You Can Live

So what does this look like practically?

It means that when Scripture says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), we don’t just nod in agreement, we ask, “Who is my neighbor today, and how am I called to serve them?”

When Scripture says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6), we don’t just highlight the verse, we actually pray instead of worry.

When Scripture says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23), we don’t just admire the principle, we show up at our jobs Monday morning with renewed purpose, offering even mundane tasks as worship to Christ.

This is what Baxter meant by “Christ’s absolute dominion.” There’s no sphere of life - not work, not family, not leisure, not citizenship - that falls outside the lordship of Jesus. And if Christ is truly Lord over all, then his Word applies to all. Every command is meant to be obeyed. Every promise is meant to be trusted. Every truth is meant to be lived.

The Promise of Solid Ground

Here’s the beautiful thing about building on the rock: when the storms come (and they will), you stand.

Not because you’re stronger than the other person. Not because you’re smarter or more talented or luckier. But because you built on truth, and you put that truth into practice.

The Christian who actually forgives when wronged discovers that Jesus was right: forgiveness really does set you free.

The couple who actually prays together, serves together, and submits their marriage to Christ discovers that his design for covenant love really does produce joy and strength.

The man who actually works as unto the Lord, refusing to cut corners or compromise his integrity, discovers that God really does honor faithfulness.

The church that actually practices mutual accountability, confession, and discipleship discovers that Christ really does build his church through genuine community.

Christianity is practical because Christianity works. It works because it’s true. And it’s meant to be put into practice.

Your Next Step

So let me ask you directly: Where is there a gap between what you know and what you do?

What truth have you heard, maybe even taught to others, that you’re not actually living?

Maybe it’s forgiveness. You know you’re supposed to forgive, but there’s someone you’re still holding a grudge against.

Maybe it’s generosity. You know God calls you to give, but you’re clinging tightly to what you have.

Maybe it’s purity. You know the standard, but you’re compromising in secret.

Maybe it’s rest. You know God commands Sabbath, but you can’t stop working.

Whatever it is, here’s your invitation: take one step today from hearing to doing. Not ten steps. Not a complete transformation overnight. Just one obedient action that aligns your life with the truth you already know.

Build on the rock, one stone at a time.

Because wisdom isn’t ultimately measured by what we know. It’s measured by what we do with what we know.

Reflect

1. What truth from God’s Word do I know well but struggle to put into practice?
2. If I truly believed that Christianity works because it’s true, how would my life change this week?
3. What would it look like for me to build one area of my life more firmly on the rock of Christ’s words?

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, you are the way, the truth, and the life. Your Word is truth, and by that truth we are sanctified. Forgive us for the times we’ve been content merely to hear, when you’ve called us to do. Give us wisdom, not just knowledge, but the courage and grace to put your words into practice. Help us build our lives on the solid rock of your teaching, so that when the storms come, we will stand. Make us doers of the Word, not hearers only. For your glory and our good. Amen.

And remember…

• Christianity is practical because Christianity is true.
• Christianity is practical because Christianity works.
• Christianity is practical because Christianity was meant to be put into practice.​

Soli Deo Gloria

What Is Practical Christianity?

Practical Christianity is a ministry focused on helping Christians live comprehensively under Christ’s lordship, not just on Sunday, but Monday through Saturday; not just in private devotion, but in public witness; not just in church, but at home, at work, and in the culture.

This isn’t a departure from Walking Points but a crystallization of it, bringing into clearer view the convictions that have always been at the heart of my ministry: that Christianity is comprehensive, not compartmentalized; that Christ is Lord over all of life; and that true discipleship means hearing God’s Word and putting it into practice in every sphere of existence.

The title is intentional. Practical Christianity speaks to what people want most, something that works, something that helps them navigate their lives in ways that bear good fruit. But here’s the crucial foundation: Christianity is practical because Christianity is true. It works because it reflects reality as God created it.

Two Guides for the Journey

As I’ve sought to understand what it means to live comprehensively under Christ’s lordship, two men from history have profoundly shaped my vision:

John Wesley (1703-1791) – I am a lifelong Methodist. Wesley’s vision of “scriptural holiness,” his conviction that God called Methodism to “reform the nation and spread scriptural holiness over the land,” has been the theological current running beneath everything I’ve done. Wesley taught me that Christianity must be social, never merely private, and that personal transformation and cultural renewal are inseparable.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) – I discovered Baxter around 1995-96, likely through J.I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness. I was drawn to his pastoral ministry, captivated by his form of discipleship, and gripped by his understanding of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Baxter taught that Christ has “absolute dominion” over all creation and that the Christian life means comprehensive submission to his reign in every sphere.

Both men rejected compartmentalized faith and insisted that authentic Christianity pervades every dimension of human existence. This is the legacy they bequeath to us: a vision of practical Christianity that is deeply theological, intensely pastoral, and comprehensively transformative.

What You’ll Find Here

Content organized around ten major spheres of life:

1. Personal Faith & Spiritual Formation
2. Marriage & Family
3. Men’s Discipleship
4. Pastoral Ministry & Church Leadership
5. The Kingdom of God & Cultural Engagement
6. Work & Vocation
7. Church Life & Community
8. Evangelism & Mission
9. Suffering, Providence & Hope
10. Legacy & Finishing Strong

Who This Is For

This is for:

• Men and women seeking to live faithfully in a complex, contested world
• Pastors and ministry leaders looking for Wesleyan wisdom for discipleship
• Thoughtful Christians navigating faith and culture
• Anyone who wants truth that transforms because it’s lived

A Bit About Me

I’m Dale Tedder, a Global Methodist pastor in Jacksonville, Florida, with over 33 years of pastoral ministry experience. My work focuses on discipleship, spiritual formation, men’s ministry, and pastoral care. I’m deeply rooted in historic, evangelical Wesleyan theology, drawing from Scripture, John Wesley, Richard Baxter, and the Great Tradition.

I’m in the final quarter of my pastoral ministry, thinking about legacy, what I want to pass on, what matters most, how to finish strong. This project is part of that. I want to distill what I’ve learned, root it in Scripture and the wisdom of faithful men who’ve gone before, and present it with clarity and grace to people who desperately need it.

Let’s Build on the Rock

Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).

Let’s build together, not with novelty or trends, but with ancient truth applied to contemporary life. Not with compartmentalized religion, but with comprehensive Christianity that touches every sphere. Not with knowledge alone, but with wisdom, truth embodied, practiced, lived.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dale Tedder

Find more of my writing and resources and subscribe to my primary website at daletedder.substack.com. It's free!