Imagine Starting a Religion Based ONLY on Jesus

I did over 40 events in 2025 but this one stands out as one of my favorites.

Last year I travelled to a lot of cities, presented a lot of talks, preached many sermons, and collaborated with lots of folks to create incredible events.

It’s impossible to choose a favorite, but if I were to make a Venn Diagram of:

• Ridiculously Fun

• Rich with Meaning

• Crowd Favorite

Then it’s hard to pick anything other than the General Session presentation we gave at The Wild Goose Festival last Summer.

What made this presentation so great?

Four reasons.

1. THE BRILLIANT COLLABORATORS
   
   If you know much about the Enneagram, then you may know that as a Type Three I do not naturally lean toward collaboration. My default setting is: if you want something done well—actually, to be “the Best”—then you gotta do it yourself. This achilles heal has historically kept me from the fruit of collaborating with other people and experiencing how it can elevate projects.
   
   Thankfully, I’ve received enough data via experience to know to mistrust my “do it myself” instincts.
   
   For our Wild Goose session, I was joined by my dear friends Josh Scott (pastor/author from Nashville), Mason Mennenga (theologian and professional witster), and Dr Shaleen Kendrick (creator of the groundbreaking Neuro-Relational Leadership™ model). And without question these humans took my idea from good to GREAT.
   
   And what was that idea?
   

2. THE IDEA
   
   After releasing last year's surprise hit podcast, Keep Christ in Christian, I wanted to keep exploring the growing distance between the teachings of Jesus with what passes today for “Christianity.”
   
   I had this thought: What might it look like to develop a religion based purely on the words, life, and stories of Jesus?
   
   I know… what a bonkers idea… yet that was our goal.
   
   The four of us were tasked with developing foundational Ten Commandments (though we only did Six, for time sake) for our religion, and our only source material could be the Gospels.
   
   But it wasn’t that simple.
   We had to game-ify, first.
   

3. THE GROUND RULES
   
   This is where the fun began.
   
   If you’ve ever participated in a Fantasy Draft (eg, Fantasy Football), then you'll get where this is going.
   
   The game was broken up in to six rounds. For each round, the participants (Me, Josh, Mason, and Shaleen) had to craft a “Thou Shall (Not)” for our Six Commandments. And each commandment must be inspired by or drawn from something Jesus said or did.
   
   With a couple catches:
   
   - We were given specific categories we had to fulfill. Such as, you have to pick at least one parable; one “the Kingdom is Like” saying; one miracle story, etc.
   
   - Once something gets selected, that story/passage/Gospel text is now off the board and cannot be chosen by anyone else.
   
   This created a competitive yet fun environment of strategically thinking through which Gospel passages you were going to select, when, and why.
   

4. THE AUDIENCE
   
   Finally, this event was so delightful because we got the crowd involved. Not only did four volunteers act as the Scribes for each religion, writing down the Six Commandments as they were drafted/crafted, but then at the end we held a vote to see which of the four religions was the best.
   
   If you ever been to a Wild Goose before then you know how much people love to be involved in things. The energy in the tent was electric.
   
   People cheered, booed, laughed the whole time.
   
   We heard from many folks afterwards that our session was their favorite of the Goose, with some even requesting that we “take our show in the road.”

I don’t know about the road, but I do know we’re trying to get back on the stage again for Wild Goose 2026. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

In the meantime, here is the full video of our Live Fantasy New-Religion Draft.

Afterwards the four of us reflected on our delight that not only was it a blast (which we anticipated), but because of the format, we basically gave 24 mini-sermons, lasting 60-90 seconds each.

People got a LOT of really, really good and meaningful and smart material.

If you were there, or if you watch the video, I’d love to know what you think!