Are you living from a place of fullness or of emptiness and deficit? If you are gospel rich then your life will be grace rich and works rich. But if you only apply the truth of the gospel to your life for salvation, your sanctification journey will be needlessly unbearable because you're living gospel poor and grace deplete. Christian and Shawn have good news: you don't have to run this race called life with an empty grace tank! Look under your hood and see the engine God gave to you and the endless supply of 'high grace gas' that's at your disposable.

Does God's grace make us more courageous or more cautious? Should we help the hurting and vulnerable (those that some of us may consider, "the weak of society") or allow them to suffer the consequences of responding poorly to their trauma and upbringing? Wouldn't it be better to remain calculative and clean versus reckless and dirty? If God's children are co-heirs with Christ, and priests and kings, shouldn't we take the field with confidence versus trepidation? Tune into GraceWorks.....Christian and Shawn dive into deep places that many dare not tread.

Your weaknesses and struggles with sin are your pathway into God's presence. In this episode, Christian and Shawn discuss celebrating grace when sin is confessed versus punking down and bullying the hurting and vulnerable. Be careful not to downplay God's grace and the atonement by elevating someone's sin struggles.

Is your chief ambition being right regardless of who you hurt? Do you believe you're a "lesser sinner" than others and have attained the spiritual equity to judge and condemn them? Having a hardened heart can make you impervious to pain, oblivious to the feelings of others, and can get you "ahead" in the market place and even in the church. But what are you selling in exchange? Tune into GraceWorks to hear Christian Meacham and Shawn Saunders unpack how performance based Christianity fosters a hardened heart and feeds off the satisfaction of hurting fellow believers.

What difference does Christ's atonement actually make in your day-to-day life?

Sure, you’ve been forgiven of your sin debt and made righteous in God's eyes. But does that mean living a holy life is now entirely up to you, your character, and your wise choices? Is the Christian life just a test of your willpower? What if the atonement means so much more? What if its scope is multi-dimensional—completely transforming your present life, not just securing your future eternity? Tune into GraceWorks as we break down the true significance of Christ's atonement. Discover how it offers absolute freedom and serves as the literal foundation for your entire existence, your identity, and your daily peace.

The BIG THREE: guilt, shame, and fear.

How often do you find these emotional contagions distorting your view of God, yourself, and others? Do you walk in gratitude and the joy of the Lord, or do you find yourself constantly struggling with judgment and criticism? Thankfully, there is an antidote. Enter the other BIG THREE: faith, hope, and love.

Tune into GraceWorks to discover how you can experience true healing, step out of performance Christianity, and move from a wounded heart to a tranquil heart.

Shawn and Christian were both born into the Baptist faith and spent over thirty years on the hamster wheel of "performance Christianity."

They followed the prescribed regimen for staying right with God: attend church, tithe, read your Bible, pray, witness, and—of course—don’t smoke, drink, chew, or run with those who do. They checked all the boxes and earned their way into full-time ministry. But both of them wanted something more than formulas.

Tune in to discover how these two church brats stepped off the treadmill and became grace handlers.

What's your true north? Christless Christianity is the ultimate, unfortunate paradox.

Are local churches called to attract the "higher societal masses" to a lavish or trendy campus — or are we called to go into our communities and reach our neighbors one life, one family at a time? What about the broken and the poor? The widows and orphans? Unwed, expectant teenage mothers? Those in prison, or those trapped in the prison of addiction? When you're hospitalized, sick, hurting, or at your most vulnerable, are your pastors physically showing up to sit with you and love you?

What once seemed avant-garde as a growth strategy may be turning out to be specious. In this episode of GraceWorks, Christian Meachem and Shawn Saunders graciously and truthfully speak into this paradox — sharing what Christianity looks like when Christ is the center, and our true north.

Season 1, Episode 8 of 11

Recorded April, 2025

Produced August, 2026