What happens when the faith you’ve always accepted starts raising questions you can’t ignore?

Tim Stephens grew up in an independent, fundamentalist Baptist church, spent nine years traveling with a conservative revival ministry, and eventually became an executive pastor at a growing church.

For decades, his beliefs felt settled—until painful experiences and difficult questions about God, suffering, Scripture, and faith began to pull at the certainty he had always known.

Tim talks openly about what he calls his journey from certainty, through questioning and deconstruction, toward a faith grounded in what he could genuinely own.

He shares how exposure to different churches challenged his assumptions, how his brother-in-law’s ALS diagnosis raised questions about the sovereignty of God, and why he believes there needs to be room for people to ask hard questions without being afraid of where those questions might lead.

He also reflects on leadership, church culture, mentoring, and discovering that administrative and organizational leadership could itself be ministry.

This conversation will especially resonate with pastors, church leaders, and Christians who have inherited a faith framework but are beginning to ask deeper questions about what they actually believe. Tim’s story offers a thoughtful perspective on questioning faith without assuming that questions have to lead away from Jesus—and on how a person can arrive at a faith marked by humility rather than certainty about everything.

In This Episode

• Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian church

• Legalism and the pressure to have the “right” answer

• Questioning and deconstructing inherited beliefs

• Faith, doubt, suffering, and questions about God’s sovereignty

• Church leadership and the role of an executive pastor

• Building a healthy church culture and leading with curiosity