You’ll find many books on the biblical and practical importance of the local church. I wrote one myself a few years ago with Jonathan Leeman called Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ Is Essential. But few books can match the way Brad Edwards shows us the need for the church amid rampant anxiety, division, and individualism. Not only our churches but even whole societies would be transformed by implementing the wisdom found in this book, The Reason for Church. Brad is the church planter of The Table Church in Lafayette, Colorado. His debut book has been justly acclaimed. He won the 2025 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award and also finished first in the Church and Pastoral Leadership category. He was the winner of The Gospel Coalition’s award for First-Time Author that year as well. I’m grateful that he joins me to talk about everything from authority and institutions to anxiety and whether unity should be the goal for a church. In This Episode 00:00 – Opening: power, trust, and the temptation toward conformity 00:26 – Introducing Brad Edwards and The Reason for Church 01:41 – Ranking the causes behind declining trust in church authority 04:05 – Accountability, social media, and the limits of online justice 08:25 – Churches, institutions, platforms, and marketplace logic 11:17 – What changes people’s minds about the need for church? 13:27 – Church planting in Boulder County and Colorado’s anti-institutional culture 17:01 – Therapy culture, spiritual abuse, and what the book could not fully address 22:19 – Institution-building, movements, and building a remnant 26:30 – Technology, schedules, and the challenge of spiritual formation 29:09 – Individuality versus individualism 34:39 – Should unity be the goal of a church? 37:49 – What surprised Brad most about becoming a pastor 39:21 – AI, agency, and the future of formation 43:07 – Hartmut Rosa, resonance, gambling, and the desire for control 46:55 – AI, education, responsibility, and authorship 52:05 – The church as remnant and refuge in a changing world 53:19 – What pastors want their congregations to know 56:41 – Closing and Gospelbound outro Resources Mentioned: The Reason for Church by Brad Edwards Rediscover Church by Collin Hansen and Jonathan Leeman Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam A Time to Build by Yuval Levin Bully Pulpit by Michael J. Kruger GIRLS® by Freya India The Reason for God by Tim Keller Center Church by Tim Keller Dominion by Tom Holland Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah The Uncontrollability of the World by Hartmut Rosa PostEverything (Brad Edwards’s podcast with John Houmes) “Child’s Play: Tech’s New Generation and the End of Thinking” by Sam Kriss (Harper’s Magazine) SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things. Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate today. Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen: Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube TGC Updates