Outlaw Religion: A Movement, Not a Monument
He didn’t fit their temple. Neither do we.
Why Outlaw?
Because if Jesus doesn’t qualify as a minister in your denomination because He drank wine, hung out with sinners, and broke religious customs, you’re not His church, you’re a social club.
The name Outlaw reflects a harsh reality, Jesus was an outcast to the religious elite of His day. He healed on the Sabbath, called out hypocrites, and broke their extra rules so people could find God. We wear that name because we refuse to be gatekeepers of grace.
Jesus didn’t fit in. He flipped tables, confronted religious systems, walked with the outcasts, and preached a message that shook the foundations of man-made religion. That’s the Jesus we follow, not the impotent one presented from many pulpits, the one that doesn’t demand repentance, and is content for you to live in sin as long as you’re happy, and feel celebrated. We’re not anti-church. We’re anti-fake Christianity.
We don’t play church, if you get your feelings hurt by scripture, good conviction isn’t supposed to tickle. There is a revival happening. A spiritual battle, and you have to decide to follow Christ or to follow culture, truth or tradition, and grace or Judgment.
This is the call.
Join the Resistance.
What We Stand Against
Religion builds fences. Jesus breaks chains.
Pharisees built extra rules around God’s law to “protect” it, but those fences became barriers. They made the way to God so fenced in that only the insiders could enter.
Jesus said the gate is narrow (Matthew 7:14), but He never said to block it off. He said, “I am the gate” (John 10:9). When you build fences around grace, the broken can’t get in, and those are the very people Jesus came to save.
If your fences keep the broken out, you’ve missed the heart of the gospel.
Our Heartbeat
We believe church should smell like grace not incense.
Grace isn’t clean. Sometimes it smells like Stale cigarettes and liquor, because those are the people Jesus came for. If someone in the pew next to you still smells like bad decisions and regrets, that’s okay. At least they’re at church. At least they’re still struggling with their sin. Struggle means they’re resisting. Struggle means the fire is still burning. Struggle means God is still working on them. If they weren’t struggling with sin, they would be wallowing in it. We all have areas in our lives that God is still working on. Most “Church” People are just better at hiding it. God’s grace, that’s the fuel in that fire.
Grace isn’t an excuse to sin, it’s the fuel in the refiner’s fire.
When silver is impure, the fire must keep burning or the silver stays impure. If the fuel runs out, the fire dies and the work stops The silver is left impure.
When you fail, God doesn’t pull you out of the fire. He throws on more grace and keeps refining until He sees His reflection in you (Malachi 3:3). Can Sanctification happen immediately? Yes, that is within God’s power to do, but does it always happen that way? No, all too often it’s hard, hot, and messy, but that’s how transformation happens.
What We Believe
We believe Jesus didn’t come to start a religion.
He came to tear the veil, flip the tables, and set captives free.
What passes for “Christianity” in many churches today is a patchwork of man-made rules, denominational dogma, and cultural customs that have more in common with Pharisees than with Christ. It’s tradition masquerading as truth.
We believe the Gospel doesn’t need to be dressed up, watered down, or wrapped in robes to have power.
It just needs to be unleashed.
We don’t bow to the traditions of men. We bow to the Word of God. If your theology can’t hold up to scripture without cherry-picking, twisting context, or hiding behind commentaries, it’s not biblical Christianity. It’s religion.
We believe the Bible is enough.
We believe Jesus is the standard.
And we believe the Holy Spirit is still speaking, and if we’d silence the noise of tradition long enough to listen.
We Believe:
The look and smell of Grace(2 Corinthians 2:15): We’re not trying to impress the religious. Our bodies, our hair, even our clothes, probably look like hell, and you may even still smell the smoke on us. But that’s because we’ve been through the fire and were saved by Grace. And, we are still in the fight.
The Fire That Frees (Daniel 3): We don’t run from the fire, we walk through it. Religion builds safety nets, and tradition dresses it up, Jesus heals and builds faith. And if it’s not our furnace but our brother’s or sisters, we are called to be like Christ, we are called to be the 4th man in the fire standing with each other in the midst of struggles. Helping and encouraging them in their faith walk.
Refined by Fire (Malachi 3:3): God doesn’t polish up fake perfection. He refines us. The ones desiring to be close to him, he puts in the fire, and burns away everything false until all that remains looks like Him. And as the fire burns and our fleshly selves are washed away, he keeps the fires stoked with sufficient grace to see us through.
Beauty for Ashes (Isaiah 61:3): Grace is a beautiful thing, it sanctifies us, justifies us, and allows us to be God’s Children. So as Grace keeps our fire burning, we take the ashes that have burned away and put them behind us. We are no longer addicts, no longer criminals or adulterers. We are God’s Children, disciples of Christ, and witnesses to His love and mercy.
Grace is the fuel: Grace isn’t religious permission. It’s spiritual fuel. Without it, we’d still be dead in sin and tradition, like whitewashed tombs, pretending to be something we’re not.
We’re not here to fit into someone else’s version of Christianity.
We’re here to get back to Christ.
The real Christ. The Chain Breaker. The religious outlaw.