Next Level Church - Charlotte

The most dangerous place to be isn't far from God—it's close enough to go through the motions and feel nothing.

We don't drift from God all at once. We get busy, life gets chaotic, and somewhere along the way faith slips into the background. The people in Zephaniah aren't atheists—they're just living like God isn't watching. Most of us know exactly what that feels like.

In this opening message of our new series, Seen: You Are Not As Invisible As You Feel, a book study through Zephaniah, Pastor Bradley Medford turns to Zephaniah 1:1–13 to show that spiritual numbness is something that happens to everyone who stops paying attention. And the fact that God addresses it instead of ignoring it is the first sign he's moving toward you, not away.

Text: Zephaniah 1:1–13

This is Week 1 of Seen, a book study through Zephaniah for anyone who's wondered whether any of it matters and needs to hear that it does.

This week is a bit different, but well worth it! Join us as Pastor Clay talks about where Next Level has been as a church, where we're going, and how you can partner in what God is doing. The best is in front of us!

Nobody decides to walk away from God. We just drift. A skipped Sunday, a prayer life that went dormant, a Bible we keep meaning to open. There's no big moment—which is exactly what makes it dangerous. One day we look up, realize we're farther than we were, and can't point to when it happened.

In this fourth message of our series, Unshakable: Building a Faith That Stands, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles turns to Hebrews 2:1–4 and Hebrews 10:23–25 to show that faith drifts without attention, and staying unshakable requires intentional spiritual maintenance.

Text: Hebrews 2:1–4; Hebrews 10:23–25

The win this week: one intentional practice put back in place—not as a guilt-driven chore, but as the way we keep from drifting.

This is Week 4 of Unshakable, a five-week series building a faith that doesn't move—from the foundation up.

When life falls apart, the question underneath is always the same: is my faith even real? Hard seasons don't just hurt—they expose us, showing how thin our trust actually was. And it's tempting to read the struggle as proof that something's wrong with us, or with God.

In this third message of our series, Unshakable: Building a Faith That Stands, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles turns to Romans 5:3–5 and 1 Peter 1:6–7 to show that trials don't break our faith—they reveal and strengthen it, producing endurance and maturity.

Text: Romans 5:3–5; 1 Peter 1:6–7

The win this week: the courage to stop praying only for the trial to end, and start trusting what God is forging in it.

This is Week 3 of Unshakable, a five-week series building a faith that doesn't move—from the foundation up.

The ground under us won't hold still.

What was settled five years ago is up for debate now, and it's exhausting trying to figure out what to believe when the answers keep changing depending on who's talking. We start wondering if there's anything solid left to stand on, or if we're just supposed to keep adjusting forever.

In this second message of our series, Unshakable: Building a Faith That Stands, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus turns to 2 Timothy 3:14–17 to reframe how we see Scripture—not as one more inspiring voice competing for our attention, but as the anchor that keeps us steady when culture shifts.

Text: 2 Timothy 3:14–17

The win this week: renewed confidence to anchor your convictions in something outside yourself and the shifting moment.

This is Week 2 of Unshakable, a five-week series building a faith that doesn't move—from the foundation up.

Two houses look identical—until the storm comes.

Most of us don't lose our footing in one big, dramatic moment. We lose it slowly: when the ground keeps shifting beneath us, when a hard season makes us wonder if our faith was ever real, when devotion quietly fades without us noticing. We assume we're fine because we know the right things—we've heard the teaching, we agree with it, we could explain it to someone else. But hearing isn't building, and the gap between the two doesn't show up until pressure hits.

In this opening message of our new series, Unshakable: Building a Faith That Stands, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles walks through Jesus' words in Matthew 7:24–27 to show that a lasting faith isn't about knowing more—it's about doing what we already know. Agreeing with Jesus and building on Jesus are two different things.

Text: Matthew 7:24–27

Take one step from hearing to obeying this week, before a storm makes the choice for you.

This is Week 1 of Unshakable, a five-week series building a faith that doesn't move—from the foundation up.

The power of the Spirit isn't something we're waiting on. It's something we've been given and haven't learned to live from.

In this final message of the series, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus walks through Ephesians 1 and Paul's astonishing prayer — that we would grasp the power already at work in us. The same resurrection power that defeated death is alive in every person who follows Jesus.

If you've spent your life waiting to feel ready, this message is for you. You don't need more willpower, and you don't need to get your act together first. The Spirit of God has no limits, and neither do you. It's time to wake up to what you already carry.

Part of the series "Power for the Journey – Life in the Holy Spirit."

The Spirit doesn't make our lives safer. He makes us brave enough to do what we couldn't do before.

In this message, Pastor Bradley Medford walks through Acts 4, where the early church — facing real opposition — prayed not for safety but for boldness. The Spirit's power isn't for comfort. It's for courage.

If fear has been holding you back, this message is for you. The same Spirit that emboldened the first believers is alive and available to you right now. The question is simple, even if the answer isn't easy: What's the one thing you've been too afraid to do?

Part of the series "Power for the Journey – Life in the Holy Spirit."

The Spirit's power isn't primarily emotional. It's transformational.

In this message, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus walks through Galatians 5 and challenges the way we often measure God's presence — by how we feel in the moment. Real Spirit-power shows up somewhere less flashy but far more lasting: in the slow, stubborn growth of becoming a different kind of person.

If you've ever chased the spiritual high only to crash back into the same old patterns, this message is for you. The fruit of the Spirit isn't manufactured through willpower or emotion. It grows as we learn to walk in step with the Spirit — and that quiet, steady transformation is more powerful, not less.

Part of the series "Power for the Journey – Life in the Holy Spirit."

Pentecost wasn't a one-time event. It was the beginning of a new way of being human.

In this message, Pastor Christian Nichles walks through Acts 2 and the moment everything changed — when the Holy Spirit arrived like fire and wind and transformed frightened followers into bold witnesses. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and available to you right now.

If you've ever felt like you know what you believe but just can't seem to live it out, this message is for you. The answer isn't more effort or willpower. Pentecost is the opening chapter of a story we're still living in — and the power for your journey has already been given.

Part of the series "Power for the Journey – Life in the Holy Spirit."

Every series eventually has to reckon with the hardest question faith faces: what do you do when you believe all the right things, and it still doesn't get better?

In this final episode of More Than Sunday, Pastor Brad Medford brings the series home in the most pastoral and unflinching way possible. The text is Lamentations 3:21–24 — one of the rawer passages in all of Scripture — where a man crouched in the wreckage of his entire world makes a choice that has nothing to do with his circumstances improving. No rescue has arrived. No reason has been given. And yet he turns toward God and declares what is still, somehow, true.

What it offers is something more durable: the conviction that suffering is real but not final, that the resurrection didn't eliminate hardship but it did strip it of its power to have the last word, and that those two realities can be held together without one canceling out the other.

This is the pastoral week of the series — the one that speaks directly to the person who has been sitting in the back row, wondering if any of this holds up when life falls apart. It does. And this episode is the honest, careful, hopeful case for why.

More Than Sunday has been a six-week series exploring what changes when the resurrection stops being a once-a-year event and starts reshaping every part of how we live — our work, our identity, our money, our rest, and even our pain.*

Exhaustion has become so normal that most of us have stopped noticing it. We wear our busyness like a badge, push through the fatigue, and quietly assume that one day — when things settle down, when the project ends, when the kids are older — we'll finally rest. But the threshold keeps moving. And the pace never really lets up.

In this episode of More Than Sunday, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles opens Matthew 11:28–30 and refuses to treat that pattern as a scheduling problem. Jesus's invitation to the weary and overburdened isn't a tip for better work-life balance. It's a revelation of something we've gotten fundamentally wrong about rest — and about ourselves.

The reason most of us can't stop isn't that we're bad at time management. It's that we don't fully trust what happens when we do. Somewhere underneath the productivity is a belief that our worth is measured by our output, that the world needs us to keep pushing, that rest is something you earn rather than something you receive. That's not an efficiency problem. That's a faith problem.

This episode recasts the Sabbath not as a spiritual discipline for people with more margin than you, but as an act of resurrection-grounded defiance. A weekly declaration that you are not what you produce, that God is still working when you aren't, and that you were never meant to run this hard in the first place.

More Than Sunday is a six-week series exploring what changes when the resurrection stops being a once-a-year event and starts reshaping every part of how we live.

There are a lot of ways to measure what someone actually believes. But few are as reliable — or as uncomfortable — as money. The way we earn it, spend it, hold onto it, and give it away tells a story about our deepest convictions that our words rarely match.

In this episode of More Than Sunday, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens Luke 19:1–10 and sits with one of the most quietly radical moments in the Gospels. Zacchaeus doesn't get a stewardship sermon. He doesn't get a pledge card. He gets Jesus showing up at his house — and the first thing that changes is what he does with his money. Salvation and generosity happen in the same breath, without anyone asking.

That's the vision this message is after. Not a recalibrated budget. Not a guilt-fueled commitment to finally start tithing. A resurrection-grounded understanding of money where generosity isn't something you add to your spiritual to-do list — it's something that becomes natural when you actually believe a dead man walked out of a tomb and that nothing you're holding onto is ultimately yours anyway.

If your relationship with money and your stated beliefs have never quite lined up, this episode is an honest and generous place to start.

More Than Sunday is a six-week series exploring what changes when the resurrection stops being a once-a-year event and starts reshaping every part of how we live.

What happens when everything you’ve built your life around… is gone?

In this episode of the Cutting Room Floor Podcast, Clay and Christian have an honest conversation about identity and how easy it is to tie who we are to what we do, and what happens when that foundation starts to crack.

From ministry and career success to parenting, failure, and starting over, this conversation gets real about the subtle ways we build our identity on roles, titles, and performance—and why that never fully holds up.

Along the way, they talk about:

• Why success can quietly become a trap for your identity
• The difference between who you are and what you do
• What to do when you feel like you’ve lost your purpose
• How God defines you as a masterpiece—and what that actually means
• Why discovering why you were created changes everything
• The danger of believing you’re irreplaceable
• And how identity impacts everything from work to family to faith

You’ll also hear personal stories about:

• Ministry highs and identity crashes
• Parenting regrets and growth
• What it looks like to rebuild your life from the inside out
• And why being a “human being” matters more than being a “human doing”

This episode is for anyone who’s ever asked: “Who am I… really?”

Most of us are living inside an identity we didn't fully choose. It got built over years — out of what we achieved, what we failed at, what people expected, and what we learned to perform to stay accepted. And somewhere along the way, it started feeling like just... who we are.

In this episode of More Than Sunday, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus brings the resurrection into one of the most personal places it can go: your sense of self. Drawing from Ephesians 2:10 — written to people who had constructed their entire identity around a former life — Clay makes the case that a resurrection faith isn't just a new set of behaviors. It's a completely new foundation for who you are.

Not built on performance. Not built on approval. Not built on how productive you've been or how well you've kept it together. Built on this: you are God's handiwork, created with intention, for good works that were prepared specifically for you before you ever showed up.

This episode is for anyone who suspects they've been living someone else's definition of themselves for too long — and is ready to hear a different answer to the question of who they actually are.

More Than Sunday is a six-week series exploring what changes when the resurrection stops being a once-a-year event and starts reshaping every part of how we live.

For most people, faith and work exist in completely separate compartments. Church on Sunday, grind on Monday, and never much overlap between the two. It feels normal. It might even feel responsible. But according to Paul, it's not how any of this was supposed to work.

In this episode of More Than Sunday, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles opens up Colossians 3:23–24 — a passage written to ordinary workers with no great reason to care about their jobs — and reframes what it actually means to bring your whole self to work. Not as a strategy for workplace evangelism. Not as a performance. But as a genuine expression of faith in a risen Jesus who is Lord of all of life, including the 40-plus hours a week most of us spend earning a living.

If the resurrection is true, it belongs in your workplace just as much as it belongs in a Sunday service. This episode is about what it looks like when you stop leaving it at the door.

More Than Sunday is a six-week series exploring what changes when the resurrection stops being a Sunday category and starts reshaping every part of how we live.

What if the most world-altering event in history has been hiding in plain sight — tucked into one morning a week, dressed up for Easter, and mostly left out of everything else?

In the first episode of More Than Sunday, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens a six-week journey with a message called "This Changes Everything." Drawing from Romans 6:4, Clay unpacks what Paul meant when he wrote that we were buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life — with the emphasis firmly on the word walk. Not sit. Not show up occasionally. Walk.

This episode is meant to unsettle you a little — in the best way. Because if the resurrection is true, it isn't just the headline of Easter Sunday. It's the foundation everything else gets built on.

More Than Sunday is a six-week series exploring what it looks like to stop sorting faith into a Sunday category and start letting the resurrection loose in the rest of your life.

n this Easter sermon, Pastor Clay gets unusually personal — sharing the story of resigning his church in 2007, stepping back from faith entirely, and spending two years asking the hardest questions he'd ever faced. At the center of it all was one question he'd been avoiding: Did Jesus actually rise from the dead?

Using the analogy of a load-bearing wall, Clay makes the case from 1 Corinthians 15 and Luke 24 that the resurrection isn't just one belief among many — it's the belief that holds everything else up. He walks through the historical evidence, the eyewitness accounts, and why the disciples' own confusion and skepticism actually strengthen the case.

Wherever you are — skeptic, longtime churchgoer, or somewhere in the middle — this episode invites you to stop treating the resurrection as an idea and consider it as a reality.

📖 1 Corinthians 15:12–19 | Luke 24

Unmet expectations might be one of the quietest and most painful sources of pressure we carry. We expected God to show up a certain way—and He didn't. Or so it seemed. In the final week of Under Pressure, Teaching Pastor Christian Nichles brings us to the triumphal entry in Matthew 21, where crowds welcomed Jesus with enormous hopes—and He deliberately chose a different path than the one they had mapped out for Him. Not because He failed them, but because He was after something far greater. This Palm Sunday message is the perfect bridge into Easter—a reminder that when God doesn't meet our expectations, He's often exceeding them in ways we can't yet see.

Under Pressure is a five-week series exploring what Scripture says about anxiety, burnout, comparison, disappointment, and expectations—leading up to Easter.

Comparison is sneaky. It rarely announces itself, but it quietly drives more of our decisions—and more of our exhaustion—than most of us realize. In week four of Under Pressure, Lead Pastor Clay Monkus opens Galatians 1:10, where Paul flatly refuses to live for human approval. It's a short verse with enormous implications. When your identity is rooted in Christ rather than in how others see you, the pressure to measure up begins to lose its grip. This episode exposes comparison as a hidden source of chronic stress and points toward a more grounded, freer way to live.

Under Pressure is a five-week series exploring what Scripture says about anxiety, burnout, comparison, disappointment, and expectations—leading up to Easter.