Has Christianity Become Too Self-Centered? Putting Jesus Back at the Center of Our Faith

There’s a question Christians probably don’t ask ourselves often enough:

When did my faith become about me?

What kind of worship music do I like?Did I enjoy the sermon?Does this church meet my needs?Did I feel something during worship?What can God do for me?

None of those questions automatically make us selfish. But when they become the measuring stick for our relationship with God, we may need to examine where the center of our faith really is.

That is exactly the conversation I had with Pastor Ryan Ford, senior pastor and author of The Church of Me: The Rise of Self in the House of God, for this week's episode of Rybickulous Faith.

And before you assume this is an hour of church-bashing—it isn't.

It's a conversation about coming home.

From a Seventh-Grade Invitation to the Pulpit

Ryan's story didn't begin with someone who always knew he would become a pastor.

He didn't even grow up regularly attending church.

His introduction to consistent church attendance came in junior high when, as Ryan tells it, a "cute girl" invited him. That girl eventually became his wife, and they recently celebrated 20 years of marriage.

But something much bigger happened through that invitation.

A church community embraced him.

Ryan describes himself back then as a "punk kid" coming from a difficult family situation. Yet the adults in his church didn't treat him as a burden. Older church members went on youth trips, attended ball games, volunteered, showed up, and invested in these kids' lives. Some of the friendships formed in that youth group remain part of Ryan's life today.

Think about that for a minute.

Someone invited a seventh-grade boy to church.

People loved him when he got there.

And years later, he's a senior pastor teaching others about Jesus.

Never underestimate what God can do with an invitation and a group of believers willing to show up.

Have We Made Faith Too Private?

One thing Ryan said during our conversation particularly stuck with me.

He believes we're experiencing a "privatization of faith."

We attend church and then go home. We put walls around our lives. We put walls around our faith. But biblical community requires more than sitting near one another for an hour on Sunday.

Ryan points back to Acts and the early Church—a community that broke bread together, cared for one another, and actually shared life.

And yes, as I joked during our conversation, peopling is hard.

But discipleship was never designed to happen completely alone.

Sometimes the person God uses to change someone's life isn't standing behind a pulpit. Sometimes it's the volunteer who keeps showing up, the older believer who becomes a mentor, the family who makes room at their table, or the person who simply says:

"Hey, want to come to church with me?"

Ryan is living evidence of what that invitation can become.

When Worship Becomes About Us

Then we get to the uncomfortable part.

Worship isn't about us.

That's easy to say.

Living like we believe it can be much harder.

In our conversation, Ryan challenges us to examine whether our worship has become centered around preference, entertainment, emotion, or what we receive from the experience.

The question isn't simply:

Did I like worship today?

A better question might be:

Did I worship God today?

There's a difference.

God doesn't become more worthy because the music was good.

He doesn't become less worthy because we didn't like the song.

He doesn't stop being God because the sermon made us uncomfortable.

If our entire relationship with God depends upon whether Christianity makes us comfortable, we're eventually going to struggle when Scripture challenges us.

And Scripture will challenge us.

A Church Can Welcome You AND Call You to Grow

This became another important part of our conversation: the tension between welcome and repentance.

Church should be a place where broken people can walk through the doors.

Church should be a place where someone who doesn't have everything figured out can encounter love, community, Scripture, and Jesus.

But welcoming someone doesn't require pretending transformation isn't part of following Christ.

Jesus meets us where we are—but He loves us enough not to leave us there.

Grace and truth aren't enemies.

Love and accountability aren't enemies.

Welcome and repentance aren't enemies.

The Gospel gives us both an invitation and a call to transformation.

Are We a Mile Wide and an Inch Deep?

One of the ideas we discuss in the episode is whether churches can become a mile wide and an inch deep.

We can count attendance.

We can count views.

We can count followers.

We can count baptisms, programs, events, campuses, downloads, and social-media engagement.

But how do we measure discipleship?

That's harder.

A full room doesn't automatically mean spiritually mature believers are being formed.

And this isn't just a question for pastors.

It's personal.

Am I growing?

Do I know Scripture better than I did a year ago?

Am I becoming more loving?

More obedient?

More generous?

More forgiving?

More willing to repent?

More dependent upon God?

More like Jesus?

Those questions aren't nearly as easy to put on a spreadsheet.

But they matter.

Revival Has to Get Personal

It's easy to look around Christianity and identify what everybody else is doing wrong.

It's much harder to pray:

"God, show me where I need to change."

That's one reason I appreciated this conversation with Ryan.

The heart behind The Church of Me isn't supposed to be pointing across the sanctuary and saying, "Yep, THEY need to hear this."

It's an invitation to examine ourselves.

Ryan actually resisted the idea of writing a book for months after sensing that God was leading him toward it. He had recently completed his master's degree at Asbury Theological Seminary and began praying about what God wanted him to do next. His answer wasn't exactly the one Ryan wanted—he felt called to write.

That eventually became The Church of Me.

And maybe the title itself gives us the question worth carrying into this week:

How much "me" has worked its way into my Christianity?

Not your pastor's Christianity.

Not your neighbor's.

Not the megachurch you saw criticized online.

Not the Christian influencer who irritates you.

Yours. Mine.

Where have comfort, preference, pride, recognition, or self-interest quietly taken a seat that belongs to Jesus?

Maybe the Way Back Is Simpler Than We Think

Read your Bible.

Pray.

Find Christian community.

Seek a mature spiritual mentor.

Worship God because He is worthy.

Be willing to repent.

Serve somebody when there's nothing in it for you.

And keep Jesus at the center.

We don't need a more impressive version of Christianity.

We need Christ.

And if somewhere along the way you've realized that your faith has become shallow, routine, isolated, or centered more on what God can give you than on knowing God Himself, this isn't a reason to run away from Him.

It's an invitation to draw closer.

Ryan actually opened our interview by praying that our conversation would help people grow deeper in their relationship with God, examine their lives, and become better disciples of Jesus.

That's my prayer for this episode, too.

Not that we'll finish it with a longer list of what's wrong with "the Church."

But that we'll each ask God:

What needs to change in me?

🎙️ Watch This Week's Rybickulous Faith

Has Christianity Become Too Self-Centered? | Ryan Ford, The Church of Me

📅 Monday, September 28, 2026⏰ 6:00 AM EST📺 Abundant TV + YouTube🎧 Available across all major podcast platforms

Ryan Ford is the author of The Church of Me: The Rise of Self in the House of God.

🌐 Learn more: https://thechurchofmebook.com📖 Find the book: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Church+of+Me+Ryan+Ford

Come ready for a conversation about worship, discipleship, community, repentance, holiness, spiritual renewal and what it really means to put Jesus back at the center.

Until next time,

Shalom, y'all.

Keep sharing your Rybickulous Faith.