
← That NAMS Podcast25 aug · 20 min
141 - "It Was Easier to Understand the Koran Than to Understand Anglican" - August 25th, 2026
<p><strong>"It Was Easier to Understand the Koran Than to Understand Anglican"</strong></p><p>In episode 141, Jon Shuler keeps pressing on branding — and lets a string of painful, honest moments do the work. A mission student, required to study the Koran for his degree, told Shuler he found it easier to grasp than the word "Anglican." A respected church planter turned down the NAMS family with a single line: "I really don't have energy to join your Anglican Civil War." Two senior clergy pulled him aside to say his vision of a growing, missionary church wasn't Episcopalian at all. And on two recent Sundays, preaching in two lovely, faithful, half-empty congregations, Shuler found himself asking whether a spiritually hungry stranger would ever return. He isn't offering answers yet. He's asking the question every NAMS companion now has to sit with: is the way we're understood in our culture quietly undermining the call God has given us? A candid, humble, and searching episode.</p>