The Time To Build The Underground Church Is Now
Sooner—Because Later Is Already Here
Aug 28
Something is changing in our world, and I believe the Church needs to prepare for what is coming.
For generations, Christians in the West have been accustomed to churches on every corner, Sunday services, websites, livestreams, Christian organizations, and the freedom to gather openly.
We assume those things will always be there.
But what happens if they aren’t?
What happens if the institutional churches we depend upon can no longer operate normally?
What happens when artificial intelligence, robotics, surveillance, digital identification, and increasingly centralized financial systems give governments and institutions capabilities that previous generations never possessed?
We are watching the technological foundations emerge for a level of control that would have been impossible in previous generations.
And Revelation warned us long ago that such a system would eventually come.
THE BEAST SYSTEM
Revelation 13 describes a future in which participation in ordinary economic life becomes conditional—a world in which people cannot buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast.
Think about that.
For most of human history, enforcing something like that across entire populations would have been extraordinarily difficult.
Today, the world is moving toward technologies capable of connecting identity, money, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and automated systems on an enormous scale.
I believe these developments deserve the attention of every Christian.
I also believe we may be much closer to the Tribulation and the Mark of the Beast than most Christians realize.
My personal expectation is that we could see these events unfold within approximately the next five or six years.
That is my interpretation of biblical prophecy. Scripture does not give us a verse declaring that specific timetable, and I am not presenting it as though it does.
But consider something else:
What if the timetable is wrong, but the warning is right?
What do we lose by preparing the Body of Christ?
Nothing.
And what could we lose by refusing to prepare?
Everything.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CHURCHES CLOSE?
Imagine that one day your church building is no longer available.
Your church website disappears.
The social-media accounts you relied upon are inaccessible.
Your pastor cannot simply announce another Sunday service.
The institutions Christians depended upon are suddenly unable to function as they once did.
Then the questions begin:
Where are the other Christians?
Who can I trust?
Where can we gather?
How do we communicate?
Who needs help?
Who can help?
How do we care for elderly and vulnerable believers?
How do we teach our children?
How do we continue studying Scripture together?
How does the Church continue?
That is the wrong time to start looking for one another.
The relationships should already exist.
THE CHURCH IS NOT A BUILDING
We need to remember something Christians have known from the beginning.
The Church is not the building.
The Church is the people.
The Body of Christ can exist without a cathedral, auditorium, denominational headquarters, website, livestream, or professional religious organization.
Christians have gathered under persecution before.
They have gathered in homes.
They have gathered quietly.
They have memorized Scripture.
They have shared what they possessed.
They have protected and encouraged one another.
They have continued following Christ when doing so carried enormous personal consequences.
If such days return, the Church must be prepared to do it again.
BUILD THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH NOW
This is why I believe the time has come to begin establishing an underground network of believers before we actually need an underground network.
Not another denomination.
Not another religious empire.
Not another ministry centered around one personality.
A network.
Christians finding Christians.
Town by town.
City by city.
Community by community.
Find one another now while communication is easy.
Develop relationships now.
Pray together now.
Study Scripture together now.
Learn who lives around you now.
Learn who is alone.
Learn who needs help.
Learn who can help others.
Build trust.
Build fellowship.
Build communities that can survive even if the technologies and institutions that originally connected them disappear.
Build the network before you need the network.
THIS IS WHY I CREATED UNSHACKLED TRUTH MINISTRY
I am not trying to become the leader of an international underground church.
That would defeat the entire purpose.
Unshackled Truth Ministry can provide a doorway.
It can provide ideas.
It can provide an international directory through which believers can discover local connection points.
But your local community must belong to your local believers.
I don’t want everything depending upon me.
I don’t want people around the world waiting for my permission.
And I don’t want local groups collapsing someday simply because Unshackled Truth Ministry is no longer online.
The goal is exactly the opposite.
Once Christians have found one another, the relationships need to become stronger than the platform that introduced them.
If this website disappears, the Church should continue.
If Substack disappears, the Church should continue.
If social media disappears, the Church should continue.
If I disappear, the Church should continue.
Because it was never supposed to be about me.
It is about the Body of Christ.
YOU CAN BEGIN WHERE YOU LIVE
You don’t need hundreds of people.
You don’t need a building.
You don’t need an elaborate organization.
Start by finding other believers.
Perhaps there are five of you.
Perhaps there are ten.
Perhaps there are only two.
Start there.
Get to know one another.
Pray.
Study Scripture.
Build genuine relationships.
Discuss how your community would remain connected during a prolonged disruption.
Think about elderly Christians, disabled believers, families with children, people living alone, and others who might need the Body of Christ around them.
Don’t wait until everything changes to discover who lives five miles away.
Find each other now.
START HERE
I have written two posts to help explain the vision and show you how you can begin making connections for an underground Christian community in your own area.
Building the Underground Church
Start here.
This article explains the original vision for a decentralized underground church network—local communities of believers connected with one another rather than everything depending upon a central organization or individual.
Start Unshackled Truth Ministry in Your Area
Then read this.
It explains how you can begin establishing a local connection point so Christians in your area can find one another and begin developing their own community.
DO NOT WAIT FOR THE CRISIS
If you believe we are approaching the events described in Revelation, preparation should not begin after those events arrive.
It begins beforehand.
And even if you don’t agree with my timetable, ask yourself:
What harm comes from Christians knowing Christians?
What harm comes from believers studying Scripture together?
What harm comes from knowing who needs assistance in your community?
What harm comes from Christians developing stronger local relationships?
What harm comes from preparing the Body of Christ to endure difficult circumstances?
There is no reason to wait.
The technology is changing.
The world is changing.
And I believe biblical prophecy is moving toward fulfillment.
I cannot prove that the Mark of the Beast will arrive on the exact timetable I expect.
But I don’t need an exact date to recognize the wisdom of preparation.
The Church should prepare now.
Not through fear.
Through faith.
Through fellowship.
Through Scripture.
Through prayer.
Through discernment.
Through Christians caring for Christians.
And through local communities strong enough to continue regardless of what happens to the institutions surrounding them.
If the day comes when Christians can no longer gather openly, the question should not be:
“Where is the Church?”
We should already know.
Because we already found one another.
Because we already built the relationships.
Because we already prepared.
The Church is not a building.
The Church is the people.
And the time to build the network is not after we desperately need it.
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