When Christianity Becomes Just Doing: Returning to a Fully Alive Faith
There is something we are lacking in Christianity today… functionality.
By functionality,
I mean the actual lived experience of faith, integrated into our nervous system, relationships, breath, and daily movement.
Whether someone identifies as Christian, spiritual, or practices yoga and meditation we often have something in common:
We focus on the doing.
The modality.
The Sunday attendance.
The journaling.
The bible studies.
The breathwork.
The practices.
The knowledge.
And we tell ourselves
“I am doing the right things. I am being diligent.”
But are we present?
Are we embodied?
Are we in relationship with God in the ordinary rhythms of our nervous system?
We can fill our minds to capacity but remain disconnected from our hearts, from our sensations, from the very God who dwells within us.
“Don’t you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” 1 Corinthians 6:19
Even in yoga, even in meditation, even in church, so much is done without being trauma-informed. Without honouring the humanity of lived experience.
Yet we see in the New Testament, Jesus always led with the person, not the practice.
Religious tradition before Him was obligation, rule, ritual and external performance.
Jesus came to restore our humanity, not deny it.
John 1:14
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
Flesh, Body, Somatic, Embodied
Jesus didn’t call us to spiritual bypassing, He called us to integration.
He noticed the woman touching His cloak in a crowd (Luke 8:43–48).
He wept openly with Mary and Martha (John 11:35).
He let the children interrupt Him (Mark 10:14).
He rested (Mark 6:31).
He breathed peace into anxious bodies (John 20:21–22).
Every healing encounter was through presence, through felt safety and through connection.
Meanwhile, the Pharisees were experts in correct practices, experts in Scriptures, yet Jesus said their worship was surface-level.
“These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Matthew 15:8
Spiritual bypassing is not new, it happened then and it happens now.
When we stay in the head information without transformation and what we offer is temporary, momentary relief. As in 2 Corinthians 4:18
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Not works as in tasks, but works as in embodied living.
Jesus didn’t come to modify behaviour.
He came to regulate nervous systems with His presence.
To restore belonging.
To free us from survival mode into life to the full (John 10:10).
To anchor us in love that builds resilience
“Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18
Fear lives in the body, love must too.
What Christianity needs today is not more doing, but a return to being with God…
A faith that can be felt.
A theology that can be lived.
A spirituality that holds our humanity.
A Gospel that reaches the nervous system.
A love that heals more than the moment but our entire story.
If you desire a faith that is lived and felt not just understood, join us in the Rooted in Grace community, or explore the Embody His Love package to learn the somatic foundations of embodied Christianity.
