Kings Kaleidoscope front-man Chad Gardner knows a thing or two about church hurt and deconstruction, having been at the coal face of the famed implosion of the Mars Hill megachurch.

Having worked as a worship pastor at the church from 2010 (the time of Kings K’s formation) until his resignation in 2013, he had to both deal with and walk alongside the emotional and spiritual damage caused by the collapse of a ministry.

Mars Hills implosion set many of the congregants and leaders on a path of deconstruction; many reassessed their beliefs of church and faith itself.

Sadly, some people left Christianity altogether, as their deconstruction turned to deconversion.

The Mars Hill fallout coincided with deconstruction becoming something of a “buzzword” in the evangelical lexicon.

Musicians Kevin Max from DC Talk and Dustin Kensure from Thrice (and Mars Hill), former church leader Rob Bell, author Jen Hatmaker, and singer/podcaster Michael Gungor are just a few of the more well-known public Christians who talk about their own deconstructions, with some now adopting the label “exvangelical”.

Every one of these people (and many others) has their own reason for deconstructing.

Statistically speaking though, negative experiences at the hands of church members, and human suffering, are the biggest triggers for deconstructing belief.

For Chad, having a firm foundation of faith before the calamity of Mars Hill was crucial to holding onto his own beliefs.

“The environment of the mega-church that I was a part of for a few years was very sure of itself,” said Chad, speaking on Undeceptions.

“There wasn’t very much nuance. It was, in a sense, even competitive with other perspectives of Christianity and, in a sense, that actually became sort of the cornerstone and the foundation of a lot of my friend’s faith, and maybe mine in some ways for a time.

But … I had had a decent amount of life before being in that environment where I was familiar with praying.

“I was familiar with my relationship with God on my own. So when that foundation sort of fell out from under the whole church, I just did see a lot of friends who, if that had been their, initiation into belief that was sort of what caused a lot of questions.

“So a lot of my deconstructing of like, ‘All right, this is not real Christianity” or, “this is a sort of a twist on this’ – I think that was happening naturally just with me and my friends on staff where we were seeing that for a couple of years coming down the pipeline.”

‘The Rush’ off the album Zeal, an album dealing with deconstruction

While Chad’s experience drove him toward God, he walked alongside friends – bandmates even- who were questioning everything they believed.

When asked by John what advice he had for anyone undergoing radical deconstruction, he had somewhat of a Kierkegaardian response:

“ I don’t have all the answers, but I want to love God and I want to feel God’s love in me abiding with him throughout this journey with all the questions in the world … and so, I often just sort of think about my friends that are struggling and it feels very much in their heads”, he said.

“What I want to say to them sometimes is, ‘Okay, I understand that you have like huge theological questions and like huge problems with the church – and actually, pretty much every Christian could agree with you on a lot of those things. There are clearly problems and there’s clearly mystery that you’re not going to solve.

“But if you’re taking all of this time to read books to unpack things or listen to podcasts that are helping you unpack things … what if you took that hour every day and just sat in silence and prayer or what if you took that hour every day and sat with one section of Scripture and meditated on it?’

“Because I feel like that side of the relational – and honestly, I’m just going to say it – prayer with God, that really changes things.

Like where’s the energy going? If the energy is going to untangling things, you’re kind of going to be left completely untangled.

“If this is that important, what if you spend an hour a day in prayer for a month and see what the Lord has for you? That’s honestly where I would go.”

Adapted by Alasdair Belling, from Chad Gardner’s interview with John Dickson on the Undeceptions podcast episode ‘Deconstructing Faith‘

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