Don't Take the Deal: God Is More Awesome Than You Think and the Church Shouldn't Suck as Much as It Sometimes Does

by Todd Wagner

Publisher:

Thomas Nelson

, 2025

Don’t Take the Deal calls for God’s people to stop living a mediocre, feel-good, status-quo Christianity and instead fight for a faith that brings abundant joy and gives all the glory to God.

Many Christians, unfortunately, have already accepted the deal. They routinely validate pastors and leaders, attending weekly services and giving only enough money only to keep the lights on and the activities rolling. In exchange, they receive civil, encouraging, and self-help messages that never ask for anything more. Both parties in this deal also believe they are doing what God wants. 

The senior pastor at Watermark Community Church, Dallas, Texas, Todd Wagner says these believers are missing out on what Jesus has in mind for his beautiful bride (Rev. 19:7), from whom he withholds no good thing (Psalm 84:11). If in regular church attendance, some Christians feel they are barely holding it together spiritually, Wagner offers them the abundant life (John 10:10). He guides them in understanding that the church is to proclaim the excellencies of him who has called her out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9) and communicate his boundless grace and liberating truth to the world (John 8:32), including family and friends.

Wagner calls every churchgoer to honestly ask, Does my current way of living accurately reflect what God says will bring glory to him and abundant joy to me? 

In a message as audacious as Crazy Love and Radical, when they were first released, Don’t Take the Deal challenges Christians to live together boldly for Jesus. In this way, life is found, and church becomes a place of great joy and incredible life-change.

Product Details

• Title: Don't Take the Deal: God Is More Awesome Than You Think and the Church Shouldn't Suck as Much as It Sometimes Does
• Author: Todd Wagner
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Print Publication Date: 2025
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9780785239673, 9780785239659, 0785239650, 9780785239680, 0785239685, 0785239677
• Resource ID: LLS:9780785239673
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-08-07T05:32:45Z

About Todd Wagner

Todd Wagner is the founding pastor of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas, which for years has been one of the largest and fastest growing churches in the nation. Watermark was established with the hope of making the invisible kingdom visible to the spiritually confused, compromised, and lost friends in the surrounding city. Todd and his wife, Alex, have six children.