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Contextualized Holiness

Holiness as positive difference that stays in the city.

For who makes you different from anyone else?

✦

You never change the world by being just like it.

—

Brian Sanders

Overview

Different, coauthored by Brian Sanders and Michael Patz, is a handbook for disciples who already believe in incarnational, relevant ministry and still need a theology of positive difference. The book opens on Paul’s question in 1 Corinthians 4:7 and answers with holiness revisited: to be holy as the Father is holy is to be different in the way God is different. The Latin root of indifference, they remind readers, is to be without difference. Spiritual apathy grows where distinction and conviction thin out.

The authors write as pastors of communities that have learned to move into cities, third places, and workplaces. A decade into that rediscovery, they grow tired of cheering uniforms while the game goes unplayed. Inhabiting a pub without audible witness and discernible holiness in the witness herself is only the first step. Holiness is the masterpiece they chase: lives that provoke jealousy for God, fascinate the heart, and call systems to redemption because the people calling are themselves redeemed and redemptive.

The pathway is twelve provocative questions posed in Scripture. Each chapter hangs discipleship and church life on one question: difference, Christology, identity, intimacy, the poor, servant authority, empowered love, embodiment, total surrender, the Spirit, wonder, and commission. Progressive and traditionalist instincts appear as one worldly coin. Withdrawal and mimicry both fail the same test. Contextualized holiness holds the middle: against the systems of the world, for the people of the world, as aliens who stay.

This page stays inside that one book. Chapter 1 defines the term. The twelve questions supply the framework. Chapter 5 overlaps the remember-the-poor theme and stays here as the holiness angle on love for the least. A single clause in The 6 Seasons of Calling names holiness as maturation across a life; it is a thin supporting echo, not a second home for the idea.

The usual question:

For who makes you different from anyone else?

The better question:

For who makes you different from anyone else?

The framework

The idea

Sanders and Patz present contextualized holiness as twelve biblical questions, kept in fixed order, each answered as one facet of positive difference. The pathway is written for churches that have already learned to incarnate a context and have not yet learned to be holy there. Keep the chapter names and the locked questions exactly as the book gives them. Read them as a sequence of formation, each question searching a different nerve of discipleship and church life, until positive difference is practiced rather than only named.

Indifference, aliens, and contextualized holiness

The book opens on 1 Corinthians 4:7 and treats indifference as a church without difference. Holiness is positive difference: discovering God’s character and imitating it in personal and common life. Sanders and Patz write for communities that already believe in incarnational presence. They still insist that aliens stay in the city, love the people of the world, and oppose the systems of the world. Contextualized holiness means discerning the local shape of lust and pride, then coming out of that sway while remaining present among neighbors. Spiritual Stockholm syndrome names what happens when captives sympathize with their context more than with Jesus. “You never change the world by being just like it” is their opening line. Difference makers must be different, and the desert offers no shortcut around that work.

Jesus and the fullness of time

Holiness as difference requires a whole Jesus. Sanders and Patz hang Mark 8:29 over a call to totus Christus: the Lord who was, who is, and who is to come. Trimming paradoxes to fit a trend produces a false Christ who cannot save. Discipleship means surrendering life’s control under the confession “Jesus is Lord,” with past grace, present lordship, and future judgment held together. Cultural cages clip the wingspan of Christology until the church can no longer fly. Beholding the fullness of Jesus includes hard words and coming justice alongside healing and mercy. Wide-eyed theology, in their terms, refuses a domesticated Messiah. The Christological root of being different is surrender to the real Jesus rather than a revision that flatters the age.

Fairy tales and the non-conformity of grace

Gazing on Jesus reveals being known and loved. That love roots identity and frees non-conformity. Genesis 32:27’s naming question becomes the chapter’s hinge: God renames people who have lived under shame and crowd-definition. Sanders and Patz distinguish guilt before God from shame before people, then urge living from God-given names rather than sin-labels or social proof. Grace covers both justification and sanctification; what God starts, he finishes. Children nicknamed in affection become a small image of naming that heals. Martyrs, confessors, and the lapsed in the early church show how communities either restore or crush the named. The non-conformity of grace is the freedom of beloved people who no longer sew borrowed tags onto a life that already belongs to Another. Holiness here begins as identity received, then lived aloud.

Shut doors and intimacy with God

Knowing about God without intimacy produces second-hand faith and dead mission. Sanders and Patz call communities back to first love: seeking God’s face by gazing and inquiring behind a shut door before public work. Jesus’s secret prayer is the pattern. The practice is concrete: a private room, devices off, household told not to interrupt, waiting past boredom, staying until the seeking is done. Fasting and corporate seclusion can serve the same shut-door work. Without that heat held in, influence leaks like an open oven. Leaders who leverage people toward seeking God recover the order Jesus kept: desolate-place prayer before public power. Holiness here is relational nearness that then sends people outward with something real to give, rather than borrowed language about a God they rarely meet.

Fashion, trends, and love for the poor

Matthew 25 binds Jesus to the least. Sanders and Patz warn that concern for justice and the poor can become fashion that fades when the trend cools. Holiness loves the margins when it is obscure and costly. The watching world will not heed a message unembodied among the weakest. Church design that plans showers for the homeless alongside nurseries for the middle class tells the truth about preference. Wedding-vow perseverance replaces conditional ministry that lasts only until the work stops feeling romantic. When calling is unclear, the book’s counsel is simple: love someone on the margins. This chapter is one of the twelve and also the holiness angle on remember-the-poor. Perseverance among the hungry, stranger, and imprisoned tests whether difference is enduring character or a season’s style.

Egomaniacs and the authority of the servant

The world watches how the church handles authority. Misuse betrays the gospel. Sanders and Patz locate true authority in intimacy with God and servant-first leadership: decrease so Christ may increase, friend of the groom rather than rival for the bride. Promote proven servants and teach them to lead; do not merely teach gifted performers to serve as a tactic. Celebrity platforms and ego-driven promotions fail the test of 1 Corinthians 3. A leadership meeting that never mentions Jesus is already showing its god. Followers share responsibility by refusing ego-driven leaders. The daily question becomes faithfulness to him more than platform growth. Servant authority is holiness with a title: small leaders, like a coxswain, who steer without needing to be the spectacle at the front of the boat.

Visions and empowered love

Jesus’s love is power joined to self-giving strength. Sanders and Patz refuse sentimental love that never acts and refuse power that never loves. They resist Moses-archetype vision-casting that hoards authority at the top. They urge permission and commission: leaders who release dreams, share missional authority, and answer a claimed calling with a discerning yes after counting cost. Luke 22:27’s servant question frames greatness. The Great Commission and shared thrones in Revelation become patterns for distributed empowerment. Young and old alike may see visions when the Spirit is poured out on all flesh. Marginal gains of love across ordinary contexts matter. Holiness here is love strong enough to demolish what opposes love, and humble enough to let others lead into their own callings.

Embodiment and a faith that saves

James 2 asks whether disembodied belief can save. Sanders and Patz insist that life always preaches. Saving faith bears visible fruit; deeds do not earn salvation, yet they are the course of a salvation already received and they earn a hearing. Root idolatry, not only surface behavior, must be addressed if change is to last. The Word made flesh is the pattern for a people whose bodies tell the truth. A father’s hush money can preach louder than a gospel pitch; a community’s hospitality can earn the right to be heard. Communities that claim orthodoxy while living contradiction teach a louder message than their sermons. Embodiment is holiness with skin: faith that neighbors can see, test, and begin to trust before they finish your outline.

Widows and the heresy of half

Mark 12’s widow gives all she had to live on. Sanders and Patz name partial surrender the heresy of half: holding back life, talent, time, or money while offering God a percentage. The only gift worthy of God is all. Reform rhetoric without total offering undermines the kingdom. The widow’s gift judges both personal withholding and religious systems that devour the vulnerable while praising large gifts from excess. American instincts to remove pain can miss the beauty of costly faithfulness God already sees. Nothing amassed is enough to live on without him. Offer however much faith you have, without waiting for robes or position. Holiness here is undivided trust, wagering everything on God rather than buying him off with some while the rest stays self-insured and privately managed.

Sweet tea and the wind of God

Acts 19 opens with Paul’s Spirit question rather than a denominational checklist. Sanders and Patz distinguish sealed from filled: positional belonging can leave practical life unstirred, like sweet tea that still needs heat. Mission and obedience need the Spirit’s filling, asked for again and again before teaching, conflict, or care for the poor. Leaders open the window in gatherings and decisions. Desire prophecy; refuse to forbid tongues; interpret for outsiders so love builds up. A missional church that tones down Spirit activity for guest predictability trades power for polish. Pneuma and ruach remind readers that wind and Spirit share a name. Keep asking; there is no once-filled-always-filled complacency in their reading. Holiness includes receiving that wind as ongoing dependence, never a one-time footnote to an otherwise natural religion.

Boredom, stools, and the search for wonder

Luke 7 asks what people came out to see when they went after John. Sanders and Patz argue that preaching, broadly understood, must carry authority and wonder rather than casual stool-chat that keeps cookies on the bottom shelf. Boredom can be a grace that signals hunger for more than repetition and confinement. They say wonder answers boredom; adrenaline only masks it. Speak what moves you from Scripture’s breath; if unmoved, sit down. Know nothing but Christ crucified when you stand. Speak only what Christ has accomplished through you. If people are bored, lock yourself alone in prayer until God seems beautiful again. Holiness recovers amazement so the message differs from self-improvement talk and refuses to entertain a room into sleep.

Commission, kids, and the kingdom come

Luke 6:46 closes the book’s arc into Matthew 28’s charge: make disciples by baptizing and teaching to observe, life on life. Sanders and Patz insist the church reproduces who it is. Spiritual parenting overlaps ordinary days with prayer, repentance, suffering, and presence among the hungry and available. Feeding sheep includes seeking lost sheep beyond the already-churched. Choose people who will receive the call; pray through the night before you choose. Dirty fingernails in shared life beat endless reading alone. Seedless ministry may taste sweet for one generation and leave none after it. Programs, song lists, and flow charts cannot carry the commission. Holiness ends in obedience: calling Jesus Lord while doing what he says, multiplying difference into daughters and sons who will do the same.

Contextualized holiness recovers a church whose incarnation counts: distinct enough to fascinate, present enough to love, obedient enough to multiply.

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Scripture

The Biblical Mandate

1 Corinthians 4:7

The book’s scripture method is question-led. 1 Corinthians 4:7 founds the holiness inquiry; the come-out and alien texts name identity; Matthew 25, James 2, and Mark 12 press difference into poverty-love, embodiment, and total surrender. The remaining chapter questions (Mark 8:29, Genesis 32:27, Mark 14:37, 1 Corinthians 3:4, Luke 22:27, Acts 19:2, Luke 7:24, Luke 6:46) continue the same thread across the twelve.

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Formation practices

Ask for the Spirit

Personally ask the Father to fill you with the Holy Spirit again before you teach, lead, or serve.

Step 1

Read the Acts 19 question slowly.

Step 2

Ask the Father for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11 pattern).

Step 3

Before one concrete task, ask again for filling.

Step 4

In one gathering, leaders “open the window” for Spirit dependence.

Step 5

Notice sealed confidence versus stirred power.

Step 6

Keep asking; refuse once-filled-always-filled complacency.

Step 7

Choose a fast length your community can support.

Step 8

Tell trusted friends what you are doing.

Step 9

When hunger or resistance rises, name the “now” demand you feel.

Step 10

Keep praying through the wait without demanding instant payoff.

Step 11

Afterward, write what sway became visible.

Step 12

Share one learning with a friend.

Step 13

Pick a private place (room, woods, or quiet corner).

Step 14

Turn off phone and computer.

Step 15

Tell household members not to interrupt if needed.

Step 16

Gaze and worship before you petition.

Step 17

Stay past boredom until the seeking is done.

Step 18

Only then return to plans and people.

Step 19

Name one person or place on the margins near you.

Step 20

Show up without publicity.

Step 21

Meet a concrete need (food, presence, ride, listening).

Step 22

Refuse to treat the act as a short excursion badge.

Step 23

Ask what perseverance would require for thirty more days.

Step 24

Debrief with one teammate: was this fashion or holiness?

Sit with these from your actual context. Let the twelve questions of *Different* search you.

Resources

Resources for the journey

book(link)

Different, chapter 1

1-indifference-aliens-and-contextualized-holiness

book(link)

Different, the twelve questions

chapters 1-12 (body chapters in order)

book(link)

Different, chapter 5 (overlap with remember-the-poor)

5-fashion-trends-and-love-for-the-poor

book(link)

The 6 Seasons of Calling, introduction

introduction

AI Lab

Ask the Lab how contextualized holiness lands in your actual neighborhood, team, and habits of difference. You help readers practice contextualized holiness as Brian Sanders and Michael Patz teach it in *Different*. Hold open the reframing question: For who makes you different from anyone else? Draw first from *Different*’s twelve chapters in order. Attribute every claim from that book to Sanders and Patz together, or to “the book.” Never say “Sanders says” for a *Different* sentence. Keep the twelve parts distinct; do not collapse them into one slogan. Prefer chapter 1 for definition, chapter 5 when the question is the poor as a holiness test, and the matching question-chapter for any vice or practice. Related theme remember-the-poor shares chapter 5; stay on holiness here unless the reader asks for the poor theme. Do not route readers to the Underground manifesto for this theme. Ask about the reader’s context before prescribing. Cite works by title. When the reader wants to act, point to Try it (fasting, shut-door prayer, margin love, asking for the Spirit) and Questions to sit with. Refuse invented stories and antithesis cadence as a primary prose move.

Try: “Where are we similar to our city without knowing it?”
Try: “How does Matthew 25 test our holiness?”
Try: “Walk our team through the twelve questions.”
Try: “What would shut-door prayer change in our week?”
Try: “Are we offering God a percentage or our all?”

Explore the AI Lab

What is holiness in this book?

Holiness is positive difference: imitating God’s character in a real place. Sanders and Patz reclaim the word from pedantic legalism and treat it as desirable distinction that makes mission effective.

What does the heresy of half mean?

Holding back some of life, talent, time, or money while offering God a percentage. The widow in Mark 12 gives all she had to live on; the only gift worthy of God is all.

Can a church be incarnational and leave no mark?

Yes. Sanders and Patz say inhabiting a pub without audible witness and discernible holiness in the witness is only putting on the uniform. Presence without difference leaves seekers with more of the same.

How does love for the poor belong to holiness?

Jesus binds himself to the least in Matthew 25. Loving the poor is loving him. Enduring, obscure care among the margins tests whether holiness is fashion or character.

What practice works holiness into a soul?

Few disciplines, they say, work holiness like fasting. In a culture of now, fasting trains waiting and sacrifice and reveals the world’s immediate sway.

Is withdrawal from culture the holy path?

The book says the desert is not the answer for holiness or mission. Declining participation can deepen a world’s influence. Aliens stay and bless.

Are progressives and traditionalists different problems?

Sanders and Patz treat them as two sides of one worldly coin. Lawless and legalist versions both play to lust and pride. Holiness is another option.

Watch for distortion

Misreadings

Churches reduce holiness to not drinking or smoking, then either cling to that list as the whole of difference or discard the word holiness when the list feels dated. Sanders and Patz applaud the impulse to set God’s people apart and refuse to let that impulse exhaust the meaning. Holiness is positive difference: imitating God’s character in life together. The invitation to be different is an invitation to discover and embody who God is. Legalism’s pedantic form is a thin memory of a thicker call. Teams celebrate relocation into pubs, workplaces, and poor neighborhoods as the win, then wonder why conversion and repentance stay unclear. The book cheers missional presence and then says presence is like putting on uniforms. Without discernible holiness in the witness, the mission has not yet begun to play. Seekers crave different. Contextualized holiness keeps incarnation from becoming assimilation. Leaders conclude that loving God means exiting culture, then build distance that deepens the world’s influence while mission dies. Sanders and Patz argue that declining participation often deepens influence. Desert retreat is neither the answer for holiness nor for mission. Aliens embrace peculiar identity inside the city, against the world’s systems and for the world’s people.

Holiness means the old abstention list

Churches reduce holiness to not drinking or smoking, then either cling to that list as the whole of difference or discard the word holiness when the list feels dated.

Sanders and Patz applaud the impulse to set God’s people apart and refuse to let that impulse exhaust the meaning. Holiness is positive difference: imitating God’s character in life together. The invitation to be different is an invitation to discover and embody who God is. Legalism’s pedantic form is a thin memory of a thicker call.

Incarnation without holiness is enough

Teams celebrate relocation into pubs, workplaces, and poor neighborhoods as the win, then wonder why conversion and repentance stay unclear.

The book cheers missional presence and then says presence is like putting on uniforms. Without discernible holiness in the witness, the mission has not yet begun to play. Seekers crave different. Contextualized holiness keeps incarnation from becoming assimilation.

Holiness requires withdrawal

Leaders conclude that loving God means exiting culture, then build distance that deepens the world’s influence while mission dies.

Sanders and Patz argue that declining participation often deepens influence. Desert retreat is neither the answer for holiness nor for mission. Aliens embrace peculiar identity inside the city, against the world’s systems and for the world’s people.

Key terms

Pathway vocabulary

contextualized holiness: Sanders and Patz’s name for alien identity that stays in the city: loving the world’s people, opposing the world’s systems, and discerning the local shape of pride and lust. Holiness delivered in context rather than by withdrawal or mimicry.
positive difference: Their working definition of holiness: discovering God’s character and imitating it in personal and collective life. Difference that is meaningful and desirable, not alienated oddity for its own sake.
alien identity: Church as those who have come out, embracing peculiar identity against the world’s sway for the world’s sake. Aliens who expect mistreatment, bless enemies, and refuse surprise when the city of man misunderstands the city of God.
heresy of half: Chapter 9’s name for holding back a reserve while offering God a percentage. Measured against the widow who gave all she had to live on. The only gift worthy of God is all.
embodiment: Chapter 8’s insistence that life preaches. Faith alone saves, and the faith that saves is never alone. Deeds are the course of salvation and earn a hearing for the gospel.
non-conformity of grace: Chapter 3’s fruit of being named and loved by God. Grace frees people from shame-driven social proof so identity rests on God’s naming rather than the crowd’s.
servant authority: Chapter 6’s pattern: promote proven servants, refuse ego leadership, measure the day by faithfulness to Jesus. Power for the bride without rivaling the groom.
wonder: Chapter 11’s goal for proclamation. Boredom can signal hunger for more; wonder, not entertainment, is the answer. Speak from Scripture that has moved you.
commission: Chapter 12’s close: baptizing and teaching to observe, seeking lost sheep, overlapping ordinary life with formation. Programs are not the commission; obedience that multiplies is.

About the author

About Brian Sanders

Founder

Founder of the Underground Network and a practitioner of microchurch movement in Tampa's inner city.

Contextualized Holiness

Remember the poor