How to Keep from Drifting in a Disconnected World

By Stephen Gaukroger, Founder of Clarion Trust

I have a confession to make: for a long time, I was incredibly jealous of people with dramatic testimonies.

Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, I was constantly surrounded by powerful stories of people coming to Christ out of backgrounds of addiction, prison sentences, or radical lifestyle turnarounds. They had these modern-day Damascus Road experiences.

My story? From a human perspective, it felt incredibly “boring.”

I grew up in a committed, loving Christian household. My parents lived out an authentic, vibrant example of faith. Because of them, I honestly have no memory of life without the church. I must have been about seven years old when I distinctly remember kneeling by my bedside and praying a simple, juvenile prayer: “Dear Jesus, I want whatever it is my parents have. Amen.”

Theologically, it wasn’t a perfect prayer. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was even asking for. But the Lord answers all sorts of inadequate prayers. God met me right there.

But over decades of ministry, leadership, and traveling the world, I’ve had to learn a vital truth: Coming to faith is just the first step; staying connected is where the real battle happens.

Running on Empty

It’s easy to look back at a childhood prayer with nostalgia, but adult life hits hard. We face intellectual challenges, personal tragedies, or deep-seated disillusionment. We look at the state of the world, or worse, we experience severe hurt from within the church itself, and our spiritual battery starts draining.

So, how do we maintain our connection to God over the long haul?

Whenever people ask me how to survive the ups and downs of the Christian life, I point them to a remarkably ordinary object: a standard three-pin electrical plug.

To receive a continuous supply of power and protection, all three pins must be firmly pushed into the socket. If even one pin is loose, the connection fails, and the appliance stops working. It is exactly the same with our faith. To keep from drifting, we need to ensure we are fully plugged into three vital connectivities:

1. Connection to the Word

You must anchor yourself in God’s Word. It is your grounding pin. But a word of practical advice: don’t start in the deep end! If you try to jump straight into Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy, you might get lost. Start in the places that feed your daily walk—the Gospels, the Psalms, the letters of grace. Let it format your mind before the world does.

2. Connection through Prayer

Prayer is not a religious performance, and it doesn’t require a super-spiritual vocabulary. Frankly, some believers use language so heavily religious that they sound completely bizarre even to me! Real prayer is a raw, ongoing conversation. It’s the daily habit of saying, “God, I need your help today. Protect me from making stupid choices, help me love my family well, and guide my behavior.”

3. Connection to Community

You cannot live this life alone. You need a local church, a small group, or a core circle of believers who have been traveling this road a bit longer. Why? Because when you are hitting a wall or walking through a personal tragedy, it can be incredibly difficult to discern God’s voice directly in scripture or prayer. But you can often hear His wisdom beautifully clear through the lived experience and listening ear of a Christian friend.

A Message for the Disillusioned

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “That sounds great, Stephen, but you don’t know how badly I’ve been hurt by the church.”

If that’s you, let’s be completely honest: church members can occasionally be an absolute pain in the backside. There is no point pretending otherwise. Often, it isn’t a life tragedy that drives people away from faith, but the cold, indifferent response of their Christian community during that tragedy.

If you are currently carrying that pain, I want you to hear this loud and clear: You may be disillusioned with God or the church, but God is not disillusioned with you. He never had any illusions about you in the first place! He loves you, warts and all, and desires closeness with you even if you feel miles away.

Cynical disillusionment is an incredibly unfulfilling way to live, and ultimately, it only hurts you. If you want to find your way back, stop looking backward to the environment that broke you. Look forward. Seek out a fresh start, find a wise, mature person or a new community context that will simply listen, unpack your pain, and guide you pastorally without bullying you.

Your Story is Unstoppable

Whether you’ve known Jesus since you were seven or seventy, the world around us desperately needs to see what real connection looks like.

People in our modern secular culture often view church buildings as old, obsolete places you only visit to get married or buried. They are full of intellectual arguments, theological objections, and skepticism.

But I always tell people: A person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.

Nobody can deny your personal experience. You don’t need a degree in academic apologetics to change a life. When you share a transparent, honest story about what God has done in your life—how He met you in your brokenness, healed your hurt, or grounded you in a storm—it is incredibly attractive and disarming.

Take a look at your plug today. Are all three pins firmly in the socket? If you’ve started to drift, don’t wait. Push past the noise, drop your arguments, and plug back into the Source of life.

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