Downsizing: Letting Go of Evangelicalism's Nonessentials

by Michelle Van Loon, Sheri Beth Dusek (Narrator)

Evangelical Christianity has accumulated too many practices, habits, and trends that get in the way of authentic Christian faith. It's time to downsize.

Michelle Van Loon came to faith in Jesus as a Jewish teenager and embraced the first Christian community she evangelicals. Over the next 50 years, she enthusiastically worshiped and worked in a wide variety of evangelical groups.

Looking back on those experiences today, Van Loon treasures the things that truly deepened her faith. At the same time, she laments the accumulation of baggage—religious ideas and practices that were unhelpful at best, and harmful at worst.

Unlike many who have given up on evangelicalism altogether, Van Loon is committed to saving what's worthwhile in the evangelical faith tradition, and she invites others to join her.

Simultaneously critical and hopeful, Downsizing encourages listeners to reflect on their own experience with evangelicalism, evaluate the movement's legacy, and participate in shaping its future.

Audible Audio

Published October 9, 2025

About the author

Michelle Van Loon’s Jewish heritage, spiritual hunger, and storyteller’s sensibilities have been informing her writing and shaping her faith journey since she came to Christ at the tail end of the Jesus Movement. She is the author of eight books, as well as numerous articles, and several full-length plays for the educational market.

She's been a church communications director, served on staff at Trinity International University, and been the U.S. Administrator for an educational ministry based in Jerusalem. She earned a graduate certificate from Northern Seminary in 2017. She's married to Bill, and is mother to three and grandmother to two.