About

Two lives, one shirt.

A founder's letter from Jason. Working draft — he'll personalize it from here.

I started this because I was tired of leading two lives.

There was the one that prayed in the morning. And there was the one that walked into the day after and pretended none of that had happened — that the prayer hadn't asked anything of me, that the verse I'd underlined didn't have a name on it, that the part of my life with Jesus in it was a private hobby I'd taken up and might one day grow out of.

I was good at the bifurcation. Most of us are. We learn it early. The world rewards the version of us that doesn't bring Christ into the room, and after a while we forget we were ever supposed to.

The first time I wore a shirt with a verse on it, I left the house and immediately found a jacket. I told myself it was the air conditioning at the office. I knew it wasn't.

What I noticed — and what I keep noticing — is that the fear wasn't of Christ. The fear was of being seen as someone who took Him seriously. There is a difference. The world has made room for spiritual people. It has not made the same room for disciples. A disciple is a learner who has thrown in. The throwing-in is the part that costs.

Rebel Disciple is not a clothing brand pretending to be a faith brand. It is a faith decision that needed a shirt to wear. The garment is small on purpose. A chest emblem. A mark a stranger has to look twice to read. The conversation starts in the second look — what is that? — and the wearer gets to decide what to say next. That is the whole product. The shirt is the door; the disciple is the room.

I am not writing this from the finish line. I do not have any of this figured out. I am building this brand from the same road I'm asking you to walk on, and I'm wearing the shirt for the same reason I'm asking you to: because every time I put it on, I get one more rep at being the person I prayed to be that morning. Some days I'm better at it than others. Most days I'm a beginner.

The rebellion in the name is not against the culture, though there is plenty there to push back on. The rebellion is against the fear that keeps a disciple's faith inside the house. The original Christians did not have that option. They were a small, dangerous minority wearing their allegiance into a Roman world that punished them for it, and the way the church grew then is the same way it will grow now — one disciple at a time, going first, willing to be seen.

If you read this and want to follow, I would rather walk with you than lead you. The brand is for the believer and for the skeptic and for the one still working it out. The door is open. The shirt is the easiest first rep I know.

I started this because I was tired of leading two lives. I am betting you are too.

— Jason