About The Sideline Warrior
Plain language faith content for the Christians who have been sitting on the sideline — and are ready to get off it.
I got saved at six years old because I stole candy from a 7-Eleven.
My mom made me walk back in, confess to the clerk, and pay the 21 cents I owed. The next week I went to Vacation Bible School at a local church. When they explained that we're all sinners who needed someone to take the blame for what we'd done, it clicked. I went forward. That was the moment.
What followed was a long, messy, very normal Christian life. I went to church faithfully until I was twelve, then we moved and I fell out of it. I didn't come back until I was a divorced father with sole custody of an eighteen-month-old son, trying to figure out how to hold everything together. I was in the pew every Sunday — but I wasn't living it. Not really.
As my 30th birthday approached, I was lonely and struggling. I made a pledge to God to get serious. I moved to a new church — the one sponsoring the Christian school my son was attending — and that's where I met Wendy. We met in March, got engaged in June, and married in November. She was the best decision I ever made.
For 33 years we served together. I taught Sunday school, led men's Bible studies and home groups, served as a deacon, AWANA Commander, church treasurer and secretary. Wendy was always in my corner. She was also the one who kept pointing at a problem we both saw clearly.
The church is good at getting people saved. But it struggles with what it's actually called to do — make disciples. People cross the line of faith and then get left to figure it out on their own. They don't know the language. They don't know where to start. And so they sit on the sideline.
Wendy always encouraged me to write. To build something that would fill in the cracks. I lost her to pancreatic cancer on April 2, 2024. Six months later I was laid off. At 62 years old I decided to retire and build what she'd been pushing me toward. That became Disciple Blueprint — a site focused on making fully devoted followers of Christ.
Where The Sideline Warrior Came From
Disciple Blueprint grew. But as it did, I kept running into the same wall. The content I was creating — and most of the Christian content world — speaks a language that a lot of people simply don't understand. The man who just started showing up at church. The guy who got dragged there by his wife and doesn't know what half the words mean. The woman who's been in the pew for years and still feels like she's missing something.
They need the same truth. Just spoken differently.
I heard a podcast where worship artist Brandon Lake talked about how worship music had to reach Bubba too — the guy in the back row who doesn't know all the words but showed up anyway. That landed. That planted the seed.
The Sideline Warrior is for Bubba. It's a guided trail — plain language, no church-speak, no seminary vocabulary — that walks everyday Christians through the foundations of their faith one piece at a time. Not a library to get lost in. A path to follow.
This is the site Wendy pushed me to build. I'm just glad I finally got around to it.
— Raymond
Make Fully Devoted Followers of Christ
The mission is simple. The church gets people saved. The Sideline Warrior helps them figure out what comes next — in language they can actually understand.
No church-speak. No seminary vocabulary. Front porch conversation — the kind you'd have on a tailgate or over a cup of coffee.
Not a library to get lost in. A path with a clear starting point, a clear direction, and a clear destination. One piece at a time.
Helper → Apprentice → Journeyman → Master. You start where you are and go as deep as you want to go. No pressure. No gatekeeping.
The Trail Starts Here
If you just got saved and don't know where to start — start here.
If you've been a Christian for years and feel like you missed something along the way — start here too.
Start the Trail →