When I first started thinking about designs for 57 Ways to Sunday, I started with Jesus.
That seemed like the most natural place to begin. I’m a pastor, so I spend a lot of time studying His words, teaching His words, and thinking about what they mean for everyday life. But when I began designing shirts, I started asking a different kind of question:
How do you take something Jesus taught and turn it into something someone would actually ask you about?
Not just a Bible verse printed across a shirt. Not something another Christian would recognize, nod at, and walk past.
Something that might actually start a conversation.
That question eventually led to Cracked Foundation.
The Closing Words Matter
Cracked Foundation comes from Matthew 7:24–27, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
Think about where Jesus places this teaching.
He has just finished the longest sustained section of His teaching recorded in the Bible. He has talked about anger, lust, marriage, loving your enemies, giving, prayer, fasting, worry, judging others, asking and seeking, the narrow gate, false prophets, and much more.
Then He closes with a picture.
Two men build two houses.
One builds on rock. The other builds on sand.
Then the storm comes.
The difference between them isn't that one man heard Jesus and the other didn't. They both heard.
The difference is what they did with what they heard.
Jesus says the person who hears His words and puts them into practice is like the man who built his house on the rock. The storm comes, but the house stands.
The person who hears His words and doesn't put them into practice is like the man who built on sand.
The storm comes to that house too.
And it falls.
That's a pretty important closing statement.
Jesus doesn't finish the Sermon on the Mount by asking whether we enjoyed the sermon.
He essentially asks:
What are you going to do with what you just heard?
Turning That Into a Shirt
That's where the design challenge started.
How do you take that teaching and put it on a shirt without simply printing Matthew 7:24–27 across the back?
I wanted to come at it from a completely different direction.
I have a friend who works around crawl spaces and foundations, and that world started running through my mind. What if the shirt didn't look like a Christian T-shirt at all?
What if it looked like an advertisement for a foundation company?
So the design became:
CRACKED FOUNDATION?
BE READY FOR THE STORM.
Then we needed a way to point toward the Scripture without immediately giving everything away.
That's where @Matt7.25 came from.
At first glance, it can look almost like a social media handle.
Need foundation help?
Maybe you should contact Matt.
Matt 7.25.
But someone familiar with Scripture may see it immediately:
Matthew 7:25.
That's intentional.
Because the goal isn't necessarily for everyone who sees the shirt to immediately understand it.
Sometimes the goal is for them not to understand it.
Because that's when they might ask.
“What's Your Shirt About?”
That's the moment the design was made for.
If I'm wearing Cracked Foundation and somebody asks me, “What's your shirt about?” I now have an open door.
I don't have to manufacture a conversation about Jesus.
They started it.
And I can say something like:
“This shirt actually comes from something Jesus taught at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. After teaching all of these things about how we should live, Jesus said that if we hear His words and don't put them into practice, we're like someone who builds a house on sand. But if we hear what He says and actually live it, we're like someone who builds on a solid foundation. Then, when the storms come, the house can stand.”
And from there, we can have a conversation.
Not a sermon.
A conversation.
Three Kinds of People
The more I think about this passage, the more I see three possible responses.
One isn't specifically mentioned in Jesus' illustration, but it's important.
There are people who have never heard.
You can't respond to something you've never heard. You can't put into practice teaching you've never been given.
That's one reason Christians have to be willing to speak.
Then there are people who hear but don't act.
They know what Jesus says. Maybe they've heard it for years. But it goes in one ear and out the other. They hear how they ought to live without ever allowing those words to change how they actually live.
There can be a tremendous frustration in that kind of life—constantly hearing truth but never building on it.
Then there are those who hear and do.
They don't merely admire the teaching of Jesus.
They build on it.
And Jesus says that when the storm comes—and notice that the storm comes to both houses—the life built on His words has a foundation capable of standing.
That's discipleship.
Hearing Jesus.
Trusting Jesus.
And then actually doing what He says.
Be Ready for the Storm
That's why those words are on the shirt.
Be ready for the storm.
Jesus never promises that building on the right foundation means the storm won't come.
It comes.
The question is what you've built on before it gets there.
But there's another lesson behind this shirt that matters just as much to me.
When somebody asks about it, I don't need to explain everything I know about Matthew 7.
I don't need to preach the entire Sermon on the Mount.
I need to answer their question.
And then maybe ask one of my own.
Then listen.
That's something I'm increasingly convinced Christians need to learn how to do.
Be a listener, not just an explainer.
The shirt opened the door. Walk through it. Tell them why it matters to you. Tell them what Jesus said.
Then give them room to talk.
Ask what they think.
Ask what they've experienced.
Ask what they're building their life on.
And listen to the answer.
Because the purpose of Cracked Foundation was never simply to put Matthew 7:24 on somebody's chest.
The purpose was to create an opportunity for two people to talk about it.
That's what we mean when we say:
Wear your faith. Start a conversation. Grow the Kingdom.
Wear the Conversation
Cracked Foundation is available in both a short-sleeve T-shirt and a long-sleeve T-shirt. We're also looking at bringing this design to other merchandise—more everyday ways to spark a conversation.
Shop Cracked Foundation — Short Sleeve | Shop Cracked Foundation — Long Sleeve