About Fat Sheep
My name is Carly Jensen! I am most passionate about the increase of Bible literacy in a world that has little access, tools, or guidance on truly knowing and experiencing fullness of life in God's Word. Through my own journey of falling in love over and over with the God of the Bible, I desire to lead others into the same greatest romance of all.
Keep scrolling to learn more about secularism, the modern church, and Bible illiteracy in the West (and me!)
About Carly
I've always been captivated by the weight and power of words, poetry, and music ever since I could remember. I started writing poetry and music when I was 13 and it became the outlet I had through some difficult years of growing up in a broken world. Many people process emotions, experiences, and passions by writing in a journal, but writing songs was my journal. I started writing specifically Biblical poetry in a Bible school I attended later and haven't stopped since.
I grew up in Christian home, but didn't grasp what being God's image meant. Through many painful experiences and periods of depression, I landed on a sort of rock bottom as I was graduating high school and didn't know what to do next. I was introduced to Youth With a Mission, which offered a discipleship school (DTS) in Colorado Springs. I was in a place where I so desperately wanted to know if God was real, so choosing to go to DTS was me forcing myself to find out. Either I'd go to DTS and it wouldn't change anything, or it could be what saved me from myself.
Praise be to God who let me experience His pursuit while I was in DTS. I heard His voice, recognized His unconditional love, and became vulnerable before Him and others for really the first time. I remember it being a season of daily tears, confrontation, and baby steps, but also the sparking of a joy and love I had never known before.
I later pursued a career in nursing where I became a Neonatal ICU nurse, hoping to one day use it in the mission field. During my shifts at the hospital, I started falling in love with God's word (I'll talk more about it below) and left my career to pursue Bible education and equipping to be a teacher of God's word!
From there, I've only grown to fall in love with God through a rollercoaster of experiences and pain and redemption and joys. He's taught me the gift of pain. He's taught me the necessity of Him. He's taught me the only worthy pursuit of serving Him wholeheartedly. He now beckons me to "feed His sheep".
If you want to learn more about my testimony and how God has used pain to shape me, click the link below for a book I wrote: How Sickness Saved My Life
Secularism in the West
The heritage of the West was built upon Biblical foundations, but it has progressively moved away from truth and embraced secularism.
Secularism is the independence of societal institutions from religion, proudly proclaiming that neutrality is freedom. Culture thinks it's separate from religion but it has just created a religion of self, the worship of human autonomy. They want the kingdom of love, justice and peace, but don't want the king. They want to be king. They want to be the authors of truth yet they're still asking, “what is truth?” because they haven’t found freedom yet.
But here’s the problem:
When humans choose to be the god of their own lives, they’re willingly selling themselves into slavery to corrupted desire. The Bible teaches that human hearts are sick with sin.. they cannot guide to beauty, only destruction. Human hearts need complete regeneration, not more power to choose. God created submission to His beautiful design to mean freedom, value, and purpose.. but secular society refuses to dethrone themselves.
Society has become…
Angry because they think they’re victims to bad circumstances
Confused because reality is relative
Indifferent to good because morality has also become relative
Despaired because they don’t know what makes life worth living
I can't convince a culture that the Bible is the truth because to them, truth is relative. What I can tell them is that there's something more… and its beauty is what can show them it is truth.
What is Bible literacy?
Bible literacy is simply the ability to understand and apply the truth of the Bible.
3 years ago, I took an online Bible class and I was dumbfounded by the depth and beauty I saw for the first time. I thought most of it would be familiar because I knew these stories, but the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to something more, and it was as if I was reading those stories for the first time. It made me wonder how I’d been in church my whole life yet never saw the necessity of studying the Bible until now. I grew an insatiable appetite for it.. I hadn’t realized I was spiritually starving until I was finally being fed. It started re-shaping my worldview - not only of my own heart, but of God’s. I fell deeply in love with the author and consumed by the desire to make this love letter known to a famished world. After a year of studying at coffee shops and on my shifts, I chose to leave my nursing career to go get equipped to change this.
April 2nd, 2025
This was the day God implanted an unquenchable burning for Bible literacy in my heart. I was at home on break from Bible school. That week He showed me so many people I loved hungering for God's truth, but not knowing how to consume it. I remember bawling on my knees before God aching, “God, the church is starving. This has to change." He responded, “You’re going to be a part of that.” From that day on, I committed to His vision, ready for each new step towards it. “..there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot!” Jeremiah 20:9
Bible Literacy in the Western Church
Why is the Western culture that has been predominantly Christianized still trapped in spiritual poverty, secularism, and brokenness?
Bible illiteracy in the church:
• Less than 10% of believers will read the entire Bible in their lifetime
• 40% of church goers read the Bible only once a month
• 20% of Christians say they never read the Bible
• 85% of churches worldwide are led by pastors with no Biblical training
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Romans 12:2
The Western church has been influenced by secularism because its filled with believers that haven’t had their worldview transformed by God’s truth yet.
Choosing to give one’s heart to God doesn’t automatically mean a complete shift in worldview. Unless believers are discipled down to their mindset, they will continue to be trapped in false, destructive beliefs that they had before coming to Christ. I’ve seen Christians sit in church for 20+ years yet never become set apart from culture. Too many are left starving while they sit at a banquet. This is why God gave the Bible - but nourishment cannot sustain life if we don’t choose to consume it.
Even if churches exist worldwide, they’ll make little to no transformational impact until they shape the worldview of their congregants. This is the root of the problem. Yet roots, by their very nature, are below the surface and often neglected. Our worldview drives our emotions, values, and choices, determining the lives we live. God gave scripture to…
Answer the world's question, “what is truth?”
Show them that value comes from inherent design rather than status
Diagnose the human heart’s need
Woo their hearts to perfect love
Redeem the church’s worldview
This is the piece of God's heart that I carry.
I graduated from a Bible school called School of Biblical Studies (SBS) in 2025 and then went to a Bible teaching school called later that year, teaching the Bible for 2 months in Africa. God’s given me the opportunity to use the equipping I’ve received to staff and teach in Bible schools with YWAM in Colorado! I can now give this piece of God's heart away. I get the privilege of being a discipler, teacher, and servant to equip more and more believers to know God and His truth.
Let's end Bible illiteracy together!!
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