About Harry Klaus

I spent years in the corporate world — including time with a Fortune 150 company — before choosing a different path. Not because I had to, but because I wanted something more personal. Smaller teams. Real relationships. People over prestige. That thread has run through everything I’ve done since — from owning my own business, to in-home sales, to leading a small but mighty team today.

But the most important thing I do every day doesn’t happen in a meeting room.

My wife and I found Grace Community Church about nine years ago. We started the way most people do — just showing up. Then we started serving coffee. Then we joined a small group. Then we started co-leading one. Then coaching others. Serving in different ways. Not because we had a plan, but because every time we took one step, God opened a door to the next one.

Somewhere in those small group conversations — real ones, honest ones, sometimes uncomfortable ones — I started seeing something I couldn’t unsee.

I watched Christians live one way on Sunday and a completely different way Monday through Saturday. People I genuinely wouldn’t want to be anything like.

And then I had to face something harder: I saw myself in that same mirror.

I’ve been guilty of it too. Showing up right on Sunday. Leading well in the circle. Saying the right things in the room — and then living differently outside of it when nobody from church was watching. I’m not writing this book from the outside looking in. I’m writing it from the inside, having looked honestly at myself and not always liked what I saw.

I heard young people say flatly that they wanted no part of a religion that made people act the way some Christians act. Hypocrites. I heard that word more times than I can count — and I couldn’t argue with them. Because sometimes they were talking about people like me.

I also saw something else. People with no anchor at all — believing in the universe, in Buddha, in whatever felt right — not because they had rejected Jesus, but because nobody had ever shown them who He really was. Not the bumper sticker version. Not the political version. Not the version that shows up perfectly dressed on Sunday and disappears by Monday morning. The real Jesus.

And I kept hearing it in the news. Feeling it in conversations. The slur wasn’t aimed at Jesus — it was aimed at us. And it convicted me deeply.

I started writing. Got an outline. Wrote a chapter or two. Got busy and put it down.

But the Spirit wouldn’t let it go.

He kept chasing me. Kept the conviction warm when life tried to cool it. Kept bringing me back until I couldn’t say no anymore. So I wrote the study first — born straight out of my convictions and those honest small group conversations. The book followed. Not because I had a platform or a publishing deal or a marketing plan. Because I had no choice.

I need to be honest about something else.

There were moments — before I started writing and plenty of times during — where I stopped and asked myself what I was doing. Who was I to write this? I am not a theologian. I am not a Bible scholar. I am not a pastor or a trained minister. There are people who know the Scripture and the Christian faith far better than I ever will. Smart people. Credentialed people. People far more qualified than me.

Why me?

I asked that question more than once. And I never got a clean answer. What I got instead was the Spirit refusing to let me put it down. What I got was a conviction that wouldn’t cool. What I got was a nudge that kept coming back every time I convinced myself I wasn’t the right person.

Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe God doesn’t always choose the most qualified. He chooses the available. The willing. The ones He won’t stop chasing until they say yes.

I said yes. Reluctantly. Imperfectly. But yes.

Here’s what I know: I can’t reach everyone myself. Not even close. But there are millions of Christians out there — and if we show up right, if we get out of the way and let Jesus be seen clearly — together we can reach so many more than any one of us ever could alone.

That’s the whole idea.

Blocking Jesus isn’t a book about how bad Christians are. It’s a book about how good Jesus is — and how often we accidentally stand in His way. It’s for the person burned by the church who still can’t shake Jesus. It’s for the young person who watched Christians live double lives and wants nothing to do with it — but hasn’t given up on the idea that something real might exist. It’s for the small group leader who suspects their people need a mirror more than a map. It’s for the person drifting toward whatever feels spiritual — the universe, a philosophy, anything — who hasn’t yet encountered the real thing.

My goal is simple. Not to build a brand or a platform or a following.

To bring as many people to Jesus — and into heaven — as humanly possible.

That’s why Salt and Iron Collective exists. That’s why this book exists. That’s why you’re here.

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One more thing you should know about me.

I’m not a pastor. I never wanted to be one. I don’t have a seminary degree or a theology certification or a ministry title. I love conversations. I love leading our small group. I genuinely enjoy speaking to larger groups when the opportunity comes.

But at the end of the day I’m just a guy.

A guy who, for some reason the Spirit decided to set on fire for this one thing — bringing people to Jesus.

That’s it. That’s all this is.

Welcome.