Does the Bible forbid love of nation? Does the Bible forbid love of one's local culture? Is this really about nationalism or is there another agenda at work? In philosophic speak, between what two enormous focal points does the pendulum of history swing? Why? In light of the Common Good how should we think about Nationalism?
Have you ever witnessed social media flaming? Me too. What drives that? Why is it addicting? Why is it like sexual pornography? How is power involved? What is Christian etiquette when it comes to social media posting? How does all of this affect the Common Good?
God cares about everyone, but he does so from first commitments and then works outward. That's the biblical pattern. That was Jesus' own pattern. What does that mean? How does that apply to specific societal issues? This episode frames both what the Common Good has meant in history and what it might mean going forward.
Is all faith the same? Doesn't God just look for faith, in general? What does John's Gospel show us about faith? This episode is a sort-of quick hitter (14 minutes). What kinds of faith really exist
If we don't experience some risk, danger, knee-scrapes, falling and failure as children we don't learn how to process the big problems of adult life. That's not only true spiritually, it's true physically, socially, and brain-neurologically. Obviously, then, this affects parenting, teaching, and pastoring. But what about God? What does the Bible show us about his perspective on our failures? And then, on a more positive note, how does playfulness shape us while we are young? How does playfulness lead to innovation and success?
Why all the public tantrums in western culture? People have been malformed. We have had it so good that we have, for a generation or two, protected one another from the very things we need to help us grow and mature: failure, loss, pain, embarrassment, hierarchy, conflict, and risk. Christian spirituality, because it is an earthy spirituality, a for-this-life way of living, cannot sit by idly and ignore the malformation of our children or society. What can be done?
Western culture teaches us, directly and implicitly, that failure is bad. And so we think that both we ourselves should never fail and that other people should never fail. Things are now so good that we even extend that to, "people should never have their feelings hurt." But is that good for us? Does that weaken or strengthen us? I explain why failure is not only unavoidable, but why for our own growth and societal development failure is necessary.
In this conversation with my son, John, we explore the topics of money and cultural relevance. Low churches face the conundrum of needing large donors but not wanting to be controlled by those same donors. How should they go about walking that dicey tightrope? And then, everyone wants to be culturally relevant, so how might Low churches seek relevancy without losing their souls, on the one hand, or seeming like cloistered cults, on the other? Tough questions that deserve our consideration.
What might be the concerns of millennials regarding the state of the Church? I have a running conversation with my son, John, about the importance of preaching and teaching to mature believers. We also discuss the role and place of small groups in today's Low churches.
Western society is infatuated with the new: trends, fads, products, things. We love the new! Unfortunately, this infatuation is infecting the Church. And if the Gallup Polling agency is accurate, new is not helping church growth. What are some answers? How might we mitigate the damage that the new can do? What steps can we take to help our pastors, our pastoral staffs, and our own selves? What did Jesus model for us that is helpful on this challenge?
Low churches do things that end up causing unnecessary problems. Why is that? Life is weird. And? "Sometimes when you win you lose." The Low church lowest common denominator approach of "appeal to the most possible without causing offense" isn't working. People are not hungry for vanilla. Gallup Poll says more people are leaving Church than ever before. In this fifth episode in my series I tell some personal stories and suggest some possible remedies.
Where our treasure is there is our heart. What we worship makes evident what we believe. The Low churches have, unintentionally, turned worship into a private experience, something not unlike what we enjoy at the mall or the theater. We can have private experiences even when we're in a crowd. And all this? Precisely when people are starving for community and so leaving the Church. I probe some painful lines of inquiry and make some simple curative suggestions.
The quest for market relevance has produced a vacuum, a black hole, that is now confronting the Low churches. Will we continue to drift inside that hole or make the much needed turn back to the character of God? In this episode I explore the beauty, need, and relevance of God's holiness. I also offer 5 practical steps to touch upon God's holiness.
Why is the Church sick? Because in different ways we get distracted with the values of the age, something I call "Lord Zeitgeist." And the wild thing is? It doesn't even need to involve moral decay, it can just involve a mis-directed focus. We can fail to target what Jesus exhorted us to target. Come and think through some hard questions and lines of inquiry with me.
The Gallup Poll reports that church membership is notably down from just two decades ago. Why? What is going on inside the church to cause this decline? As a remedy, if not only as ballast, to what did Jesus call us? What kinds of things are distracting and side-lining the Church today? Come and think both critically and constructively with me.
What are the biblical perspective and the Jesus perspective on wealth and riches? Is it sinful to be rich? How was wealth gained in the first century? How did the ancient Jewish world seek to span the wealth gap between the rich and poor? What was the central issue for Jesus concerning wealth? What's all that mean for today?
Was Jesus anti or pro nuclear family? More carefully, what did Jesus believe was the center of family? And just why today is family so under assault? Me, I have had many experiences of non-family folks who felt more like family than some family! Why is that? What are some of the most famous TV shows about family?
There are so many misunderstandings, mis-truths, about the resurrection—even among Christians! What is it decidedly NOT? Per the four Gospels, what decidedly IS it? What does it mean for your self, your body? How do crucifixion and resurrection go together? What would I do with Christianity if the resurrection were not true?
We all know Jesus was crucified, but what did a crucifixion symbolize for ancient Romans? What kind of capital punishment did Dracula impose, a method that the Romans believed was not enough? What are some amazing theological truths about Jesus' crucifixion? What does the common biblical hermeneutic do to both our reading of the New Testament and our understanding of Jesus? Come and go deeper with me about Christ's passion!