Reconstructing Faith with Trevin Wax

On this bonus episode of Reconstructing Faith , Trevin Wax and Jeff Medders turn to a discussion on spiritual formation and a new project where Trevin puts on the hat of liturgist with the goal of leading people to deeper prayer and Bible study.  Resources The Lord is My Light by Trevin Wax The Lord is My Light podcast on Apple The Lord is My Light podcast on Spotify Connect with Trevin on Tw...

On this bonus episode of Reconstructing Faith, hear from Trevin Wax as he has a conversation with Jeff Medders about expressive individualism — the “you be you” culture. They’ll trace trends that hint as to what is on the horizon, and they’ll talk about why counter formation matters so much in discipleship and catechesis. Resources “You Be You” Culture and What Comes Next eBook Trevin’s TGC Column...

At the beginning of this season, we asked a question, what goes into the making of a disciple? How does a follower of Jesus become so well-formed, so well-prepared that when the time of testing comes, whether it's a crisis of courage or a call to quiet faithfulness, they step into their destiny as the person God has always planned for them to be? On this episode of Reconstructing Faith, join Trevi...

The real test of a movement is in its ability to accelerate and accomplish Christ's command to make disciples. And you can't gather a large group of people without disagreement and debate over what shape the church's faithful witness should take in our day. Real collaboration with Christians from around the world involves conflict. It's messy. The conversations are tough. The debates are real. And...

As words like toxic and abusive are increasingly applied to ordinary stresses, the way we interpret and respond to conflict changes. This isn’t just a cultural issue. It’s impacting the church, too. There’s a generation gap developing when it comes to leadership, authority, and resilience in church relationships and ministry. Older leaders don’t always share the same assumptions or expectations as...

Digital technologies have woven a complex web that alters our perceptions and interactions. We think of ourselves differently now, and we experience life differently than 20 years ago. How does this shift, this digitization of the self, affect our understanding of what it means to be human? In this environment, spiritual formation will have to be, in some ways, counter-formation. An alternative to...

Faithful Bible teaching, delivered well and received well, is a cornerstone of the church's renewal. Too often, our preaching and teaching doesn’t hold the interest of people, either because we failed to deliver the message of the scriptures faithfully or because we failed to construct a bridge from the biblical text to contemporary concerns. And so, we miss the opportunity to bring scriptural tru...

Fewer people read books these days, and those who do, read less often than before. For Christians, this trend hits harder. We are people of the Book. Our faith is anchored to the Scriptures. If we want to be people of substance in a world of superficiality, if we want to be spiritually healthy, if we want to embody a fortified faith that can contribute to the renewal of the church, we must begin w...

Prayer is essential. The absence of prayer exposes and unmasks our self-sufficient spirit. It’s frightening to consider how easily we can busy ourselves in all sorts of activity in the name of a God we rarely invoke. The more we push God to the periphery, the more we take center stage. We lose eternal perspective because the Eternal One plays only a supporting role. On this episode of Reconstructi...

Before we can even hope to contribute to renewing the church, we must be rebuilt and renewed ourselves. But here’s the danger: in our zeal for spiritual formation, we might mistake discipline for dependence. There’s no magic formula for spiritual growth and no silver bullet to spiritual renewal. God offers us means of grace—postures and practices his Spirit works through, to transform our hearts s...

Nothing alters a terrain like water. In severe cases, like flooding from hurricanes and storms, or mudslides in the mountains, or a tsunami overtaking everything in its path, water can leave a landscape totally transformed. But even in mild cases, wind and waves can leave behind noticeable changes to the scenery. Waves affect the landscape of the church also. There are subtle echoes of movements t...

For two seasons now, we've looked at the credibility crisis facing the church today and some of the challenges that stand in the way of our attempts to renew and restore the church's witness. We've heard guest after guest give us truth and point us toward hope. We've talked about rolling up our sleeves and finding our place on the wall, doing whatever we can for the church to reconstruct, to rebui...

In the first episode of this season, we looked at the reconstruction of Notre Dame after the fire, the painstaking work of refashioning and rebuilding a place that took centuries to construct. Rebuilding requires sacrifice… a dogged commitment to seeing the task through. If this is the case for churches, it’s also the case for families of churches, for networks, partnerships, conventions, and deno...

The iconic family scenes we see in classic TV are not the norm for most people in American society today. Divorce has disrupted more families than ever before in our history. And the ripple effects go beyond the obvious heartache and loss, affecting even the banalities of annual rituals and traditions. Challenges to family life aren’t new. But the challenges in our day have multiplied. And these p...

In the latter decades of the 20th century, many churches across the country shifted from a formal style of worship, with traditional and classical music, to a more informal style of worship, with praise choruses and rock-influenced instrumentation. These changes in worship didn’t happen without conflict. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, controversies became so heated in some churches that some observers...

For the past few years, sociologists and journalists have been describing millennials as “the burnout generation.” Now, there are reports that burnout and stress are on the rise with Gen Z as well. And then there’s the reality of spiritual burnout, the inability to feel the presence and power of God, a loss of desire for spiritual things. In the Bible, we see examples of spiritual disillusionment,...

We’ve entered a new era in terms of technology. AI is the most powerful predictive tool we’ve ever created. It’s really good at analyzing and predicting human behavior… like, scary good. And the new world of AI is leading to ethical dilemmas previous generations would have found unimaginable. What will happen when in the future, it becomes even harder to discern truth from falsehood, human fingerp...

There will be no avoiding conversation about sex and gender in the days ahead, and as Christians, the starting place must be our convictions about reality. All our choices must flow from those convictions. Strong convictions are the prerequisite for true conversations. And convictions and compassion aren’t in opposition. When the world is falling en masse for a bold and terrible lie, the most impo...

More and more commentators speak openly about the social and mental health consequences of porn: the degrading nature of warped expectations, the ever-more transgressive practices, the normalization of violence, and the dark underside of human trafficking. But most of the time, they stop short of pronouncing moral judgment about pornography in general. As people who follow Jesus Christ, we go furt...

All across the spectrum, you find commentators chattering away about the crisis of manhood in the wake of gender confusion, the denigration and disparagement of men traditionally involved in “men’s work,” and the quest for significance and identity among men who seem to be lost and lonely in our strange new world. What happens in a society where markers of manhood, the passing from adolescence int...

In the United States, we are experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country. Recent research shows about 15 percent of American adults — that’s 40 million people — have stopped going to church, and all of this, within the past 25 years. It’s a drop that has affected every region in the country, every theological tradition, every age group, every ethnicity, every...

The continuing decline of institutional trust represents a seismic shift in our culture and society today. Some of that distrust is warranted. In season one, we looked at the credibility crisis facing the church on several fronts. We’ve considered the rot that’s in the church—rot that needs to be removed. But some of our institutional distrust comes from an overly idealistic expectation of what in...

In the first season of Reconstructing Faith, we looked at the credibility crisis facing the church today in a number of areas. In season two, we’re looking at specific challenges to rebuilding the church’s witness today. We’ll be talking about the decline of church attendance, the disappearance of institutional trust, the crisis of masculinity, the pervasiveness of pornography, new gender ideologi...

As you look at the church today, you may ache for the church. But maybe you ache because you love …. You love the church and know she can be better than this. And you love Jesus and know He deserves a Bride whose beauty showcases His. We’ve experienced a season of humiliation and pain, in which the Lord has seen fit to expose our sins and failures. But tragedies and disasters have a way of clearin...

In this series, we’ve been addressing the church’s credibility crisis, reflecting on the challenges of today while learning from church history and the church around the world. In this special episode of Reconstructing Faith, join Trevin Wax as he addresses some of the questions that you have sent in. Connect with Trevin on Twitter: @TrevinWax on Facebook Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company....