The Christian Chronicle Podcast

Author and theologian Curtis Chang talks about his book, 'The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry is the Doorway to Your Best Self' and 'The After Party,' the new small group curriculum he created with David French and Russell Moore to help Christians practice "better politics" in 2024.  Link to  The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry is the Doorway to Your Best Self  (Curtis...

SEGMENT ONE: Abilene Christian University is facing organized backlash from LGBTQ-affirming alumni, students, and even some professors for its "Holy Sexuality Week. Christian Chronicle CEO Erik Tryggestad fills in the story and talks about how The Christian Chronicle will cover it in 2024. Link to Religion News Service coverage of the “Holy Sexuality Week” backlash at Abilene Christian Univer...

John Johnson put on the red suit for the first time 40 years ago and he's been Santa Claus ever since. But it's not just a side job or role that John plays for a few months each year; it is his calling and his ministry. In this episode, the member of the Myrtle Beach (South Carolina) Church of Christ shares his secrets and some of his stories from 40 years of loving children, the elderly...

Legendary performer (and Church of Christ favorite son) Pat Boone has a book and a new hit album, but he really wants to talk about what the Bible is telling him these days, what he sees God doing in the world, and what the choice he hopes everyone makes to obey the Word. And he proves that he still knows how to lead congregational singing!  Link to Pat Boone’s book:  If: The Eternal Choice We All...

Landon Saunders, a broadcaster and preacher who won millions of fans and friends around the world, went to his rest on November 14, 2023. He was 86 years old. In this episode, you'll listen to recordings of Saunders preaching and speaking in his own words. You'll also listen to two friends who knew him well. Mike Cope, director of the Thriving in Ministry program at Pepperdine University...

A few weeks before this episode, The Christian Chronicle reported that Oklahoma Christian University is closing its graduate school of theology due to budget cuts and declining enrollment. This latest news follows the trend of enrollment decline in Bible, ministry, and theology programs at colleges and universities with roots and ties in the Church of Christ. For some Christian Chronicle readers,...

Some segments edited for brevity and clarity Segment One: An Arab Israeli Christian talks about what is happening in Gaza and Israel (Sandro Jadon) Link to Erik Tryggestad’s  Christian Chronicle  interview with Sandro Jadon in the days imm ediately after the October 7 attack on Israel from Hamas Link to Erik Tryggestad’  Christian Chronicle  interviews with Israeli Christians serving in their coun...

Some segments edited for brevity and clarity This episode explores what is going on in Christian education and among people between the ages of 13 and 25. Segment One: Dr. Trace Hebert of Lipscomb University talks about his annual report on enrollment trends at colleges and universities from the Church of Christ tradition. Once again, Church of Christ students as a percent of total enrollment decr...

After the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, the surviving victims needed a place to resume learning...and a place to try to recover. Nearby Brentwood Hills Church of Christ opened its building and its hearts to them. Ministers Amy Bowman and Jonathan Seamon talk about what it's like to love neighbors who are grieving and recovering from unimaginable horror. 'T...

Few changes in popular culture are causing more discomfort and raising more questions in the church than how the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is going mainstream in North America. It's not just outside the church. Over the last 20 years, Christians who accept and even approve at least parts of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle increased from next to none to almost one in three today. For this reason, prominent biblic...

On September 6, 2018, off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger entered the apartment of Dallas West Church of Christ member and Harding University alumnus Botham Jean. Mistaking his apartment for her own, she came through the unlocked front door, found Jean eating ice cream and watching TV on the couch, and shot him with her service weapon. Jean died and a jury later convicted Guyger of murder,...

It's been two full years since most congregations tried to "get back to normal" after COVID turned the world outside in in 2020 and 2021. Our first guest, Aaron Hill, headed up a nationwide study of how COVID is still affecting congregations and what those lingering effects portend for the future. Our second guest, American missionary Brandon Price, reports "from the ground&quo...

Few articles that The Christian Chronicle published over the last year got more comments and more buzz than a report that the Mayfair Church of Christ in Oklahoma City is becoming part of Crossings Community Church, a 9,000-member multisite congregation with roots in the non-Pentecostal Church of God. Mayfair Church of Christ was once one of the "flagship" congregations in Oklahoma City,...

New York Times columnist David French grew up in the Church of Christ, graduated from Lipscomb University (a school with deep roots and strong ties in the Church of Christ tradition), and shaped his political mind in the conservative Republicanism of the 1980s and 1990s. He began and built his legal career litigating institutions that threatened religious liberties, mostly of Christians. His exper...

When Dan and Mary Huber (NorthWest Church of Christ) found out that thousands of Afghan refugees were coming to their city of San Antonio, Texas, they chose to extend extraordinary hospitality to their new neighbors. But they soon found themselves to be not the hosts, but the honored guests of their new Afghan friends. What happens when Christians and Muslims from different cultures and faiths gat...

Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer, authors of the popular 2020 book, 'A Church Called Tov,' talk to us about their follow up book, 'PIVOT'. They answer questions about how congregations can tell if toxic traces taint their cultures, what it takes to "detox" a church, and practical steps congregations can take to start the process of culture change. Link to  PIVOT: The...

This episode picks up the "Sacred Calling" special series that covers the "minister shortage" among Church of Christ congregations in North America. We ask: Does a tradition that claims to believe in the "priesthood of all believers" (1 Peter 2:5) really have a minister shortage...or a shortage of imagination? The six guests in this episode all dared to think outside...

For 65 years, Harding University's School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, has been a global hub of Bible and ministry education in the Church of Christ tradition, but the school announced that it is closing the campus and moving its programs to Searcy, Arkansas. Why ...and why now? Meanwhile, a congregation is growing and the Gospel is bearing fruit in one of America's toughest neighb...

On August 7, 37 players on the Faulkner University football team gave their lives to Christ in baptism. Hear the story from coaches and a player who were there (in the water). Personal spiritual direction is emerging as a new kind of minister and ministry among both believers and seekers. What is it? How does it work? Is it right for you or members of your congregation? Two certified spiritual dir...

'The Sound of Freedom', a small-budget independent film about an agent who fights child trafficking, is the box office surprise of the summer, nearly beating out Indiana Jones. In this episode, Pam Cope, who fights child trafficking in real life, talks about what the work is like and how you can help. The Christian Chronicle's Erik Tryggestad interviews three leaders at Heritage Chr...

In his wildest dreams, Lee Camp could never imagine this! Many years ago, the professor of theology and ethics at Lipscomb University had a crazy idea: A live stage show that mixes entertainment and interviews with thinkers who address the "big questions" of life. The 'Tokens Show' first appeared on a Lipscomb University stage in 2008 and then grew until Camp moved the producti...

Even regular churchgoers skip Sunday morning worship sometimes. Scott McConnell of Lifeway Research reveals the latest survey on the top reasons folks skip church. Jeff Dye, a lifer in the Christian Church (instrumental), talks about what it was like to join an a cappella Church of Christ congregation. Dr. Dale Underwood of King's Crossing Prison Ministries tells the story of how so many pris...

God is alive and working in the world. This episode proves it. First, hear from Julia, a Russian immigrant who is ministering to hundreds of Ukrainian refugees in Houston, Texas. Then listen to Danny Mills and his wife, Heather. Danny got COVID so bad he almost died and only lived after a double lung transplant. Hear their story of survival through the grace of God, grit, and the prayers of the ch...

If the jobs section of The Christian Chronicle is any proof, more Church of Christ congregations in North America have open ministry positions than there are ministers able, ready, and willing to fill them. What is the cause of this "minister shortage"? In this episode, Christian Chronicle correspondents Cheryl Mann Bacon, Jeremie Beller, and Calvin Cockrell plunge into the "ick&quo...

For almost 40 years, Mike Cope preached in Church of Christ congregations from North Carolina to Arkansas to Texas. Now at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, he directs the annual Bible lectures, leads church relations efforts, and takes on the challenge of educating and forming a new generation of ministers and preachers. In this episode, Cope talks about the state of preachers and prea...