Finding Healthy Church

One of the more difficult chapters in Paul's letters is a crucial moment of leadership, and his example gives great insight into leadership in the Kingdom of God.  Join Mike and Barb as they take a look at Paul's example of standing on the foundational Christian principle of a shift in responsibility for life guidance and discernment in a church from special people or classes of poeple to the Spir...

Jesus says something to his disciples regarding authority that seems like it's largely ignored in churches today - that no one in the new community he's creating will call each other by honorific titles because all authority will be in The Way, The Truth and The Life.  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss how the practice of using honorific titles affects relationships and how Jesus reshaped the lan...

There are two major erroneous teachings about authority that people claim are in the Bible - that pastors and/or elders have authority over churches and that husbands have authority over wives.  Join Mike and Barb as they look at a general picture of authority in the New Testament, discussing words and examples in the biblical story that bring light to the topic.

Paul writes that you can look at how a human body functions to see how the Body of Christ was designed to function.  It's one thing to understand this concept, but it's another to experience it and for it to be the environment that you're "raised" in.  But it's foundational to the Christian life and growth.  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss how leadership in the Kingdom of God is developed and w...

Some will call it "fathering" or "shepherding." It's the idea that everyone should be accountable to and submitting to a leader who provides wisdom, accountability and protection. While the idea's intention is good, it's not biblical the fruit of the practice is not good. Join Mike and Barb as they discuss why this relational framework is deceptively unhealthy and Scriptures throughout the biblica...

It's common for humans to operate in systems of authority and submission where people are in charge of other people.  But when Jesus was confronted by such a system, he gave a surprising response that revealed a different system in the Kingdom of God.  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss how authority and submission operate in a healthy church.

Largely in the church today, being a leader is about being a little god or a prince or an official.  It's about being in a needed position permanently.  But you see something different in the biblical story.  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss the primary job of a leader in the first churches based on the example of Jesus and the first apostles.

There are many word used by the writers of the New Testament that have come to mean things different than what they originally meant.  "Deacon" and "bishop" have come to mean positions in an organization rather than descriptions of the parts of a living organism.  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss what the writers of the New Testament meant by these words and how it relates to being a healthy chu...

1 Corinthians 12:28 says "And God has appointed in the church, first apostles..." So why are apostles first?  There are two main ways to answer that question.  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss this critical function in a church and how it contributes to a church being healthy.

It's common to hear people talking about how churches are the "Body of Christ."  But what does that mean practically?  What does it look like to actually function like that?  Join Mike and Barb as they discuss how the image of the human body reveals how a church was designed to do life together, and how it's different than anything else in the world.

There are words used in English Bible translations when it comes to the topic of church leadership that are misleading at best, and completely destructive at worst.  But as we start to dig into the words the original authors used and their meanings, we find a consistency throughout the biblical story that helps us see God's vision for influence in human relationships.  Join Mike as he goes through...

You might have noticed something when it comes to Scriptures related to the topic of leadership - many of them seem to contradict each other.  In one verse, Jesus says that his disciples don't "lord it over each other."  But in another verse, the author of Hebrews writes "obey your leaders and submit to their authority."  Join Mike and Barb as they begin discussions on the topic of church leadersh...

Finding healthy church starts with understanding the nature and purpose of the Church.  Join Mike and Barb as they break down the insights they uncovered in their study of this topic through the first 18 episodes of the podcast to get back to the basics and discover some of the first principles of the nature and purpose of the Church.

Isn't it ironic that the Church was more successful in a passionately pagan society where demands on converts were higher than in an at least nominally Christian society where demands are lower?  Join us as we talk about the characteristics that made churches in the early centuries of the Jesus movement so effective at spreading Christianity throughout the Roman Empire and how that compares to tod...

It takes knowledge and practice plus time for a group of people to be built together in agape love.  The letters to churches in the New Testament give us a clear picture of this being the case.  But when a church starts to naturally and consistently display certain characteristics of healthy families, you know progress is being made.  Join Barb and Mike as they work through four of them together....

Jesus said some pretty radical things about being his disciple; specifically that making the choice would divide families and re-prioritize our loyalty.  Join us as we talk about how Jesus felt about where the Church belongs in his followers' lives and the dilemma this creates.

Do you think primary loyalty belongs to a spouse (if married) or siblings?  In the modern Western world, it's romantic love that generally wins.  But in the ancient Mediterranean world, this wasn't true.  Join us as we talk about why it's important to keep in mind what the first Christians meant when they used family language in their communications and the implications for what it means to intera...

The world's identity comes from what you do, where you live, what you have, and what other people think of you.  This is a unique approach of the modern Western world.  In this episode, we'll talk about the consequences of this approach and what biblical authors meant when they said one's identity is in Christ.

People are seemingly unable to commit to or stay in close-knit shared-life Christian community.  A main reason for this is a cultural mindset members of churches have adopted that contributes to this.  In this episode, Mike and Barb discuss this mindset, common examples of it, and why it matters so much that it be dealt with if we are to find healthy church.

There's a deceptive philosophy about church structure floating around the Christian world that is ultra-unhealthy.  In this episode, Mike shares a story about encountering this philosophy in real life and sets the record straight about the true structure of God's household.

Living things have to have structure to be able to function.  A healthy church is a living thing because it operates by the Life of Christ.  Therefore, it develops structure as it grows.  But that structure will never be like the world's mechanical structure, which is great for relationships built on power and control.  Healthy churches seek organic order where relationships develop according to t...

Church growth isn't necessarily the growth of God's Kingdom.  If a church's source is God's life, it will grow and reproduce the Kingdom of God on earth.  In this episode, Mike and Barb discuss the pattern found in the biblical story of church growth that is also the growth of the presence of God's Kingdom on earth.

Organizations that operate like businesses call themselves churches.  But the biblical story paints a picture of churches operating like the human body.  In this episode, we continue our conversation on the nature and purpose of the church by looking at how most modern-day churches operate like business corporations and what that means for Christians that desire to fulfill God's purpose and plan t...

In terms of mission, nothing has changed from when Jesus was in his first body to when he entered his second body.  His mission is to bring the Kingdom of God back to the earth.  So understanding the Kingdom of God is closely bound to understanding church.  In this episode, we'll touch on what the Kingdom of God is and what a church has to do with bringing it back to earth.

Traditional (as opposed to biblical) understandings of the church really dominate the Christian landscape, so much so that traditional views interpret the Bible in ways that make those traditions "biblical."  In this episode, we talk about why it's important to distinguish between traditional and biblical views of church life and cover five common traditional understandings that aren't found in th...