Five Forks Church Podcast

Golf teaches the importance of practicing. Success on the course is built on discipline, patience, and attention to detail. There are no shortcuts to a consistent swing, accurate putting, or smart course management. A golfer who skips practicing or rushes a shot may see occasional success, but lasting improvement comes from doing the small things well over and over again. Every great round is the...

One has to feel for those folks with the “STOP” and “SLOW” spinny signs that manage traffic in road construction areas. They are there whether the temperatures are sub-freezing in the winter or nearing 100 degrees in the summer. Of course, their primary purpose is to not only route traffic around the blocked roadway, but also to ensure the safety of the construction workers as well as those drivin...

It is not uncommon in the world of marketing these days that you find retailers offering different levels of price and product quality in the effort to fit every budget and need. They offer a good, better, or best solution to try and meet your expectations. Notice that the categories are never, “Worst, Terrible, and Not so Bad”, which, to no surprise, would not sell much product. Well, it turns ou...

In the sports world, many times you can tell how much effort a player put into the game by looking at his uniform afterwards. If it’s dirty, it most likely indicates that that person played pretty hard. Likewise, if we are loving and serving others like Jesus, then our “uniforms” are going to get dirty. When we ultimately face Jesus, we don’t want Him to find that we “played it safe” and stand bef...

For a very long time, humans have identified the heart as the center or seat of our emotions. Jesus said that those things that take priority in our hearts is what we really treasure the most. The question each of us needs to answer is, will what we prioritize make any eternal difference in our lives or in the lives of those around us? Maybe we need to set aside our wants and desires, dig a little...

You may remember sitting through a painful meeting at work or a boring class in school where, after several minutes, your mind began to drift to other things. But just before that daydream, you may have been thinking, “Come on, man – we’ve heard this – skip the fluff and get right to the meat. Enough sloganeering” (yeah, it’s a word). We hear overused slogans so much that sometimes we become numb...

In the 1890’s, Ivan Pavlov became famous for his psychological studies on the training of organisms, namely dogs. He discovered that they can be trained to react to a neutral stimulus (by the ringing of a bell) if it is regularly paired with a meaningful one (like a delicious treat). Likewise, our lives have been trained by the “dinner bells” of our modern culture instead of being sensitive to the...

Every one of us is being shaped by something. Our habits, our fears, and our ambitions all leave an imprint on who we are. But what happens when we allow the Master of the universe to be the primary architect of our souls? In a world that often leaves us feeling worn down or hollow, we’ll explore how the relentless, unconditional love of God acts as a master craftsman—softening the hard places, he...

In the days before GPS, a ship leaving the port of Philadelphia headed for a specific point in Europe would have its course plotted to ensure it arrived at the correct location. But a small heading error at the start of just 2 degrees without periodic adjustments over a distance of about 3100 miles would put the ship’s arrival about 109 miles away from its intended destination. That’s the cost of...

In your travels around the area, you may have encountered small signs that read “Got Junk?” or “Junk Hauling” with a phone number to call or web address to visit. While those guys can certainly help you with your physical junk, when it comes to the soul they won’t be of any help. None of them will be able to collect and remove that clutter and conflict that lives deep within our being and keeps us...

3(x + 4) + 2x – 5 Simplify. Do you remember that task from math class where you had to simplify expressions? In the math world, simplification is the process of reducing an expression to its most basic, efficient form without changing its value. It’s not unlike our lives at times, too. It seems like life in the modern day can become overwhelming due to the complexity of our lives. Well, this Sunda...

It is widely accepted that the original twelve that Jesus called were between their late teens to late twenties. Most of the young men in that culture had completed their study of the Torah by the age of 13. So, just because someone is young, doesn’t mean that God can’t use them for His glory. For example, the apostle Paul writes this to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12-13: Don’t let anyone think less of...

Some experiences in our lifetimes we are sure we will never forget. And many of those experiences have caused our outlook and lifestyles to change for the better. The same applied to Jesus’ disciples as they experienced what life was like while following Him. Yet, just about the time that it seemed all hope was lost, they experienced the risen Jesus. And that kicked off the disciples’ mission of s...

For many who work (or worked) five days a week, Fridays marked the end of what might have been a long, long week. It has been celebrated by working people for a very long time as the start of the weekend, and the general consensus is that Fridays are a good thing. Well, there was one dark Friday in particular that appeared to be the end of hope for His followers as Jesus was crucified and died on...

Key Scriptures: John 13:1-38, Luke 22:14-20 ffbic.org Facebook: Five Forks Church Instagram: FFBICChurch Intro/Outro Music: Sunday Mornin' Pleasure - Briar Edwards

Do you remember that Pythagorean theorem that you learned in high school geometry class? Well, it has been said that mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras used the letter ‘Y’ as a symbol of a fork in the road where the lower stem represents your ‘undecided’ years as a child. And then in adulthood, you would either choose between the right upper branch representing the narrow, difficult path of...

Around 750 B.C., the Romans were at war with their neighbors, the Sabines. It was a bitter fight that culminated in the two armies meeting in the Roman Forum for the final battle. As the two armies charged each other, the Sabine women – wives of Romans and daughters of Sabines ran into the center of the battle with their infant children. The armies stopped and lowered their weapons. Seeing the pot...

Since the fall of mankind, our broken nature is to only look out for ourselves, many times at the expense of others. Unfortunately, that has too often been realized in history past. It’s been the way of many, and the cost has been much suffering, pain, and death. And true peace, whether between persons or nations, has been misinterpreted as “the absence of conflict”. Well, do you want to be part o...

According to researchers at Cornell University, the average adult makes approximately 35,000 remotely conscious choices every day. Accounting for about 7 hours of sleep, that means that while we are awake we make about 2,000 choices per hour, or about one every two seconds. Like changing lanes on the highway or choosing to look out the window. But the most important choice we need to make is about...

Think about the last time you took a family vacation. While the destination was the goal, sometimes experiences along the way change your perspective. Maybe it was seeing a roadside oddity or it was an impromptu track and field event of running through an airport to catch a connecting flight. We tend to learn from those experiences and we grow as a result. As we begin to walk the road towards Resu...

There was an old urban legend that circulated about stating that there was a law in the state of Alabama that made it “illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church”. The supposed intent of the law was “to maintain decorum” and “prevent intentional disruptions during service”. As ridiculous as this may sound, some of the ancient Old Testament laws can seem strange to us today as w...

You may have heard the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. Since the fall of man in the garden a few thousand years ago, time and change has continued to march on. One would hope that over the millennia some learning had taken place, and that people would be different when it comes to a relationship with our Creator and with each other. But the reality is that human natu...

We continue on with our series called, "You Lost Me at Leviticus". Often described as a dry, slow read while also being one of the most confusing books of the Bible, Leviticus has a tendency to just be ignored. However, we believe that this book reveals to us so much about who God is, and even though it was originally written for the Israelites nearly 3,500 years ago, there is still so much that w...

Often described as a dry, slow read while also being one of the most confusing books of the Bible, Leviticus has a tendency to just be ignored. However, we believe that this book reveals to us so much about who God is, and even though it was originally written for the Israelites nearly 3,500 years ago, there is still so much that we glean from this book today in 2026. Join us for these next severa...

In the competitive world of sports, you may have seen printed on a T-shirt, or otherwise heard the phrase, “Second is the first loser”. For example, the legendary Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna is credited for the most famous international variation of the quote. During a 1990 interview, following a controversial collision with his rival Alain Prost, Senna famously stated:"Being second is to be the...