Iowa City Church Podcast

Here's the challenge:   How do you convince someone to do something? Now, I'm not including parents, coaches, or bosses--you have certain advantages you can leverage. For this challenge I want you to focus in on how to convince your peers; co-workers, friends and family members to do a specific something (the actual something is up to you). After some research, here's a potential strategy one coul...

For a lot of Christians, there is this desire to want to be in a deeper relationship with God and experience the power of the Holy Spirit. The usual way most people approach this goal is through more in depth Bible study, a new book by a Christian author, more spiritual experiences through worship, or a more stringent pursuit of spiritual disciplines. All of these are good, and helpful, however th...

Most of us at some point in life (usually in a season of chaos) stop and ask the question:  What on earth am I here for?  There  are a lot of different places to try and find the answer to that question. With today's technology one could use artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, there's always the old reliable Google and of course the trusted public library. However, even in that vast collection o...

Greed. It's a difficult stronghold to overcome because the truth is, greed is hard to see in the mirror. It's really easy to see in other, but for ourselves...not so much. However, recent studies from over last decade, substantiate this claim: " Zogby recently conducted a large benchmark poll in which respondents identified "greed/materialism" as the number one "most urgent problem in American cul...

So, you're trying to sleep, and it's well after bedtime. But you're tossing and turning and unable to get comfy. You notice you're replaying  the same scenario in your head . Some vision of tomorrow, of what might happen, how a hope could be dashed. If you've had this experience, you're far from alone. Researcher Lucas LaFreniere, Ph. D. said, " This is what breaks my heart about worry. It makes y...

A recent CBS news story asked this very important question:  Why is everyone so angry ? The story states: " According to a poll taken just before the pandemic, 84% of people think Americans are angrier than a generation before and 42% admitted that they themselves were angrier. But what makes us so angry? We asked online and logged more than 200 answers. Money was number one, with 32 responses men...

As some point, every single one of us believed something to be true only to later discover that it was completely false. A classic example would be [ spoiler alert ] the existence of Santa Claus. For many people when they were younger, they believed with all their heart in this existence of Santa. Their entire understanding of Christmas was based upon the jolly elf delivering presents to every chi...

The book of Revelation (notice there is no "s" on the end) is one of the most misunderstood books of the Bible. It is not a book that describes how the world is going to end nor is it written scare people (though there are some scary images). Revelation is a book written to give hope and encouragement to Christians who were facing hardship and persecution in first century Asia Minor. The main mess...

One can't have a discussion regarding The Big Picture of the Bible without talking about God's Kingdom. From Genesis to Revelation, God's Kingdom pops up (though subtle at times) everywhere. Then, when Jesus arrives on the scene it literally becomes his main preaching point through out his ministry: " The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!...

A woman in Sunderland, England nearly leapt to her death in 2018 from Wearmouth Bridge, very well known as a place where people come to end their lives. She now returns to that site regularly to post messages encouraging others who are having a rough time to get help. Paige Hunter, now 21, says that when she was a teenager suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she found herself standing a...

The fine-tuning of the universe is shown in the precise strengths of four basic forces. Gravity is the best known of these forces, and the weakest, with a relative strength of 1. Next comes the weak nuclear force that holds neutrons together inside an atom. It is 1034 times stronger than gravity but works only at subatomic distances. Electromagnetism is 1,000 times stronger than the weak nuclear f...

Listen to guest preacher David McCoy continue with part six of our sermon series, The Big Picture. 

Evan Osgood, the student ministry pastor from Antioch Christian Church continues our sermon series in part five of The Big Picture.

In middle school there was a very sophisticated way to determine if someone wanted to be boyfriend/girlfriend: We sent a note. Not just any old note mind you. The note was usually discreetly carried by an entrusted friend who would deliver the precious cargo while avoiding the scanning eyes of the teacher. The note simply read:  Do you like me?  Below were a series of boxes. One box indicated  YES...

There's a well-known story about a famous violinist who took his $3.5 million Stradivarius onto a platform of a Washington DC subway and started playing music. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a ball cap. Joshua Bell was accustomed to playing for packed concert halls and getting paid $1,000 a minute. During his 43-minute solo concert in the subway a total of 1097 people passed by. But only seven pe...

My wife Suzi loves puzzles and is a master at putting them together. Me on the other hand, when I look at a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces, immediately thinks, " Chaos! " This is why I'm so amazed at how Suzi opens a puzzle box, and immediately employs her meticulous strategy, and within a handful of hours, has assembled a beautiful picture...with every piece in it's place! The Bible opens with thes...

So many of us do it: You get into bed, turn off the lights, and look at your phone to check social media one more time. Before you know it, you've spent hours incessantly scrolling through X, Tik-tok or Reels...a bottomless doom-and-gloom of negative information, thoughtless antics and cheap entertainment.    This habit has become known as doomscrolling--the act of consuming an endless procession...

We've all had those moments when we've been misunderstood. Maybe because of appearance, language barrier or simply using the wrong word, there can be confusion about what is really going on. When it comes to Christianity, I have found that there is a huge misunderstanding about what it's all about.  Over the years I've had people say, " Well, I could never be a Christian because I find parts of th...

On Saturday, May 6th 2023 the coronation of King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, as king and queen of the United Kingdom and the Common wealth realms took place at Westminster Abbey, London. The coronation itself is an intricate service lasting just over two hours and follows a traditional template that has stayed much the same for more than 1,00 years. For example there is great symbolism in t...

One of the hardest places to be angry with a person is at the supper table. It's nearly impossible to share a meal with someone with whom you are at odds with. Either you won't enjoy the food you are eating or you will be forced to leave the table and eat somewhere else. The flip side of this is when you are in a healthy relationship with another, sharing a meal is the best place to be; the conver...

The story is told of a man who was on a business trip and stayed in a hotel that had a bug problem. There were bugs all over his room. He complained about this to the management and later wrote a letter of complaint to the main office of the hotel chain.  Sometime later he received a letter signed by the President of the company. It said:   " We are humiliated that a man of your integrity, a man o...

I'm not very familiar with figs or fig trees. My only connection might be that I enjoy a Fig Newton every once in a while, that's about it. However, a fig tree becomes a central point of emphasis for what Jesus teaches in chapter 11 of Mark's gospel. Jesus and his disciples are heading into Jerusalem, and Jesus is hungry. Up ahead he sees a fig tree, mature and full of leaves. Even though it's a l...

"Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao—a village on the island of Molokai, in Hawaii, that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony. For 16 years, he lived in their midst. He learned to speak their language. He bandaged their wounds, embraced the bodies no one else would touch, preached to hearts that would otherwise have been...

In August of 2003, the Church of the Holy Cross in New York City was broken into twice. In the first break-in, thieves made away with a metal moneybox that had been resting next to a votive candle rack. Three weeks later, vandals escaped with something much more valuable: they unbolted a 4-foot long, 200-pound plaster Jesus from a meditation area, taking the statue of Christ, but leaving behind hi...

In part five of Come, Follow, Me we discover how Jesus intentionally coaches his disciples so that they can be prepared to carry on the Kingdom Mission.