The 180 Church Podcast with Dr. Sammy and Friends

Fasting, or at least the intermittent variety nowadays, is commonly known as a time-restrictive diet that is often paired with self-improvement and healthy lifestyles. While there is an aspect of restriction, this is very different from fasting in the biblical sense. Each time fasting is mentioned in the Bible, it is always paired with prayer. At its deepest level, fasting and prayer are seen in J...

In today's podcast, Pastor Lydia and Joe reflect on the necessity and impact of remembering others and the Father's heart for those who are marginalized and feel forgotten. We forget and therefore inevitably omit people and even ourselves, though that may not be our intentions, for a multitude of different reasons. However, to model Jesus is to recall, see, and act on those that we remember on the...

This weeks episode features a candid conversation about integrity. Time and time again, integrity is highlighted as a component of mission statements, values, and a foundation for character development, but it seems that it is more often talked about than actually practiced. What does it take to live in integrity and forgo self-interested expediency? How does integrity ultimately benefit not just...

In this weeks episode, Joe and Pastor Lydia recount times when they stayed faithful to their talents and the layers by which we are called to stewardship. At times, taking responsibility of the small yet important things can be difficult and we tend to put them to the side. However, those very talents, stations, and positions in life are critical to adhere to if we are to live to be the best we ca...

The Father's call for the church is to protect and restore beauty, but we often miss the beauty in ourselves and others. Despite this, the gospel and the community of God reminds us of our worth and original design. We are certainly not perfect, but the church has been called to preserve and cultivate the best of who God created us to be.

In this weeks episode, join Joe and Pastor Lydia as we traverse the hills and valleys of relationship together. It’s not a matter of if, but when we are at some of our highest and lowest moments that we see with pristine clarity the ones who love us and represent the love of the father. It’s the vision that Jesus had for the local church and the ecclesia: that we could join together to be a commun...

As we continue our Vision series, Pastor Lydia chats with guest Ahnmin Lee about Clarity. What is the purpose of the church and who are we, as her members, called to do? Is it to become holier? To become trendy and hip? To become more successful? Dr. Sammy reminds us that the mission of God is clear and simple: to go after lost sons and daughters and bring them back home. In fact, the ethos of the...

The podcast team is kicking off 2020 with the Return of the Prodigal Son. It’s in the cross section of vulnerable resolutions and previous mishaps and the tension of being lost and found that the heart of the father speaks the loudest. This year, we are invited to join God in a new-old vision, but the same mission that we’ve always been engaged in: to be a community that remains hopeful and loving...

As we transition from the Christmas season and the New Year, we often wonder about the implications of being between two major moments in life. Things during this time can feel often ungratifying, stagnant, and insignificant, though there is more than meets the eye in what God is doing at these times. There are things that are seen and often celebrated, such as accolades, success, and gifting. God...

We often misconstrue love as sentiment and romance, rather than a commitment we abide by regardless of how we feel. Similarly, we focus on the warm sentimentality of Christmas and overlook the fierce commitment that believers like Mary and Joseph made to God, even at the great cost of scandal. Tune into this week's sermon as Dr. Sammy discusses the true nature of love as a hard call to responsibil...

Many of us chase pleasure because we become addicted to the temporary happiness that a quick fix offers. But the reality of joy is that it not only lasts eternally, but it also points to something greater than our own desires. What we learn from Advent is joy revealed in the person of Christ as a sign from heaven beyond any happiness that we know.

With the season of Advent upon us, Joe and Pastor Lydia usher in a conversation revolving around the 4 major themes of this season: hope, peace, joy, and love. Today’s theme focuses on a conversation about peace and why the kind of peace we place our hopes and trust in this world seems to be so elusive, temporal, and frail. It’s difficult really to even have a moment that is free from any disturba...

Advent is the season when we observe the arrival of Jesus Christ into the world. During this moment when hope may be hard to find, we anticipate the coming of Christ who came to offer hope, peace, joy, and love. In times of uncertainty, polarization, mental health concerns, and tragedy, Hope seems to be a faint pulse when we put it in our own hands, institutions, and leaders. However, the good new...

Democracy's grasp on the greatest world powers is loosening, and we are witnessing more abuses of power, in Hong Kong among other places. Though we may feel helpless against what is happening in the wider world, we must differentiate between the world’s power and God’s power. When we live according to God’s power, we treat each other as equals rather than subjugating people through a cycle of inti...

In today’s episode, Joe and Pastor Lydia tackle the nuances revolving around the dark side of ambition. Regardless of what brought us here into big cities like New York, there’s a wee bit of ambition in each and every one of us whether we’d like to admit that or not. It seems God is not opposed to ambition, fame, success or wealth, but at what cost are we willing to obtain, achieve and conquer? Pe...

In this weeks episode, Joe and Pastor Lydia sit together and reflect on what it means to live a life of gratitude sparked by a life led by reflection. It’s not uncommon for many of us to feel like we’re discontent with our lives. Whether it is positive or even negative, we’re quick to come back to a baseline level of happiness after a period of time, which is often referred to as the hedonic tread...

Grace is good in concept, but difficult to live out because everything seems to be a meritocracy, where we have to earn our love, worth, and value. We become conditioned to be skeptical of unmerited favor, always assuming there is some catch to anything that is both free and good. How do we receive grace when we are always facing this standard of perfection? It's the experience of receiving grace...

In today’s podcast, Pastor Lydia and Joe bounce off from the last conversation about sin and dive in on discussing the sins we don’t even really see. It’s difficult to see our sins in the present moment, and just because we’re not aware of it, doesn’t mean it’s not true. Hindsight reveals to us the depth of our sins and how dealing with the gravity of our sinful natures and realities magnifies the...

What does it mean to be saved? In Christianity, the central message of the gospel revolves around this reality that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to save and redeem us, but from what? Why is it that the son of God had to die for our sins? If not differentiated properly, the whole heart of salvation can easily be missed, and that’s what Joe Lyu and Pastor Lydia discuss, so that we don’t miss the...

In today’s podcast, the crew with Joe Lyu and Pastor Lydia take a deep dive into acknowledging a very real reality with an enemy spirit, developing awareness of spiritual warfare, and what we can do to take part in fighting the war for our souls. Spiritual warfare can be an aspect of our lives we often overlook or tend to be naive about, but the adversary looks to kill, steal, and destroy the life...

Many of us find ourselves in situations where different voices clamor and compete for our attention; usually the loudest voice is the one that seems urgent, yet is the least important. Listening to these voices causes us to forget the most important one in our lives. In order to discern God’s multifaceted yet subtle voice, we must listen and surrender in the ways He speaks to us personally. By doi...

In Christianity, there is a common notion that the Christian life consists of dogmatic rules that believers must follow. However, when we consider the concept of being “born again”, those rules are just an offshoot of the core pursuit of the Father’s heart: for us to know who we belong to and who seeks after us. Work is being done within us, whether we are aware of it or not. In this new series, "...

In today’s podcast, with Joe Lyu and Pastor Lydia, we get to talking about relationships. But first, we ask ourselves, how do we live so that we can have those meaningful, seemingly awesome friendships that we find in some of our favorite sitcoms? Well, what we find through this discussion is that there certainly are ways to do relationship that aren’t unlike those we see on tv, and truthfully can...

In today's podcast, Pastor Lydia and Joe talk through what it means to really maximize our time so that we can live a full life. But what is a full life, and what does doctor Sammy mean when he says sin robs us of fullness in our lives? For us to cultivate sacredness in our lives and fully make the most of our time here on this earth, we examine how we spend our time, why we can choose to invest o...

Continuing the message of the retreat, many of us are conditioned to live a life of hurry, so we become impatient and dismissive of other people. Missing out on important moments and being unable to slow down harm our ability to give and receive love, because we dismiss other people’s stories when we’re rushing to the next goal or station in life. It is imperative for us to learn to cherish people...