The 180 Church Podcast with Dr. Sammy and Friends

If we believe we earn our righteousness from God or that it's reserved for saints, prayer can seem inaccessible to us which can push us away from the discipline of prayer. This can imply prayer being a performative act, rather than a way for us to reconnect with God. Prayer doesn't need to be harder than it seems, and neither does creating a habit of it. Even if we can pray for a few moments at a...

When we find ourselves bogged down by the chronic nature of our weariness and struggles, it becomes difficult to look forward to or even hold onto God's promises to us. But nothing is impossible with God, and He delivers on every one of His promises no matter the delay or the effort it takes to do so. In a world that celebrates instant gratification, sometimes we mistakenly believe that a promise...

Being in a seemingly never-ending COVID war, we can all identify with the feeling of lingering chronic fatigue. Much like how chronic conditions often require novel approaches, resistance, difficult circumstances, and spiritual captivity require different approaches of prayer of ancient and heavenly origin to experience breakthrough. When we fall short on the words to pray or even feel the lack of...

Dr. Steve A. Brown is the president of Arrow Leadership, an organization dedicated to the global development of Christian leadership within a multitude of societal sectors. In the spirit of New Years resolutions for 2021, Dr. Brown invites us to reflect on four questions that will point us toward Jesus and help us in our faith journeys. Through reflecting on questions such as how we can love and s...

In concluding his discourse on the ultimate story of redemption, Dr. Darrell Johnson, Teaching Fellow at Regent College, ties together how a story of four key broken relationships are restored through the promise of Jesus Christ. Where original sin separated mankind from the trust of the Father, the goodness of God and his faithfulness to us is demonstrated prospectively from the writings of Genes...

At the center of our lives is relationship, and at the center of relationship is love. As Advent draws to a close and we celebrate Jesus's birth, it is important to remember that the Nativity scene is a story about the Father's love for us: a fierce commitment which came at the greatest of costs and showed the greatest of vulnerabilities. Likewise, our love for God, as well as our love for others,...

In the Advent season, Joy stands as a proposition and virtue that is inextricably tied to our call and transcending purpose. It is hardly what we would expect out of our personal endurance and sufferings, and yet it’s surprise despite the awful feelings involved, overtakes and brings us into the presence of the Father. The joy found in the cross, despite its shame and suffering, is the joy of Chri...

In this week's sermon, Paul Lee, an organizational psychologist and member at 180, invites us to reflect on our goals and aspirations in life. We set goals in life because it's human to want to accomplish a lot, but we have a finite amount of resources to do so. Our goals should be driven by our values and big enough to pull us through smaller ones. When we consider the cost of following Jesus as...

Dr. Darrell Johnson, Teaching Fellow at Regent College, helps us in placing context to making sense of our stories through the collective of the Bible. At the center of the universe is a relationship, and in being created for and by relationships, we establish the fundamental understanding of who we are and our place as human beings. In evaluating 4 key relationships, and our relation to a singula...

Today, we celebrate the beautiful baptism of three members of our community. Through their stories of coming to faith, we are reminded of how vital community and the sacraments are to our personal journeys with Christ. In their public declarations and the inauguration of their faith, and in bearing witness to our brothers and sisters joining the family of Christ, we return to the blood of Christ a...

In a world overwhelmed by physical and emotional struggles, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that spiritual warfare exists and is just as much a part of our daily lives. The reality is that there is a spiritual enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, and undermine God's mission to redeem this broken world. Without understanding this reality, we are unprepared for the resistance, discourage...

We are often compelled to take care of the poor and less fortunate, however, sometimes we also find ourselves being coerced and guilted into altruism. Meeting others’ needs is good, but more often than not, doing so with our own limited powers can lead to burnout. Through Jesus' healing of the invalid in the pool of Bethesda, we learn how God prioritized doing good for a certain few and not coerce...

In the humdrum and the monotony of our day to day, amnesia tends to take the power and wonder of the sacred hostage. Although we often forget the amazing gospel encounters in our lives, it is critical to remember and revisit these moments, and to be nostalgic of the miraculous gospel homecomings around us and within us. The altars we construct from where God has met us are there to remind us of th...

As we consider the relationship between scripture and money with Paul Lee, an organizational psychologist and member at 180, we reflect on Jesus' point of view on wealth, finances, and stewardship and how the apostles adopted this spiritual discipline. Though the purpose of money is a medium of exchange used to determine opportunities and options, believers are called to be intentional with the re...

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As Christian’s, there is a general sentiment of generosity and exercising magnanimity with those in proximity to ourselves. But, in examining the highly regarded story of the Good Samaritan in the gospel of Luke, we gather critical insight on how love and generosity is demonstrated with respect to reasonable boundaries. How can followers love well while navigating around codependency? Through the...

Letting people be themselves is mistakenly understood as a form of love because we don't like to receive feedback. So instead of getting involved in other peoples' messes, we resort to pitying others because it abdicates ourselves from the moral responsibility to help them. But unlike pity which seeks relief, love is committed to the greater good of others. Though  people lack the courage to deal...

In our COVID-ravaged, politically polarized, and racially divided times, such sources of stress are often used to capitalize on our human nature and physiological responses to our fears. We look to empathy as a solution to quell these surfacing fears, but while empathy can certainly be used as a tool for positive purposes, it can also be mistaken for love. Empathy is a tool that allows us to conne...

In a world where we are quick to define people by their darkest hours and their mistakes, we tend to assume that our lives cannot be anything more than stories of error and failure. However, the good news of the gospel offers a different trajectory for our lives: one of transformation and redemption. When we examine ourselves and our lives through the lens of Christ rather than through a worldly o...

The Christian faith is often depicted as an elimination diet, wherein people carry the notion that salvation is a product of expunging their weaknesses and sin for the sake of perfection. Thereby, what it means to be Christian is ultimately associated with an unrelatable, picture-perfect faith that many hopeful believers try to imitate, only to fall victim to impostor syndrome. However, the silver...

Most of us distrust leaders of large institutions like the church because the spirit of our age is about defining people by moments of failure. We expect perfection from those in power, and our shattered ideals cause us to become more punitive towards our leaders. But looking through a gospel lens, we learn that the early church was not about perfection, but about direction, wherein Jesus selected...

One common denominator amongst all of humanity is that we encounter disappointment in others. When we carry expectations and hold people in high regards, coming to terms with our shattered ideals could be difficult. However, being let down by others' shortcomings helps us recalibrate reality and elevate the treasure of Christ where he rightfully belongs. Christ above others helps us not only forgi...

Dr. Darrell Johnson, Teaching Fellow at Regent College, joins us this week with an exposition on the character of God, the Shameless Father. In this sermon, Dr. Johnson offers insight on why the believer’s relationship with prayer is key to our relationship with the Father and how in our prayer, our reception of the Holy Spirit is at play. Through the Parable of the Friend at Midnight found in the...

In diverse communities, certain traditions, perspectives, and cultural norms start to influence one another. This is why there are often differences among people within the church. But though these differences define how we understand ourselves and others, sometimes it can create tension within the church. And sometimes, these disagreements can gain too much importance. When we forget Christ's mes...

The overarching motif that captures the central aim of the church and the believer’s faith expression is to love our neighbors as ourselves. However, each of our faith journeys demonstrate a fundamental tension between our default humanity and the new creation we find in Christ: the original sin that resides in our flesh and the grip of the fruit of the spirit borne out of redemption. In our spiri...