The Christian Chronicle Podcast

It is necessary for good things to come to an end so that new good things can begin. After 159+ episodes, Christian Chronicle Podcast director and host BT Irwin gets behind the mic one last time to interview the show's new hosts, Wes McAdams and Marcus Stenson .  In this episode, McAdams and Stenson share the love and purpose that led them to take on this ministry and their vision for how the...

Marshall Keeble (1878 - 1968) may be the most accomplished and influential Church of Christ preacher of all time. For decades, he preached all over the world, baptizing as many as 40,000 and planting hundreds of Church of Christ congregations. Today, hundreds of Church of Christ elders and ministers trace their own Christian ancestry back to Keeble. What makes this story even more remarkable is th...

If surveys are on point, burnout is epidemic among professional and volunteer ministers in congregations everywhere. Not only does burnout end ministries, it damages churches and families as well. It's a major problem that congregations and ministers brush off or put off at their own peril. In this episode, Dr. Darrel Sears (assistant professor of Bible and ministry, York University ) defines...

Many Church of Christ members have preached or testified before thousands at various places and times, but Captain Victor Glover is one of the very few who spoke to an audience of billions. And he is the only one to do it from more than 200,000 miles away from earth. From April 1 - 10, 2026, Glover and three other astronauts completed a 500,000-mile round trip that took them beyond the moon and fa...

Max Rogers ( Chatham Church of Christ , Chatham, New Jersey) is an Ivy League-educated economist who never imagined that he would every try online sports gambling, let alone get hooked on it. But one $5 bet soon turned to hundreds of bets and thousands of dollars in losses. In this episode, Rogers talks about how his experience with online sports gambling exposed him to how this is a fast-growing...

Church of Christ folks sometimes have an uneasy relationship with church history outside of the New Testament. In a tradition that esteems the Bible as the singular authority and pattern for the church, it may feel weird or wrong to explore church history from other sources. Dr. Dyron Daughrity is a Church of Christ kid who not only grew up to be a local Church of Christ minister, he became a hist...

On Wednesday, April 1, four astronauts blasted into space for a historic mission to the far side of the moon. The pilot, Captain Victor Glover , is a Church of Christ member who often speaks of his faith with candor and clarity. As the BBC reported, Captain Glover took his Bible with him more than 250,000 miles from Earth.  This episode is a replay of Captain Glover's May 2023 conversation wi...

Church of Christ lifers may remember Churches of Christ in the United States , an annual directory of, you guessed it, all Church of Christ congregations in the United States. The last edition came out in 2018. In 2024, The Christian Chronicle , Heritage 21 Foundation , Siburt Institute and 21st Century Christian formed a partnership , the Church Research Council , to resume publication of Churche...

Bible scholar and prolific book-writer Rubel Shelly returns to talk about his two new books on heaven and hell. In this episode, he explains why heaven and hell may not be what most Christians always imagined them to be. Link to  Heaven: Why It May Not Be What You Have Always Heart , by Rubel Shelly Link to  Hell: Why It May Not Be What You Have Always Heard , by Rubel Shelly Donate to support thi...

How many Church of Christ congregations in the United States baptized 8,000 people in their first 20 years? Central Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee , did . Forming in 1925, the Central Church of Christ did not choose to assemble in the desirable, fast-growing, upwardly-mobile parts of Nashville. Rather, the congregation chose to put down roots in the highest-crime, highest-poverty part of...

These days, the heat and wind of the political environment is kindling even in some Christians what seems to be an appetite for rage, revenge and violence. When the church of Christ allows itself to be set ablaze by politics, how can it demonstrate the grace and peace of the kingdom of God? How can it bear witness to the reconciling and redemptive work of Jesus Christ? How can it be a refuge for t...

Lakeview Church of Christ and Northwest Church of Christ , both in Chicago , have long histories ministering to their neighbors and welcoming strangers into their pews. For decades, migration trends mean that many of their members and neighbors are from countries beyond the United States.  For both Lakeview and Northwest, embracing and supporting these newcomers has always been a simple matter of...

Kids and young adults growing up in congregations with "Church of Christ" signs on their buildings have honest questions: "Who are we? How did we become who we are? Why do we do what we do?" These are important questions for young Christians trying to decide whether to remain with the church of their upbringing or strike out in search of something different. And, if "resto...

Declining birthrates in the United States will drive down college enrollment over the next 15 years. Some experts predict that hundreds of small private colleges and universities will close. Of the 14 colleges and universities in the Church of Christ family tree, as many as ten of them have characteristics that put them at higher risk in the new higher education market. Many of these schools are i...

Parents of special needs kids face a special kind of grief and a special kind of struggle. Yet, so often their needs go overlooked and unmet in their own churches. Gigi Khonyongwa-Fernandez , author of From Rollercoasters to Carousels: An Emotional Support Guide to Healing for NICU, Bereaved and Special Needs Parents , shares her story and the emotions she and other NICU, bereaved and special need...

Once upon a time, a Church of Christ minister could be effective with some education in Bible and training in preaching. But is that enough in the "digital world" of the 21st century? Dr. Todd Brenneman and Tommie Lee Washington , professors at Faulkner University , make the case that it's past time for Church of Christ ministers to add excellence in media and technology to their mi...

Christian Chronicle Podcast partner Freed-Hardeman University sponsored this special episode to be an open invitation to you to visit the Bible lands. If you're a longtime listener to The Christian Chronicle Podcast, you've heard the advertisements that promote the opportunity for all students in the Freed-Hardeman University Graduate School of Theology to work an archaeological dig in t...

When Dallas Jenkins , creator, principal writer and show runner for The Chosen spoke at Oklahoma Christian University , The Christian Chronicle's Bobby Ross, Jr. , got a chance to sit down with him for a conversation. Carla Hinton , faith editor for The Oklahoman and The Christian Chronicle's CEO Erik Tryggestad joined them.  In this interview, you'll hear Jenkins talk about: The ex...

When The Christian Chronicle covered and editorialized Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk 's murder in September 2025, the reaction from our audience was big and hot.  Some Church of Christ folks expressed reverence for Kirk and regarded him as a Christian martyr. Others expressed anger and sadness at how he died, but emphasized that what he believed and how he expressed it did not repres...

"Spiritual warfare" seems to be on the lips and minds of many Christ-claimers in the United States these days, including those in the Church of Christ. But what is "spiritual warfare" and how do we know that we're waging it? Dr. Joe Beam , who wrote the landmark book Seeing the Unseen: A Handbook for Spiritual Warfare in the early 1990s, joins the present-day milieu on how...

A little more than half (52 percent) of Americans say they would allow public school teachers to lead their students in prayers to Jesus in taxpayer-funded public schools. This is according to the latest Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center . In this episode, that study's author, Chip Rotolo , reveals how Americans have changed in both religious and spiritual beliefs and pra...

Colleges and universities with roots and ties in the Church of Christ community have a strong history of seeking and welcoming international students to their campuses. Many of them see this as essential to their Christian mission to "go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Gospel of Matthew 28:19).  Rapid changes to federal policies, however, may be keeping some international s...

Church of Christ congregations in the rural areas and small towns of the United States are struggling with closures and membership losses. What act of God and the Church of Christ together could lead to growth and health? Dr. Anessa Westbrook is co-director of the new Center for Ministry at York University in York, Nebraska. In this episode, Dr. Westbrook unpacks some of the reasons that so many c...

One Church of Christ congregation in Atlanta, Georgia, USA , is going all in on producing live theatre for its community. Since giving its first stage production a try, Bouldercrest Church of Christ is attracting casts and crews comprising Church of Christ members from all over the city. And thousands are attending performances like Scenes from the Life of Christ . In this episode, we hear from th...

"Honorary title for this episode is 'Filling the Void.'" Listen and find out why (and thanks to Alonzo Rojo)!  Jóvenes for Christ is a summer camp for English-speaking young Christians growing up in bilingual or Spanish-speaking churches and homes. In this episode, we hear from Jóvenes for Christ board members, Kevin Rivera (Lakeview Iglesia de Cristo, Garland, Texas), Alonzo R...