The Goodness of God

Lovett Weems Jr. wrote a fascinating dive into the statics behind the growth in small churches. That is that 70% of all churches now have less than 100 regard attenders, and that the median church size in most denominations has shrunk. Many tiny churches have closed, but many have an opportunity to remain viable. The big question is how to do you do and remain actually focused of doing the work of...

The interaction between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 is profoundly baffling. He definitely call her a dog, and not even a nice kind of dog, and she then quips back at him. They depart friends? Her daughter certainly receives the healing love of God. So, what do we do with all of this? It is dark humor, or cultural bias, or an example of Christ growing as a human, or an example of t...

God's people (literally anyone who has claimed that title over the centuries) have a shockingly long history of hypocrisy. We seemingly live for the opportunity to judge others for their behavior even as we live in a wildly ungodly ways. Sure, our New Testament antagonists, the Pharisees, get called out for it here, but Christians picked up that mantle and ran with it in a 2,000 year long unbroken...

This week, Pastor Trey and Pastor Emily are joined by the Rev. Dr. Elaine Heath to talk about amazing Farmastery (Farm + Monastery), Spring Forest, where she is the Abbess and now lead farm worker. All of this grows out of a lifetime of various streams come together for her from being a young girl finding peace on a neighbor's farm, to being a professor of evangelism leading innovative urban minis...

The ancient temple in Jerusalem was more than a power symbol of God's importance. It contained at least a piece of God's presence. God is everywhere, but God also setup a specific outpost there in the Holy of Holies. In claiming a physical throne for God's self, God powerfully illustrates the true way of things. God reigns. God should be the one who reigns in our own lives as well. Hosted on Acast...

We launched all our podcasting-y stuff around a year ago, and we've learned a lot in that time. We've figured out how to make content without overloading us. We learned that it's bad when all your studios are constantly over 90 degrees. We started making TikToks. And, we learned that we need to take the next leap into becoming a Christian media company. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

King Solomon ascend the throne and immediately impresses God. He choose wisdom to serve the nation rather than something that was good for himself. Solomon reaches this conclusion despite growing up during his family's darkest period. He overcomes his background and shows humility and wisdom - even before God grants his request. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Village UMC wanted to do something new. Nash Carey had a whole model of ministry to reach a whole different group of folks by running a comic book store as ministry. They came together to open an Oklahoma City comic book store, owned by Village UMC, and operated by Nash. It's an amazing take on getting out beyond the church walls, taking something you know and love, and creating meaningful, Spirit...

King screw up....royally....again. His actions and inactions lead to a rebellion, the death of two of his sons, and the slaughter of 20,000 of his own subjects. However, this story is as much about what doesn't happen as what does. God does reject David. If we extrapolate this out, God is a God of grace. We too can royally screw up, and God will still love us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

Much like Heart Disease in the human population, the shocking rise in church insurance costs over the last four years is the unsexy and even boring sounding thing killing churches. A combination of inflation, a pandemic, climate change, and massive empty facility have combined into what the Associated Press describes as a "perfect storm" to make insuring churches next to impossible. Churches are r...

What does it mean to be like King David? In so many ways, King David and King Saul are a lot alike - military victorious, popular leaders, profoundly flawed. Both make decisions that turn out tragically for themselves and their families. The confrontation between the prophet Nathan and King David gives us a key window into the difference. When called out by God's voice box, David repents and finds...

Pastor Trey and his son, Thomas, report back on their field trip to St. Lydia's in Brooklyn. It's a dinner church with a storefront location and a focus on intentional simplicity. They provide an amazing example of what can happen, when you focus on your context, don't try and solve all the world's problems, but find a lane where you can do something powerful. Learn more about St. Lydia's: https:/...

King David messes up...royally. He peeps on a woman. He has his way with said woman. He monkeys with battlefield strategy to try and cover up his indiscretion. When that fails, he commits murder in the first degree. We can easily write this off as, "David is just bad, actually." This avoids the real question. How different are we from David? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...

Ryan Burge, on his Substack Graphs About Religion, did a statistical survey of nonreligious people in conjunction with the Freedom From Religion Foundation. It folks from outside of church world digging into what is up with folks who are outside of church world. Some of their findings should be deeply convicting. Most of the folks who left religion did so before the age of 25, and the main reasons...

David wants to build a Temple. It seems like a good enough idea. It honors God. It's the kind of thing that kings do. God says, "No." It's a perfectly fine idea, but it drills down to one of the key factors in a life following God - doing God's will only. We can fairly easily tell the difference between morally right and morally wrong, at least most of the time. We don't always do it, but we know....

Christian writer, David Zahl, put out "Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What To Do About It" in 2019, and it dives deep into all the new, and bad, religions that have grown up to replace a wanning Christianity in the West. Also, he argues that most Christianity, at this point, barely resembles the grace filled power of the true...

King David puts on quite a spectacle - dancing in the priestly equivalent of his underwear. People take notice. Some think better of him, and some think way less. If you choose to believe that David did this out of a genuine desire to please God (and God alone), we have a model to follow. Do your own version of dancing, and do it only for God. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...

The Well Church NYC creates an fascinating blend of Christianity, wellness retreats, yoga, and meditation with an explicit to reach the average New Yorker that doesn’t know that they’re looking for anything resembling Jesus. For some, their specific blend of influences may feel worryingly out of bounds or pushing up against the boundaries, but for The Well, they feel at home in it. As we go into n...

In scene one, Jesus gets rejected by his hometown crowd. In scene two, he sends the Disciples out with a warning that the same may happen to them. This pairing feels deliberate on the part of Mark, but it's not often how we talk about evangelism, ministry, or pushing forward the Kingdom of God. We make the sales pitch, "Get out there!" This is an important message, but we don't often pair it the w...

We talked about churches as some of the most stuck in the mud organizations imaginable. So, what do we do, when they need to make huge changes to survive? Pastor Trey and Pastor Emily have built their careers leading churches to just that, and it involves getting as many voices in the room, actually reckoning with the problem, and sitting with it slightly too long to let the Spirit do the work thr...

Humanity seems set on inventing new and interesting ways to exclude people from the joys of community. In Christ's time, the focus was on "uncleanliness." In the 21st Century, we've moved on from that specific concern and simply came up with new ways. Either way, none of that stuff separates you from God's love, and Jesus didn't let it stop him from showing love. Perhaps, we should act likewise. H...

This is more ranty than usual. The State of Louisiana enacted a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be placed on the wall of all classrooms in Louisiana public schools (including public universities). Politics aside, if our goal as a faith is to engage and build relationships with an increasingly skeptical world, this will not reduce their skepticism. While more people will see the Word of God b...

Hell may be other people, but so is the Kingdom of God. It can be far easier to endure sticks and stones that words uttered at you or whispered behind your back. Church brings with it all the problems of people and their imperfections. However, God intends us to gather people together to grow, share, and endure. Paul bore a lot pain in his ministry, but the pain that inspired him to write a letter...

Rev. Matt Stout, Dungeon Master and Pastor, of Game Church joins the show this week to tell the tale first hand of starting a Fresh Expression, in a game store, center around prayer and a legitimately good D&D campaign. It's all a place where he feels that he belongs. It's a world that he understands. So, he can uniquely reach people by connecting his love of Jesus, his love of people, and his...

Jesse leaves David out of the big meeting with the prophet. Samuel looks at David's oldest brother and thinks that he's seen God's king. God saw differently. God chose David. We have these visions of what Godly leadership must look like, but we should start looking at the leaders that God keeps choosing. They seldom fit the human envisioned model. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...