theeffect Podcasts

Dave Brisbin 6.13.21 As good Westerners, we approach spiritual formation with our minds. We see faith as correct thinking, a mental agreement with correct thoughts about God, theology, doctrine. But over the years, I’ve learned not to trust thoughts in my head. I know at best, they are incomplete and inaccurate more often than I’d care to admit. But this is no longer cause for concern: I don’t exp...

Dave Brisbin 6.6.21 Jesus said that no one can see Kingdom—the quality of life lived in awareness of God’s presence—until born again in spirit. In the same breath he says those born of spirit are like wind, which you can hear but never see or know where it’s coming from or going to. Not very helpful if you’re trying to get there. And that’s the point. Spirit can’t be controlled. The more we try to...

Dave Brisbin 5.30.21 Two questions last week: How do we come to know God, see life as the Father sees it? And how is Jesus the only way to the Father? Great questions, and related—two parts of the same question. Knowing God is central in scripture, but knowing in the Hebrew minds that wrote scripture was not intellectual; it was intimate experience. To them, knowing God couldn’t be separated from...

Dave Brisbin 5.23.21 Jesus says that if we believe in him, we will do the works he did and greater works than those. Most commentators say that those works are Jesus’ miracles and the greater works are not in quality but quantity—that Jesus’ followers had more time to do more works for more people. But the bible is a spiritual book conveying spiritual truths and principles, and if we take it too l...

Dave Brisbin 5.16.21 Imagine living in a world where you didn’t understand the workings of nature…where thunder, lightning, earthquakes, eclipses were literally the voice, hands, and face of God? Where impossibly dark nights exploded with stars and the only entertainment were the chants, drums, and dance around community fires at night. Where you never saw your own reflection in a mirror and only...

Dave Brisbin 5.9.21 Mother’s Day. A few years ago I was asked: I know God loves me, but how do I know he likes me? Made me smile immediately, as it cut right to the heart of things. Love can means so many things to us, but like is pretty specific—implies affection, genuine delight, pleasure, desire to be with, playful attention, fun. God’s love may hold the fabric of the universe together, but God...

Dave Brisbin 5.2.21 What kills our ability to trust our lives to the action of unseen spirit? Our fears, of course. We fear death because of the ultimate unknown it represents: whether anything we imagine ourselves to be continues. We fear God’s judgment and hell because we’ve been taught to look at God legally and hell literally. But that is not what Scripture teaches. Corrected by context, Scrip...

Dave Brisbin 4.25.21 I’ve been getting a lot of questions about death lately. Things seem to come in cycles, and this apparently is that cycle. In the past week, I was asked about death from an eighteen-year-old girl and a sixty-eight year old man, so it’s on all our minds. What happens at death? What happens after death? What does the bible say about death? But between all the questions, what is...

Dave Brisbin 4.18.21 Have you always worked for a guaranteed, monthly or hourly salary or have you worked freelance or project-to-project or owned your own business? If you’ve done both at various times, you know how different the experiences are. Working for a salary makes life much more manageable, predictable and smoother than always wondering where the next job or customer is coming from, stor...

Dave Brisbin 4.11.21 We’ve made a big deal about counting to 40 during Lent—forty being the biblically symbolic number of preparation into rebirth, preparing for the new life Easter represents. Lent ended last Sunday with Easter, but even then we were already a week into another count, this time to 49. Jews, ancient and modern, begin counting each day from the second day of Passover through seven...

Dave Brisbin 4.4.21 Easter Sunday. What is the most important single thought to take away from this Easter? After all the Easters you’ve lived through, what single concept will bring you closer to the new life and fresh wind of Easter? We typically focus on the supernatural miracle of the resurrection, of course, but notice that the gospels don’t. They focus on the effect of the resurrection on Je...

Dave Brisbin 3.28.21 Palm Sunday. When Jesus rides into Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday, he brings with him a trail of clues to answer the question everyone is asking: Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? His public life’s work, his teaching, even the colt of a donkey he rides are answering this question for anyone who’s really paying attention, yet no one is seeing who really rides that little burro....

Dave Brisbin 3.21.21 Fifth Sunday of Lent. With Lent winding down, we remember that we have been approaching this Lent not as a negative time of giving things up as penitence for sin as much as the positive, affirmative action of introducing the elements that would clear out our distractions, purify our intent, and mirror Jesus’ time in the fortyness of his desert wilderness. What did Jesus positi...

Dave Brisbin 3.14.21 Fourth Sunday of Lent. A woman tells me that covid issues have divided her family to the point she feels her once close family is now like roommates passing in the halls. She was devastated and wondering how it could have happened? Good question. How have the medical and political issues surrounding the pandemic been powerful enough to divide us all the way down to families an...

Dave Brisbin 3.7.21 Third Sunday of Lent. Tyranny of the Finite…love that term. Means that as finite creatures, we can’t be everywhere at once, and don’t have enough time to be everywhere eventually. Means we have to choose—and choice means stress, anxiety…after all, saying yes to one thing is saying no to something else, and we could make the wrong choice. In fact, stress and anxiety are how we k...

Dave Brisbin 2.28.21 Second Sunday of Lent. Why do Jesus and Paul teach the way they do? Why do they both tell us that the Way to new and abundant life is by focusing on what is invisible, conquering by yielding, resting under a yoke, becoming free by becoming a slave, reigning by serving, being great by being small, becoming wise by being a fool, triumphing through defeat, living by dying, being...

Dave Brisbin 2.21.21 On the first Sunday of Lent, after having been through how many Lents? How many Easters? We’re pretty sure we know what Easter is all about. Just ask us, and we’ll rattle off all our theological truths about the resurrection. But when you bring the certainty of your beliefs to Jesus, you’re in for a shock. What would Jesus say? Probably to sell everything you have and come and...

Dave Brisbin 2.14.21 Poor Thomas… As one of the twelve Apostles, the inner circle of Jesus’ first followers, he follows Jesus for years, exhibits his bravery and boldness in following where others feared to go, and according to tradition, carries the gospel as far as India before he was martyred there in 72 CE. Pretty good resume. And yet because of one mistake—saying he wouldn’t believe the repor...

Dave Brisbin 2.7.21 A man calls to ask how he can know God’s love is real and not just a thought in his head that he made up or would like to believe. He’s asking the central question without which life remains very scary. I remember asking the same thing about prayer. Was I just talking to myself? How could I know if my prayer was real? By outcomes? By feelings? Maddeningly, Jesus doesn’t tell us...

Dave Brisbin 1.31.21 If Jesus were here today, would he be a Republican or a Democrat? Really? What I first thought had to be a rhetorical or facetious question was being asked in all sincerity. And the quick answer: that he would be neither or both, while possibly technically true, would be an evasion, ignoring the complexities and subtext of the question. Such a question deserves to be answered...

Dave Brisbin 1.24.21 Friend of mine, increasingly frustrated that his actions and attitudes weren’t matching the conviction he believed he believed, had a sudden breakthrough one morning: that he was trying to create meaning out of life and something of himself through a sheer force of intellectual will. That he wasn’t taking God seriously—just showing up each morning and letting life teach. As a...

Dave Brisbin 1.17.21 Ever looked up to realize you’ve driven miles past your exit with no idea how you got there? Who was doing the driving just then? Ever done or said something before you were even aware another choice was possible, cringing afterward? Paul bemoans the same thing at Romans 7 saying, the things he hates are the things he finds himself doing. Says he’s not in control, that the sin...

Dave Brisbin 1.10.21 As our world seems to spin more and more out of control, becomes more and more precariously balanced, the word apocalyptic is being used more and more as well. We’re becoming obsessed. Movie, TV, and social media content seems to revolve more and more around apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic material, and all this cultural focus assumes that apocalypse means catastrophic destru...

Dave Brisbin 1.3.21 Our little dog was attacked by an owl in our backyard a few nights ago—an owl, can you believe it? She came running back in screaming and bleeding and now won’t go back out into the yard. She now sees the backyard as a scary place, even if daytime with no owls in sight. Are we much different? Looking to a new year with hope for change, are we looking with eyes capable of seeing...

Dave Brisbin 12.27.20 It’s the Third Day of Christmas. What does that mean? Three French hens immediately comes to mind from the song. But what are the Twelve Days of Christmas for that matter? The ancient liturgies of Christianity dating back hundreds and sometimes thousands of years have created a yearly cycle of seasons and celebrations that have defined and bonded communities through their com...