theeffect Podcasts

Frank Billman 6.21.20 On this Father’s Day we explore the nature and attributes of our heavenly father. Before we look at the scripture it is important to consider what may block us from truly seeing him and understanding his true nature. We can have roadblocks like our early church experience. Or perhaps our earthly father left an impression on us that colors our view of God’s nature. It’s even p...

Dave Brisbin 6.14.20 I’m often asked about end times and the apocalyptic passages and books of the bible that support popular end times scenarios. But especially now, there is an increase of questioning as the events of the last few months appear to mirror much end times imagery. A recent survey showed 56% of a group of pastors believing that we are in end times, but what can scripture itself show...

Dave Brisbin 6.7.20 We’re sailing through a perfect storm of pandemic and protest driven issues that are raising deep questions and the need for reexamination of ourselves and our society. Can our scriptures help us at a time like this? I’m asked how we’re supposed to understand Romans 13 where Paul tells us to obey our state authorities no matter what—they are ordained by God. He tells us to pay...

Dave Brisbin 5.31.20 Pentecost Sunday: Though it’s the feast of Pentecost today, the week of protests and riots are the elephant in the room that demands some attention and discussion. But is there a link between our response to the strife and opposition around us and the deepest message of Pentecost? Or better, would our engagement in Pentecost temper our response to the opposition we face? Betwe...

Dave Brisbin 5.31.20 Pentecost Sunday: Though it’s the feast of Pentecost today, the week of protests and riots are the elephant in the room that demands some attention and discussion. But is there a link between our response to the strife and opposition around us and the deepest message of Pentecost? Or better, would our engagement in Pentecost temper our response to the opposition we face? Betwe...

Dave Brisbin 5.24.20 Thomas Merton wrote that the bible is, without question, one of the most unsatisfying books ever written until the reader comes to terms with it in a very special way. If you’ve never been unsatisfied by the bible, if you’ve never been perplexed, affronted, offended, even outraged by it, then it’s possible you’ve never seriously considered it. What are we to make of God orderi...

Dave Brisbin 5.17.20 As the outbreak crisis continues, fear is ramping up in us either directly or through its son and daughter emotions of anxiety, stress, anger, and depression, among others. It’s becoming painfully clear that our fear is now creating new problems and exacerbating others, which brought a quote to mind from another era: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Franklin Roos...

Dave Brisbin 5.10.20 Mothers’ Day. This pandemic and lockdown has pulled the veneer of so many of our fears in just the past two months, it raises the question: why so many of us who know God loves them are still experiencing so much fear? Did we miss a memo somewhere? A woman once told me she knew God loved her, but wondered how she could know if God liked her. May sound silly at first, that if G...

Dave Brisbin 5.3.20 The best part of being a pastor is being trusted enough to be invited into people’s lives. To see and be a part of their vulnerabilities and fears as well as joys and celebrations. And during this lockdown, many people I’m talking to have multiple losses and difficult circumstances layered over the quarantine crisis. And each one, whether a death, illness, unemployment, homeles...

Dave Brisbin 4.26.20 Everything in the New Testament is geared toward creating in us a fundamental shift in perspective. To experience the process of learning to see life through the Father’s eyes. To see life in all its complexity, diversity, contradiction, even absurdity of pain and joy from the viewpoint of the one thing it all comes from, is sustained by, and ultimately is. When we can begin t...

Dave Brisbin 4.19.20 As I talk to more and more people being worn down by quarantine lockdown to where some are in real distress, the point is hammered home that our faith, spirituality, and the message we convey must be relevant and useful enough to meet people at their point of need. If the gospel as we understand it isn’t relevant, if it remains abstract—however beautiful as a concept—what good...

Dave Brisbin 4.12.20 Easter Sunday: On Easter, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, we celebrate Easter virtually via streaming with our community watching a live stream from their homes, setting their own communion tables to fully participate remotely together. Though missing each other’s company, in the following days, it was wonderful to hear how individuals and families created their own sacre...

Dave Brisbin 4.5.20 Palm Sunday: On the first day of Holy Week—the week before Easter Sunday that recounts the events of the last week of Jesus’ life and circumstances of his death—the church celebrates Palm Sunday, named for the palm branches waved and laid before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem for the last time. The church has dubbed it the triumphal entry, but Jesus himself considered it a trage...

Dave Brisbin 3.29.20 Fascinating thing about human nature is that we will do almost anything to avoid uncertainty and find meaning in the events and circumstances around us. And the bigger the event or circumstance, the bigger the cause needs to be to give the event the meaning we crave. But events, circumstances, and object don’t have meaning in themselves—they’re inanimate objects. If a tree fal...

Dave Brisbin 3.22.20 On the first Sunday of COVI-19 lockdown, streaming to those in self-isolation, the surreal quality of living the reality of a pandemic outbreak is amplified. In just a week of lockdown, many of us are already strongly feeling the effects of disconnection from each other and the regular routines of life that once connected us. How can we best help each other in times like these...

Dave Brisbin 3.15.20 There’s an elephant in the room, and there’s no sense not addressing it. The COVID-19 outbreak is unprecedented in the way it is changing our way of life, and there’s a sense that things may never be the same, just as they never were after 9/11. With schools, churches, conventions, restaurants, sporting events, all public venues shutting down, with supermarket shelves empty an...

Dave Brisbin 3.8.20 If we are to be persuaded to try to make this Lent a transforming process, the creation of a new habitual way of living in greater presence, it’s important for us to have realistic expectation of the result. Most of us would say that we expect peace in some form, and by that we mean we want any and all hurting to stop, an absence of the pain and longing that characterize so man...

Dave Brisbin 3.1.20 I often say that I’m a teacher, not preacher, by which I mean that a preacher’s main purpose is to persuade, and a teacher’s is to encourage students to engage. Both impart information, but the agenda is different. That said, there are things I do want to persuade my listeners: to be intimately part of a faith community and to passionately engage their own spiritual journeys. H...

Dave Brisbin 2.23.20 Lent begins Wednesday as it has every year since the seventh century. What do we really know about Lent? For those of us who grew up in liturgical churches, what we learned may have had little to do with the traditions that established Lent, and what we remember now, may even subvert those ancient intentions. What does the word Lent mean? Why 40 days and how was Lent initially...

Frank Billman 2.16.20 The way Jesus teaches, through parables, stories, and questions in response to questions, makes clear that a primary intent is to challenge the belief system of the student, to help him or her deconstruct the worldview that is now limiting their ability to see a radically different truth. We all see the world based on several filters or lenses of our personal belief system, a...

Dave Brisbin 2.9.20 It’s natural for people to focus on law and rules because the world runs on law and rules with the threat of punishment enforcing obedience. It makes the world go round and trains run on time. And the church, as an institution, has largely run on the same premise, which then makes God guilty by association of also looking for obedience to his “law” as the means by which we are...

Dave Brisbin 2.2.20 Continuing a series of exploring difficult subjects, those that tend to really set off emotional triggers and divisive arguments, we have dug into the concepts of salvation, eternal life, Satan and spiritual warfare…and now the question comes about whether God’s judgment on us is predestined or if we really do have free will. Wow, no easy questions here. Just as with salvation...

Dave Brisbin 1.26.20 Decades ago, I thought it was important to challenge a Franciscan priest who said he believed that Satan was really a metaphor for our own inclination to evil. He waved me off saying that all he could do was tell me what he was convinced of; that I needed to go become convinced of what I’m convinced of. Now, decades later I am challenged for my beliefs on Satan and evil, and t...

Dave Brisbin 1.19.20 One of the drawbacks of the Sunday morning sermon is also its strength: uninterrupted speech. Good for developing and delivering a message, but not for conversation. And conversation, the give and take, question and answer is where ideas can really be conveyed and absorbed. And with a topic as large as salvation that was tackled last week, this Sunday is more about the convers...

Dave Brisbin 1.12.20 A friend takes me to task saying that he could see that what I write and teach would make someone want to be “saved,” but that he couldn’t see where I was actually telling anyone how to attain salvation. Based on our understanding of salvation in Western Christian tradition and Paul’s line from Romans 10: if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your hear t...