theeffect Podcasts

Dave Brisbin | 7.22.18 Most often, we attach meaning to circumstance. We view accidents of birth—where, when, how, and to whom we are born—as significant, along with our own accomplishments and external events that affect us. We attach good or bad labels to our circumstances based on the level of pain they bring. But when we think on even the worst things that have happened to us, if enough time h...

Dave Brisbin | 7.15.18 I almost don’t pick up the phone; it’s been ringing all day. Just getting into work flow again and don’t recognize the number…I watch it for several rings then grudgingly tap the screen. It’s a young Marine with a fellow corpsman driving around looking for and calling churches near the base. You’re the only one to answer the phone, he says, and goes on to tell me they are be...

Dave Brisbin | 7.8.18 Think of all the debates and fights between Christians. Among Christians. Between Christians and non-Christians. What are they all about? Truth? Ethics, morality, law, doctrine, church practice or style, social issues? For Christians, if it’s Scripture that informs us of truth, then every fight—whatever it’s about— is ultimately about Scripture. What we believe about Scriptur...

Dave Brisbin | 7.1.18 When did Christianity actually begin? It would be easy to say at Jesus’ birth, baptism, ministry, Easter. But was Christianity as we know it present during Jesus’ life? Even Easter was a “silent” event. It happened while Jesus’ followers were sleeping or at least staring at the ceiling that night. Afterwards, they didn’t recognize him when they first saw him, and it took some...

Dave Brisbin | 6.24.18 In times of difficult life transitions, when the uncertainty factor is blowing the top off the thermometer, questions of how to proceed become really urgent. But coupling these transitions and the seemingly risky decisions that come along for the ride with a perceived loss of connection with God, spirit, relational connection, can be paralyzing. When the pain is great, it se...

Dave Brisbin | 6.17.18 On Father’s Day: Though the ancient Hebrews who wrote our scripture always referred to God in the masculine as Ab/Father, there is much in scripture that also refers to a feminine nature as well. Hebrews understood that God encompassed both ab and em, father and mother—both are embedded in their language, sacred writings, and world view. But here in the modern West, looking...

Dave Brisbin | 6.10.18 My wife tells me she keeps seeing the number 11:11 everywhere. I start seeing 11:11 as well. She does some research and finds that seeing repeating numbers is a “thing,” a phenomenon sometimes called “angel numbers,” with an intricate system of meaning based on numerological values. But since any actual meaning can’t be verified or falsified, it’s all easy to dismiss, even m...

Dave Brisbin | 6.3.18 Dialogue from movie: “You’ll never believe what just happened!” “If it’s bad news, I generally do believe it…” Unfortunately true. Why is it that we generally do believe the bad news over the good? If you think on it, we’re shaped much more by the hurts and traumas we’ve experienced in life than by the joys and pleasures. Pain demands strategies for survival that we build fro...

Dave Brisbin | 5.27.18 I’ve watched a friend over the nearly ten years I’ve known her, fight her way back from the depths of traumatic loss to new life only to find out that she has cancer. When we last connect, she’s just coming out of eight hours of chemo. Eight hours for one treatment. I had no idea it could take so long. You’d think after all the years down and the all years climbing back up t...

Dave Brisbin | 5.20.18 On the day of our 11th Anniversary as a ministry, we listen to an excerpt of the last audio recording our co-founder, Bob “Bubba” Beauchamp delivered in 2015. When Bubba died in January, 2018, we excerpted a short clip of what was the essence of how he and we at theeffect approach our spirituality: experientially over intellectually and relationally over religiously. Jumping...

Dave Brisbin | 5.13.18 On Mothers’ Day, we’re recalling a question posed last year: I know that God loves me, but how do I know that he likes me? It’s a brilliant question if you think about it, but at first blush, why would it even come up? If we know God loves us, isn’t that enough? No, not really… We’re commanded to love one another, even to love our enemies. But liking implies affection, genui...

Dave Brisbin | 5.6.18 You’ve heard of heat seeking missiles…truth is, we humans are all pleasure seeking missiles. We seek pleasure and to avoid pain. Necessary trait for survival of the species. It guides us spiritually too, as long as we honestly consider in what we ultimately take pleasure. You could say that the spiritual journey is really an ongoing refining of our pleasure centers. Chinese p...

Dave Brisbin | 4.29.18 From the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, it can seem that the Spirit descending on Jesus’ followers like tongues of fire on each was an event that happened at a particular place and time as they passively waited. But the truth is, there’s nothing passive about the spiritual life. We need to resist the temptation to think of Pentecost or baptism of the spirit or the born agai...

Dave Brisbin | 4.22.18 If we’re serious about getting to Pentecost, experiencing the full awareness of spiritual presence, there’s a basic truth about the journey with which we have to come to grips…that the way to Pentecost begins at Calvary. Jesus said that it was to his closest followers’ advantage that he go away, so the Helper could come. Moses, after 40 years of faithfully leading his people...

Dave Brisbin | 4.15.18 Between Easter and Pentecost, or more specifically, between Pesach/Passover and Shavu’ot, stretches a period of fifty days called in Hebrew sefirat ha-omer—the Counting of the Omer. Jews were told to make a grain offering on the second day of Pesach, then count each day for seven Sabbaths, add one day, and make another grain offering. Starting as celebrations of the barley a...

Dave Brisbin | 4.8.18 Moving past the Resurrection and anticipating the spiritual filling of Pentecost fifty days later, is there a model for the shape our days if we’re living a spiritually aware lifestyle? What does that look like? Jesus teaches and demonstrates all through the Gospels of course, but the nation of Israel itself shows most clearly the ideal of what day to day conscious connection...

Dave Brisbin | 4.1.18 There is one detail in the post resurrection accounts of Jesus appearing to his closest friends and followers that is common to all of them, and yet this detail hasn’t gotten much airplay or consideration in terms of what it may mean to us who are still trying to follow Jesus so long after that first resurrection Sunday. None of the friends and followers to whom Jesus appeare...

Dave Brisbin | 3.25.18 On Palm Sunday, what is the importance of the details of Jesus’ big entrance into Jerusalem that kicked off what turned out to be his last week before crucifixion? Do we focus on historical facts that occurred nearly 2,000 years ago or on spiritual truths as immediate as our next breath? Standing behind all the historical details are rich symbolic truths that point us in an...

During our grand opening celebration for our new San Clemente location, we took time to have several effect members talk about their personal journeys leading them to theeffect and beyond. The stories are classic tales of spiritual transition and community. Also, the family of one of our founders who recently passed was on hand to present a portrait of him for our facility.

Dave Brisbin | 3.18.18 The central question for any who calls themselves Christian or a follower of Jesus has to be the one Jesus asks his followers--and by extension all of us--in Mark 8, “Who do you say that I am?” The question has as many answers as there are followers most likely, but how do we come to the best answer that we can muster as a group? Leonard Sweet comes to our rescue with the te...

Dave Brisbin | 3.11.18 On the fourth Sunday of Lent, trying to re-imagine Lent as time of sensory deprivation in order to clear away all that distracts and obscures God’s face, if we’ve begun practicing moment by moment awareness, if we’ve begun to confront our limiting beliefs and obsessive behavior patterns and become willing to overturn those interior tables, what truth starts to become apparen...

Dave Brisbin | 3.4.18 On the third Sunday of Lent, continuing to look at how taking Lent seriously as a time of clearing away all that distracts and obscures the truth of our lives…after we commit to the process of increasing awareness moment by moment, what’s next? As we become more aware of our emotions and emotional triggers, thought and behavioral patterns, as we begin to see ourselves as with...

Dave Brisbin | 2.18.18 On the first Sunday of Lent, how do we learn about this 40 day journey to Easter from the tradition of liturgy? Each day of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday has passages from the Gospels embedded that can help us prepare for the new life of Easter if we’re paying attention. Looking at the passage traditionally read on Palm Sunday, as Jesus is entering Jerusalem b...

Dave Brisbin | 2.11.18 Lent is upon us. Already. Again. 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 used in early church life? What tr...

Dave Brisbin | 2.4.18 Once we begin to get a new notion of the Father’s love, we are immediately assailed with all the reasons why not, why it couldn’t be so, that something that seems to be this good, it just can’t possibly be. And so we need to protect the love—not the love itself; it needs no protecting as the first and most durable substance in the universe, but we do need to protect our convi...