Vision For Life

Fellowship Denver’s bands wrote, recorded, and produced a worship album entitled ”Rebuild, Renew” that is set for release on September 16th. The album is a compilation of original works created by over 30 musicians. Three significant contributors to ”Rebuild, Renew,” Adam Anglin, Jordan Lucas, and Daniel Perez, sat down with Autumn to discuss leading worship, the process of creating a collaborativ...

In a two-part discussion, Autumn and Hunter consider a book by Pastor and Author Mark Sayers entitled “A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World Will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders.” If, as Sayers states, “crisis precedes renewal,” and non-anxious leaders are a primary means God uses to bring about renewal, how can we develop this sort of presence? Via deep, abiding c...

In a two-part discussion, Autumn and Hunter consider a book by Pastor and Author Mark Sayers entitled “A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World Will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders.” Sayers observes that the moral, geopolitical, and cultural norms of the past many years are being challenged and will eventually give way to a new order. We are moving into an undetermine...

Three Fellowship Denver Pastors, Hunter Beaumont, Rich Dugan, and Clark Nunnelly, recently traveled to Spain to attend a conference with church leaders from Europe, Africa, Australia, and the United States. In today’s episode, Hunter and Rich reflect on their time in Spain and share three ways the global church challenges and sharpens the modern church in America. They note the motivation, urgency...

It is a sobering reality that God the Spirit uses the church in mission and not the other way around. The church does not wield God the Spirit as its tool, to do with as it pleases. The church takes its mission plans directly from the Spirit (Acts 13). The church must be humbled by this knowing that we are not necessary for God to advance his mission. God has always been able to turn rocks into so...

Modern Americans have collective attention deficiency; our ability to read entire books, track complex arguments, or listen intently is collapsing. Hunter and Autumn turn to two articles to examine what this collapse of attention may mean for the church in the modern era. Church leaders and Christian Bible college professors are noting a “double literacy loss” within their respective communities....

A dramatic increase in teen anxiety and depression in America over the past few years has caught the attention of doctors, therapists, educators, parents, and journalists. Derek Thompson, in a recent Atlantic article, attributes the rising rates of anxiety and depression among teens to four causes: high social media use, low interpersonal socialization, constant and ready access to news sources, a...

The gospel compels us to love our neighbors in an active, sacrificial way. And, long-term change in the lives of vulnerable people is most effective when healthy people, communities, or institutions surround them. In this final conversation of the "Loving Our Neighbors" series, Dave and Autumn discuss classic activities of the local church, like regularly gathering for worship, and how these funct...

In Jesus’ teaching, love of neighbor is active, sacrificial, and not bound by the societal barriers that we tend to create. Jesus, quoting the Old Testament, states that love of God and neighbor is the summation of the law. In the OT rendering of God’s law given to Israel and in Jesus’ interpretation of those same moral laws in the NT, care for vulnerable individuals is central. The "quartet of th...

Love of neighbor is an imperative in the Old Testament law and in Jesus' own teaching on the continued moral ramifications of the law. Jesus depicts the love of neighbor as a sacrificial, costly act, reminiscent of his own love for us. Jen Shepard and Becky Braman join Autumn on the podcast to discuss the realities of foster care in Colorado, the Safe Families program, and how intentional compassi...

Who are our vulnerable neighbors? How can we get to know them? And how does the gospel compel us to act on their behalf? In today's episode, Autumn and Jill Anschutz answer these questions in light of the impact of our state and local educational systems on vulnerable children. Schools that perform consistently bring stability to the lives of children which links directly to outcomes they experien...

Autumn continues the discussion about the sacrificial love of neighbor inherent in the gospel in today's discussion with Jason Janz and Juan Peña of CrossPurpose. CrossPurpose is one of Fellowship Denver's Serve Denver partners. Their purpose as an organization is expressed in their mission statement: "CrossPurpose is a non-profit organization abolishing relational, economic, and spiritual poverty...

Loving our neighbor means reflecting the grace, mercy, and generosity we have personally received from God in the spaces in which we’ve been purposefully placed. Ben Sooy joins Autumn to talk about his work at Joshua Station, a housing facility run by Mile High Ministries that serves families transitioning out of homelessness. In Denver, three interconnected issues of homelessness, housing afforda...

Guest Ben Sooy joins Autumn on the podcast to discuss what loving our neighbors means in the biblical conception of the term, and how the gospel compels us to act for the good of neighbors in our local communities. In Luke 10, Jesus, in response to a question posed by a legal scholar, tells the story of a Jewish man who is ambushed by robbers, beaten, and left for dead. A priest and a Levite both...

Autumn and Hunter revisit a 7-year old article that seems even more relevant today. In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” (The Atlantic, September 2015), Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff explain how “emotional safety” has caused many college classrooms to avoid controversial ideas. They lament the effect it has on the debate of ideas and how it leads us to confuse emotions with objective truth....

No episode today, but we will be back with you next week on April 13!

Family played a central role in man's earliest recorded history. Man and Woman, created in God's image, were joined in a union and given the sacred task of continuing God's creative work: bring more image-bearers into being, love them, and commission them to spread God's good kingdom over the face of the earth. They failed. They chose self-determinism, and their family brought about death instead...

What is a "family"? A group of people biologically connected in some way? People who share a name or a common heritage? People with whom you crossfit or camp? Modern American culture oft applies the term "family" to any loosely connected group of people in an attempt to create a conception of connectedness or meaning. In Scripture "family" has both biological and redemptive meaning. Autumn, Hunter...

Articles referenced in this episode: - ‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes, an interview with Fiona Hill by Maura Reynolds (https://apple.news/AAOcZNM-3Rk-7SzjmXtUkvw ) - Two Years Ago, I Warned You About The Coming Pandemic; Today I Am Warning You About The Fallout From Ukraine by Bryce Hoffman (https://apple.news/ADigts1PcRAmBim4SJgrmwQ ) - How Vladimir Putin Lost Interest in the Pres...

Hunter and Autumn respond to three listener questions. Q1: In the episode on the law, Autumn mentioned Psalm 119:97 in which David says “Oh how I love your law; it is my meditation all the day.” Is David using the word “law” to refer to The Torah or specifically to the law given to the Israelites? Q2: Many verses in the Bible mention God’s anger. See Ezra 8:22, Isaiah 42:25, and Deuteronomy 29:27....

Modern readers often struggle when reading the Bible, particularly the OT, to make sense of the violence that God not only seems to condone, but to command. Doesn't God command Israel to mercilessly wipe out the surrounding nations? Doesn't God use other nations to execute judgment against Israel, and at other times use Israel to be an instrument of judgment against other nations? Jesus may at fir...

Jesus not only claimed to “fulfill” the Scriptures, but in fulfilling them, he teaches us how to make sense of them. This is especially important when we read the Old Testament law because, at first blush, it seems like Christians apply some parts of the law but not others. For example, why do we keep the Old Testament’s sex ethic but disregard the laws about not eating shellfish or wearing clothe...

How do you read any part of the Bible–a chapter or a passage–and get something out of it? One of the keys is knowing the big story which holds all of the parts together. In this episode, Autumn and Hunter begin a series of conversations to help us make sense of the whole Bible. They discuss three major themes that connect all 66 books: The Kingdom of God, The Promise of God and the person of Jesus...

Hunter and Autumn discuss an article featured in the New Yorker, written by Parul Seghal, entitled The Case Against the Trauma Plot. Seghal posits that the "trauma plot" has become the primary narrative device used by script writers and authors during the past few decades. The "trauma plot" promises, via revelation of a person's past, to explain their idiosyncrasies, personality quirks, and failur...