Tag Archives: evangelism

Family Life Interview: Comedian Jeff Allen – part 3 – 09/05/23

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Comedian Jeff Allen has been on the stand-up comedy circuit — with great success — across four decades.

His struggles with addiction and his search for meaning found resolution, when a comedian friend asked about his faith. Allen went on a long process which eventually led to his conversion to Christianity. In an extended Family Life Interview — and in a new book he authored — Allen talks about how Jesus has brought peace and blessing to his life.

This is the 3rd of three segments of Mark Webster’s extended conversation with the comedian credited whose clean, family-oriented routines often riff on the theme or the phrase  “Happy wife…Happy life.”

Click this link for more of Jeff’s comedy highlights.

 

 

Hear the full Family Life Interview with Jeff Allen:

From the News Podcasts page, you can listen, download, share or subscribe to any of your favorite Family Life features, podcasts, the Noon Report, and the 5 O’Clock Report.

 

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Faith Under Fire – The New Academic Year at Christian and Secular Colleges – 08/31/23

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“Faith Under Fire”

A new academic year begins, and the president of a Christian university in the Family Life listening area offers insights into a trend he sees: some students are moving away from traditional colleges whose curricula, faculty and motivations differ from what some families see as their own academic and social priorities. Houghton University‘s President Wayne Lewis says the 24-hour news cycle and the reach of social media has given young people and their parents more information about how students are accepted and supported in their college experience. Dr. Lewis says students should not feel ostracized if they hold positions which differ from those of their professors. At his school, he says administrators strive to assure that students feel welcome at a Biblically-centered university, wherever that student may be on the conservative-moderate-liberal spectrum.

Also in this conversation with news producer Greg Gillispie, the president offers a bright and optimistic picture of today’s college students — and the energy and faith of young Christian adults.

You can hear (or download) our previous interview on similar topics with President Lewis last semester on our News Podcasts page.

Dr. Wayne Lewis became president of Houghton University two years ago and is a strong spokesperson for the gospel and for Christian higher education. You can read his blog and hear other conversations with him here and here.

Family Life Interview – Christian comedian Jeff Allen – part 2 – 08/29/23

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Comedian Jeff Allen‘s comedy videos have amassed 400 million views online. The humor on stage was accompanied by desperation and a search for meaning and value in the rest of his life.

In this second segment of our conversation, the 40-year veteran performer tells of the sadness and desperation which led to his Christian conversion.

 

Here are some of Jeff’s comedy highlights: 

Listen for more from Jeff Allen this coming Tuesday, September 5, during the Family Life Noon Report, on our live stream and on the radio.

The full conversation with Family Life’s Mark Webster is here for listening, downloading or sharing.

Hear the full Family Life Interview with Jeff Allen:

From our News Podcasts page, you can listen, download, share or subscribe to any of your favorite Family Life features, podcasts, the Noon Report, and the 5 O’Clock Report.

Inside Out – Finding Unity, We are Agents of Grace – 08/23/23

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Bridging divides — and loving as Jesus loved — amid this era of conflict, in the church and in the culture:

“Strive actively for peace”

Conflict over presidential politics and pandemic precautions revealed the substantial divisions between Christians that we live with today. “The divisions that we’re seeing in the American church—the conversations—are not different than the ones that are happening in the world. Every institution is going through this,” says pastor and author Daniel Darling. “But as Christians we have an opportunity to model something different. That Jesus said that the world would know that we are His by the way we love each other.”  

Darling writes about which things should divide us — and which things should not — in his new book Agents of Grace.  

“I think part of that is understanding the things that we need to contend for, right?” he asks. “Paul says to Timothy ‘fight the good fight.’ And then there are other things that are important but not ultimate, right? He also tells Timothy, later in 2 Timothy, to avoid stupid and foolish questions.” We should be able to live in unity with believers who differ with us on the less important choices that are part of living as a Christian. If there’s going to be division, it should only be to defend what’s essential to the Gospel.   

“I think we have that upside down a little bit,” Darling says, “and we’ve succumbed to the sort of divisiveness of the spirit of the age.” 

So how do we learn to bridge divides and love as Jesus loved? One way, Darling suggests, is to choose not to assume bad motives on the part of believers we disagree with. Another way is to faithfully hold on to our friends, even when we disagree with them.  “These are hard and tumultuous times, and the more that we hang on to our friendships, the more that we love our brothers and sisters, the more we can do together. I think the Enemy—Satan—really wants to divide Christians and get us distracted so that we can’t fulfill the mission of God,” Darling says. 

That said, Darling sees many reasons to hold onto hope for the Church.  “God is active and alive today. We should ask ourselves, ‘What is God up to? What is God doing? What is He about to do in the world? And how do we join Him?’” 

Learn more about Daniel Darling here and here. 

Ep56: Jesus > Us! (John 1)

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Diving deep into the Gospel of John, hosts Mike, Merri and Tim look at Jesus’ humble, bug-eating cousin: John the Baptist.  Every episode is like a Bible study with friends! (John 1:19-34)

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Discover the other great Family Life podcasts!

 

Inside Out – Secular campuses are open to faith – 02/22/23

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Before heading off to university, Daniela Angulo was sure that her on-campus conversations about faith would require all the apologetics knowledge she’d ever learned.

“We saw secular college as a battlefield. That was what we expected,” she says. “We were expecting to go in with our weapons in hand.”  

What she found instead surprised her. Angulo, a student at Miami’s Florida International University, has written for The Gospel Coalition about the receptivity of her professors and classmates to learning what she, as a Christian, believes.   “I had classmates who, upon finding out I was a Christian, were more curious than anything else, and would ask me to have lunch with them,” she says.

She spends more time sharing her faith and less time defending it than she expected.

“While I still made sure to hold onto that foundation of apologetics that I needed, because I knew it would come in handy and there have been times where I have needed them, I also started approaching each class with a renewed excitement for the opportunity that God might give me to share the Gospel.”  

Her perspective today is quite different from her expectations. “At the end of the day it’s not a battlefield as much as it is an evangelistic ground of mission work,” she says. 

If your college search includes secular universities,  Angulo recommends three ways to prepare. “Know the Bible,” she says. “Whether it be a conversation, or defending your faith, you need to know what you believe. And so that foundation of just understanding what it is we believe and why is so important.”   

She also counsels that we view professors and fellow students as people God longs to be in relationship with. “Don’t view your secular classmates, your atheistic classmates, your  agnostic classmates, your liberal classmates—don’t view them as your enemies. View them as people who are lost and who we pray that God will reveal Himself to, and that  you will be able to be a tool for Him.” And lastly, pray for opportunities to talk about Jesus. God will give them.  “I started praying for that opportunity and it came,” she says. “The opportunity came.”

Read Daniela Angulo’s The Gospel Coalition article that inspired this podcast here.

Ep31: How Should Churches Share the Gospel?

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Every Christian church agrees that sharing the gospel is important.  But what’s the best way to do that: getting people from the world into the church, or getting Church people out into the world?  Maybe it’s not one over the other; what are the strengths and weaknesses of both, and what do we feel called to do?