PODCASTS

Tag: #evangelization

Missions Pulse – Door – Ministry to Deaf Individuals – 01/08/24

Missions Pulse – Door – Ministry to Deaf Individuals – 01/08/24

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The people who are served by the ministry agency Door International cannot hear this Family Life news feature.

Which is all the more reason why you should listen to this.

Rob Myers and Door’s other workers and volunteers are active in an evangelism effort to reach out to a people group in which only 1 of every 50 people are followers of Jesus. The outreach is to deaf individuals and communities. In this conversation on our “Missions Pulse” program, Myers explains why it is so hard to share Good News and provide Scriptures to deaf people. Door seeks out non-hearing believers who become church planters and evangelists who share the same circumstances as other deaf people. The ministry also is active in translating 110 Biblical narratives into sign languages. This is a massive task — if you are thinking only about ASL (American Sign Language), you are forgetting about the other 375 sign languages around the world.

For more information:

141 Baptisms – 1 Church – 1 Day – A Family Life Interview 12/27/23

141 Baptisms – 1 Church – 1 Day – A Family Life Interview 12/27/23

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“I truly believe the culture is hungry for truth.”  — Pastor Wayne Bray

First Baptist Church of Simpsonville SC marked the Christian Baptisms of 141 people on a single weekend. Many of those were not scheduled to make that faith commitment and receive that Sacrament, but the lead pastor there says the Holy Spirit was moving.

This is not the only major, massive faith event of 2023. Family Life’s Sarah Harnisch asked the Rev. Wayne Bray about the event at the congregation he leads — and about faith trends of the year just past. He also talks about the church’s calling to be ready to respond to Spirit-led opportunities on the way in 2024.

First Baptist Simpsonville is the founding location of the multi-site Upstate Church. News coverage of the “overwhelming” response to the invitations for December Baptisms can be found here and here.

Inside Out – Responding to Criticism – 11/29/23

Inside Out – Responding to Criticism – 11/29/23

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“Inside Out” on Family Life

How do you respond when coworkers tell you they’ve been hurt by Christians, or say that Christianity is offensive? Kaitlin Miller Febles talks about how believers led by the Holy Spirit can live out the most powerful response.    

“I think when we first respond with just defensiveness, we can come across as callous toward what this person’s experienced by someone maybe even in the name of Christ,” says Kaitlin Miller Febles. “And if they don’t feel heard and understood, I think they’re far less likely to hear us, or even want to understand us back. But humility has a way of disarming people.”  

Febles counsels us to listen well and mourn behavior in the name of Christ that is not at all Christlike. “Just even as we denounce un-Christlikeness, we don’t denounce Christ. Christians may act shamefully, we need to acknowledge that, but we’re not ashamed of Christ.” 

 We have an opportunity to speak the actual message of Christ with words, and also with our lives, when the fruit of God’s Holy Spirit shape the way we live. “For each hateful or selfish or greedy or manipulative Christian example that an unbeliever has experienced, we can be a counter example, as a Christian that they also now have to explain,” Febles says.  

Kaitlin Miller Febles writes on this topic and other issues for The Gospel Coalition.

Hometown Heroes – Buffalo Dream Center starts the Curbside Church – 11/07/23

Hometown Heroes – Buffalo Dream Center starts the Curbside Church – 11/07/23

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Family Life’s “Hometown Heroes“

A quarter-century ago, Pastor Eric Johns experienced what he is convinced was a God Moment.

That year, and in each of the 25 since, the pastor of the Buffalo Dream Center has lived as a homeless person for a week, taking a backpack and a sleeping bag with him. In part he wanted the first-hand experience of “living outside”. In part he sensed a calling to connect with people who also were living on the streets.

In this Family Life Interview, Pastor Johns tells the genesis of the mission and evangelistic outreach which became the “Curbside Church“, the church’s efforts to provide gifts for children at Christmastime, and the unique man he met who was the only person who was opposed to Eric Johns spending a homeless week.

Find out more about their “Boxes of Love” here. Pastor Johns also produces a podcast entitled “Building Your Life”.

“Hometown Heroes” happens during the Family Life Noon report most Tuesdays, online and on the air.

Inside Out – The “Nones” and the “Dones” – 10/18/23

Inside Out – The “Nones” and the “Dones” – 10/18/23

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“Inside Out” on Family Life : What can the Church do to reach the “Nones” and the “Dones”?

Some churchgoers are walking away. Others you might expect to come aren’t entering. Author and speaker Michelle Van Loon talks about the “Dones” and the “Nones,” and how to we can “spur one another on to good deeds” even outside a church worship service.    

“We are definitely in a time of great change and shift,” says author and speaker Michelle Van Loon. “When we talk about people that are ‘Dones’ we’re talking about people that once were active in church and they hit the exit door and never came back. When we talk about ‘Nones’ we may be including people that are done with church. We may also be including in that category people that have never been closely affiliated with the church, regular attenders, or members.”

While labels like these help us understand trends, Van Loon counsels us not to use them as reasons to give up on people.  

“It’s tempting to be able to use a category name to kind of assign meaning. But we know, and we know from the example of Jesus, that that is always a terrible idea,” she says. “He could see a naked madman running around the tombs, and He could say, ‘This person needs deliverance.’ Not, ‘This person needs exclusion.’ Or He could see a woman grabbing the hem of His garment who’d been excluded from the faith community because of her illness, and He responded differently.”  

The difference between what the Church can be and will be, and how people within it sometimes behave, is a reason some “Dones” give for leaving. It’s not usually the Jesus that we meet in the pages of Scripture or in prayer that has burned a person out or burned a person, in general,” she says. “It’s often His people behaving badly.”  

This gives those who embrace the Church even more reason to live as ambassadors, meeting people wherever they are.    

“No church can go to places where people are not wanting to attend a church service. But all of us are scattered into the world to be the Church,” she says. 

Michelle Van Loon is the author of seven books and has been writing about changes in the culture and the Church. Martha Manikas-Foster hosts “Inside Out”, one of our Wednesday news features which explores how living our faith from the inside out engages the world. Archives are available on FamilyLife.org/newspodcasts.

 

Hometown Heroes – more on Ukrainian mission with Jeff Seigworth – 09/26/23

Hometown Heroes – more on Ukrainian mission with Jeff Seigworth – 09/26/23

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Family Life’s “Hometown Heroes“

This is part 2 of our conversation with Jeff Seigworth about his recent — and upcoming — mission work in western Ukraine.

Today’s segment focuses on how his experiences with people whose nation is at war influenced his own faith — and what he saw about faith and evangelization for the people in the cities and villages he visited.

Seigworth’s first overseas trip ever was his participation with the mission trip created by A-1-8, a mission organization which takes its name from scripture: Acts 1:8, the Biblical mandate to take Jesus’ Gospel to nearby places and to the whole world. A18 had been active in Ukraine multiple years before the current war.

The first part of Mark Webster’s interview of Jeff Seigworth is available here, among all of our “Hometown Heroes” podcasts.

 

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

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

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:11 — 7.1MB)

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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

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. 

Missions Pulse – Friends in Action – 08/21/23

Missions Pulse – Friends in Action – 08/21/23

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:15 — 7.2MB)

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Blue collar workers are putting their God-given talents to work, in God-inspired service.

Friends in Action International makes that kind of life-changing activity happen in many places. Executive Director Matt Durkee gives Family Life insights into how Friends in Action makes construction work happen in places where infrastructure needs are significant. This, he says, brings stability to places which have been unstable. Durkee also tells how FIA supports long-term global mission workers.

Friends in Action, a Pennsylvania-based global ministry, describes its front-line mission work as “moving earth to reveal heaven”.

Faith Under Fire – Coach Joe is back with his football team – 08/17/23

Faith Under Fire – Coach Joe is back with his football team – 08/17/23

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:32 — 7.6MB)

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“Faith Under Fire”

Joe Kennedy became a high school assistant football coach at Bremerton High School, as a part of a strengthening Christian faith and a deep sense of calling. After personal prayers on the field after games, later some students and fans would join him at the 50-yard-line.

After he was suspended and eventually fired because the school did not want him promoting religion, an eight-year legal battle followed. This spring, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his First Amendment rights to “free exercise of religion” superceded the school’s contention that a school employee could not promote a specific religion (the First Amendment’s “establishment” clause).

This week as the fall football season begins, “Coach Joe” and his faith and his team are drawing new coverage from Seattle-area and national media, Family Life revisits an interview we had with Kennedy when he came to New York State on a speaking tour. 

More about Joe Kennedy’s life, faith, ministry and sense of calling is available here.

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