Gospel for Life

We go way back to 2008 to an interview I did with Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck on the emerging church.

Ron Johnston, the executive director of Small Church Connections, discusses the importance of small churches and the obstacles they face in a culture that frequently prioritizes size.

Uncover the significance of 2 Timothy and 2 Corinthians for pastors dealing with suffering in ministry. Jonathan Dodson sheds light on how these biblical truths offer profound wisdom and encouragement for pastors navigating the challenges of vocational ministry.

Howard Hendricks is known as someone who shaped many lives not only through his teaching but through his life. You know when you’ve met someone who studied under Hendricks, because his name will eventually come up.

Key Ideas

• We’ve always struggled with the temptation to transcend our limits, but technology gives us new opportunities.
• We need to live in reality, appreciate the ordinary, and find glory in the present moment. No more chasing constant "mountaintop experiences."
• Living in the here and now means glorifying God in our current circumstances and surroundings.
• Slowing down and finding rest amidst the chaos of our hyperconnected world is essential for our well-being and productivity.
• Remember, God is always present with us, even in the midst of the most challenging times or seasons of life.

We all have an idea in our minds of how we think life should go, and then real life happens.

“We’ve only tasted the entree, the hors d'oeuvres of the fullness of life in God. We have the fullness of that life yet to come as the Kingdom of God breaks into this world, as the new creation becomes a new permanent reality.”

“You're not awesome. You're loved, and that's awesome.”

“While we should absolutely pray for and enjoy such mountaintop experiences with God, we need to, as pastors, we need to teach our people of the glory of the ordinary, the glory of plodding, the joy of simply being attentive to the life, the relationships, the geographic spaces that we inhabit, and to go, What does it look like to glorify God here in this space?”

“The one thing that we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything.” (Charles de Foucauld)

I love books. I suppose I’m sometimes prone to think that a particular book I’ve read recently is one of the most important books and that everyone needs to read it.

In Good Time is not another book on how to use your time better. Instead, Michel wants to reimagine our relationship with time. She wants to help us let go of time anxiety by embracing new habits like receive, wait, enjoy, and remember.

Episode Links

We hear a lot of advice about how to grow spiritually. But what actions will make the biggest difference?

According to one study, reading the Bible is the number one action you can take to grow. “When it comes to reading the Bible, hands down, this is the input goal that has a direct impact on the total score of all the output goals, or discipleship attributes,” writes Daniel Im in his book No Silver Bullets, reflecting on a study by Lifeway Research.

I’m always excited to see a new resource explaining the value of liturgy, especially one that focuses on helping people with a low-church background to appreciate liturgy.

Singing is a big deal for Christians.

Since starting the Gospel for Life podcast, I’ve interviewed a couple of dozen people. This episode’s guest is my favorite so far.

Charlene Dash is a gospel-integrated nutrition coach She supports women experiencing setbacks in health and fitness as they gain competence, strength, freedom, and joy in their nutrition, movement, and living.

Char is a Revelation Wellness group instructor and is also certified with Precision Nutrition. And she also happens to be my wife.

In this episode, Char talks about how and why to care for our bodies as part of the Christian life.

I love talking to people who’ve thought deeply about discipleship.

One such person is Jamie Strickland. Jamie serves as pastor of discipleship ministries at [West Highland Baptist Church] in Hamilton, Ontario.

He’s served with Power to Change in Canada, Peru, Denmark and the United Kingdom. In 2015, after serving with Power to Change for 13 years, he transitioned to pastoral ministry, and in 2019 joined the staff at West Highland.

I’m excited to talk to Jamie about his experience in leading discipleship in the context of a local church.

Many people talk about the importance of habits in the Christian life. But is this topic just a fad? Or do habits help us grow to be more like Christ?

God doesn’t need great prayers to do great things. When you speak to him in simple, trusting faith, you find yourself in a new story where anything is possible, where you always get what’s best, and where your problems become opportunities for a greater experience of Jesus.

Do you feel too busy to pray? You're not alone. We all know that we should be praying more and we genuinely try to make it happen. But everybody that I know, everybody that I've talked to, including really mature believers, often admit that they feel like their prayer life could be improved.

Today I'm really excited to talk to Asheritah Ciuciu, and she's written a new book called Prayers of REST. It's a series of prompts to help you hear God's voice. She provides guided prayers that focus your mind and heart on Scripture.

Is there a way to share an offensive message to an offended culture while not being gratuitously offensive?

Blake Long wants to help us learn how to engage with boldness and gentleness, bluntness and compassion.

Social media is a gift, but it comes with a dark side. How can we use it wisely?

What if you don’t have a calling from God, but callings?

If we’re going to go the distance, we need practices that will sustain us and help us grow.

Many people call this a Rule of Life.

But many of us don’t know what a Rule of Life is, or where to begin.

Rusty McKie, founder of Steadfast Ministries, wants to help. In this episode, I talk to Rusty about what a Rule of Life is, and how to get started.

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We’re always on the move, and it’s costing us. We talk a lot about going and doing, about the need for meaningful action, service, and pilgrimage. We need to learn about the benefits of resisting the temptation to remain unrooted. In his book Stability: How an Ancient Monastic Practice Can Restore Our Relationships, Churches, and Communities, Nathan Oates draws from some of the best writings on Benedictine spirituality and from his personal experiences raising a family, pastoring a church, and spending time living with monks, Nathan Oates offers a compelling invitation to find inner peace and stillness right where we are.

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“We’re not our bodies. They’re just containers. What really matters is what’s inside.” I hear words like that all the time. What’s really surprising is that I also hear them from Christians. It seems that we may be struggling to understand what the Bible teaches about the body and its importance, not just now but for eternity. That’s why I’m glad to interview Sam Allberry about his new book What God Has to Say About Our Bodies.

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A lot of people claim to love Jesus, but can’t be bothered with the church. The frequency of church attendance is down. Since the pandemic, some have left the church and don’t plan to return to in-person anytime soon. It’s time to recommit to gathering together as brothers and sisters in Christ. In this episode, Collin Hansen discusses why it’s important that we rediscover church.

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This season, we’re working through each of the habits in 8 Habits of Growth. We’re now on the fourth habit: speaking with God, or prayer. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t struggle to pray. Kevin Halloran has written a helpful book called When Prayer is a Struggle: A Practical Guide for Overcoming Obstacles in Prayer. Kevin helps us pinpoint areas of weakness in your prayer life and take immediate steps to overcome them.

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Dr. Mike Bird wishes you knew seven important things about the Bible.

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We're told that freedom and opportunity are our ticket to the good life. Instead of resulting in a sense of accomplishment, this limitlessness merely has us doing more and trying harder — leaving us depleted and dissatisfied with life and faith. Contrary to what we've believed, the spacious life is not found in unfettered options or accomplished by our hustle and hurry. The life we crave is found within the confines of God's loving limits. That’s what Ashley Hales writes about in her new book A Spacious Life. It’s an invitation to a different way of living.

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In season two of the Gospel for Life podcast, we’ll be talking about the eight habits from my book 8 Habits for Growth. The first habit is Make Time. The idea: to make time regularly for what matters most, including to develop and practice the habits of the Christian life. To discuss this habit, I talked to Reagan Rose, the man behind Redeeming Productivity, website and podcast that helps Christians get more done for the glory of God. He examines the subject of productivity from a Christian worldview—looking to the Scriptures to establish a distinctly Christian theology for work, family, efficiency, technology, and goal-setting.

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Introducing Season 2 of the Gospel for Life podcast.

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Have we over complicated, over-systematized, and over-formalized making disciples? That’s the question Bill Mowry asks in his new book Walk With Me: Simple Principles for Everyday Disciplemaking. Mowry wants to help us declutter and de-professionalize the Great Commission.

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For many young adults, the college years are exciting ones, yet they can also be a time of testing and questioning. Some students may be confronted with the various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. That’s why Dr. Michael Kruger’s book Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College is so important. It’s helpful not just for college students but for anyone who is facing tough questions about the Christian faith such as the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible.

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Getting Over Yourself is a call for Christians to reject the hollow messages of personal prosperity and to return to the humble truths of the gospel. You’ll learn how to identify this insidious, popular theology in culture and churches and examine its devastating effects. And, perhaps most importantly, you’ll learn how to combat it with gospel truth that leads to the abundant life Jesus actually desires for His people. Discover the beauty in losing yourself — and ultimately in gaining Him.

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The cultural conversation of the body has morphed into a confused and controversial debate. Many Christians have adopted the dangerous, gnostic belief that our physical bodies are inherently evil. We need to rediscover God’s design for us as embodied creatures. In his new book, Embodied: Living as Whole People in a Fractured World, Gregg R. Allison PhD, invites us to embrace the statement, “I am my body.” In this episode, I talk to Dr. Allison about his book and why we need to understand the role of the body in discipleship.

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It’s easy to try to live at the surface level: to focus on our actions rather than getting to the deeper issues of the heart. But God wants us to be deeply formed: to live lives with both depth and breadth. He wants us to experience transformation at the deepest level, and then to live out key values as we interact with the world. In The Deeply Formed Life, Rich Villodas explains how this kind of life is possible so we can live in the richly rooted place we all yearn for: a place of communion with God, a place where we find our purpose in life. In this podcast episode, I talk to Villodas about how to live the deeply formed life.

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Doctrine is critical to the role of making disciples. Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer explains why doctrine matters, and how we can find our place in God’s story.

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New and old pastors need to be reminded of what matters most in ministry. In his new book Gospel-Driven Ministry, Jared Wilson looks at the biblical qualifications for pastors, and then describes a gospel-centered approach to the core practices of pastoral ministry. In this episode, I ask Jared to reflect on discipling within a gospel-driven ministry.

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In his book Deep Discipleship, J.T. English helps churches think about how to establish environments and relationships where people can be trained, grow, and be sent as disciples.

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Habits play a central role in human behavior. They also play an important role in faith. In fact, habits can help lead us to faith as we learn to see, know, live, love, and obey. In this episode, Jen Pollock Michel talks about her book A Habit Called Faith, and how we can use habits to awaken and deepen our faith.

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The Internet is a blessing, but it also presents a challenge. With endless information at our fingertips, how can we cultivate a life of wisdom? It’s one of the greatest discipleship challenges today. Brett McCracken has created The Wisdom Pyramid to help us increase our intake of enduring, trustworthy sources (like the Bible) while moderating our consumption of less reliable sources.

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We want to read the Bible, but we sometimes feel stuck. In this episode, Nate Pickowicz recounts his own struggle to read Scripture, and describes how we can eat the Bible and enjoy it.

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It's not enough to disciple others in a general way. We must understand what obedience and faithfulness look like at this particular time. In this episode, Trevin Wax explains the importance of eschatological discipleship and what discipleship looks like in today's culture.

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Welcome to a new podcast about churches making disciples, launching Monday, February 8.

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