NEW PROBLEMS is a storytelling podcast. Half humor half hostile.
People who are regulars at bars are the kind of people who would be in Washington D.C. on Christmas Day. While the majority of the capital's millennial population go on bar crawls and Yelp “The Ten Best Places to Eat a Scone” 50 weeks a year, they have a middle American suburb to return to on the holidays. But because we Regulars aren't sampling D.C and aren't existing in a place long enough to Instagram it we are left to pick up the crumbs at Christmastime. We gather here every Thursday. Even if a Thursday is December 25th.
Of course I still know your face. New York is a small town. We aren't just using Tinder or on Tinder, we are Tinder. We are charter members, the elders, the original gangsters looking for love in all the wrong radiuses.
Nihilists on Twitter may disagree but the New Year isn't just another day. A birthday isn't just another day. The universe is laid out cyclically so I one ought to live in a cycle. Give me every Monday, the first days of the month, New Year's Day. Imagining life as a never ending string of boxes laid out side by side like existential dominos tumbling to a perpetual tomorrow is technically correct. But not nothing else on the planet lives like that. The morning resets and trees reset and the stars reset and Hailey's Comet will be back into view for eighteen minutes 700 years from now. But it does come back around. The universe is a Radiohead fan: everybody leaves when they get the chance and this is my chance. Take the chance to start again at one.
"Our proximity to whiteness does not address our trust problem and I'm comfortable not pretending it does. If I'm supposed to be afraid of myself, I can give you the reasons all by myself, without repeating a Puritan taking the reins from the hands of an angry God. I just don't think righteousness looks like prom night in Utah."
Somewhere in the Bible it asks, "Can these dry bones live?" “Only you know, Lord" was the right answer. But somewhere else in the Bible, it says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yeah. No one believes that.
"My mother repeated a warning she delighted in scaring her children with: you can sing a lie as fast as you can tell a lie. My least favorite song to sing as a kid in a Baptist missionary church was I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. Middle children self protect by preemptively doing everything necessary to stay off people's radar. I would not sing in a way to get on her or God's radar. So I took my mother's advice, accepted her premise, looked at the words on the projector, and conceded: yeah, I can't sing this shit."
Let's talk about the future of this podcast! It's called Metropolitan Union. It's simple reflections about keeping your faith while you're letting people down, knowing you're never forever up to the task of loving as much as you wish you could. But in between these official entries (twice a month), we're going to talk like ordinary podcasters doing ordinary podcasty things. It's the off-week segment called The Blessing of Both. Just talking about things, warts in all. Because I can't always be an aspiring elegant writer. I'm an Aquarius. Of course I was going to have a podcast, no matter how embarrassing that association can be. It's the blessing of both! — the elegance and the vapid incoherence of podcasting. Thank you for the supporter! Let's keep going. newproblemrecords.com
Thank you for listening to me, supporting me out, hearing me out. Let's keep going. PS. Visit the website, newproblemrecords.com Follow on Instagram: @newproblemrecords
Church-planting in New York City is a case-study of blood, sweet, and flowcharts all pointing to lost friends, lost dreams, and unfulfilled futures. I've watched this cycle my whole life. Being in this work and back in this world is dejavu all over again. Let's get honest about our history in the Kingdom of God, and consider what we have to show. And keep pouring.
I wrote this in 2016, and like that random Radiohead song they only performed on tour that finally gets a proper version on an album, this is here. We have one episode to go in this podcast's first season, and this is the evolutionary prequel to the finale. You knew this — my father was a Baptist missionary in New York. 20 years later, I found another one. His family and I had one prayer meeting together in Greenpoint together. I could have picked a better week. But the problem with being a Baptist missionary in New York is: there's never really an easy week.
No matter who you are or what you believe, we all have a concept of what Jesus of Nazareth called, the Kingdom of God.
My father was a Baptist missionary in the 90s. We traveled from Baptist church to Baptist church with his go-to sermon I sat through dozens and dozens of times as a kid. I'm happy to save you from the therapy of unlearning of a childhood on the road in Rush Limbaugh's America while giving you the highlights, and a reminder: the just shall live by faith.
How many things continue to exist because we’re allowing them to exist, not because they’re actually alive? There is nothing more vexing than people’s capacity to lie to themselves about what living looks like. I can't settle for a church or a job or a podcast that exists without multiplying. Life produces fruit, which means something has to die first. Easter is only worth celebrating when you acknowledge the death beforehand.
This is an unauthorized oral history of Bridgetown Church and Oaks Church Brooklyn's pastoral changes. Change is hard and the will of God is hard to know. But if Mary of Bethany teaches us anything, it's simple: keep close, and keep pouring.
Death planning is not an easy conversation. But body's are dying and your loved ones won't know what Beyonce to play at your funeral unless you let them know. So I'm letting my buddy, Tim from Minnesota, know! Thanks to Five Wishes, an organization that "changes the way we talk about advanced care planning" death arrangements seem doable. The 1975 were right: It's not living if it's not with you.
New Coalition Sanctuary convenes ordinary people to accompany ordinary people during their immigration proceedings. 26 Federal Plaza is the most ordinary office in New York City. All together, no body is hiding.
Tom Brady won another Super Bowl but God gets the glory.
Things just don't get better because time goes on.
Growing a beard at 32 is like trying to become a better man at 32. You just thought you'd be further along by now. Nevertheless, this face, this life, is patchy af.
This was a hell of a week to stop drinking. The siege on the capitol building on January 6, 2021 is both frightening, and frighteningly predictable. I watched CNN sober, with a peppermint tea and in light of the last book I read, Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's okay to be shocked. But we have to be shocked in context. The refrain is still the same: Lord, have mercy.
My favorite song in 2020 was tis the damn season by Taylor Swift. So when a therapist asked, "Where do you want to start?" I had no answer. I listen to music about my problems, not talk about them. It's Christmas. I am George Bailey: melancholy, self-loathing, trying and failing to accept he'll never have the life he dreamed. But maybe I'm George Bailey: more aware of the abundance around him and through him by practicing generosity. Time will tell.
Investing is one of those things people I don't really like do. Which is a personal problem. Good people, we have four options with our money: buy things, save for an emergency, invest, give it away. So open a brokerage account just like you do fantasy baseball. Donate money to charity. Get the rest in an index fund. We'll get tacos in 30 years.
Poverty blows. I do not prefer poverty. But poverty PTSD is real. Still, melancholy millennial me in 2012 and me today agree: buy cheese without apologies. Buy cheese!
Bethel Offering Reading #1 is a doozy. It's my third favorite prayer, after the Lord's Prayer and the Serenity Prayer. Because if you can be trusted with God's money you may as well get more.
I've been so poor. Don't let my vintage grandma sweaters distract you I'm still basically poor. The only way to get rid of Poverty PTSD is to give your money away. Y
I love sports radio, I have an anger problem, which means creatively, I can use hostility to make a good point (I think.) But that's not what this podcast is about so I'm going to trust that I can continue to do this podcast without hostility being the subtle vehicle I use to make an episode.
Buddhism loves lists. The Five Hinderances are my favorite. This is about doubt. Geneva, Switzerland is where the radio station of your loneliness comes through too loud and too clear. Do not visit Geneva alone unless you're ready to accept how alone you truly are.
Upon the retirement of WFAN host Joe Benigno, a meditation on the foundational thing that makes me myself, in all its existential, working class glory: New York sports radio.
Writing is an act of faith and discipline! Trust the process enough to throw shit away and remember short assignments and we are good to go.
This is an episode about the shame of knowing yourself too well, as seen through the eyes of the Prodigal Son and James Baldwin's classic, "Go Tell It On the Mountain." The promise of new life is exciting, until it's cruel. Because a 'man of God' is still mostly just a man.
This is a brief reflection from the coast of Yachats, Oregon. Unlike this beach, this will not be a transcendent podcast.
This is an episode from the archives, 2013 -- young and broke and falling in love. Until the song ends.
Problems for the People are prayers on behalf of this podcast community. The yearning for certainty is a path that begins and ends in powerlessness. Faith is expectation without evidence. Faith, not facts!
Buddhism loves lists. The Five Hinderances are my favorite. This is about envy. This is a podcast that includes cameo appearances from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Tinder, Fundamentalists. My denomination is filled with white men with Bibles and that bothers me. Thankfully, the Buddhist have a plan to keep me happy in the family of God.
Buddhism loves lists. The Five Hinderances are my favorite. This is about sloth. Which is understandable. Any adrenaline I got from the pandemic is over. This is a podcast about what little is left.
Some books are so in the scene I always assume to know what the author's argument is. But I read one. Reza Aslan's Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. As Senator Palpatine explained in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, there are some truths you'll just never learn from an Evangelical.
My denomination can be annoying. But Mets first baseman Dominic Smith taught me something called 'substitutionary atonement'. May your sports heroes, Messiahs, and giant slayers do all of the work but let us share the joy. This is a podcast to end my podcasts about YouTube Church. Here's to New Problems.
A pastor wrote me an email saying my request for prayer felt weird because he didn't know what this podcast was about. Oh, Lester, where is your faith?
This is a podcast with a guest, Tim in Minneapolis! After Robert describes the downsides of becoming too fluent in Christianness, Tim tells Robert what actually is the right religion.
Like Big Sean said, we take L's, but then we bounce back. If you aren't received, at your job, on a date, in hostile territory, go your way and shake off the dust. Don't let bitterness steal your praise. Special music isn't going to sing itself. (A very grateful thank you to Suanne from YouTube Church for providing their generous prayer over this podcast.)
Five months into quarantine, we've discovered church online has the emotional resonance of watching a Coldplay concert, just viewed from the iPhone of the kid taking video in the row in front of you. Christianity deserves better, but if God is dealing so can we. So this is a podcast about gratitude.
This is a podcast about sports, as taught by Mets announcers and senseis Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling and the Holy Spirit. You can never judge the quality of your fastball. So wear your tightest baseball pants and get firing, Tiger.
Given how historically and globally destructive Christian thinking and practices can be, it honestly was important for me to explicitly state who I believe Christianity is for or not for. Being honest about your perspectives on LGBTQ life, especially within Christian communities, is vital to ensuring everyone is protected and respected and helps ensure any vulnerable person can steer clear from people or ideas that pose harm to their physical, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing.
Hannah in the Hebrew Bible is low-key a heroine of the faith. She's the best. And Hannah drops bars. Agree with God in your prayers, and eat your dinner in the presence of your haters.
There are the years we talk about and celebrate and memorialize, and there are years we live we never even noticed. This episode is about those ordinary years of a hero's life.
If you've ever been arrested and spent a night in Brooklyn's Central Booking, you want to just hold it but some years are pandemic years and holding it feels less like an option. Watch for cops.
John Mark Comer is taking the summer off. But Portland is burning. I'm not so different from John Mark, I love a nap and farming metaphors, but whichever farming metaphor you chose, the sign of the times says to throw away Poor Richard's Almanac and grab a hoe.
In this debut episode, Robert describes why songwriter Lianne La Havas is easy to pray for. And why praying for her is still so worthwhile.
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