Small Town World

I'm probably late to the party and everyone else has had this revelation years before me! But I did come to recognize this truth and was truly overwhelmed by it. God draws others in, He's working in our hearts to do specific tasks, He's simultaneously doing the same thing in the heart of someone else. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, He's providing the means, the desire and the opportunity for the accomplishment of His good works. We literally bring nothing to the table, we add nothing, we contribute nothing. God does it all!!! 

In this episode we will dive into the "personality test" called the Enneagram. We discuss what the Enneagram is and some origin information, as well as why this tool is problematic for the church. The attraction is real. The results are real. But is it really from God? Is the Bible sufficient or do we need an outside tool to help us?

Man this was a hard one! I have held on to it for a couple of weeks but I do feel like the Lord is leading me to get it uploaded. So I hope you will listen without judgment. Let me confirm that I am no longer struggling with my salvation. But my concern is for those that I know who have "drifted away" from the faith. The people who have heard the truth and turned away to live their own life, their own way.  Continued prayer is my answer and we truly hope this helps someone!

We explore what has happened with the attack on Israel.  Who are the players, why did this happen, and what does God's word say about His people? 

Not an easy subject tackle and I know there were so many other examples we could have used! There were so many points that could be made with this topic. It may be a topic that is repeated in the future with other examples from what is happening in the world today.  But for now, we just felt the need to address it and point out how we often fail as Christians because we excuse it, ignore it, actively participate in it or somehow think we are not affected by it.  

We took a break over the summer, but we know that this project is still a calling from God! So in obedience, Praise Him, we are back! We are planning on at least two episodes per month because we know that with our schedules, this is a realistic goal. In this episode, we discuss how a person knows that they have heard from God. I can tell you from personal experience, in prayer and Bible study, the Holy Spirit does confirm things to the believer! He does lead us and we hope that we can adequately convey how we feel He does this present day for those who are God's children.

We are back and our God is still at work! We have missed you guys. Thankful to be here and able to continue the work God laid on our hearts to accomplish.  Fresh off the heels of a retreat, we dive into this wonderful topic that was the retreat focus.  Scripture! Memorizing it, praying it, singing it, speaking truth with it and so much more!

We are back and God is still at work! We have missed you guys. Thankful to be here and able to continue the work God laid on our hearts to accomplish. This is the discussion to listen to if you have only heard of this briefly, have no clue what this is about, or have one of the apps already on your phone and working on your behalf! This discussion is for everyone. 

There have been some new and exciting discoveries within the last year! We look at these new items, some older items that we've talked about in the past and some of the top finds that have been excavated within the last 3 years. Did you know that only 4-5% of the lands of the Bible have been excavated? 

This episode could also be labeled hot topics!! The Asbury Revival was such a beautiful outpouring of the Spirit but it was highly questioned by the public and even other Christians. We discuss all of this and we discuss what revival actually is.  In this episode we also talk about the "He Gets Us" campaign. Why is it problematic? Are their positives? Hot topics!!

Divine Appointment: Sometimes you are the recipient and not the deliverer! BUT sometimes you are the deliverer. Sometimes you are just an encourager! It doesn't always look like we expect when we pray for a divine appointment.  What an exciting moment when you see God has set things in motion for you to have interaction with another person! 

Kayla does a fantastic job teaching on Holy Spirit! Definitely worth the time investment to listen to this episode!

Have you heard of the Environmental Ten Commandments?  Definitely not a new movement, but it's ramped things up and taken a religious turn! This movement is adopting religious language and giving the environment a deified status. We discuss the latest things happening within the climate change movement. 

Happy New Year!! Season 3 yall!! That made my heart happy when I began typing this intro! We have done past episodes that touch on healthy habits and this touches on a few of those items. We add a few new things and hopefully inspire you to continue to read, journal and grow!

In this episode, we go over what this Act is designed to accomplish. We look at what this new law might mean for Christians who offer goods and services to the public. This episode is really to help fellow believers navigate through what may be facing Christians in unprecedented times.

It's common for us to barely be able to scratch the surface of a topic and this episode is no exception! We could have talked about this for 30 more minutes and discussed a Part 2. But in the end, we felt like we covered the major points that needed to be addressed. We fight our flesh and we fight the enemy! This episode is familiar territory to most of us but hopefully this will be a fresh reminder for us all.

We all know the simple answer to this question? Even small children would say "JESUS"!!! But God has set forth on Earth so many things to keep evil within His selected boundaries.  We look at the gifts God has ordained and given all of humanity to protect us from evil.  

Don't you love when you can clearly see the Holy Spirit at work? That was definitely the case as we prepared for this episode.  It was exciting to see that in motion.  These topics are pretty deep items to dive into! So in our style, we discuss the surface level of these really interesting topics.  And again, we provided a few resources for everyone to be able to research and dive deeper. 

How do you answer this question to someone who sees the evil surrounding us and questions the goodness of God?  We offer our insights & then we look at a few of the answers given by apologists and leaders of our faith. This will be a multi-part series of episodes because this is such a multi-faceted topic. Join us as we study and attempt to gain wisdom on this topic!

This week we look back at this cultural movement and see where we are globally on this issue. We spend a little time looking at the big picture to see where we are nationally and worldwide. It is bittersweet to see that people are beginning to see the long-term effects of surgeries and drugs that are so life-altering.  If you have time, listen to the episode we did last year and then listen to this one! It will give us encouragement to see God moving in this issue.

Satan hates God and he hates God's creation! Look at Psalms 8:4-9. A great point made by Kayla is that Satan hates all humanity. Genesis 1:27 tells us that we are made in God's image and therefore it follows how much Satan hates us because he is jealous. He is the enemy of our soul. BUT GOD!!! WE don't have to fear. We are fully equipped, and God has already won the battle. 

We play a bit of catch up on this episode. What led us to start this program, why do we press on and continue to combat culture, what are some of the topics we have covered and do we feel like we are making an impact? We go over the cultural mandate. Where is it found in scripture and what does it essentially mean? I truly enjoyed preparation for this episode! It gave me a minute to reflect on where we are in this process and analyze past episodes.  God is good and the leading of the Holy Spirit is evident to us!

We play a bit of catch up on this episode. What led us to start this program, why do we press on and continue to combat culture, what are some of the topics we have covered and do we feel like we are making an impact? We go over the cultural mandate. Where is it found in scripture and what does it essentially mean? I truly enjoyed preparation for this episode! It gave me a minute to reflect on where we are in this process and analyze past episodes.  God is good and the leading of the Holy Spirit is evident to us!

Be awake and aware to what is happening around us. Be willing to stand against evil, no matter what form it takes.  But our faith and our hope is in the Eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. There are 94 verses about God's Eternal Kingdom and it will give you so much comfort & peace to read them! All man-made kingdoms will fall, but God's kingdom is eternal.

How are we able to gain traction without unity? How are traditional Bible-believing Christians different from Progressive Christians? How do we close the ever-widening gap between true believers? And how does the outside world view Christianity? Belief statements, unified responses, and Biblical responses to the culture war are just a few we discuss.

Dr. Joseph Boot! Wow ...... is he articulate on these topics? Absolutely! Me..... well sadly, not so much! Kayla is much better.  But stick with us, because this is just the beginning of this line of thinking and the discussions that will follow. We are reading his book "Ruler of Kings".  Even though we chase rabbits in this episode, Kayla makes the ultimate point that "what God's word says is the line for us as Christians". 

This one is complex and I'll be honest, we are still reading, listening to wise pastors, and studying to navigate this issue. We begin a talk on this today. We are trying to clarify our thoughts and express the bigger picture issues that seem to be at work in government right now. In light of the recent moves by the Department of Justice, this is a topic that we need to address. More importantly, we are seeking how we, as Christians, respond in these moments. 

This week we look at how important integrity is as Christ followers who are the building blocks of His church.  Kayla takes us through just a few Proverbs verses that relate to integrity. We also discuss narrowing the integrity gap as Christians by walking consistently in all aspects of our life. This is so timely as we see the world around us completely without any moral boundaries and we see people of integrity being mocked for having traditional Biblical values.  By the way, the verse we struggled to remember was Matthew 25:23!

This week Kayla and I discuss her & her husband's recent mission trip to the Philippines. This was such a great trip to hear about! She tells us the ups and downs. But most importantly we get to hear about how God moved!

We were excited welcome Dr. Marty Carroll to the show. In case you don't know Marty, he is a long-time broadcaster and is incredibly wise! This was the perfect topic to discuss with him because he knows the Bible inside and out. The push of culture right now is to follow your heart, trust yourself and do what makes you happy. We show why these thoughts are so contrary to God's word!  

This week we have Bro. Courtney Rainey discussing culture in God's church. We look at both sides of the coin! It' s a great discussion about the positives and negatives of culture within our society today and how it impacts our churches. He does a little preaching yall and it's so insightful! If you are a Christian, I promise you will enjoy this discussion!

Local Youth Pastor Trey Campbell comes on the program to discuss today's youth groups. Is the old model of the 80's still relevant with today's youth? Kids today are digital natives! They are the "cell phone" generation who have never known life without technology. We talk about the challenges Youth Leaders face today.  We also explore what some possible fixes are based on "Dare2Share" Ministry Leader Greg Stier's new booklet "The Failure of Youth Ministry and How To Fix It". This is a great conversation about what is happening in real time, day to day within youth groups across America.

We forge ahead while Kayla is out of the country ministering overseas!! This week Amber & Scott Garrett talk about their ministry at their car lot here in Oak Grove. While Scott is also a pastor at a local church, we focus on the ministry they have within their day-to-day jobs and the work that God is doing thru this job! As they talked & shared their testimonies, I felt such an amazing connection and a reminder that we are truly part of a family when accept Jesus. They were a blessing to speak with and I hope that you are blessed by them both as well.

We come back to the abortion issue and look at the connection between Old Testament child sacrifice and modern-day abortion. We believe they are connected. All the pieces come together when you look at this issue through a spiritual lens. And EVERYTHING has spiritual roots and spiritual implications!

The current climate and what's happening within the Supreme Court are a couple of the things we touch on in this episode. When does life begin from a scientific perspective? What about the spark of light at the moment of fertilization? Such an amazing thing to learn about for anyone who believes in Creator God!

Creating habits and changing behaviors is sometimes a struggle, especially when we face the busyness of daily life! How do we reconcile being a new creation in Christ while struggling with sin or old patterns of behavior? Kayla gave us some really great scripture reminders for grace, for coming quickly to the cross, for staying in the light! Taking in more and more of Jesus is the sanctification process and that's the ultimate goal. 

We are continuing to combat culture and next week we will be back on a current event topic that is happening in our culture right now.  This was a topic that Kayla prepared for the women's retreat a few weeks back. It's so humbling & motivating to focus on the attributes of God within the setting of a journal. That's the direction we take with this episode. I hope we bring a fresh approach to how you think about the attributes of God.

Something that offers tangible results of the goodness of God, a place where you can see God at work in your life, where you can see prayers answered, where you can be real & raw before God with your needs, where you can intercede for others and a place where you can battle for the souls of the lost, journaling can provide this place! It's a beautiful thing that will bring glory to God. Journals are a blessing to anyone who keeps one and to those who read them later. We hope this episode can give you insight into how to start a journal and the topics to include in your journal.

"Rest is a weapon given to us by God. The enemy hates it because he wants us to be stressed and occupied." said Elisabeth Elliot.  We are dealing with a season of busyness right now and so we studied about this for ourselves! Hope fully we can share some insights that we gained and some great scripture about rest. Two verses not in the episode were Psalm 62:1 "Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from Him" and Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth"

Dicovery Plus has a new documentary titled "Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed".  On this episode we discuss the fallout from ministries whose leaders have sinned and fallen from grace.  This episode is definitely an opinion piece! We strictly give our opinion and thoughts on these ministries, what they mean to us, and how we feel about the situations they face. J. Warner Wallace gave some really great insight to the motivations behind ministries that fall and we discuss those things as well. (Bear with us.........We didn't get to edit this episode due to unforeseen circumstances!) 

Don't Mess With Coffee........ sorry I mean Idolatry, the actual title is Idolatry.  This week we look at old testament idolatry, a sidebar about coffee (uh oh), and all the other stuff we let into our heart. There is news about a new Biblical Archeological discovery that is jaw dropping! AND it relates back to idolatry.  

Wheeeew!! This episode is on fire....... so much to unpack after "The Just Thinking" dudes breakdown deconstruction! We cover this episode and give you a synopsis of their 3 hour episode. If this topic is confusing for you, if you don't understand the growing trend, if you are seeking to be aware of this movement or if you have ever thought "maybe this is something I should explore", then this is the episode for you!!! This is THE ONE to jump in. Take the plunge..... I hope we do this topic justice. 

This topic is so interesting! As usual, in researching the topic, I learned things that I did not know.  There is so much more to learn regarding this subject than what we covered. Taking this topic and seeing how it applies to what is happening culturally is really the focus of this episode. Why would someone want to ignore or misconstrue the meaning of original sin? This issue is explored in this episode! 

We look at deconstruction of faith and how this huge movement that is targeting our kids. There is a GOAL! We look at the genuine deception and intentional agenda of this movement.  The wolves in sheep's clothing are working hard. They are seeking the souls of the church. Please go research this topic for yourself and your family! This movement is leading people into agnosticism, atheism, progressive churches, and even cults.

Kayla gave a church talk and lesson to a lady's group about using Christ as our example for servanthood. I (attempt) to interview her about this lesson and we discuss the last supper where Jesus washed the disciples' feet. This is such a beautiful reminder of who we are called to be in Christ.

It was actually surprising to recognize how many faiths do not hold to the belief of Monotheism, to One True God. We go over quite a bit of scripture and discuss these verses. We look at the Trinity. This is such a powerful episode looking at these things that are so far above our pay grade! But we touch on these things and do our best to give a layperson overview.  

We have heard this term quite often over this last year. Critics claim that any connection between a Christian and their political views is "Christian Nationalism".  However, this is simply not the case.  The attitudes that the label implies are not part of a biblical worldview.  We reject this label and explain why we all can reject this fringe, extremist label. 

Looking at Jude and at the urgency to be alert & aware of what is going on around us, to be earnest in study, and know the word so we can recognize false teachers.  Jude said this is what they will look like and you need to lean on God's word for truth.  

This week we look at male & female roles and the decline of testosterone levels in men. It's an interesting discussion about things you have probably already observed culturally.  Some portions of this topic may be sensitive to little ears! Just a heads up for the moms of the audience.

We know this episode may seem a bit political but the end game is to make us aware so we can pray and push back. I love what John Cooper's sticky note on his bathroom mirror says "Wake up. War is upon you." He said he knows the battle is a spiritual one and he knows that we are victorious in Christ Jesus but we must still do our part as we walk the earth.  If you listen to the podcast regularly, you know that we ascribe to his line of thinking! Stick with us as we muddle through these 2 voting rights acts.

A while back we did an episode titled "Speaking So We Can Be Heard" and I want to encourage you to go back & listen to this episode in conjunction with "Language Barrier." This week we talk about terminology that Christians use within a church setting or when speaking with other believers. Sometimes these terms are intimidating or confusing to outsiders or new believers. We discuss some of these words and phrases and where they are found in scripture. Do some terms need to be put to bed? Do some words and phrases hinder our witness? We discuss this topic and discuss being sensitive to others regarding our choice of words.