Podcasts about acts

Concerning one’s salvation in Christ and only Christ, Acts 4:12 says it all, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

On today's hard-hitting episode Joe pulls back the curtain on a system stack-ranked against everyday citizens. From federal probes opening in Connecticut over non-citizen election fraud to activist judges routinely halting critical immigration enforcement, Joe exposes how the uniparty and establishment figures across the political spectrum continue to sabotage real progress. Taking aim at both sides of the aisle, the opening segment uncovers the coordinated talking points driving "Conservative Inc." and dissects how district courts are wielding unchecked nationwide injunctions to override constitutional boundaries with total impunity.In the feature interview, Joe is joined by Graham Moore, Leader of the English Constitution Party and founder of the English Constitution Society. Live from across the pond, Moore lays out his uncompromising stance—"I'm English, Not British"—and makes the case for voiding the Acts of Union to reclaim national sovereignty. Moore shares his firsthand experience fighting systemic voting irregularities in the UK, details alarming crime statistics across Europe, and reveals why he believes high-profile figures like Nigel Farage are part of the political establishment problem rather than the solution.Closing out today's broadcast, Joe dives straight into the systematic erosion of the American working class. Analyzing key warnings on machine-driven voting integrity and the legislative battles surrounding the SAVE Act, the show exposes the destructive impact of open-border agendas and radical public policy proposals—from calls to abolish ICE to unchecked taxpayer-funded handouts. It's a raw, unapologetic deep dive into a political apparatus designed to create crises, extract taxpayer wealth, and silence the voice of the American people.

NOTE: When you sign up for Patreon, PLEASE do it through a web browser (Safari, Chrome, etc.) and NOT an app on your iPhone. The Apple app charges 30% !!! If you just click on the link above, it should be fine. In today's episode, Becket Cook interviews Dr. Paul Weaver about his book Faith Affirming Findings: 50 Archaeological Discoveries That Validate the Historicity and Reliability of Scripture. They cover finds that silenced Bible skeptics: the Tel Dan House of David stele confirming King David’s dynasty, the Nabonidus Cylinder and Chronicle proving Belshazzar and explaining Daniel 5’s third-in-power offer, the first-century Magdala synagogue showing synagogues existed before AD 70, Yehohanan’s crucified heel bone with iron nail verifying Gospel nailing and burial accounts, the Thessalonica politarch inscription confirming Luke’s accuracy in Acts 17, the ornate Caiaphas ossuary of the high priest who condemned Jesus, and the Pontius Pilate inscription from Caesarea Maritima. These biblical archaeology discoveries from Tel Dan, Babylon, Galilee, Jerusalem, and Caesarea affirm real people, places, and events in Scripture, strengthening confidence in the Bible’s historicity for pastors, teachers, and students. Paul Weaver's Book: https://a.co/d/0dNqTFAk The Becket Cook Show Ep. 252 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

It's Thursday, September 3rd, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark Iranian Muslim leaders killed 33 Christian ministers recently Iranian authorities have killed at least 33 Christian ministers in the past few months. The pastors were serving with Iran Alive Ministries, a Texas-based organization that supports house churches in the country. Authorities also arrested 131 Christians associated with the organization. Some of them are now on death row.  Despite this persecution, the ministry reports 5,849 Muslims have converted to Christianity this year. Iran Alive founder Hormoz Shariat  told the Baptist Press, “Christian prisoners consider prison as their place of ministry and they are leading many people to Christ.” The Apostle Paul was also a witness in prison. Acts 16:25 says, “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” Iran-American War reaches sixth month The war between Iran and the United States continued into its six month last week. The United States carried out strikes on Iran's southern coast on Tuesday. Iran fired on U.S. bases in the region. It's the biggest exchange between the two countries since July, according to Reuters.  Despite ongoing conflict, oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz have rebounded to about two-thirds of pre-war levels.  Christian convert from Iran received asylum in Canada A Christian convert from Iran recently received asylum in Canada after being deported from the U.S. Twenty-seven-year old Artemis Ghasemzadeh entered America in 2024. If returned to Iran, she would face extreme persecution. International Christian Concern noted, “Refugees fleeing religious persecution have traditionally been granted asylum on American soil, but they faced more stringent border and refugee laws under the Trump administration. Ghasemzadeh pursued asylum in Canada after lawyers advised her that the United States was unlikely to allow her to return.”  Litigation over the Abortion Kill Pill delated until after midterms Litigation in the U.S. over the abortion kill pill is being delayed until after the midterm elections in November.  The case began last December. Florida and Texas challenged the original approval of the abortion drug mifepristone in 2000 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  However, a federal judge paused the lawsuit on Sunday until at least December 1. If successful, the lawsuit would make the abortion drug unavailable in all states. Florida removing all Flock cameras Florida is removing all Flock cameras from state roads. Flock cameras automatically read license plates and capture vehicle data for law enforcement, neighborhoods, and businesses. The Florida Department of Transportation recently revoked permits for license plate readers, including Flock cameras along highways. The cameras are the subject of privacy concerns across the nation, especially alleged misuse of the cameras by police officers.  Listen to comments from Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. DESANTIS: “I'm all about having law enforcement have tools to be able to hold criminals accountable. I think that's important that we do that. No one's been stronger on law enforcement than me. But I don't want to have this become a surveillance state.” American church attendance up Churches are seeing more people attend worship services in recent years. A new survey from Lifeway Research found 54 percent of U.S. Protestant pastors report a growing church. Thirty-percent report a plateaued church. And 16 percent report a declining church.  Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, noted, “Given the trajectory of many churches before COVID, we expected to see more pastors reporting declines in attendance. However, we continue to see a majority of pastors saying their attendance is higher than two years ago.” Archeological proof that Christ's tomb in garden And finally, recent archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem support biblical accounts. Francesca Stasolla is an archaeology professor at the Sapienza University of Rome. Last year, she led an excavation focused on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The site is believed to be the location of Jesus' crucifixion and the empty tomb. The area was used as a stone quarry before Roman occupation. Later it was used for agriculture and tombs. The archeological effort discovered ancient seeds and pollen there. Stasolla told Fox News Digital that the pollen and seeds date to “between the use of the quarry and the Roman age, when the area had a funerary use”, meaning it was used for burying the dead. This aligns with the New Testament. John 19:41 says, “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Thursday, September 3rd, in the year of our Lord 2026. Subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Sam Hamstra, Lead Pastor of Anthem Church, a fast-growing, multi-ethnic and multi-generational church serving Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland. Anthem became an independent church in March 2020—the same week the world shut down—and has since grown to multiple locations and thousands of people. In this conversation, Sam shares how clarity around mission, values, discipleship, and vision has helped Anthem develop a distinct ministry culture and sustain healthy growth. Does your church know exactly who it is and how it does ministry? Are your leaders aligned around a shared playbook—or are you borrowing someone else's model without adapting it to your context? Sam offers practical lessons on creating organizational clarity that shapes everything from calendars to leadership development. Move from imitation to innovation. // Sam is quick to acknowledge how much Anthem learned from churches and networks that came before them. But even before Anthem launched, he began recognizing that another church's model could not simply be copied and pasted into Northwest Indiana. The local culture, demographics, ministry environment, and people were different. Healthy leaders learn from others while also doing the harder work of discerning what God is uniquely calling their church to become. Clarity takes courage. // Copying an established model feels safe because leaders can see evidence that it works somewhere else. Developing your own approach requires greater faith because the outcome is less predictable. Sam believes churches must have the courage to move into that uncertainty. Rather than endlessly chasing the next successful strategy, leaders should prayerfully identify the unique blueprint God has given their church and commit to it. Define your “way.” // Inspired by Patrick Lencioni's The Advantage, Sam and his leadership team spent roughly nine months working through five foundational questions: Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How do we live? Where are we going? Their answers eventually became what they call “The Anthem Way”—a framework that brings clarity to mission, values, discipleship, spiritual formation, and long-term vision. Mission and vision are not the same thing. // Anthem's mission is to lead people to know Christ and make Him known. That mission remains constant because it flows from the Great Commission. Vision answers a different question: where is God taking this particular church? Separating those ideas has helped Anthem distinguish between the timeless calling of the church and the specific future they believe God is leading them toward. Let your discipleship pathway drive the calendar. // One of the biggest benefits of clarity has been simplifying Anthem's yearly ministry calendar. Instead of allowing every ministry to bring new ideas and events to the table, leaders evaluate opportunities through their defined discipleship pathway. The result is greater focus and consistency. Sam says their annual rhythm has remained largely the same for years, helping both staff and attenders understand what comes next. Boring can be a strength. // Churches often feel pressure to constantly create something new, but Sam has learned that repetition can be one of the greatest drivers of health. Anthem maintains a weekly prayer gathering, predictable discipleship rhythms, and recurring ministry events rather than continually reinventing the calendar. The goal is not novelty. It is consistency around the few things the church believes matter most. Create intentional invite moments. // Anthem builds four major invite opportunities into its annual rhythm: Easter, a Summer Kickoff, Homecoming, and Christmas. These predictable moments give the congregation specific opportunities to invite friends and family. Sam has seen the church grow following these events because people know when the church is intentionally creating space for them to bring someone who may not normally attend. Values have to become behaviors. // Anthem's core values include “We Love People,” “We Choose Joy,” and “We Bleed Passion.” But Sam emphasizes that values only matter when people can see them lived out. Loving people means creating a culture where people can belong before they behave. Choosing joy means approaching ministry with gratitude rather than obligation. Bleeding passion means refusing to settle for the status quo and remaining willing to change as God leads. Use clarity to protect multisite culture. // As Anthem expands to additional locations, the Anthem Way provides clear boundaries for what must remain consistent. Sam is not claiming Anthem's approach is the only way to do church, but he does believe it is important for every one of their locations to understand and embody Anthem's distinct way of doing ministry. That documented clarity gives leaders freedom while protecting the culture across campuses. Check out Anthem Church’s About page to see how their story, mission, values, and discipleship pathway fit together. You can also follow @SamHamstra and @ThisIsAnthemChurch on Instagram. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is a funny one because literally yesterday I was talking to a church in a coaching call. We were talking about this exact issue that we’re going to unpack today. They’re wrestling with these things. I know that this is going to help you. So you’ve tuned in for a great conversation today with Sam Hamstra. Super excited to have him. He and his wife, Taylor, they founded Anthem Church in March 2020 with a vision and heart to lead people to know Christ and make them know known. Rich Birch — Over the past few years they have seen this mission become a reality, continues to grow. It’s a multi-ethnic, multi-generational family made up of thousands of people from all walks of life in Northwestern Indiana, Chicagoland, and beyond. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. So honored that you’re with us today, Sam. Welcome.Sam Hamstra — Rich, so honored to be with you. This is a full circle moment for me. I’ve been following you for quite some time. So super honored to be on your on your show.Rich Birch — Oh, come on. That’s I’m glad you’re here. We, we’ve got a lot to learn from you today. So March, 2020, it’s one of those dates that sticks in all of our brains. Cause like, we all know, what were you doing? March 15th, 2020. We all can say exactly what we’re, where we were. That’s a wild month to, to launch.Rich Birch — It’s funny because I keep bumping into people who are telling a similar story. They’re like, we started during the pandemic, right at the beginning, right after that sort of thing. Give us a picture today and kind of from that moment all the way on to today, kind of bring the story, bring us, tell us a little bit about Anthem. Give us a flavor of the church.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so we currently today we’re headquartered in Hammond, Indiana, which when we say Indiana, different people have different thoughts. But we’re we’re actually butting up to Chicago.Rich Birch — Yep.Sam Hamstra — Joking around right now, we’re going to be the future home of the Chicago Bears soon.Rich Birch — Nice.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. But um yeah, so we’re headquartered in Hammond. Our second location is in Merrillville, Indiana, about 30 minutes from here. So currently um our family’s grown to about 2,500 people in English. And we also have a Spanish service as well. And God’s done a phenomenal work over a six-year time frame.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so we did launch in March of 2020. Our first Sunday was the same Sunday the world shut down.Rich Birch — Wow.Sam Hamstra — And so the third week of March was our first service on the internet.Rich Birch — Dude, that’s amazing.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — That’s incredible.Sam Hamstra — Yes. So in God’s divine plan, kind of underneath our origin story, we we were actually a part of a church in Tinley Park, Illinois. We were a location of that church called Christian Life Center.Sam Hamstra — And our senior pastor and I, Pastor Jerry McQuay, we had been having an ongoing conversation about him making us independent, which is a whole long story. And he decided to really lean into what he believed God was doing in our lives and in this region and made us independent in God’s divine plan. That started in March of 2020. Rich Birch — Wow.Sam Hamstra — And so we transitioned from being a multi part of a multi site church a location up to being independent in March. And yeah, we started with nothing. We didn’t have any cameras, didn’t have anything. I called our media guy and said, do you have anything at your house? And he brought it. Yeah.Rich Birch — What gear you got in your basement? Yeah, that’s amazing.Sam Hamstra — Yeah and he he brought a camera from his house. And yeah, that’s how we started. One continuous shot streaming online. And that was the start of Anthem Church in March of 2020.Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing.Sam Hamstra — So God’s done a great work.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s incredible. That’s cool to hear and fun to see where it’s come, you know, since then. When you look back on that experience, you know, a lot of what you’re trying to define in those early days of a church, you’re trying to bring clarity to like, what is our approach? And part of what we do is you know, we there’s ah there’s, I think, some good copying and pasting. You’re like, hey, here’s the way they do it over here. Maybe we could try a little bit that. But then eventually you start kind of coming up with your own way. You kind of birth your own a approach, playbook, you might call it. Rich Birch — When did you start to feel… ah the kind of transition from, hey, I just want to do it like in this case, either CLC or another church over there. And you started to realize, hey, there’s something unique here at Anthem. And we got to try to define some of that. Talk us through maybe from um a timeline point of view or from a revelation point of view, like, oh, this is kind of things I started to see. Talk us through what that looked like.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so about two years before we launched Anthem, God started to really kind of do a work in our heart just on unique DNA. And we were coming out of like heavily influenced by ARC, Church of the Highlands, and learned so much from there.Sam Hamstra — And we’re seeing just how like clarity really was so important on where we’re going.Sam Hamstra — And so we were coming in there and I just was really praying and seeking the Lord on, okay, this is great. But in our context here, there’s some some differences, there’s some nuances.Sam Hamstra — This is, um we’re over here. what What does this look like here? And so really took the foundation of that and started looking at what does this look like? So when we started Anthem, it was with the thought of, we really want to lean into this unique blueprint of how God designed us and what God has called us to here. Sam Hamstra — So it really started from the jump from from day one. And so but it was a couple years ahead of time to say, OK, this is great. Let’s let’s use this. Let’s we’ve been imitating. Let’s imitate now move to a little bit of innovation and what the Lord would have for us.Rich Birch — Yeah, and there’s obviously there’s like an art and science to that, right? There’s like the, the yeah, insert whatever church, Church of the Highlands is fantastic. They’re doing a great thing, but you’re not Birmingham, Alabama. And you know and so there’s cultural differences, there’s community differences, there’s different resources and all that. That’s like the kind of science-y part of it. Rich Birch — But then there’s the art part of it, which is a little bit more… like intuitives, it’s like vibes, that kind of thing. How did you discern, okay, what are those things that we should be thinking about that are different that you start, or maybe things you started to see, evidence you started to see like, oh, maybe this isn’t working, just importing. Was there evidence of that that you saw?Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so like, and it was like small things, you know, just on approach to Sunday service. Rich Birch — Right.Sam Hamstra — You know, like, hey, this is open door, we don’t do this on Sunday. And we had just been starting to see like pretty early on, we’re we’re reaching lost people through like a hard approach to the gospel.Sam Hamstra — And it was just like, it wasn’t really seeker sensitive. Rich Birch — Sure.Sam Hamstra — It wasn’t, not saying they are, but just, it was just a little bit different in in our context where people were coming from. On the multi-ethnic side, it was just some approaches being super intentional with sounds, sights, all of that in in our context. And so, and even on the discipleship model, you know, groups, what kind of groups are we doing? How are we setting these up?Sam Hamstra — And so it was definitely like these nuances in the different categories, I would say, of discipleship that we started to pay attention to. That that was really the start, I think, of innovating what we have now.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Why do you think so many of us just reach for someone else’s model rather than doing the longer, harder, deeper, like it’s more annoying work to try to define you know our own thing and and then ultimately to document it which we’re going to get to here. what What did you actually do to kind of try to codify that? But why do you think we avoid that as leaders?Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so I think on one end, what’s established, you can see that the model works. And so um there’s great success you’re seeing. I mean, it’s working everywhere. And so I think it’s safe. And so deep down, it’s like this is established. I see it work. And so I can kind of press play on this. And and I know to a level that this this works. Sam Hamstra — And so it takes courage to do something that you haven’t seen before. Rich Birch — Right.Sam Hamstra — And deep, deep down, i think in our hearts, to me, that’s probably foundational thing. It’s like, man, I haven’t really seen this so his is going to require some courage, require some faith to press into the unknown.Rich Birch — Right. Right. Sam Hamstra — And so I do think that unknown word leads to some different decisions sometimes.Rich Birch — Well, and your church is an interesting um example just because it’s grown so quickly. I, you know, even in the… the lead up to it, I was thinking about, you know, the word, the term church plant.Rich Birch — Like, I don’t know when that term, you know, I was talking with a church that had been around for 30 years and they’re a big church. They’re like 20,000 people. And they, the lead pastor was like, well, we still think of ourselves as a church plant. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t at some point you stop being a church plant and just be, you start being a church. Rich Birch — And I think actually this is one of those, one of those differentiations is when you start saying, okay, like we’re going to, we believe that kind of God’s called us to this unique thing. There’s something in there. You built something that I think you call the Anthem Way. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — Walk us through what that is. How does it function? What is the Anthem Way? Help us understand that.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so this was actually birthed in an odd place. I was reading “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni,…Rich Birch — Yeah. Sam Hamstra — …and he was talking about organizational health, and one of the keys is clarity. Rich Birch — Yes.Sam Hamstra — And I had I have kind of, I’m somewhat of a mutt in church in my upbringing. Rich Birch — Love it.Sam Hamstra — So I’ve been in a lot of different environments and seen to a lot of different things. And so it was really just kind of like looking like, how can we just be crystal clear on who we are, where we’re going and different things. And so I read that book and in that book, he actually laid out these questions that he was like kind of pointing to every successful organization needs to answer.Sam Hamstra — And Iwas kind of seeing that with some of the stuff I’ve been hearing. And I’m like, and there’s a couple of missing pieces for me that he pointed to that I thought was so important in church world that I would actually point to that have been some of the biggest things I think that have been what I would call probably the secret sauce of what we’ve seen as far as clarity. Sam Hamstra — Just the separation of something simple, but the difference between mission and vision, you know, why we exist compared to where we’re going. And so, yeah, I read that book and in there he laid out questions that you need to answer. I took that to our leadership team and we wrestled with these probably for about nine months. Sam Hamstra — I’m just going back and forth on wording, how we say things. question by question in five different questions. We answered those and we gave it a name called the Anthem Way. And so that was the foundation, but I want to give credit where credit is due. It came through the book, The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Yeah.Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s great. That’s fantastic. And I, you know, one of the things I love that you’ve hit on here is I’ve talked in other contexts that our vision, well, this is the problem with with vision, mission stuff is it’s like, first you have to have a conversation. How do you define vision? How do you define mission?Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — But the big thing that we’re called to, the big idea, it comes from Jesus, right? We’re supposed to reach people and grow them up in in in relationship with him. All churches should have that as their core. That is at the core of what we do. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — But getting clear on how we do that, you know, these other questions I’m assuming has helped give you a bit of a more of an edge, something that’s a little bit different. Do you want to rattle through the five questions… Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and maybe some high level, I know we can’t get into all the detail, but kind of high level how you’ve answered it. And then the follow-up I’m going ask you is, which are those couple that have given you what you think are the biggest distinctives around Anthem… Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Okay. Rich Birch — …that kind of that that kind of, um you know, that provide that edge that’s a little different, you think.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. So five questions and I’ll rattle them off quick. But so first one is why do we exist? Mission – the mission question, um which you just said it, I 100% agree, you know, every church really is called to the same thing. Let’s make disciples who make disciples, the Great Commission is still our first priority.Sam Hamstra — And so the way we say that is to lead people to know Christ and make them known. That was something we just prayed into language. We want to share language that people could really rally around. Sam Hamstra — Next question is how do we behave? The values question. We wanted to boil down in our culture those not aspirational values like truly who we are. So we boil those down to three things and wrestle with the language a lot. We wanted them actionable, but we choose joy. We love people and we believe passion. Sam Hamstra — And those all have disclaimers and really feed into our culture of what we call multi-everything. We love people from all walks of life, belong before you behave, and all that falls in there.Sam Hamstra — What do we do? Patrick Lencioni was talking about how that’s really your your business definition, so to speak, not for external use, but internal. We answered that with, we provide defined discipleship pathway.Sam Hamstra — It’s what we do day in and day out. It’s why we wake up in the morning. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re not a country club. We’re not here to make money, we’re a church and and this is this is how we do, like what we do to ah to reach our why.Sam Hamstra — How we live is the spiritual question for us. We wanna make disciples. So we wanted to be able to weigh spiritually what a disciple is. And so we looked at Acts 2:42, which we felt like was a really good, definition of these handles on a disciple. And so we have five kind of disclaimers on what we want to see in our people at our church. And we offer resources on those, but from daily devotion to prayer to we share our Jesus story. How do you testify? How do we share? How do we make Christ known?Sam Hamstra — And then the last one is where are we going, which is the vision question. And we’ve we’re wrestling with the timing right now. We currently have a 10 year vision statement, which is just kind of pointers on like, this is where we believe God is taking us as a people.Sam Hamstra — And so those five questions are give us the framework for what we call the Anthem Way. What I’ve seen, as basic as it sounds and in our context. And I don’t know if this resonates with anybody. One of the most frustrating meetings I had in church context was the yearly calendar meeting.Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.Sam Hamstra — And I just felt like everybody was coming every year with their own ideas. Some of them had to do with our mission, some didn’t. And these are just in past experiences. And so it just felt like everybody was trying to, and some, you know, just different reasons, good, bad, indifferent.Sam Hamstra — And what what gave me great clarity was to look at our defined discipleship pathway and say, this is how we create our calendar. And um that’s been one thing that has simplified everything for us.Sam Hamstra — So every year in the last six years, our our yearly calendar flow has been the same. And our people are starting to understand it. The next steps fall within it when we even, you know, baptisms, we’re doing it this time. And So that’s been one thing is basically that sounds like what do we do?Rich Birch — No, no, that’s good. I like it.Sam Hamstra — I found a lot of confusion on that in the past, on like, how do we do groups? How do we have services? To define everything within that in the discipleship pathway, to me has been life-giving, not only for us as a team, but as as our church as well.Rich Birch — Yeah. Pull that apart a little bit more. I think, because I think this is where we fall down on this type of work is, you know, and, and I know it’s none of the people that are listening in, but there are churches that like, they do a retreat and we’re like, we’re going away. We’re going we’re reading Lencioni. We’re going to define the five questions. We even make a snappy poster and we put it up on the wall. And then we go back to business as usual. It’s the same thing we’ve always done. But you’ve been able to make the connection there, particularly with the calendar.Rich Birch — Maybe talk us through, give us some examples of how this work is shaping, how you’re actually defining, you know, how you operate as a church.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so one example I would say is prayer. I had somebody call me and I like to think our prayer culture is strong. And they said, how did you get your prayer culture strong? And I said, well, this is really mind blowing. We have a weekly prayer meeting.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Sam Hamstra — And so because of that, and and still as the lead pastor still today, I take responsibility for leading that because I believe it’s it’s a high value for the church. Rich Birch — Right.Sam Hamstra — So it’s on the calendar. We you know And we’re not adding to it. It’s just 6 p.m. to 7 every Thursday. And we support it, which I think is the secondary layer behind that because it’s important. Now we have staff support. We have worship team support. We’re, we’re like staying very focused, on a few things rather than getting broad and going to a retreat and saying, this is a silver bullet. I don’t think there, I think the whole thing is a silver bullet, the whole pathway.Rich Birch — Right. Sure.Sam Hamstra — And so we always say, you know, I took this from somebody, but, you know, we want to be Ruth’s Chris, not Ponderosa. We want a one page menu and we really want to just do that.Rich Birch — Yep.Sam Hamstra — And it might even get boring. And we we’re trying to learn that boring is good.Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Boring stuff grows churches. I love it.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — One of those five is sharing Jesus. Every disciple has one mission, to make Christ known. We don’t keep the gospel to ourselves. We share it through our words, our actions, our lives, wherever we go. We carry the hope of Jesus to a world that needs him.Rich Birch — Unpack some ways that that value drives behavior at the church, that actually drives calendaring and and you know what you’re talking about, that sort of thing.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so deep, you know, we always want to empower everybody to be inviters and not just share. I think the key word in that is share your Jesus story. You know, we have to be people who understand how to share a testimony outside the four walls with it, you know, with a pretty quick invite to be like, hey, come be part of this community if you don’t have a community.Rich Birch — Right.Sam Hamstra — And so that is really through calendaring. We that’s really probably intrinsically baked into what we’re doing. So anytime I bring a guest to church, I’m saying it from the pulpit. And this is my friend. They’re here. I invited celebrating those through baptisms.Sam Hamstra — We let people testify of so you’re hearing stories of that. And then really resourcing people to make Christ known by sharing their story, teaching them how to do that.Sam Hamstra — So In the context of the calendar, um you know I took this from your playbook, sir, so thank you. We wanted to create four big events in our flywheel… Rich Birch — Yep. Love it. Sam Hamstra — …that are big invite events, that these are the moments where you need to bring 10 people. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Hamstra — We have found in our calendar since day one that we are seeing people respond to that and our church grows after every single time we do a big event. Rich Birch — That’s great.Sam Hamstra — And so we’re we’re doing four quarterly things.Rich Birch — Are those are those four the same every year? Are they, are they, yeah.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, yes.Rich Birch — So what are they? What are those four? If you don’t want me asking.Sam Hamstra — So, you know, Easter, of course… Rich Birch — Yep. Sam Hamstra — …summer kickoff was something we just created… Rich Birch — Yeah, great. Sam Hamstra — …to start the first Sunday of June. We rented a football field and we just say, bring everybody. We don’t… Rich Birch — That’s great. Sam Hamstra — …in our culture here, this is one thing, like, we’re like, we don’t shrink in the summer. This is a great time to grow.Rich Birch — Keep going forward. Yep. Love it.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. And then we created something years ago called Homecoming, just, you know, it was really show up Sunday, invite day. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep. Sam Hamstra — And then Christmas. Rich Birch — Love it.Sam Hamstra — So those are our four homecomings in November on the calendar. It just kind of flows quarterly for us that way.Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it. Well, I love what we’ve seen in fastest growing church in the country, friends that are listening in, is, you know, lots of churches will get, they have two big days, Christmas and Easter. But what we see is the behavior that you’re doing, which is you kind of end up having to make up a couple other days where you’re kind of injecting energy. We’re recording this in the summertime. You know, lots of churches have pulled a page out of Life Church’s book around At the Movies. And they, at the movies is one of their biggest attended days of the year on the the front end of that.Rich Birch — It’s just made up. There’s no reason for you to come the first week of August… Sam Hamstra — Yeah, absolutely. Rich Birch — …but they’ve decided, hey, we’re going to do that. That’s great. So we’re going to link to your about page where a lot of this is on that that page.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — On the how our core values, how we behave: We love people. We bleed passion. We choose joy. There’s some unique stuff in there. So talk me through. We love people, I think could be universally true of lots of churches… Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — …but I’m not sure that every church would say we bleed passion. We choose joy. Talk me through those as how those are kind of a unique thing that is helping you define what it means to be Anthem.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so you know on the love people thing, is you do hear that a lot. And I found there’s a difference between hearing it than living it out. And in religious environments sometimes, you know, I think we all pray we wanna reach the lost until you reach the lost. Rich Birch — True.Sam Hamstra — And our first service, our first Easter Sunday here, we only had one door into our auditorium. And I still remember we had the whole back of the auditorium smelled like weed.Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Okay. Love it.Sam Hamstra — And it was like this tense moment, you know, like of like, okay, this is what we pray for.Rich Birch — Yes.Sam Hamstra — And kind of diving deep into that. So we really own that language within that of we belong before we behave. And so we’re, you know, you can come from all walks of life and we believe Jesus died for all people. So we love all people.Sam Hamstra — And then the we choose joy…Rich Birch — I love that. Before we move on, the thing I love about that… Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — …that you’re calling out, that I do think is a nuance that we miss in too many churches, which is oftentimes we say we want to reach people. But what that comes with is messy pastoral care, hard conversations, stuff that doesn’t make sense, and long nights. Like, it’s just hard. Rich Birch — And, um you know, if you’re, it’s easy to reach Christians from the other church across town. It’s hard to reach people who don’t normally journey in this stuff.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Yeah.Rich Birch — And I love I love that story, even of your opening weekend with the the smell of weed in the back of the room.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — I love it.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Definitely messy.Rich Birch — That’s great. Yes, yes, love it.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. You know, the “We choose joy” has just been, um i think one of the greatest testimonies we had was from somebody that just, it was their first time guest. So like, man, everybody feels like they’re the same here. Everybody’s so happy. And we just wanted to build in just this, we believe that, you know, joy should be a badge that every believer wears. It’s just been, you know, you go into the different environments and some people just, it seems like a chore to be alive.Sam Hamstra — And so we just wanted to drive in. This is a privilege to be part of what God is doing in the earth in this hour, even if it doesn’t look perfect. Rich Birch — That’s great. Sam Hamstra — And then with “We bleed passion”, um that’s really our way to say here, you know, if you’re looking for a place that’s content with status quo, you’re probably not going to like it here. We’re always going to be changing. We’re always going to be moving. We’re always going to be shifting. We always want to go with where the Lord is leading. And so we’re a sending church. Don’t get comfortable. There’s always going to be more services. There’s always going to be new churches. Sam Hamstra — So we tried to to really get that in the DNA from the front side.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it.Rich Birch — I love that “we choose joy”. When I was at Liquid Church, are one of our three in this in this coupling was “Church is fun”. And you know the way we would talk about that is we would say, you know we we we say good news or we say gospel. We’re like, we should be gospel people or we should be good news people. Rich Birch — But what that actually means, how that actually should work itself out in our culture is when people interact with us, those people are a lot of fun to be around. Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Rich Birch — Because they’re redeemed people who have figured out, man, we’re following a God who loves us dearly. So what that should actually like, I love the way you’ve said it, we choose joy. Joy should be the natural outcome of our churches… Sam Hamstra — Yes. Rich Birch — …which is, again, that should not be rocket science, but it’s amazing how much that is a cultural difference or can be a huge cultural difference in many churches.Sam Hamstra — Yes. 100%. Yep.Rich Birch — That’s cool. So um you’ve been using this really throughout your how you develop leaders, how you onboard people, how you, you know, how do you come back to this time and time again? What are you using? How are you using these tools in your leadership development, in your raising up of volunteers, that sort of thing?Sam Hamstra — Yeah, so foundationally, I got to give credit where credit is due once again on this. I heard University of Kentucky’s baseball coach say this about culture, and it was like the best thing I’ve ever heard. He totally transformed his program, and he said it was culture at at the root of it. He said culture is every day. Culture is what you accept, and culture is what you reinforce.Rich Birch — It’s good.Sam Hamstra — And so we try to keep that in front of us as much as we can. It’s you know not something we just say we want to lead the way every day. So within these three, we actually just came out with 10 leadership values that all fit within those three…Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool.Sam Hamstra — …that give a little more language to our leadership, like, you know, we love people, so we park in back. And so really speaking to the culture of, you know, we put other people first, we serve. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.Sam Hamstra — And so, you know, we try to outdo each other. You know, I park about a half mile away from church on Sundays. We don’t we don’t do pastor parking, you know, or anything like that. umAnd so just, it’s every day.Rich Birch — Yes.Sam Hamstra — We do a value at every single one of our pre-service huddles on Sunday. So we’re taking those three values every Sunday, one, here’s what we’re doing.Sam Hamstra — And then Leadership Pipeline, we implemented this two years ago and we’re teaching our Anthem way across the board to a new set of leaders three times a year. And so we really zone in on culture a lot. We’ve just realized people coming from a lot of different places and what makes our culture, our culture are these distinctives. And so we’re teaching those and then really trying to walk them out. And the best testimony we’ve been hearing is people say, yeah, we see that in the leadership of the church. So that’s been really cool to hear.Rich Birch — That’s really cool. I love it. And friends, this just reminds me of the like such a foundational thing we’ve all got to get right and work on and then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.Rich Birch — We’ve got to keep on top of this language and and just come back to it time and time again. So you’re multi-site, you’re you’re going to launch more campuses down the road. Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — How does this tie into that conversation around, you know, there can be in you know, some multi-site churches, there’s like this tension of uniformity, you know, versus autonomy. And like, how how does that how does how does your thinking work out with the Anthem Way in multiple locations?Sam Hamstra — Yeah. So I want to preface this with I’m new, so I am figuring this out in real time. Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Sam Hamstra — I’m coming from from being a campus pastor to now being in the position I’m in. We’re two years into our first ah plant location campus. So and we’ve seen it be successful.Sam Hamstra — But what we’ve agreed on is we are going to be uniform in the Anthem Way. So we’re choosing uniformity and everything that falls within that box of the Anthem Way. Um, and so that has been like the running lanes for us to define what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, the way we talk, the way we move, our style of church, um, and all of that. So that’s been, you know, we’ve been really struggling with, with, with what you just said, that uniformity versus unity versus, you know, autonomy. Sam Hamstra — And so, the Anthem Way is to become our framework on how we’re starting locations. And we feel like as long as everybody’s in sync with all, and it and it entails a lot, right? I mean, how we do church, our approach to a lot of things.Sam Hamstra — And so that’s been that’s been our overarching theme is we want to be uniform in this. Rich Birch — yeah that’s good. Sam Hamstra — And so that’s what we’ve been trying to make sure it’s documented, ready to go.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s an interesting, that’s like a, we could have a whole other half an hour just on on on that issue.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — But one of the things we have seen over the long arc of the multi-site movement is churches that are choosing clarity and um and more, yeah, an understanding of, in your case, what is Anthem and how do we do what we do, those churches are the churches that, from my perspective, and not just statistically, are actually benefiting more from the multi-site movement. Rich Birch — The churches where they’re like, hey, let’s spend a lot of time. It can actually be the worst model because it’s like, we have a lot of people thinking about all the different ways you could potentially do church. As opposed to saying, no, no, like this is the way we’re not, we’re not saying this is the best way. We’re just saying it’s our way. We’re not saying that this is the only way to do it.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — We’re just saying this is the way we do it. And, um and we’re okay with that. We’re settled on on that as an issue.Sam Hamstra — Yeah. That’s good. That’s good.Rich Birch — That’s interesting. Is there anything that changed or that has changed as you, I realize you’ve influenced ben to this from the beginning, but like, has there been anything that has kind of changed as you got clearer on the Anthem Way over the over the years? You know, something you cut or improved or, you know, is there anything that jumps to mind on that front?Sam Hamstra — Yeah, we’re would I might use the word refined rather than changed. Rich Birch — Sure. Yep, that’s good. Sam Hamstra — I was just talking to our discipleship director this morning just on, you know, is there is there a small group model? So like our three kind of handles in our discipleship pathway are know Christ, grow in Christ, and and make Christ known.Sam Hamstra — And, you know, our small group model isn’t working. We added what we call the Mosaic School of Ministry, which is is another thing in Grow. And we’ve actually seen way more interest and success in that. And so, you know, we have a way higher percentage right now going through what we call a School of Ministry, which is classes and and discipleship then we’re getting in small groups. Sam Hamstra — And so we’ve been just kind of wrestling with that a little bit. Like, is that culture, is it good, is it bad? And so I think those those refining moments have have really changed. We started off, though, I feel soft saying this, but it worked in our context. But we would start every year with 21 days of prayer and fasting in the beginning. And do 21 days again in the fall.Rich Birch — Love it.Sam Hamstra — We’ve actually gone down to seven days to start the year. There’s seven days in the fall. We just feel like we’re seeing actually better results with more people getting involved just with those minor tweaks, just to say this…Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Sam Hamstra — …his is we’re we’re seeing bigger impact there. Rich Birch — Sure. Sam Hamstra — But so I think those refining things have been really good.Rich Birch — Has there been any of that refining that has come not from you, but from a member of your team? Like, has anyone called you out or called the church out on like, hey, like on prayer or on any of these where, you know, like when that’s happened in my life, I kind of like that. Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — I’m like, oh, well, that’s a pleasant thing that just happened there, even though it feels weird to be the person being called out.Sam Hamstra — Yeah.Rich Birch — Have you had any experiences like that?Sam Hamstra — Yeah. Yes. I’m laughing because, yeah, I’ve had quite a few. I could point to the one with prayer fasting. Rich Birch — Yes. So somebody on our team was like, hey, pastor, you know that there’s really no a place in the Bible where there’s a three week corporate fast. Rich Birch — Sure. Sam Hamstra — Yeah like where the whole church is coming together for three weeks and I’m like well I got a challenge, I’m gonna look. And I’m like sure enough you know, I’m maybe somebody could find it, but it was like these times and seasons where people come together for specific things of like, oh man you’re right. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, love it. Sam Hamstra — So and so that was like one of those um yeah it’s it’s definitely happened quite quite a bit and so which I love that too and so it’s been such a blessing of solid team that feels free to speak when when they need to.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, this has been a good conversation, just as we’re kind of coming to land. If you think about a church out there that feels like okay they’ve listened to this and they’re like okay, we maybe they’ve opened up your website. And they’re like, hey, we’re not as clear on this that as we could be, we need to get much clearer on that.Rich Birch — What’s kind of one first step that you would encourage people to take? What would be kind of the best first step towards getting clarity on this front?Sam Hamstra — Write the vision, make it plain so that he that reads it may run.Rich Birch — Dude, I love it. And with that, we end the episode. That’s fantastic. No, that’s great. Unpack that a little bit.Sam Hamstra — Um, you know, I for so much of my life, I was always looking to be so unique and so different. Rich Birch — Right.Sam Hamstra — And I felt like I just needed the next best thing. And it was wasn’t until I just locked into this is what the Lord has for us. And it might sound like somebody else it might look and that’s OK, but this going to be very unique to us. And this is what we’re doing. And just to be very clear on that and then just this is for me, but I get bored so easily. And to just, just not get bored and just keep doing the same thing in the same direction day after day.Rich Birch — Right.Sam Hamstra — And in that that flywheel, to use your words, it does work. And just to see that go and to to get very clear and and simple and and let people know where you’re going and just keep saying the same thing over and over is so life-giving.Rich Birch — That’s so good. So good.Rich Birch — Well, I really appreciate you being here today. If we want to send people anywhere online to track with you or to track with the church, where do we want to send them?Sam Hamstra — So first name, last name would be all my personal stuff. So @samhamstra, last name H-A-M-S-T-R-A.Sam Hamstra — And all church stuff is weareanthemchurch.com. And then weareanthemchurch on social as well.Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Appreciate that, Sam. Thanks so much for being here. Honored that you take some time to be with us today.Sam Hamstra — Yeah, thanks so much, Rich, my honor.

What are people actually encountering when they use psychedelics like DMT and ayahuasca?In Episode 50 of Ancient Roots of Life & Wellness, JT and Josh dive into the strange connection between psychedelics, spiritual entities, ancient witchcraft, fallen angels, and the biblical supernatural worldview.We also explore the mysterious Loretto staircase and the possibility of supernatural involvement in ancient construction before continuing our study through the Gospel of Nicodemus, also known as the Acts of Pilate.The text expands upon the trial of Jesus, the testimony of those He healed, Pilate's confrontation with the Jewish leaders, Barabbas, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and events surrounding the crucifixion.Are some of the things modern culture calls “aliens,” hallucinations, or altered states actually spiritual phenomena?And how much of the supernatural worldview of the ancient world have we simply forgotten?Join us as we dig into the Ancient Roots.#AncientRoots #GospelOfNicodemus #DMT #FallenAngels #Bible #Ayahuasca #ActsOfPilate #SpiritualWarfare00:00 — Proverbs, Vampires & “Wicked Offspring”05:00 — Is Batman a Spirit of Fear?10:30 — Batman, Joker & the Gods of Fear18:00 — Fight Club, Demonic Possession & False Reality23:00 — Aliens, Ayahuasca & Spiritual Entities31:30 — Graham Hancock & the “Vine of the Dead”38:00 — Psychedelics, Witchcraft & Pharmakeia46:00 — The Mysterious Staircase Built by an Angel?52:00 — Supernatural Ancient Architecture56:45 — Gospel of Nicodemus / Acts of Pilate1:12:00 — A Forgotten Sign of the Messiah?1:14:00 — Pilate, Barabbas & the Trial of Jesus1:28:50 — Nicodemus & Joseph of ArimatheaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jt-s-mix-tape--6579902/support.Please support our sponsor Modern Roots Life: https://modernrootslife.com/?bg_ref=rVWsBoOfcFPatreon: https://patreon.com/JT_Follows_JC?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLinkJESUS SAID THERE WOULD BE HATERS: https://jtfollowsjc.com/product-category/mens-shirts/JT's Hats: https://jtfollowsjc.com/product-category/hats/Coaching Program: https://www.echoesoftruthnetwork.com/joinTelegram Group: https://t.me/jtsmixtapeNew Trucker Hat: https://www.shopmmca.com/shop/p/jt-follows-jc-hat

Jesus is the most written about, fought over, and misunderstood person in history. But who was he, really? What does the Bible say? Peter's sermon in Acts 10 – the first sermon preached specifically to non-Jews – shows us five teachings of the early church on who Jesus was and what he did to save us. View series on PursueGOD.org: Pursuit (Series)--The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you're looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.Donate Now--Lord of AllThe first teaching about Jesus starts with his identity. Was he just a prophet or priest, or was he something more? Peter answers:Acts 10:36 (NLT) There is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. Peter calls Jesus “Lord,” a reference to his divinity. Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity (John 1:1-4). Jesus himself taught this (John 8:58), and his followers believed it. Scripture affirms that Jesus is fully God, creator and sustainer of all things. Colossians 1:15,19-20 (NLT) Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation…. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself.But why does this matter? Why is it important to believe that Jesus is fully God instead of just a good man? The answer is that Jesus could not offer us “peace with God” if he were merely human. Jesus is God, and his divinity qualifies him to be our savior.But let's not miss the last part of Acts 10:36. Jesus is Lord of “all,” not just Lord of the Israelites. God's desire from the beginning was that all people would come to know him. That's why Peter was preaching this sermon in the first place. God had sent him to the house of a Gentile, and this was the inauguration of a new kind of movement. Christianity would be a faith for both Jews and Gentiles, because Jesus is Lord of all. Perfectly GoodThe next teaching fills us in on Christ's activity while he was here on the earth. What kind of a person was he? How did he live?Acts 10:38 (NLT) Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.Jesus was a miracle worker unlike anything the world had ever seen. He cast out demons (Luke 4:40-41) and healed lepers (Luke 5:12-13). He miraculously fed thousands (Matthew 14:13-21), walked on water (Matthew 14:22-33), and even raised a dead guy to life (John 11:38-44).On top of his miracles, Jesus “went around doing good.” This affirms what we learned about God earlier in this series. God is for you, not against you. He's a good God, and Jesus proved it by his actions while he walked this earth.But most important of all was what Jesus didn't do: he never sinned. Jesus was perfect and sinless from start to finish. During his lifetime Jesus proved his power over sin and its consequences. Read his story for yourself and here's what you'll find: Jesus was fully God and fully man, living a sinless life and perfectly modeling the love of God. Again, why is this important? Consider this: if Jesus had been a sinner like the rest of us, then he would have had to die for his own sins. But since he was sinless, he could go to the cross on our behalf. The sin-debt that he paid could be credited to our account, because Jesus didn't owe on the debt. Crucified and RisenSo far we've learned that Jesus is fully God and perfectly sinless. That sets us up for the core teaching of the early church on the person and work of Jesus: he died and rose again. The power of faith in Jesus hinges on these two simple, historical facts. Acts 10:39-40 (NLT) They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him to life on the third day. Jesus was about thirty three years old when the Jews put him on trial and the Romans nailed him to the cross (Luke 23:44-46, 24:1-6). From the outside looking in, this was an epic tragedy. But it was God's plan all along, even though nobody saw it coming (Isaiah 53:8-10).And here's the most important part: Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose from the grave after three days, proving once and for all his power over sin and death. This is central to the Christian faith, because a dead savior would be no savior at all: 1 Corinthians 15:14 (NLT) And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless.But how do we know that the resurrection isn't just a myth? The simplest proof was the response of his closest followers. Though they abandoned Jesus in fear before the crucifixion, they sold out their lives to his message just three days later. Almost all of Jesus' first disciples died for their faith, because they firmly believed that Jesus was raised to life.Judge of AllThe fourth point of Peter's sermon might come as a surprise to modern listeners. Up until now it has all been good news. But Peter adds a stern warning:Acts 10:42 (NLT) Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. The Bible teaches that someday Jesus will judge you for every good and bad thing you've ever done. And here's the bad news: left to yourself, there's no hope of passing the test at the end of eternity. You were born into sin, remember? The thought of a judgment day should get every person's attention (Hebrews 10:31). That's why Peter included it in his sermon.God is not only loving; he is also fair. And so we can't blame God for not flippantly dismissing our sins (Romans 2:9,16). God did not cancel his wrath against us – he spent it on his Son. At the cross, the justice of God collides with the love of God in the person of Jesus.Forgiver of SinsThank God that Peter doesn't end his sermon at judgment! Here's the final truth he teaches us about Jesus: Acts 10:43 (NLT) Everyone who believes in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name. This is the new birth that Jesus offers to sinners. The good news of the Bible is that we can be forgiven – but not through a lifetime of good works. Peace with God comes only through faith in a person: Jesus Christ. This is offered to anyone who believes.Jesus is Lord of all, perfectly good, crucified and risen, judge of all, and forgiver of sins. This is what Peter preached that day to the Gentile household of Cornelius, and it remains the basic message for seekers of God today.So we have a choice to

What do you do when your life doesn't look anything like you thought it would?When the relationship falls apart, the opportunity disappears, the finances become uncertain, the prayer seems unanswered, or you find yourself walking through a season you never expected?In this episode of the Dream Creation Podcast, we're talking about one of the most important truths you can hold onto in a difficult season:God may not always remove you from the hardship—but He will never abandon you in it.Throughout Scripture, we see faithful people who experienced incredible pain, uncertainty, rejection, loss, and fear—and yet God was still with them.We'll walk through the stories of:✨ Joseph — betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, and imprisoned, yet Scripture repeatedly tells us that the Lord was with Joseph.✨ Job — who experienced devastating loss and suffering without understanding why, reminding us that we can bring our questions and pain honestly before God.✨ Hagar — alone in the wilderness with her son, discovering that God is El Roi—the God who sees.✨ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to compromise their faith, showing us that God can meet us in the fire.✨ Paul and Silas — beaten and imprisoned, yet praying and worshipping God at midnight, reminding us that we can trust and praise God even before we see the prison doors open.If you're currently going through a hard season, waiting season, wilderness season, spiritual battle, loss, disappointment, or uncertainty, this episode is for you.You'll be encouraged to:• Stop interpreting God's silence as His absence• Bring your honest emotions and questions to God• Focus on today's obedience instead of trying to control tomorrow• Seek godly community instead of isolating yourself• Remember that your circumstances do not define your identity• Trust God one day—and one faithful step—at a timeYou don't need to understand everything God is doing to trust Him.You don't need to see the entire path to take the next step.And you don't have to walk through the fire alone.God is still with you.

Disagreement and conflict is almost inevitable in human relationships. When that happens, some people put up their fists . . . others call up their lawyer. Others look up the Proverb that says a soft answer turns away wrath. In the big picture, those moments can either undergird our efforts to share Christ, or undermine them. Today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us deal with everyone in a spirit of grace and humility. We’re in Acts chapter 15. — Become a Harvest Partner today and join us in knowing God and making Him known through media and large-scale evangelism, our mission of over 30 years. Explore more resources from Pastor Greg Laurie, including daily devotionals and blogs, designed to answer your spiritual questions and equip you to walk closely with Christ.Support the show: https://bit.ly/anbsupportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

RHOC is way off the rails and not in a good way. Fans cry boring and the only one rumored to be able to save it is the one and only Miss Tamra Judge. Jeff Lewis is willing to pay some of Gage's lawyer fees to STFU. Whitney Rose loses her shiz, goes insane and is said to have broken a camera mans camera. Carl and Lindsay troll everyone. The Valley scraps the Jax talk. All sorts of dark info from the past resurfaces about Kim and Kroy's son KJ. The Golden Life has a few problems. Siggy Flicker wins big. Perez Hilton can only see his kids if he is supervised. The Shards reigns supreme with another killer, no pun intended, episode. Last, but not least, the much anticipated new season of RHONY has finally arrived! @behindvelvetrope @davidyontef BONUS & AD FREE EPISODES Available at - www.patreon.com/behindthevelvetrope  BROUGHT TO YOU BY: PROGRESSIVE - www.progressive.com (Visit Progressive.com To See If You Could Save On Car Insurance)  WAYFAIR - wayfair.com (Join Wayfair Rewards Today To Get 5% Back On Every Purchase & Start Saving On Your Next Home Upgrade)  POM - pomwonderful.com (Check Out POM Wonderful Antioxidant Super Teas)  INDEED - indeed.com/PODCAST (Seventy Five Dollar $75 Sponsored Job Credit To Get Your Job The Premium Status It Deserves)  MOOD - www.mood.com/velvet (20% Off With Code Velvet on Federally Legal THC Shipped Right To Your Door)  LOLA BLANKETS - lolablankets.com (Use Code VELVET To Get 40% Off The Most Comfortable Blankets Ever!)  SMILESET - smileset.com/velvet (Get 35% Off The Smile Of Your Dreams) ADVERTISING INQUIRIES - Please contact David@advertising-execs.com MERCH Available at - https://www.teepublic.com/stores/behind-the-velvet-rope?ref_id=13198  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Paul highlights how God's grace transforms and empowers unlikely people to boldly proclaim Christ.Join us for a weekly narration of Paul Tripp's popular devotional. You can subscribe to our email list to receive this devotional straight to your inbox each week, or read online at PaulTripp.com/Wednesday or on Facebook, Instagram, and the Paul Tripp App.Paul Tripp's 5-Minute Bible Study on the book of Acts.If you've been enjoying the Wednesday's Word podcast, please leave us a review! Each review helps us reach more people with the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Disagreement and conflict is almost inevitable in human relationships. When that happens, some people put up their fists . . . others call up their lawyer. Others look up the Proverb that says a soft answer turns away wrath. In the big picture, those moments can either undergird our efforts to share Christ, or undermine them. Today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us deal with everyone in a spirit of grace and humility. We’re in Acts chapter 15. — Become a Harvest Partner today and join us in knowing God and making Him known through media and large-scale evangelism, our mission of over 30 years. Explore more resources from Pastor Greg Laurie, including daily devotionals and blogs, designed to answer your spiritual questions and equip you to walk closely with Christ.Support the show: https://bit.ly/anbsupportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of No Compromise Radio, host Mike Abendroth explores the biblical timeline of Methuselah, demonstrating through Genesis genealogies how Methuselah's 969-year lifespan and the prophetic meaning of his name align with the exact year of Noah's flood, highlighting God's patience prior to judgment. Moving into the central message, Mike examines the nature and practical "fruits" of biblical repentance using passages from Luke, Acts, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians. He emphasizes that true repentance requires more than a mere change of mind; it demands the active mortification of sin, the complete rejection of self-righteousness, and vivification—turning toward God in faith and continual confession.   Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xaPlYe3xvQc    No Compromise Radio “Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.” Episode 71: “Fruits of Repentance" Hosts: Pastor Mike Abendroth (Pastor & Author) Produced/Edited By: Marrio Escobar (Owner of D2L Productions) 

ACTS 4:32-37- ALL THINGS IN COMMON - BRIAN SUMNER - 2026ACTS 4:32-37 "Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. 33 And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. 34 Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, 35 and laid them at the apostles' feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.36 And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement), a Levite of the country of Cyprus, 37 having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.”To support this channel and partner with Brian in Ministryhttps://www.briansumner.net/support/For more on Brianhttp://www.briansumner.nethttps://www.instagram.com/BRIANSUMNER/https://www.facebook.com/BRIANSUMNEROFFICIALTo listen to Brians Podcast, click below.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Purchase Brians Marriage book at https://www.amazon.com/Never-Fails-Da...Brian is a full time "Urban Missionary" both locally and internationally with a focus on MISSIONS - MARRIAGES - MINISTRY. Since coming to faith in 2004 doors continued opening locally and internationally to do more and more ministry with a focus on Evangelism, Outreach Missions, Marriage, Counsel, Schools, Festivals, Conferences and the like.  Everything about this ministry is made possible because of people personally partnering through the non profit. God Bless and thank you. †Support the showSUPPORT THE SHOW

Today is day 245 and we are studying A Rule of Prayer: Corporate Worship. 245. Why do Anglicans worship with a structured liturgy? Anglicans worship with a structured liturgy because it embodies biblical patterns of worship, fosters reverence and love for God, deepens faith in Jesus Christ, and is in continuity with the practices of Israel and the Early Church. (Numbers 6:22–27; Deuteronomy 12:8–14; Psalm 96; Acts 2:42–47; Revelation 15; Didache 8–10) We will conclude today with the First Prayer of the People in the Anglican Standard Text found on page 110 of the Book of Common Prayer (2019). If you would like to buy or download To Be a Christian, head to anglicanchurch.net/catechism. Produced by Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Madison, MS. Original music from Matthew Clark. Daily collects and Psalms are taken from Book of Common Prayer (2019), created by the Anglican Church in North America and published by the Anglican Liturgical Press. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Catechism readings are taken from To Be a Christian - An Anglican Catechism Approved Edition, copyright © 2020 by The Anglican Church in North America by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Today we pick up where we left off and finish Acts Chapter 9 and discuss chapter 10 where we see a HUGE Paradigm shift for Peter and the rest of the believers. God is breaking down barriers and changing mindsets as He reveals His Kingdom's thinking. He reveals salvation is for everyone, not just the Jews. We learn today that NO ONE is beyond God's grace.   Also, there is a challenge for us all: Are we willing to continue with the Great Commission. An important task Jesus charged believers with, or do we have biases that hinder or prohibit us from expanding the Kingdom of God?    You can connect with me or order my books on my website here: https://debbiekitterman.com/ click on the store tab and choose the book(s) you would like to view under the book tab.   OR on Amazon here using my affiliate links:  Check out my Amazon Store front here:https://a.co/d/0fSFMjq0 D2h Podcast Books  https://amzn.to/4wnk96D Podcast Equipment https://amzn.to/4u8PloC  I even have other categories for my sourdough, chickens, my favorite things, and more…. check my entire storefront out here: https://a.co/d/0fSFMjq0  

Today we pick up where we left off and finish Acts Chapter 9 and discuss chapter 10 where we see a HUGE Paradigm shift for Peter and the rest of the believers. God is breaking down barriers and changing mindsets as He reveals His Kingdom's thinking. He reveals salvation is for everyone, not just the Jews. We learn today that NO ONE is beyond God's grace.   Also, there is a challenge for us all: Are we willing to continue with the Great Commission. An important task Jesus charged believers with, or do we have biases that hinder or prohibit us from expanding the Kingdom of God?    You can connect with me or order my books on my website here: https://debbiekitterman.com/ click on the store tab and choose the book(s) you would like to view under the book tab.   OR on Amazon here using my affiliate links:  Check out my Amazon Store front here:https://a.co/d/0fSFMjq0 D2h Podcast Books  https://amzn.to/4wnk96D Podcast Equipment https://amzn.to/4u8PloC  I even have other categories for my sourdough, chickens, my favorite things, and more…. check my entire storefront out here: https://a.co/d/0fSFMjq0  

Today's Reading: Psalms 38 and 19:25–48; Job 12:1, 14; Acts 12:18-25; John 8:47-59

3 men in Acts ended up in prison for doing exactly what Jesus called them to do. Not everyone will celebrate your obedience. Clayton Ritter shares how some prisons are an opportunity to exercise your God-given authority to break out, but for others God has another plan in mind.

Karl Marx and D.L. Moody lived at the same time, watched the same cities industrialize, and asked the same question about the poor. One had a doctorate, wealthy patrons, and a theory of history. The other had about five years of formal schooling and a Bible. Dr. James Spencer talks with Dr. Gregg Quiggle about Marx and Moody: Two Contemporaries. Two Gospels. Two Tombstones. One Choice., the new book Quiggle co-wrote with Erwin Lutzer for Moody Publishers. They work through where Marx's system runs out of road, particularly its silence on how a state ever relinquishes power, and why that silence traces back to a thin account of the human heart. They also take up Moody's conviction that charity is life on life rather than a check sent across the tracks, the difference between the early church in Acts and state redistribution, and the harder question Quiggle raises near the end: how much traction would any of this have today if evangelical churches had actually taken up Moody's model of hands-on engagement in their own communities? Purchase: Marx and Moody Bread and Bibles: D.L. Moody's Evangelism and Social Action Follow and subscribe Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org Website: www.thinkingchristian.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Streamed live on Aug 28, 2026 3 Corinthians; Acts 29; Tertullian's Phoenix | The Lost Books of the Bible Contact: noelhadley@yahoo.com TUC BOOK CLUB (Patreon):   / membership   PayPal: paypal.me/noeljoshuahadley Venmo: https://account.venmo.com/u/Noel-Hadley TUC Store: https://store.theunexpectedcosmology.... 2026 TUC Catalogue: https://unexpected-cosmology.nyc3.dig... Website: The Unexpected Cosmology Link: https://theunexpectedcosmology.com/ Archives page: https://theunexpectedcosmology.com/ar... TUC Discord Community:   / discord  

What happens when pastors replace the authority of Scripture with mysticism, politics, and speculation? The Smith and Rowland Show examines why a clear understanding of the whole counsel of God matters for sound doctrine and biblical prophecy. In this episode, Alan and Jeff respond to a Prophecy News Watch article titled, "God Had a Wife: When Pastors Trade Scripture for Mysticism and Fables." They discuss claims surrounding Asherah, ancient paganism, and the reinterpretation of biblical history through modern cultural ideas. The conversation also focuses on the Centurion's faith, the authority of God's spoken Word, and the connection between Scripture and the presence of God. Allen and Jeff explain why faith doesn't depend on emotional experiences or a demand for visible signs before obedience. They also warn that separating the Spirit from the Word can lead to confusion and false teaching. The hosts explain how dispensational Bible study provides a framework for understanding the whole counsel of God, including prophecy, Israel's promises, the gospel of grace, and eschatology. They discuss why isolated verses, "verse of the day" readings, and incomplete Bible study can lead to misinterpretation. This episode also examines Paul's warnings in Acts 20, 1 Timothy, and Colossians about wolves, false teachers, fables, endless genealogies, and other doctrines that distract from godly edification. Allen and Jeff stress the value of learning Scripture patiently, "precept upon precept, line upon line," so believers can recognize error and remain grounded in God's Word. Watch Episode 968 of The Smith and Rowland Show for a direct discussion about biblical authority, dispensationalism, prophecy, and the importance of understanding Scripture as a unified message. #Dispensationalism #BibleProphecy #BiblicalTruth #ChristianDoctrine #SmithAndRowland

Acts 27:13-26 | 08.30.2026

Paul saw disaster coming before anyone else did, and nobody listened. Then the storm hit. This week we're walking through Acts 27, one of the wildest chapters in the book, and talking about what it actually looks like to lead people well when they didn't take your advice and now things have gone sideways. Timestamps 0:00 – Paul's voyage to Rome begins after Festus and Agrippa 1:59 – Why the sailing season had already turned dangerous 3:06 – Paul's warning and the centurion who ignores it 5:00 – The storm hits and Paul's vision of the angel 8:54 – Paul urges the crew to eat before the ship runs aground 11:52 – Being right without being mean about it Have questions or thoughts on this episode? Email us at mediahub@thpshreveport.com or visit thpshreveport.com to learn more about The Healing Place.

Faith Baptist Church in Hamilton, NJ. Pastor Lance Walker is the Senior Pastor. Visit us at www.fbcchurch.org

What does it look like to steward your time, talents, and treasures in a biblical way? In this episode, Watermark Elder Kyle Thompson joins Emma Dotter to discuss Acts 19:21-41. They unpack God's view of our finances and how following Christ informs every aspect of our lives. // ADDITIONAL VERSES MENTIONED: Matthew 6; James 1; Matthew 25; 2 Corinthians 8: 12-15 // RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY: Moneywise is an introductory biblical money management class to lead people into a lifestyle of faithful stewardship through solid, biblical money management skills. For details on the Moneywise One-Day Class (September 12, 2026): https://www.watermark.org/events/7019-moneywise-one-day-class For details on the Moneywise 5-Week Class starting October 15, 2026: https://www.watermark.org/events/7020-moneywise-5-week-class // RELATED JOIN THE JOURNEY EPISODES:  “S4:263 – Introduction to the book of Acts” (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...)    “S4:270 – Acts 18-20" (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s4-270-acts-18-20/id1600151923?i=1000736247835)  // WHAT IS JOIN THE JOURNEY? Join The Journey is a realistic daily Bible reading plan that helps followers of Jesus at Watermark Community Church and beyond enjoy abiding in Jesus together. Join The Journey Jr. is designed to help parents guide their kids in Bible reading through interactive and age-specific lessons. In 2026, we're studying the book of Acts—one passage per week. For another year, teaching on Sunday will align with each week's passage. Then, for the next six days, we'll return to the same passage with fresh focus, exploring insights about who God is and how we can enjoy him more deeply. Monday through Saturday, we'll approach the same passage from a different perspective each day—whether observation, interpretation, prayer, or another spiritual practice—to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for God's Word. Then, watch or listen to the video podcast to tackle the week's toughest verses and discover key historical, theological, and practical insights. Daily Bible lessons for adults: https://jointhejourney.com Daily Bible lessons for parents and families: https://jointhejourney.com/jr Weekly Bible podcast for kids: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...  // MORE RESOURCES FROM JOIN THE JOURNEY:  Digital Bible study resources: https://jointhejourney.com/resources Previous years' print curriculum: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Waterma... Contact the Join The Journey team: jointhejourney@watermark.org 

The Doctrine of Balaam: Exposing Corruption in the Modern Prophetic Movement | KIB 547 Kingdom Intelligence Briefing DESCRIPTION THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM: EXPOSING CORRUPTION IN THE MODERN PROPHETIC MOVEMENT Kingdom Intelligence Briefing — Episode 547 What does the biblical account of Balaam reveal about the modern prophetic movement? Balaam presents one of Scripture's most sobering examples of supernatural gifting separated from godly character.  He could encounter genuine supernatural revelation.  He could speak words God placed in his mouth.  He even delivered a remarkable prophecy concerning the coming Messiah.  Yet Balaam's supernatural experiences did not transform his character.  His heart remained vulnerable to money, honor, influence, compromise, and access to kings.  That creates a critical warning for the Church today: ·      Prophetic accuracy does not necessarily equal divine approval. ·      Supernatural power does not equal holiness. ·      Revelation does not equal character. ·      Gifting does not equal maturity. ·      Anointing does not equal obedience. Jesus taught that fruit remains essential in discerning spiritual ministry. In KIB 547, Dr. Michael Lake and Mary Lou Lake undertake a biblical examination of Balaam and discover that the New Testament gives us three powerful categories for understanding prophetic corruption: THE WAY OF BALAAM — 2 Peter 2:15 THE ERROR OF BALAAM — Jude 1:11 THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM — Revelation 2:14 Together, these passages provide a biblical framework for evaluating modern prophetic ministry. The episode examines how genuine or claimed spiritual gifting can become corrupted when joined with covetousness, ambition, political influence, celebrity, sexual compromise, financial manipulation, and the commercialization of spiritual authority. One of the deepest theological observations in the episode is this: Balaam wanted God's power without God's government. That same temptation remains possible today: ·      Prophecy without holiness. ·      Power without obedience. ·      Gifts without character. ·      Authority without accountability. ·      Revelation without Scripture. ·      Anointing without crucifying the flesh. ·      Kingdom authority without submission to the King. True biblical prophetic ministry cannot be separated from covenant faithfulness and obedience. THE WAY OF BALAAM Second Peter 2:15 identifies Balaam as one "who loved gain from wrongdoing." ·      The problem is not legitimate financial support for ministry. ·      The danger begins when money starts influencing ministry. ·      When access to a prophet is sold. ·      When prophetic words become commodities. ·      When larger offerings produce more favorable prophecies. ·      When invitations, platforms, donors, and political connections begin determining what a minister will—or will not—say. ·      At that point, the gift is being monetized. Biblical ministry may receive support, but God's gifts must never become merchandise. THE ERROR OF BALAAM Jude 1:11 exposes another dimension. A minister can begin assuming that because supernatural manifestations continue, God must approve of the minister's character and conduct. Balaam destroys that assumption. Something supernatural happening does not prove that God approves of the vessel. The question must move beyond: "Was the prophecy accurate?" We must also ask: ·      Does the ministry exalt Jesus Christ? ·      Does it submit prophetic claims to Scripture? ·      Does it produce holiness and repentance? ·      Does it strengthen covenant faithfulness? ·      Is there humility? ·      Is there financial and sexual integrity? ·      Is there meaningful accountability? ·      Are failed predictions acknowledged? ·      Does the ministry create dependence upon Christ—or dependence upon the prophet? ·      Does it produce mature disciples—or prophetic consumers? And perhaps one of the most important questions: Will the prophet speak the truth when doing so could cost the prophet money, popularity, political access, followers, conference invitations, or the entire platform? The episode contrasts Balaam with Micaiah, who was willing to suffer rather than alter the word God had given him. THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM Revelation 2:14 takes the warning even further. Personal corruption eventually becomes doctrine. Balaam discovered that he could not directly curse the people God had blessed. Instead, Israel was enticed into idolatry and sexual immorality. The pattern becomes: ·      Gift ·      Revelation ·      Opportunity ·      Desire for reward ·      Compromise ·      Rationalization ·      Prophetic corruption ·      Teaching others to compromise ·      Covenantal judgment The compromised minister eventually becomes an architect of compromise in others. DON'T THROW OUT THE TRUE BECAUSE OF THE FALSE This episode is not an argument for rejecting biblical prophetic ministry. Quite the opposite. The existence of counterfeit ministry makes biblical discernment even more important. Jesus places the doctrine of Balaam inside the Church in Revelation 2:14. The warning to Pergamum therefore provides a serious pattern for examining what the Church tolerates. The answer is not cynicism. The answer is testing. "Prove all things." Return everything to Scripture. Reject the false. Hold fast to what is good. And allow God to restore genuine biblical ministry. The closing message of KIB 547 is ultimately one of hope: God is preparing His remnant, exposing what is false, and calling His people back to Christ, His Kingdom, His Word, holiness, and covenant faithfulness. KEY SCRIPTURES Numbers 22:6 Numbers 22:9–12 Numbers 22:31 Numbers 23:8 Numbers 24:17 Numbers 25:1–3 Numbers 31:16 2 Peter 2:15 Jude 1:11 Revelation 2:14 Matthew 7:15–23 1 Kings 22:14 1 Kings 22:26–27 Acts 8:18–23 The transcript's central New Testament framework is explicitly built around 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 1:11, and Revelation 2:14. YOUTUBE CHAPTERS / TIMELINE 00:00 — Biblical Life TV: Empowering the Remnant 01:30 — Welcome to KIB 547 01:58 — Prayer, Grid Concerns & Preparing for Difficult Times 05:41 — Practical Food Preparedness & Community Cooperation 07:28 — Prayer, God's Love & Preparing for the Feasts 13:43 — The "Sugar-Coated Opiates of Babylon" 16:15 — Entertainment & Feel-Good Christianity 17:29 — Looking Back at the Faith Movement 19:28 — Is the Charismatic and Evangelical System Imploding? 20:03 — Returning to the Meat of the Word 21:34 — Three Levels of False Prophetic Ministry 22:18 — Level One: The Con Man and Mentalist 23:06 — Level Two: Occult Counterfeits in the Church 27:45 — Level Three: Balaam-Level Occult Power 30:38 — Why God Intervened With Balaam 32:46 — Revival Requires Spiritual Warfare 33:57 — Balaam and the Modern Prophetic Movement 36:52 — Balaam Could Hear From God—But His Heart Was Wrong 37:45 — The Real Biblical Test of a Prophet 38:34 — When Prophecy Becomes a Commodity 40:16 — Prophetic Warnings Must Reflect God's Heart 42:25 — Eisegesis: Making Scripture "Preach Better" 44:10 — Context, History, Language & Biblical Interpretation 45:00 — The Three New Testament Warnings About Balaam 46:07 — The Way of Balaam: Loving Gain From Wrongdoing 46:53 — When Money Begins Influencing Prophecy 48:32 — Balaam's Attraction to Honor, Prestige & Access 50:19 — Political Access and the Temptation to Alter the Message 52:07 — Refusing to Change the Message for a Platform 53:53 — Conference Invitations, Money & Ministry Gatekeepers 55:27 — The Error of Balaam 58:59 — Does Success Mean God Approves? 59:38 — Supernatural Activity Does Not Equal Divine Approval 01:01:54 — Faithfulness Matters More Than Ministry Celebrity 01:03:47 — Character and Obedience Remain Essential 01:04:43 — The Doctrine of Balaam 01:07:54 — Why Balaam Could Not Curse What God Blessed 01:09:34 — Sin, Compromise & the Strategy Against Revival 01:12:07 — From Personal Corruption to Corrupt Doctrine 01:14:29 — The Danger of Gifting Mixed With Uncrucified Ambition 01:15:29 — Balaam, Holiness & the Fear of God 01:22:10 — Prophetic Accuracy Does Not Equal Divine Approval 01:24:17 — "Touch Not God's Anointed" & Biblical Discernment 01:25:09 — Prophetic Flattery and Political Leaders 01:27:57 — Simon Magus & Commercializing the Supernatural 01:29:09 — God's Power Without God's Government 01:30:15 — The Seer Who Couldn't See: Balaam's Donkey 01:31:00 — The Threefold Balaam Test for Prophetic Ministry 01:37:58 — God's Judgment, True Prophets & the Coming Separation 01:40:00 — Don't Let the Fake Cause You to Reject the True 01:41:00 — God Is Preparing the Remnant for What Is Coming 01:42:14 — Closing Prayer: Centered on Christ, Kingdom & Scripture The closing section is particularly important: the episode moves from exposing corruption to preparing the remnant. The stated goal is not simply to identify false ministers, but to make the necessary changes now so believers can remain faithful through coming judgment.

Paul and Silas didn't end up in prison by accident, and they didn't worship their way out of it by waiting until things got better. Pastor Mattie walks through Acts 16 to show that the most powerful moments in the kingdom happen not when we chase God encounters, but when we chase God Himself. Wherever He places you, including the places that feel like prison, is exactly where He intends to move.Support the show

Today's Reading: Psalms 26, 28, 36, and 39; Job 12:1, 13:3-17, 13:21-27; Acts 12:1-17; John 8:33-47

What is it going to take to bring the next generation back to Jesus? In this Sunday message, Pastor Donnie McClurkin delivers an urgent charge to the church: every generation, regardless of culture, trend, or identity, must be brought to a real relationship with Jesus Christ. He warns that today's young people are being taught to relate to everything else first- race, sexuality, substances, social media, entertainment, and academics- while the foundation they actually need is Christ alone. Drawing from his own testimony of childhood trauma and the salvation he found at just nine years old, he speaks candidly about the brokenness many carry in silence and points to Jesus as the only sufficient answer. The message turns to a call for sanctified living among believers of every age, reminding the church that consistency at home and in public shapes what the next generation inherits. Pointing to Joel's prophecy of the Spirit poured out on all generations and its fulfillment on the day of Pentecost, he reminds the church that sons and daughters, young and old, are called to carry this move of God forward. Anchored in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-4, this sermon is a call to reach the generations before the culture does. Every generation needs a real foundation in Christ, not a cultural substitute for Him. Sermon Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-4; Joel 2:28; Acts 2:1-4, 16-18    We stream live every Sunday at 11 am and every Wednesday at 8 pm. Visit our website: https://perfectingfaithchurch.com  Connect with us on social media!  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PerfectingFaithChurch/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectingfaithchurch/ Threads: https://www.threads.com/@perfectingfaithchurch  X: https://x.com/PFCNY   Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@perfectingfaithchurch  

In Acts 14:19- 22, Paul is stoned in the city of Lystra. Those stoning him thought he was dead; they dragged him outside the city, but the disciples gathered around Paul and he got up and he and Barnabas left for the town of Derbe.   It's easy to look at this story and in a human sense say, "Well, that didn't turn out well," when actually some amazing things went on there in Lystra.   In Galatians 6:17 we read Paul talking about this event saying, "from now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." The leftover marks from the stoning. And 2 Corinthians 11:25 Paul tells us "…once I was pelted with stones."   Yet inspite of that horrible event -  3 lives were changed (2 Timothy 1:5) - 3 people were converted to faith in Christ in the city of Lystra: A grandmother - Lois A mother  - Eunice A teenager - Timothy  After being stoned, believe it our not, Paul goes back to Lystra to see Timothy. Acts 16:1-2 tells us that Paul takes Timothy as his son in the faith and Timothy accompanies Paul in the following missionary journeys. Timothy becomes one of Paul's dearest friends and trusted co-workers. This all happened in a city where everything looked like it had gone wrong.   What we learn: A profound lesson: often times in those places where we feel things have not worked out well, God is working behind the scenes to do things that are absolutely amazing. From these verses we get to see what happened in the spiritual realm at the stoning at Lystra that day.  God was moving mightily, even though with human eyes it didn't look good. It was! God was working!   As we face challenges and difficulties today, we need to be strong and courageous and take heart, because just as the Hebrew Scriptures say: "The Lord our God is with us!"     Now What? Learn about God at https://www.awakeusnow.com EVERYTHING we offer is FREE.   View live or on demand: https://www.awakeusnow.com/tuesday-bible-class   For the full list of videos in this series, Dig Deeper, https://www.awakeusnow.com/dig-deeper   For more check out our Sunday series, God ACTS! https://www.awakeusnow.com/god-acts-then-now   Join us Sundays  https://www.awakeusnow.com/sunday-service   Or watch from our Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@AwakeUsNow/videos    Watch via our app. Text HELLO to 888-364-4483 to download our app.

Send us a Text MessageAnchored in the book of Revelation, this three part marriage series will explore principles that apply not only to the church in general but also to relationships in particular. Today's message centers on the power of the past to bring healing to the present.Revelation 2:1-7; Acts 19:11-20; Ephesians 5:21-33"Yet I still dare to Hope..." - Lamentations 3:21 (NLT)PODCAST HOME: daretohopepodcast.buzzsprout.com/EMAIL: hope@dare2hope.lifeFACEBOOK: Dare to Hope MinistriesWEB: www.dare2hope.lifeBOOK: "Mapping a Life of Hope" Order here: https://a.co/d/0gj9wVif

On this episode, we welcome back Austin Hines, a TCK to Zambia and Mozambique. You'll hear him share about how our perspective impacts the choices we make. Austin shares his own experiences of learning how to see God's goodness even in challenging times. In his typical “coach” style, Austin will both encourage and challenge you to look to God, to control the two things within your control, and to learn to appreciate your current circumstances. There's a lot here to take in, sit with, and put into practice.What questions do you have about this episode? How can we help support you or your TCK? We'd love to hear from you! Connect with us HERE. HOSTS: Michelle Ellis, John Michael Caldwell, Nicole CaldwellSONG: Sunscreen by Vic DaviCONNECT WITH US: Instagram | Facebook | Email UsCHAPTERS:0:00 - 0:56 | Introduction0:56 - 3:40 | Getting to Know Austin3:40 - 10:52 | TCK Debate10:52 - 17:25 | Life Changes & New Perspectives17:25 - 23:47 | Practical Steps for "Stacking" Good Decisions23:47 - 26:13 | The Best Foundation for Decisions26:13 - 25:45 | Why Does Perspective Matter in Our Decisions?35:45 - 38:31 | The Two Things You Can Control38:31 - 40:57 | Embracing Loneliness as a Growth Opportunity40:57 - 42:06 | The Power of Scripture in Difficult Times42:06 - 46:34 | God's Timing: An Instant vs. Moments46:34 - 49:51 | Rough & Tough49:51 - 53:35 | ClosingSHOW NOTES:23:57, 25:53 | Acts 4:13- “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”41:05 | 2 Timothy 3:16-17 - “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”44:24 | Romans 8:28 - “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”47:50 | Nehemiah 8:10 -”…Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”KEY QUOTES:14:25 | “You've got to now start making decisions that are gonna help shape your perspective on this situation.”19:35 | “I'm having a perspective of thanksgiving in my mind and in my spirit for the day.”20:27 | “I can take my time in the Word and put that into practice when I'm trying to make either quick decisions or sound decisions.”36:02 | “There's really two things that we can really control: there's our attitude and our effort.”37:59 | “We're going to get out of it what we put into it.”38: 52 | “[Loneliness] can be challenging, but it can also be really incredible if we're able to have a better perspective on the season of loneliness that we're going through.”47:21 | “There's good things happening and you're part of it. Be excited about that.”Interested in partnering with John Michael & Nicole in prayer, one-time giving, or monthly giving? Do that HERE.COMMON TERMS:TCK - third culture kidMK - missionary kidLAC - Latin America Caribbean

In this episode of the Defender Bible Study, Josh Lassiter our Georgia State Director shares Acts 20:1-16.LIFELINE CHILDREN'S SERVICES The mission of Lifeline Children's Services is to equip the Body of Christ to manifest the gospel to vulnerable children. Our vision is for vulnerable children and their communities to be transformed by the gospel and to make disciples.FOLLOW US Facebook, Instagram, Twitter The Defender Podcast: Subscribe on iTunes | Transistor | Spotify The Defender Bible Study: Subscribe on iTunes | Transistor | Spotify 

Today we wrap up our study on water baptism by talking about why we baptize only in the name of Jesus. For reference, see Acts 2:38, 8:1-17, 10:43-48, 19:1-6, Romans 6:1-4, Galatians 3:27, Colossians 2:12

Minimum Requirement Christian Or A Maximum Committed Christ Follower; Which Are You? Acts 16:1-5 1Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.

On today's episode of Back Porch Theology, Lisa is joined by theologian and author Dr. Preston Sprinkle for a deep dive into Romans 16 and the remarkable stories of three women who played significant roles in the early church: Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia. Together, they unpack the leadership, influence, and ministry of these women and explore what their stories reveal about women's roles in the early church and the spread of the Gospel. So grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and join us on the back porch! SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Romans 16:1-7 Romans 8 Acts 2 Romans 15 Romans 9-11 Romans 14-15 Romans 1 Romans 2 John 13 Matthew 22 Mark 10 Philippians 2 Romans 16:23 Acts 18:25-26 Romans 16:7 1 Chronicles 22:8 Romans 8:1

The church didn't begin with human strength—it began with the power of God. Today, we continue our year-long Bible study in the book of Acts. In this episode, Paul walks through the launch of the church at Pentecost, reminding us that when Jesus calls us to His work, He doesn't leave us to do it alone but gives us the presence and power we need to accomplish what He has called us to do.To hear more studies from the book of Acts, visit PaulTripp.com/Acts.

The gospel is too good to keep quiet. Acts 17 shows us how to share the Gospel with those around us, following Paul's example in Athens.

Today's Reading: Psalms 25, 9, and 15; Job 12:1–6, 12:13–25; Acts 11:19–30; John 8:21–32

Dr. Ted Traylor continues his series in the book of Acts with a discussion about the conversion of Saul as detailed in Acts 9:1-9. 00:00 - Introduction 07:56 - I. Ananias 14:13 - II. Disciples 2:00 - III. Barnabas

God brings together diverse people through faith in Jesus and makes them a family.

Pastor Bryan continues our series through Acts, preaching from Acts 4 and reminding us that God isn't waiting for us to be extraordinary—He's looking for us to be available. If we use “ordinary” as an excuse, we'll never step into anything extraordinary for God. You can be extraordinary and still miss God moments because it's not the extra that makes it happen—it's our willingness to be available.

#13 — Slaying Selfishness ● 2 Timothy 3:2 — “For men shall be lovers of their own selves...” Statement: “We were created to worship God, love people, and use things. But selfishness reverses it—we ignore God, love things, and use people.” 1. Nabal Had Great Possessions 1 Samuel 25:2 Emphasize: “the man was very great.” Deuteronomy 8:18 2. Nabal's Hard Personality 1 Samuel 25:3 Emphasize: “the man was churlish and evil in his doings.” 3. Nabal Refused a Reasonable Plea (reference 1 Samuel 25:4–11) Contrast with Jesus: ● Visual: Jesus teaching the Sermon on the Mount. “Give to every man that asketh of thee...” — Luke 6:30 ● 1 John 3:17 ● Acts 20:35 4. Nabal Endangered His People (reference 1 Samuel 25:12–22) verse 13: ● David tells his men, “Gird ye on every man his sword.” James 4:1–2 Statement: “When self is on the throne, Christ is on the cross. But when Christ is on the throne, self is on the cross.” 5. God Dealt With Nabal's Pride (ref 1 Samuel 25:36–38) ● Verse 36-38 ● 1 Timothy 6:7 — “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” ● Mark 8:35 Five Practices That Defeat Selfishness 1. Look Beyond Yourself Philippians 2:4 2. Listen to the Needs of Others Philippians 2:4 James 1:19 3. Let Go of Your Rights Philippians 2:5–6 Mark 10:45 4. Love Through Sacrificial Service Philippians 2:7–8 John 15:13 ● Underline: “that a man lay down his life for his friends.” 5. Live With the Mind of Christ Philippians 2:5 ● “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:9 ● “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him...” 2 Corinthians 8:9 Statement: “There is no life so empty as a self-centered life, and there is no life so full as a Christ-centered life.” John 3:30 ● “He must increase, but I must decrease.” 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ● Emphasize: ○ “Ye are not your own.” ○ “For ye are bought with a price.”

Send us a message!We start Ephesians by tracing Paul's history with Ephesus and then reading chapters 1 and 2 as a focused picture of what God has done for us in Christ. We end by challenging ourselves to rethink peace as reconciliation and to take seriously what it means to be Jesus' body on earth.• the origin story of the Ephesian church in Acts 19 and the clash with Artemis worship and occult practices • Paul writing from house arrest in Rome and why the prison letters carry urgency and heart • how Ephesians is structured around what God has done and how we respond • spiritual blessings, adoption, redemption and the Holy Spirit as the seal of our inheritance • “by grace you are saved through faith” as the center of identity and assurance • Gentiles brought near, hostility killed and a new unified people formed in Christ • the church as Christ's body and why unity matters for mission • Jehovah Shalom and peace as God's declared end of conflict • reflection questions on living as a member of Jesus' body  At outloudbible.com, you can find free resources to help you study the Bible. And while you're there, send us a message to say hi, or start a conversation about having us at your church or event. If Outloud Bible has been a valuable part of your understanding of the Bible, please consider supporting the ministry by visiting outloudbible.com.Support the showCheck out outloudbible.com for helpful study resources, and to discover how to bring the public reading of God's word to your church, conference, retreat, or other event.

Turning the other cheek is one of Jesus' most well known sayings...but what does it actually mean? Are we supposed to be pacifists? Why did OT people pray for fire to rain down on enemies, yet we're supposed to turn the other cheek?On today's podcast, Pastor Derek and Pastor Jackie talk through a listener question to look at why some prayers seem to differ from the New Testament and specifically why we are called to turn the other cheek rather than seek revenge on those who do us wrong. We see that God has always been the same and that turning the other cheek may not mean what you think it does!The 17:17 podcast is a ministry of Roseville Baptist Church (MN) that seeks to tackle cultural issues and societal questions from a biblical worldview so that listeners discover what the Bible has to say about the key issues they face on a daily basis. The 17:17 podcast seeks to teach the truth of God's Word in a way that is glorifying to God and easy to understand with the hope of furthering God's kingdom in Spirit and in Truth. Scriptures: 2 Kings 1:9-12; Luke 9:51-56; Matt. 5:38-39; Matt. 5:40-48; Luke 6:27-36; Rom. 12:18-21; Prov. 19:11; Lam. 3:22-24, 30; Heb. 13:8; Mal. 3:6; Ezek. 18:32; Ezek. 33:11; 2 Pet. 3:9; Acts 4:23-31; Luke 23:33-43; 1 Pet. 2:23; Matt. 6:14-15.If you'd like access to our show notes, please visit www.rosevillebaptist.com/1717podcast to see them in Google Drive!Please listen, subscribe, rate, and review the podcast so that we can reach to larger audiences and share the truth of God's Word with them!Write in your own questions to be answered on the show at 1717pod@gmail.com or tweet at us @1717pod on Twitter.  God bless!

God is challenging His people to cross the street. That may mean that we move outside of our comfort zone. Pastor Jonathan Lock continues our series, “Gospel Expansion,” preaching from Acts 10. Notes in this sermon: God will challenge your assumptions Crossing the street means crossing barriers God is already working on the other side of the street Hope Church Gardner is a campus of Blue Valley Church. Visit www.bluevalleychurch.org for more information about Blue Valley Church in Overland Park and Olathe, Kansas, and our campus in Gardner, Kansas.

Counsel I - Cleave fast to Christ, and the profession you have formerly made of him, what aspect so ever the times have upon you. Psalm 44:18, 19, 20, 21. "Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from your way, though you have sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of the Lord, or stretched out our hands to a strange God: shall not God search this out? for he knows the secrets of the heart." Hence those new converts, who were turned to the Lord in a time of great temptation and persecution, were so earnestly persuaded, Acts 11:23. "That with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord;" that is as they had made a good choice, so now to stick to their choice, and not repent of it, whatever afterward they should meet with.

What is the purpose of a creed or ‘I Believe' statement? Where creeds overlap, you find companions for the journey. Creeds can unite us, but they can also divide. Some attempts to rewrite the Apostles' Creed help us understand who God is and can change both our view of the world, and God. Paul saw the shrines to the unknown god in Athens as misguided. Our God is known, and close. Not far away, distant emotionally or unknown. His message to the Athenians suggests that we should embrace those around us while hewing to the bible's teachings. God made this earth spacious for all living creatures., human and otherwise. Because we trust in God, and we are created by God, we can peel back the layers and more fully understand. This message comes from Pastor Sarah. Our New Testament Lesson comes from Acts, Chapter 17, verses 16-28.   Carolyn Winfrey Gillette provides a restated creed: I believe in God the Father, the Almighty God above, Maker of the earth and heaven which were formed in God's great love. And in Jesus, loving Jesus, God's own Son, who makes us new. This the creed of generations, is the faith for our church too. Jesus by God's Holy Spirit was so wondrously conceived, Born unto the Virgin Mary, who your promises believed. Jesus suffering under Pilate, on a cross was crucified. Soldiers mocked hi, friends denied him; he hung there until he died. So it was, our Lord was buried, in a borrowed tomb he lay. To the dead he then descended, where was joy on earth that day? There's more to God's great story: In three days he rose again. He ascended into heaven and he sits at God's right hand. I believe what God has promised: Christ will come as he has said. He will judge the nations' peoples, both the living and the dead. I believe God's Holy Spirit makes the church one family. We're surrounded by God's people, saints who in our Lord believe. I believe that God forgives us for the times we turn away, And that God will raise our bodies on that resurrection day. We rejoice that we'll live forever, singing praise to God's great name. This the creed of generations is the faith that we proclaim.  

Dusty and Joseph continue the series in Acts discussing Paul and Mars Hill.