Podcasts about American Bible Society

It's Thursday, June 25th, 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 and Adam McManus Cuban Communists keep sick Protestant pastor imprisoned Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports a Protestant pastor remains in prison in Cuba amid concerns for his health. Pastor Alexis Padrón Lorenzo leads the Communion in Faith Church in Havana. Authorities detained him on June 10, physically abused him during interrogation, and blocked family members from contacting him. This happened after Lorenzo expressed opposition to the country's communist system.  Please pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ in Cuba. The country is ranked 24th on the Open Doors World Watch List of the most oppressive countries worldwide for Christians. Write a polite, 2-sentence note of objection to Cuba's top diplomat: Lianys Torres Rivera, Cuban Consulate, 2639 16th Street NW, Washington DC, 20009. Rubio urges new Columbian president to end illegal immigration to U.S. As The Worldview reported on June 23rd, the citizens of the South American country of Colombia narrowly elected conservative Abelardo De La Espriella, who was Trump-endorsed, over left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda.  De La Espriella promised a crackdown on crime.  g the election, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted, “The Trump Administration looks forward to working closely with your incoming administration to advance regional security cooperation, end illegal immigration to the United States, and strengthen our economic ties.” Daniel 2:21 reminds us that God “changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings.” Biden's illegal immigration drove up housing costs In the United States, a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found illegal migration under the Biden administration drove up housing costs. The report estimates that unauthorized immigrant worker flows explain  about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents.  Listen to comments last year by Vice President J.D. Vance on the subject. VANCE: “When we talk about housing and why costs are so high, we don't talk enough about demand. One of the drivers of increased housing demand, we know, is that we've got a lot of people over the last four years who have come into the country illegally.” Four years since Roe v. Wade overturned: Pro-life laws in 19 states Four years ago, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The ruling said the U.S. Constitution does not include a right to abortion. It also handed regulation of abortion to individual states. Since then, 19 states have passed anti-abortion laws. Thirteen states ban abortions in most cases. Four states ban abortions at 6 weeks of pregnancy. And two states ban them at 12 weeks. Trump ends sexually explicit school teen programs The Daily Signal reports that the Trump administration will cut funding to many teenage pregnancy prevention programs in schools this week. The Department of Health and Human Services reviewed Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants. It decided to terminate most of them, ending $67 million in grants.  The administration described the grants from the Biden-era as “medically inaccurate,” “age-inappropriate,” and “sexually explicit.” U.S., Mexico, & Canada Bible societies share Christ during World Cup Bible societies are using the 2026 World Soccer Cup to engage millions of fans with Scripture. The United States, Canada, and Mexico are hosting the event. So, the American Bible Society, the Mexican Bible Society, and the Canadian Bible Society are promoting Bibles, devotionals, and evangelistic booklets.  Christian Daily International notes, “These efforts reflect a broader trend among Bible societies worldwide. As major global events attract billions of viewers, organizations are increasingly developing resources that connect Scripture with cultural moments and reach people who may not normally engage with churches or religious programs.” For example, Living Waters, founded by Evangelist Ray Comfort, has printed 2 million copies of the 2026 World Cup million-dollar bill tract available for free when you cover the shipping. They are an effective tool because there is: Instant curiosity: People pick it up and ask questions Natural transition: From “World Cup” to The Cup of Grace Clear Gospel message: Simple, direct, and memorable And it's easy to share: Great for friends, coworkers, and public outreaches Visit the website: www.LivingWaters.com/WorldCup Major League Baseball no longer requires Christian players to support perversion And finally, Major League Baseball recently announced it will not require players to wear uniforms that promote sexually perverted lifestyles.  The issue arose after three San Francisco Giants players added Bible verses to the Rainbow Homosexual Pride caps which they were initially required to wear. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri posted a letter from the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Hawley wrote, “The Major Leage Baseball Commissioner writes to me and admits they were wrong to threaten the Giants players over Bible verses and promises never to fine or discipline these players -- or any players for their religious beliefs.” Several San Francisco Giants Christian pitchers — Landen Roupp, Ryan Walker, and J.T. Brubaker  — referenced Genesis chapter 9 on their hats about the true meaning of the rainbow. In verses 14 and 15, God said, “It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the Earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” Landon Roup was asked about his hand-written Scripture on his cap at a press conference. ROUP: “God's covenant, and a promise that He makes to us, that His faithfulness and His mercy. It's kind of something I believe in. I stand firm in that.” Amusingly, Cyd Ziegler, the homosexual co-founder of OutSports, was enraged by the Scripture the Christian pitchers had added to the hats. ZIEGLER: “It defaced the Pride Rainbow with a Bible verse telling the LGBT community that they do not own the rainbow, that God owns the rainbow.” Mr. Ziegler, I've got news for you.  God does own the rainbow! Send a two-sentence thank you note to Robert Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. And send a 2-sentence thank you note to Landen Roupp for his Christian witness and outspokeness. San Francisco Giants, Oracle Park. 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94107. Close And that's The Worldview on this Thursday, June 25th, 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.

The Chief Justice's Open Bible #RTTBROS #NIGHTLIGHT #USA250 #AMERICA250 #NATION250The Chief Justice's Open Bible“"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”— Psalm 119:105THE STORYJohn Jay is one of the most important and most forgotten men of the founding era.He co-authored the Federalist Papers alongside Hamilton and Madison. He served as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, appointed by Washington himself. He was a diplomat, a governor, a statesman of the first rank. And he was, without qualification or apology, a committed Christian who made no separation between his public life and his personal faith.Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers," Jay declared, "and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.Jay served as president of the American Bible Society. He believed that the Bible was the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. The first Chief Justice of the United States spent his final years distributing Bibles.THE REFLECTIONThere is a tendency in our time to divide the founding era between religious founders and secular founders. John Jay will not cooperate with that narrative.Here was a man at the absolute center of America's legal and political founding, the first interpreter of the Constitution, and he believed that the Bible was the foundational text for human happiness. He said it publicly, repeatedly, without embarrassment.What he models for us is something rarer than political savvy: the integration of faith and public life without apology. He did not have a public faith and a private faith. He had one faith, and he carried it everywhere.Psalm 119:105 was not a decorative verse for John Jay. It was an operating principle. The Word of God was the lamp by which he navigated the most consequential legal questions of the new nation.THE PATRIOT'S PRAYERLord, we thank You for men who carried Your Word into every room, the courtroom, the congress, the cabinet, without shame and without compartmentalization. Forgive us for the faith we have kept private when it should have been public. Let Your Word be a lamp to our feet in every room we enter today, not just the sacred ones. In Jesus' name, Amen.PRAY IT FORWARD: Is there a room in your life, a workplace, a relationship, a role you occupy, where you have left your faith at the door? Ask God for the courage to carry it in.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by John Plake, Chief Innovation Officer and Editor-in-Chief of the State of the Bible research at the American Bible Society. With decades of experience as a pastor, missionary, professor, and researcher, John brings a unique perspective on how people are actually engaging with Scripture and what we should do about it. The “movable middle” is growing. // One of the most significant insights from recent research is the rise of what John calls the “movable middle”—millions of people who are open to the Bible but not yet engaged with it. This group has grown by approximately nine million people in recent years. They are curious, interested, and even positive toward Scripture, but they lack the tools, confidence, or guidance to engage it meaningfully. This represents a massive opportunity for churches willing to step in and help. People want a guide. // Through focus groups and research, John discovered that many people in the movable middle feel intimidated by the Bible. They struggle with language, context, and navigation. But perhaps most striking is they want help. Contrary to what some leaders might assume, they are not rejecting the church as a guide. In fact, many say, “If we can't trust the church to help us understand the Bible, what good is it?” This creates a clear invitation for churches to step into a more relational, guiding role in discipleship. A surprising discipleship gap. // One of the most sobering findings is that nearly half of weekly church attenders are not regularly engaging Scripture on their own. While churches invest heavily in preaching and programming, many people are not developing personal habits of Bible engagement. John suggests that churches often focus on delivering content rather than equipping people to engage Scripture themselves. The result is a gap between what happens on Sunday and what happens in everyday life. From teaching to equipping. // If churches want to close that gap, they must shift from being primarily content providers to equipping environments. This means helping people develop the skills, habits, and confidence to read and apply Scripture on their own. It also requires understanding the real barriers people face, like time constraints, confusion, or lack of community support, and addressing those barriers with practical solutions. A new tool for churches. // To help leaders take action, the American Bible Society has developed the “Next Step for Church” assessment. This free tool allows churches to measure spiritual health, Bible engagement, and key leadership behaviors within their congregation. Within a few weeks, leaders receive a detailed, data-driven report highlighting strengths, challenges, and suggested next steps. Data that leads to discipleship. // John emphasizes that data is not an end in itself; it's a tool for better shepherding. By listening to their congregation at scale, leaders can identify patterns, confirm instincts, and prioritize what matters most. The assessment surfaces both what's working and where growth is needed, giving churches a clear path forward. It also connects individuals to personalized Scripture engagement resources, helping them take their next step spiritually. Why Scripture engagement matters most. // Nothing has a greater impact on spiritual growth than a person's relationship with the Bible. In fact, Scripture engagement accounts for a significant portion of overall spiritual health. When people consistently engage with God's Word, transformation follows—affecting beliefs, behaviors, and relationships. Signs of hope for the future. // Despite broader cultural challenges, John sees encouraging trends, especially among younger generations. Millennials and Gen Z show increasing openness to Scripture, even if they are still exploring. While overall trends may appear flat, meaningful change is happening beneath the surface. For churches willing to engage this moment, there is real opportunity for impact. To explore the research further or access the free church assessment, visit church.nextstep.bible and begin discovering how your church can better equip people to engage Scripture every day. 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! Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe Do you feel like your church’s or school's facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs? Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward. Check them out at risepointe.com and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they're here to help. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in today. This is one of those episodes that there’s a great resource in it that going to want to make sure you engage with. There’s super helpful content. Plus it’s about an area that I know so many of us are thinking about, we’re wondering about, we’re asking questions about. Rich Birch — So super excited to have John Plake with us today. He is the chief innovator ah innovation officer and editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible Research Series, which comes from the American Bible Society. And they’re on a mission to make the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford so that all may experience its life-changing message. ABS has really a whole bunch of different tools and approaches, and we’re excited kind of expose a little bit more about that today. John has been in ministry over 30 years. We’ll just call it over 30 years. And it served as a pastor, missionary, professor, researcher. John, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.John Plake — Thanks so much for having me today. It’s great to be with you.Rich Birch — Why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit? Tell us a little bit about your background. You know, what brings you to your current work?John Plake — Yeah. Closer to 40 years now. Rich Birch — Nice. Yeah, yeah. That’s great.John Plake — It’s a little uncomfortable to talk about that.Rich Birch — That’s great.John Plake — Yeah. You know, I start out like a lot of people in ministry. I grew up in a home that ministry was central. Actually, both my grandfathers were ministers. My father was a minister. Ministry is kind of the family business in a way, but I really did sense a direction from God when I was about 15 years old to to pursue full-time ministry.John Plake — There was some detail around that. Ended up going to Bible college and and then started what turned out to be about nine years of full-time pastoral service. And I hadn’t been in that for very long before I realized that everything I learned in Bible College was preparing me to serve a generation that no longer existed in a culture that was gone. John Plake — And I thought, my goodness, I know God’s word pretty well. And mean, I’m a lifelong learner of God’s word. I love the Bible. And yet, didn’t really know culture very well. And I didn’t develop those tools until just years and years of practice, some missionary service, wonderful teachers at at Wheaton College and graduate school and and just a lifelong journey of learning.John Plake — So at American Bible Society, when I got here, the State of the Bible, program or this research project was already underway. And we’d been helped out by the Barna Group, which does some wonderful foundational work. And eventually it just kind of grew up and it got to a place where we had an internal team that was running it ourselves, now in collaboration with the National Opinion Research Council or NORC at the University of Chicago. We just do, I think, what is the largest ongoing study of Americans’ relationship with the Bible and faith and the church. And we get to talk about it all the time. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.John Plake — So, I mean, this is the best job in the world.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. It’s it’s great research, something that I think should be on the kind of list of things that we need to be paying attention to. It’s been a gift to the church for so long and something that we should continue to to pay attention through. Now, let’s talk about you specifically. You spent three plus decades. I didn’t want to say almost 40. You know, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that. I could say that, you know, a couple years ago, I clicked across one of those numbers with a zero on the end as my birthday. And ever since then, I’m a little sensitive about the the age thing. Rich Birch — So anyways, As a ministry, missionary professor, researcher, you’ve done a lot. How does wearing all of those hats, what do you what does that bring to you as you come to the data? How does that impact you as you think about really the state of the Bible research?John Plake — Yeah, you know, I think research can be dull. You know, it can sound like it’s all about writing questions or it’s all statistics and numbers. But for me, the research is all about the people. Rich Birch — So true.John Plake — It’s all about the people in our communities and in our churches that we’re trying to understand better so we can serve them well with the gospel. I, for years, I’ve used the analogy that that being in gospel ministry is like being a human bridge across a river. I grew up not very far from the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area, and there was a big 100-year flood when I was early on in ministry. And I mean, none of the bridges worked anymore. You couldn’t get from one side to the other.John Plake — And I thought, you know, that’s a tragedy that I encountered sometimes in ministry where maybe I was deeply rooted in one bank of the river, the text, but I wasn’t necessarily deeply rooted in the other bank of the river, which was the context.John Plake — And it’s this lived experience of the people that I was I was serving. And that I wanted to serve in my community, but I needed to understand them better. So I wasn’t just spouting you know Aristotelian logic to them. Or I wasn’t just coming at them with the pat answers that I’d learned. Like I’d never heard anybody in my life walk into my office and say, Pastor John, you got to tell me, what can you describe hamartiology to me from. You know like I had to learn that in school, but that’s not what people struggle with. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Yeah. John Plake — They had totally different questions and I needed to love them and honor them enough to understand their questions and answer them responsibly and reliably from the pages of scripture.Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Okay, well, we’re going to dig into a little bit of just a couple of the findings just to kind of, we’re trying to whet your appetite, friends, to take steps towards this. So the 2025 data showed, and we’ve seen this, a real bump in Bible engagement, particularly among millennials and men. If I’m reading it correctly, though, we saw 2026, a shift happen, maybe back down. And so what’s going on? Actually, I heard another sociologist in a kind of a related field that was about church attendance talked about the dead cat bounce, that it was like, you know, which I thought, oh, that’s a, but there’s a similarity going on here. Pull this, this finding apart. Help us understand this.John Plake — Yeah, apologies to cat lovers out there.Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.John Plake — We were we were hoping, you know, I think we were really hoping. We looked at 2025. We saw that men in particular were leaning into the Bible in ways we hadn’t seen recently. Millennials doing the same thing. There there were some interesting numbers in 2025. And so when the 2026 numbers came to my desk in late January, I thought, I hope we’re extending I hope it’s going to be a trend. But it wasn’t. It was a blip.John Plake — And there’s more to it, though, than just the fact that scripture engagement didn’t go up. It also didn’t go down. And the level of people in America who are Bible disengaged, meaning they never pick up the Bible on purpose at all, that actually didn’t go up either. What grew was this kind of curious explorer group in the middle that we call the movable middle. And over the last two years, it’s grown by 9 million American adults. Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — And so what we do see is there’s there’s openness to the Bible. There’s experimentation with the Bible. But people are jumping in and they’re trying it and they’re not being able to get hold of it. And I think that’s largely because of us.John Plake — Because Bible people who are around them aren’t saying, please come do this with me. Let me help you. Let me honor you enough to to respect your questions, to ask what you’re dealing with, and help you explore those issues through the pages of Scripture.Rich Birch — I love that movable middle, man, that feels like the kind of group we want to connect with and reach out to in our community. Any other, when you, when you’ve been thinking about this movable middle, what are some other kind of characteristics of those people or other things that, you know, are kind of telltale signs of this group as we’re thinking about them as it, as it pertains to Bible engagement?John Plake — Yeah, they’re an amazing group, and we’re going talking more about them all year, but they are probably my favorite subject in America. There are 74 million American adults that are in the movable middle.Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — 74 million of our neighbors who are like…Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — …and here’s what they tend to say: They love the Bible. They think it’s a great idea. But if you handed them a Bible, they don’t know how to find what they’re looking for. They don’t know how to navigate it. They get confused by the language in in Scripture.John Plake — I remember doing a a focus group with a bunch of people in the movable middle. I was in Chicago. it was an area I was really familiar with. I used to pastor in that area. And we got them talking about their experience with the Bible. And we said, hey, does anything ever stop you or kind of you know make you check out because you’re struggling with what’s going on? John Plake — And one young lady at the table said, yeah, you know the language of the Bible is really really hard for me to understand. It’s it’s a really old book. It uses expressions I don’t understand. And a gentleman sitting across the table from her just kind of chuckled and said, yeah, what the hell’s a mustard seed? And everybody laughed.John Plake — I was behind the glass and I just about fell out of my chair because they didn’t teach me to talk like that in a Assemblies of God seminary.Rich Birch — Yes.John Plake —Things like that, you know, that’s just not the way we roll.Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yes.John Plake — But it was so authentic and he wasn’t being mean.Rich Birch — No.John Plake — He was just saying, boy, I don’t I don’t get it. And then they said, you know, we really want a guide. Rich Birch — That’s good.John Plake — And so we pushed on that a little bit. At the time, there were some clergy abuse scandals that actually there were billboards up in Chicago about clergy abuse scandals that all of us lamented. And so we’re like, OK, listen, do you trust the church to be your guide? Because ee saw these billboards, you know, and it’s your city. And so what what do you think?John Plake — And they said, well, of course we do. I mean, it’s terrible when people in the church abuse their position and abuse others. And that’s not what they’re supposed to do. But if we can’t trust the church to help us understand the Bible, what good are they, really? And so, yes, we’re looking to you, church, to help us connect more deeply with the Bible, understand what it meant to the original hearers and readers and how we apply it to our lives today.Rich Birch — Okay, that’s yeah, that’s really cool. I look forward to hearing more about the movable middle in this coming year. Another thing that jumped out to me, which I feel like, man, I’ve seen this in my church. This is like you you named a group that I see, but it’s surprising, at least it’s surprising on its face. So nearly half of weekly church attenders, weekly church attenders, which is, that’s like really engaged, you know, are not regularly engaging, engaging scripture on their own.Rich Birch — Man, what, so what should we do about that? That’s an interesting, how does, how should that impact our discipleship strategy? What are you encouraging us to be thinking about? And these people that are with us all the time, but they’re not engaged with scripture.John Plake — Well, I think the first thing to do is to just recognize it. Rich Birch — Right.John Plake — You know, a lot of pastors that I’ve talked to, when we talk about scripture engagement, they tell me things like this: Everything we do is scripture engagement. I spend my whole week preparing a scriptural message. I’m, you know, we’re preparing small group curriculum and Sunday school curriculum and all of this stuff. It’s all about the, everything we do is about the Bible. John Plake — Well, okay. But I had a I had a young youth pastor come to me not that long ago and he said, John, look, you were me once a few years ago. If you knew then what you know now, what would you do differently?John Plake — And the answer is I would do everything differently, than the way I ought to do it. Because what, in my tradition, there was a lot of emphasis on the preaching event, and I put a lot of effort into those communication events, but what I didn’t put as much effort into is empowering people in my church to do what I was doing, which was dig into scripture, understand it for themselves, giving them the tools to do that.John Plake — And then in May, we’re going to be releasing a chapter, just in a few few days now, we’re going to be releasing a chapter all about parents. And one of the startling things is the time pressure that moms are under. I mean, it’s incredible. And so we need to understand where they’re coming from and where they have barriers, but also have some compassion on them and help to support them when they’re really facing struggles. Like they don’t have enough time. They don’t have the resources or the community coming around them to help them to engage God’s word ah more fulsomely, more transformatively.John Plake — We know how to do this stuff, but we’re not connecting the dots to everybody that’s coming to hear us talk every…Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. I know I’ve in my seat as an XP, um you know, I’ve overseen a lot of what we do on the programming side and what we do on the weekends. And I’ve, you know, it’s like, that i don’t think I’ve ever said this publicly. It’s like the kind of behind the scenes conversation. I’ve sometimes wondered, I’ve said, you know, like, what we do on the weekend to try to make the Bible understandable is so completely different than Tuesday morning in someone’s life. Rich Birch — Like, we pull out all the stops to make it interesting. We get like world class communicators, incredible graphics, you know, emotional music, all of this to try to… But then the question is, okay, so now on Tuesday morning when you’re tired and you haven’t had your coffee yet and you’re just about to go read scripture, man, like that feels like a long ways away. There’s like a gap there that I sometimes wonder maybe we’re making it worse. You know. Maybe we’re making it harder. I said that. You didn’t say that. Rich Birch — So maybe there’s pastors that are listening here and they read this kind of report. They read this kind of finding and they’re like, hey, that’s interesting. But like, how what do I do in my church specifically? So you know we want we don’t want to just leave people with a tough stat.Rich Birch — I think we see that in our church. There’s people in our church that are here all the time. They’re not that engaged. But you’ve actually developed a new tool or ABS has developed a new tool to help us think through that. Why don’t you walk us through it? Tell us a little bit about it. How’s it work? Talk us how it can help us.John Plake — Yeah, so recently we developed two tools that kind of work together. One of them you can find on the internet at nextstep.bible. And it’s just for anybody who’s like, hey, I’m on a spiritual journey. I’m kind of stuck. I don’t really know what to do next. Maybe you’re just getting started exploring what it means to be a Christian. Maybe you’re Jesus’ little brother or sister. Wherever you are in that journey, there’s always a next step for us.John Plake — And so what we’ve done is analyzed along about a million spiritual life surveys. Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — And from this huge quantity of data, we’ve learned that people are at different places in that journey. They’re at different points on the map. And we want to make sure that they’re equipped to have the right thing at the right time. I think currently there are 21,000 scripture engagement resources available there.Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — They’re absolutely free. They’re in English, Spanish, and French. So go check it out, nextstep.bible.John Plake — But if you’re a pastor or you’re a church leader, you’re probably wondering, well, what’s going on in my church, right? So I see all the national data, but I think our tendency is to say, well, we’re the exception, right?Rich Birch — So true. Well, that’s not our people. John Plake — I know I know everybody else is struggling, but we’re doing okay.Rich Birch — Yes.John Plake — And and so it’s good to check our assumptions a little bit. They used to say a really sad statistic that 10 o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America, which makes me sad. What makes me sad also is that 12 o’clock noon in America is the most dishonest hour in America. That’s the hour when pastors tend to start greeting their people after the church service closes and they hear all these comments: oh, Pastor, that was the best sermon I’ve ever heard. And it wasn’t. It just wasn’t. All right, let’s face it.John Plake — There’s somebody out there who preaches better than you do and better than I do. They’re available on YouTube. People don’t need you to be the best Bible teacher in the world. They need you to be the best pastor for them. Rich Birch — That’s good.John Plake — And the tools that are all about focusing on their relationship with the Bible, their holistic spiritual formation, and our leadership behaviors. And so for that, we built the Next Step for Church Assessment.John Plake — It’s actually standing on the foundation or built on the engine block, if you want a different metaphor, of the old reveal research that the Willow Creek Association had come out with. It’s no longer available. And we were able to acquire all of their historical learnings, but also add in things like human flourishing and e-pastoral leadership behaviors that lead to churches really being missionally effective and strong. Excellent stuff on Bible engagement and spiritual formation. John Plake — So the the big challenge we had, I was talking with Dr. Ed Stetzer about this because he was at LifeWay Research when the Transformational Church Assessment was being built. And it was always hard because analyzing this kind of data required a lot of human intervention. It’s very expensive to do. It’s very complicated to deliver. And even a small cost can be a barrier for churches that have strained budgets. It doesn’t matter if you’re a church of, you know, 2,500 25,000 or 250. There’s always more places to put your money than there are dollars that are available to do it.John Plake — And so at American Bible Society, we said, you know what, as a gift to the church, because we love the church, we need to make it completely free. And so you can go to church.nextstep.bible and you could sign up today. Literally, we’re recording this on a on a Thursday. You could go there today and by Sunday, you could be launching your survey. Two weeks later, you’d automatically have results in your own online dashboard. You’d get key highlights emailed to you. There’s a place for custom questions. There’s just all kinds of really, really rich information.Rich Birch — So good.John Plake — And it it doesn’t take the place of the kind of learning that you have as a pastor. You learn deeply in relationship with others. You’re observing what’s going on. You have a team that’s around you. But what it does is it provides this valid, reliable sift and sort function. It’s based on well, I don’t know even know how many, well over 3000 churches, well over half a million survey responses went into building this and making it a tool that that is a good benchmark for you to say, you know what, if we want to move from where we are today to where God is calling us, here are the things we need to focus on.Rich Birch — It’s so good. And friends, I want to encourage you to to go there. Just church.nextstep.bible. I know many of us have a heart for saying, listen, we want to measure more than just nickels and noses. The number of people that show up and revenue that comes in. And this a great way to kind of inject at something that’s at the core of what we’re supposed to be doing as a church. So why don’t we just give a little bit more detail?Rich Birch — What is it? You know, what’s it actually measuring? How is it? You know, how could it be helpful? How how could it kind of dovetail with some of the things we’re already tracking? Maybe give us, you know, what kind of insights are we going to gain from this if we if we put our people through this?John Plake — Yeah, maybe it’s worthwhile to just back up and say it’s based on a congregational assessment. So really this kind of work is all about just listening to your congregation at scale. So if you have 25 people coming to church, you can probably have this conversation with them if you know how to ask the right questions. Rich Birch — Right.John Plake — You can go to the website. You’re like, what’s in the survey? There’s a button you can click. You can read the whole survey. It’s fine. We’re not going to try and surprise you with anything. But really simple stuff. How’s your relationship with Jesus? How often are you interacting with Scripture? What difference is that making in your life? We ask the standard Harvard human flourishing questions. We ask about um how the pastoral team or the senior pastor, him or herself, is doing at actually modeling Christlike leadership for you. Rich Birch — It’s so good.John Plake — And all of that reporting then gets brought into a database. It’s all anonymous. So individuals don’t, they don’t have to tell you who they are. They can’t tell you who they are other than by characteristics. And you’re going to get this really good, robust picture of what’s going on at the church. John Plake — Now, what does it take for somebody to do that? It takes about 20 minutes of their time, and time is expensive, right? People always have too much to do. So in return for that investment, at the end of their survey experience, they will have already told us everything we need to know to match them to great resources at nextstep.bible.John Plake — And with their permission, not without it, they can click a button, pass that data over to the individual nextstep.bible platform. They can create an account and right away, they’re going to be finding things like YouVersion Bible reading plans that are just for them.John Plake — If you’ve got people in your church and they’re outliers, they’re they’re way more spiritually advanced than everybody else, or they’re just getting started and everybody else is way ahead of them, these kinds of tools create bespoke pathways for them so they know what to do next. All the while, the church leadership can sit back and say, okay, here’s our results. And as a team, now what do we need to do to serve the whole congregation well?Rich Birch — I love this. You know, this is what incredible tool that you’ve put together here for our churches to wrestle through and to, you know, not only help us as a church as we’re thinking about these issues, but then help individuals in our church. What what would be some of the ways that churches might use the data that’s generated to impact what we’re doing in our programming? How how could we use this to improve what we’re doing?John Plake — Sure. There are really three things we want everybody to do. First, just discover what’s going on. Just just check your assumptions at the door and and say, okay, what do the data tell us about what’s going on in our church life and in our people’s lives? That’s the first thing.John Plake — Second thing is it’s going to surface for you the top three things that you’re doing great. And it’s going to give them to you in the report. And you need to throw a party. Like there are people who make these things happen for you. No pastor is doing this all by themselves. And so plan a party, celebrate what’s going well.John Plake — The third thing it’s going to do is it’s going to give you suggestions about, okay, here’s where your congregation is today. It won’t surprise you, but it might inform you. I’ve never seen a pastor look at the report and go, ah you guys got it wrong. Rich Birch — Sure, right.John Plake — Usually they they see the report and they go, yeah, okay, yeah, you got me.Rich Birch — Yeah. Confirmed some hunches I’ve had. Yeah. Yeah.John Plake — Right? But we don’t we don’t have time. We don’t have the resources. We don’t have the expertise to be able to sit down and and kind of scientifically walk through this process. So we do that for you. We deliver the report. And then we’re going to give you two key action items that we think churches like yours in a similar place have done that have helped move them toward spiritual health and missional effectiveness.John Plake — And that’s really what it’s all about. We want your congregation to be spiritually healthy. We want your your church as a whole to be missionally effective. And when that happens, often there’s numerical growth. Often there’s financial growth. But there’s certainly more missional impact that’s coming through your congregation and its work.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. So if I’m like a church of a thousand people, let’s say, and just round number to picking out of the sky, how how what kind of percentage of my congregation would I need to take this to give me a reasonable, you know, statistical, you know, feeling good about the data for it? What what kind of number um should I be thinking about?John Plake — Well, the first thing is we’ve built in a tool that will tell you how to get to a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. Rich Birch — Love it.John Plake — And that does vary depending on the adult attendance that you have. So let’s say you’ve a thousand adults. And by adults, I mean anybody in high school or older can probably take this survey. Rich Birch — Yep.John Plake — And you can cut the data like by gender or by age. All of that live filtering is in the online platform. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.John Plake — So if you’re the you’re the youth pastor and you’re like, well, wait, tell me about the young people that took the survey. You can just look right at them and compare them to the rest of the congregation, which I bet will be enlightening. But nevertheless, how many do you need if you’re a church of 1,000, it’s about 275.Rich Birch — Okay.John Plake — If it’s a smaller church than that, then you’re still going to need a pretty significant percentage. So if I roll that all the way down to a church of 100, you need 80.Rich Birch — Okay.John Plake — And if you roll that up to a church of 5,000, well, you don’t need that many more than 275.Rich Birch — Interesting.John Plake — So you’re going to report that out to you. It’s very, very doable. And, you know, I’ve pastored at large churches and I pastored a small church. And I’ll tell you, when I pastored a church of under 100, I could have gotten a census of the people, like everybody, to do a survey like this. They would have been glad to tell me these things. Rich Birch — Right.John Plake — And it’s not that I couldn’t have had a conversation one-on-one with most of the adults in the congregation. It was something different in that case. I actually didn’t know what to ask. I used to run into this when I was a campus pastor at a Christian university. And I would have young people walk into my office and I was like, I know I should be able to help them, but the challenge they’re facing is different than anything I’m familiar with. I don’t have any analog for this in my personal experience. And so this sort of takes the mystery away. We don’t ask fluffy questions. We ask research proven questions that are going to give you the information you really need so you can take action.Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s think this is such a great tool for people. I can see how, you know, it’d be so helpful for folks that are listening in to, you know, might be be able to plug in grab this experience for their people, help their church, help the folks that are attending. That’s, that’s incredible.Rich Birch — So, you know, you’ve picked an interesting vocation to be connected with the American Bible Society. And because, you know, this is such a critical and important part of developing people’s relationship, obviously, with Jesus; its core to all of it. And we have seen a long historical downward trend, and you’re pushing against that, which is amazing. But what gives you hope in the middle of all of that? What would it when you look at the church around you know, the country, where do you see flashes of just good things going on that are like, you know, when it comes to the relationship with scripture that even, you know, even when we see maybe the overall numbers are not as great as we want them to be, what are some kind of flashes of hope we should, that we could encourage folks with today?John Plake — Well, I’d like to maybe point to just three things that leap to mind. Rich Birch — Yep.John Plake — The first of them is I never talk to anybody in the church who says the Bible is a bad idea. Rich Birch — Sure.John Plake — Everybody likes the Bible. We’re all trying to figure out how to communicate its message better, to understand it more deeply. It’s transforming our lives, and we want to be able to share it with others. John Plake — And that’s great because, number two, there’s nothing that makes a bigger difference in somebody’s spiritual life than their relationship with the Bible. I mean, absolutely nothing. And I’m saying this as a researcher. I’ve tested it. I can’t find anything that makes a bigger difference. John Plake — In fact, when we looked at Christian college and university students, 60% of their overall spiritual health across lots of domains—beliefs, practice, putting faith into action, loving God, loving others, all these things, 60% of the variance in their spiritual health is solely accounted for by their relationship with the Bible.John Plake — So if we can help people have a dynamic relationship with scripture, we win. That’s all there is to it. It’s just that simple. And so that is really encouraging.John Plake — And then the third thing, ah the third thing is how I say this nicely? I'm I’m from Gen X and so to my Baby Boomer friends, I’m sorry, but you guys don’t have the influence that you once did.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.John Plake — And that’s a good thing because there’s new openness among Millennials, and Gen Z and even younger Gen X um that we just don’t see among Baby Boomers. It’s like Baby Boomers made up their minds in the 60s and early 70s and said, this is what I believe and I’m not changing. And they haven’t. John Plake — That’s not to say that someone who’s a Baby Boomer can’t have a a spiritual experience and transformational experience. It does happen. But on the population level, like when we looked at the Bay Area of San Francisco, if you look at the scripture engagement, church engagement, love God, love others data in the Bay Area, it looks like what you’d expect, until you strip out the Baby Boomers. And then suddenly it looks better than every place else in America.John Plake — You’re like, what’s going on? Well, looks like all the unreconstructed hippies that moved to the Bay Area are actually holding a lid on the population numbers. And when you remove that and you go, oh, wait a minute, let me look under the headline and say what’s happening. There’s more going on than is easy to see. And I think this happens in big national trends.John Plake — Oh, is Scripture engagement up or down? Is you know church attendance up or down? Whats what’s going… big national trends. Yeah, okay, those are helpful, and we want those to change. But what’s changing first is below the fold. Things in Gen Z, things among Millennials, things in young men, those things are starting to change, and I think those are the first glimmerings that God is at work in a new way in America, and I can’t wait to see it.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s a great word. And that lines up with what we’re seeing, even just experientially talking to churches across the country. You know we’re so we’re seeing there is something going on with younger generations, which is great to see. I was I was born in 1974, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century. I am classic Gen X. Like you know I am like statistic I’m the statistical average Gen X and has spent a lot of my time trying to hand stuff from the Boomers to the Millennials. And, yeah, there’s lots of encouraging news there, particularly with the younger generations. Rich Birch — I also want to speak to on the the work I’ve done in the church growth stuff that I’ve done and coaching I’ve done with churches, one of the things that’s just undeniable is churches that have a high view of scripture, that is, they’re trying to get people engaged with scripture. They they talk about it like it’s actually true. How do we say don’t know what’s the best way to talk about that? Those are the churches that are prevailing, and that actually works out statistically. You see that time and again. Talk to us about that dynamic, which is kind of co-related to the things we’re talking about today. From your perspective in the stats and all that, how how have you seen that work out as you’ve looked at churches across the country?John Plake — Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. The churches that are the healthiest in America, that are growing, that where where people are spiritually healthy, have a really dynamic relationship with Scripture. And it kind of it cuts across tradition. Rich Birch — Yep.John Plake — There are some traditional things going on. I was listening to Justin Brierley and his surprising Rebirth of Belief in God podcast, and it was from last season, and he he had someone on, he was interviewing, and what she was saying was there are the parts of the church that seem to be thriving are kind of the, the the older, the ancientness traditions, whether it’s Catholic or Orthodox, that what she called somewhat irreverently, the smells and bells side of of the church.Rich Birch — Sure, sure.John Plake — And on the other side, kind of my end of the swimming pool, I’m, from the Assemblies of God, so the Pentecostal and Charismatic side. And she said, what’s going on is that both ends of that spectrum are totalizing. John Plake — They’re saying, you know what, the the Bible places certain expectations and demands on people. Christ places certain expectations and demands on people. And these parts of the church aren’t sort of shy about talking about that from a biblical perspective. She said, what’s what’s dying is that part in the middle where we’ve reduced church to a PowerPoint and you know an Excel spreadsheet. And she said, that part of the church seems to be dying and no one’s coming to the funeral. Rich Birch — That’s good. John Plake — And I thought, you know okay, right?Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.John Plake — So if we revitalize our relationship with God through scripture, there’s a next step for every church. It doesn’t matter what, you know whether you’re mainline or evangelical or, you know, Pentecostal or Orthodox or whatever it is, but but reviving our relationship with God through Scripture is really where it’s at.Rich Birch — That’s so good. i Yeah, I call that middle group the just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it’s true group. You know, like the, you know, were just like, it’s all my thoughts. No one wants to come and find us. They want to find God ultimately. Well, I don’t want to pick any fights with anybody that’s listening in, but I really appreciate today’s conversation, John. This has been great. So we want to send people to church.nextstep.bible.Rich Birch — The the promise of in two weeks, your church could have a comprehensive report on spiritual health, on where your church is, spiritual health is at, that’s a huge promise. And so again, this is go to church.nextstep.bible. Any kind of final words as we wrap up today’s episode?John Plake — You know, you might be familiar with Cally Parkinson. Cally was the co-author of all of the Reveal books, every single one of them. She was head of communications for the Willow Creek Association when they were running this. She’s probably had more conversations with pastors and church leaders about survey results like this than anybody I know, maybe than anybody alive. And Cally likes this so much. She said, John, I want to have a personal consultation with the first hundred churches that go through this.John Plake — And so if you want to be in that group, she’s going to offer to spend an hour with you and just walk through your results and help explain it. There are videos throughout the platform that will explain it as well. And you can’t beat talking to Cally. She loves pastors. She says you’re the salt of the earth. And she just really wants to serve you because the work that you do to save people is just so valuable to her. So anyway, just wanted to offer that. And I know you’d probably love to meet Cally.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, appreciate you being here today. Thanks for the great work you do at the American Bible Society. John, appreciate you being on today. Thank you.John Plake — Thank you.

Thank you to Amy, Aisha, Geoff, Janet, and Don for being part of the service. The scripture readings are from Luke 24 and the first chapter of Micah.Happy birthday this week to Aisha! Songs from this service: We Bow Down - https://youtu.be/uySRBuWGmLU -- We Will Glorify - https://youtu.be/JjTi9S7hf18 -- What He's Done - https://youtu.be/hvsl1b72GXk -- He Looked Beyond My Fault / What Grace Is Mine - https://youtu.be/E-miI8PibpI https://youtu.be/djQupbVcjcY -- Seek Ye First - https://youtu.be/7ePy441HU20 -- O Little Town of Bethlehem - https://youtu.be/I5hHUPwjTQQ -- He Leadeth Me - https://youtu.be/6MQrBqZCMBE Scriptures from this service: New Testament Reading - Luke 24:44-48 (CEV). Communion - Micah 6:2; 6:4; 6:5; 1:2; 6:6-7; 6:8. Old Testament Reading - Micah 1:1-5. Sermon - Micah 1:3-5; 1:8; 1:6; 1:8; 2:6; 4:1; 4:2-3; 4:3; 4:5-6; 5:2; 7:1-5; 7:7; 7:11-12; 7:15; 7:18-19; Galatians 5:22-23; 1 Peter 4:8. Closing - Micah 2:12-13. Copyright+ Scripture quotations marked (NIV) taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version© NIV© Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked (CEV) are from the Contemporary English Version Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Three Big Conversations: The OKC Thunder have become the NBA's favorite villain - 10:00 Pope Leo publishes an AI manifesto - 20:14 The Mandalorian and Grogu had a disappointing first weekend. - 35:50 → Help us improve our podcast! Click here to fill out this three-minute survey. Song of the Week - "the cure" by Olivia Rodrigo - 3:16 → Click here to read the lyrics → Click here to listen to the song (language) In Other News: - 42:40 Small "dot cakes," baked in cups, and covered in frosting and rainbow nonpareil sprinkles, are going viral. The colorful aesthetic of these cakes is just half of the appeal, with the other part being the satisfying scrape of a spoon being dragged across the top.  A new YPulse report found that 87% of 13- to 24-year-old guys agree with the statement, "I am a gamer," suggesting that online gaming continues to be one of the fastest-growing social spaces for boys and young men. A newly published report from the American Bible Society found that 38% of parents are regularly engaged with the Bible, as opposed to 23% of nonparents. A ton of other interesting statistics are included in the latest chapter of their State of the Bible report, linked here. DIY "cyberdecks" are the latest tech trend on TikTok. Creators are using Raspberry Pi mini computers to build whimsical homemade devices inside of retro purses, Game Boys, or briefcases. Off Campus has become Gen Z's latest #BookTok-adapted TV obsession, landing as Prime Video's biggest debut ever among viewers aged 18-34. Common Sense Media flagged the series for extreme explicit sexual content.

The OKC Thunder have become the NBA's favorite villain, Pope Leo publishes an AI manifesto, and The Mandalorian and Grogu had a disappointing first weekend. → Help us improve our podcast! Click here to fill out this three-minute survey. Song of the Week - "the cure" by Olivia Rodrigo → Click here to read the lyrics → Click here to listen to the song (language) In Other News: Small "dot cakes," baked in cups, and covered in frosting and rainbow nonpareil sprinkles, are going viral. The colorful aesthetic of these cakes is just half of the appeal, with the other part being the satisfying scrape of a spoon being dragged across the top.  A new YPulse report found that 87% of 13- to 24-year-old guys agree with the statement, "I am a gamer," suggesting that online gaming continues to be one of the fastest-growing social spaces for boys and young men. A newly published report from the American Bible Society found that 38% of parents are regularly engaged with the Bible, as opposed to 23% of nonparents. A ton of other interesting statistics are included in the latest chapter of their State of the Bible report, linked here. DIY "cyberdecks" are the latest tech trend on TikTok. Creators are using Raspberry Pi mini computers to build whimsical homemade devices inside of retro purses, Game Boys, or briefcases. Off Campus has become Gen Z's latest #BookTok-adapted TV obsession, landing as Prime Video's biggest debut ever among viewers aged 18-34. Common Sense Media flagged the series for extreme explicit sexual content.

Twenty years ago this month, Carey almost became ministry road kill. After 11 years of 30%+ annual growth, he burned out, hard.  In Part 1 of this solo episode, Carey shares 5 honest insights from two decades of reflection: why dysfunction gets rewarded in the church, how denial accelerates the crash, and why grieving your losses matters. If your passion is fading, this episode is for you.

Gale Kragt, author of the "Heart of Healing:  6-Week Dovotional & Healing Journey," addresses the many lies we believe about God and ourselves and how that affects our lives and behaviors.  Replacing these false identities with your real identity in Christ:  "you are loved, you are treasured, you are a child of God!" can change your life!  John Plake of the American Bible Society opens up another chapter of this year's State of the Bible Report, looks at the challenges many parents have in helping their kids engage with the Bible.  While the main reason may be "finding the time," there are ways building time as a family to engage Scripture.  The Reconnect with Carmen and all Faith Radio are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here  

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseJeremiah 44:8Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageJeremiah 44Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseJeremiah 43:2Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageJeremiah 43Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship. CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseJeremiah 42:11Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageJeremiah 42Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1

illiam J. Federer is a nationally known speaker, historian, author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc. He's the speaker on The American Minute daily broadcast. In late April, 2026, there was a thorough reading of the Bible at the Museum of the Bible. While you may not agree with every participant, the Word was read. As Scripture says, God's Word will not return unto Him void, but it will accomplish that which He pleases. It's the Word of God that is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Bible tells us in Romans 10:17 that "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." It's the Word of God that changes the heart of man. Michele Bachmann, Dean of the Regent School of Government said, "There would be no America without the Bible. It is the foundation...and it's important that we reacquaint ourselves with its principles." It's disturbing that in the American Bible Society's 2026 State of the Bible report, only 17% of Americans told pollsters that they have read the entire Bible, another 17% said they have read "most", 14% indicate they've read "about half" 35% said "a little" 10% said "none" and 7% said they were not sure if they've ever read the Bible. As foundational as the Bible is, Jim asked William to come and address the Bible's influence on America. So don't miss this look back at the impact of the Bible at the time of the Pilgrims, at the time leading up to the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, and also its influence since we became a nation. It's a history modern skeptics don't like, but it's the truth.

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseJeremiah 41:2Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageJeremiah 41Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1

illiam J. Federer is a nationally known speaker, historian, author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc. He's the speaker on The American Minute daily broadcast. In late April, 2026, there was a thorough reading of the Bible at the Museum of the Bible. While you may not agree with every participant, the Word was read. As Scripture says, God's Word will not return unto Him void, but it will accomplish that which He pleases. It's the Word of God that is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Bible tells us in Romans 10:17 that "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." It's the Word of God that changes the heart of man. Michele Bachmann, Dean of the Regent School of Government said, "There would be no America without the Bible. It is the foundation...and it's important that we reacquaint ourselves with its principles." It's disturbing that in the American Bible Society's 2026 State of the Bible report, only 17% of Americans told pollsters that they have read the entire Bible, another 17% said they have read "most", 14% indicate they've read "about half" 35% said "a little" 10% said "none" and 7% said they were not sure if they've ever read the Bible. As foundational as the Bible is, Jim asked William to come and address the Bible's influence on America. So don't miss this look back at the impact of the Bible at the time of the Pilgrims, at the time leading up to the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, and also its influence since we became a nation. It's a history modern skeptics don't like, but it's the truth.

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseJeremiah 40:4Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageJeremiah 40Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

In locations at meal time Littles sing along to "ABCDEFG! Thank you God for feeding me!" On the Time4Littles Podcast we interviewed CFO Tiffany Simon to learn more. She reported that incorporating Christ in care for Littles was the spark that led to the founding of the faith-based business that now serves 2,000 Littles.  More than 600 staff serve in 20 New Creations Child Care & Learning Centers. Tiffany Simon, mother of five, is the CFO! We asked her if she came to Christ as a Little or later on. We also talked about the need for Christian micro schools. New Creations has the following website: www.newcreationschildcare.com The Tru316 Foundation (www.Tru316.com) is the home of The Eden Podcast with Bruce C. E. Fleming where we “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16. The Tru316 Message is that “God didn't curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.” Once Genesis 3:16 is made clear the other passages on women and men become clear too. You are encouraged to access the episodes of Seasons 1-11 of The Eden Podcast for teaching on the seven key passages on women and men. Are you a reader? We invite you to get from Amazon the four books by Bruce C. E. Fleming in The Eden Book Series (Tru316.com/trubooks). Would you like to support the work of the Tru316 Foundation? You can become a Tru Partner here: www.Tru316.com/partner

It's Friday, May 8th, 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 Adam McManus Three North Korean prisoners to receive human rights award Three Korean missionaries detained for more than a decade in North Korea will receive the Graciela Fernandez Meijide Human Rights Award in August in absentia, reports International Christian Concern. The three men — missionary Choi Chun-gil, age 70, missionary Kim Jong-Uk, age 62, and Pastor Kim Kuk-gi, age 72— were helping North Korean defectors and underground churches in Northeast China before North Korean agents arrested them and took them to jails inside North Korea.  North Korea sentenced the three men to life in a North Korean labor camp. The South Korean government has repeatedly called for the missionaries' release. Analysts estimate that more than 30,000 Christians are currently suffering in these camps where they are overworked, starved, and tortured. Not surprisingly, North Korea denies the existence of such camps. According to Open Doors, North Korea is the most oppressive country worldwide for Christians. Vatican: Homosexual couples are not guilty of sin The new Vatican synod report published May 5th has just dropped a bombshell, reports LifeSiteNews.com. It said, “Sin, at its root, does not consist in the same-sex couple relationship.” Instead, the document suggests sin is merely a lack of faith in God. Homosexual relationships are presented by the Vatican through glowing testimonies. The document takes specific aim at Courage, a Catholic group established for the support of those with homosexual attraction who wish to live chastely and in accord with Catholic Church teaching.  And the report openly questions whether such unions could be considered analogous to marriage.  It asks whether homosexual “relationships” can be thought of as equal “to heterosexual conjugal union,” despite “the evident impossibility of procreation.” This is not a fringe document. It comes from a synodal study group operating with Vatican approval. But Leviticus 18:22 could not be more clear. “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” US launches strikes on two Iranian targets On May 7th,  U.S. Central Command confirmed military action within the Strait of Hormuz, saying American forces intercepted “unprovoked Iranian attacks” and struck back amid claims by Tehran that the Trump administration had violated a fragile ceasefire, reports NewsNation.com. According to Fox News, U.S. officials said Qeshm Port in the Strait of Hormuz and the port city of Bandar Abbas were struck. Plus, Iran's Bandar Kargan naval checkpoint in Minab was also hit. CENTCOM officials said Iran launched missiles, drones, and small boats on three U.S. guided-missile destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz headed to the Gulf of Oman. In response, U.S. forces “eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this. RUBIO:  “As President Trump has said, and the facts clearly bear out, the United States of America holds all the cards. There is no scenario here in which, if they decide to join a ladder of escalation, they wind up getting the last say. “But our preference is for these Straits [of Hormuz] to be opened to the way they're supposed to be open, back to the way it was. Anyone can use it. No mines in the water. Nobody paying tolls. That's what we have to get back to, and that's the goal here.” Mark Hamill of “Star Wars” posted image of dead President Trump Mark Hamill, the actor best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the original “Star Wars” trilogy of the 1970s and '80s, posted an image on May 6th that got the White House's attention, reports The Western Journal. The image, posted to Hamill's account on the social media platform BlueSky, showed President Donald Trump lying in a grave, hands folded, with a headstone that read “Donald J. Trump, 1946-2024.” Hamill wrote, “If only he should live long enough to witness his inevitable devastating loss in the midterms, be held accountable for his unprecedented corruption, impeached, convicted & humiliated for his countless crimes. Long enough to realize he'll be disgraced in the history books, forevermore.” Meanwhile, on the social media platform X, the official White House Rapid Response account, called Hamill “one sick individual.” Then, the White House linked Hamill-style rhetoric to other disturbing events, saying, “These Radical Left lunatics just can't help themselves. This kind of rhetoric is exactly what has inspired three assassination attempts in two years against our President.” Texas Governor pressures waterpark to cancel Muslim-only event A planned celebration of a Muslim-only day at the Epic Waters waterpark in Grand Prairie, Texas has been canceled after backlash over religious discrimination, reports Fox4News. The Epic Waters waterpark had planned to hold a private event throughout the park on June 1st to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice and the second of two main festivals in Islam. It honors the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as an act of obedience to God's command. When The Worldview first reported the story of the Muslim-only, waterpark-wide event, Cathy Blake of Fate, Texas emailed the Epic Waters leadership. She wrote, “I see you are hosting a Muslim celebration and closing the park to non-Muslims, which is religious discrimination. But, since you probably don't see it that way, and are wanting to be inclusive, I'm wondering what day the park will be available for only Jews or only Christians as those two religions are two of the most practiced religions in America, alongside Islam. Please let me know the date so I can plan my summer accordingly.” When Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott heard about the event, he sent a letter to the City of Grand Prairie in which he threatened to pull $530,000 in public safety grants if the city held the event. The letter states that the event was being advertised as "Muslim Only" before changing its advertisements to state only a requirement of a modest dress code would be enforced. Governor Abbott wrote, "The event purports to be public-facing and discriminatory at the same time: All Muslims—but only Muslims—may attend. An event at a city-owned pool that was publicly and indiscriminately advertised as ‘Whites only' would surely violate the Constitution.” On May 6, officials with the City of Grand Prairie wrote, "After further review and in the best interest of the City of Grand Prairie, the June 1st event at Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark has been canceled." The organizer, Dr. Aminah Knight, noted that 600 people attended the event last year and she was “deeply disappointed.” American Bible Society celebrates its 210th anniversary And finally, on May 8th, 1816, the American Bible Society organized in New York to distribute the Bible worldwide. In 1816, there was a significant demand for Bibles in the United States following the American Revolutionary War.  The importation of Bibles from England had ceased, leading to a shortage as the nation sought to foster religious revival. Since then, it has distributed hundreds of millions of Bibles in thousands of languages worldwide. The first President of the American Bible Society was Elias Boudinot, who had been President of the Continental Congress from 1782 to 1783. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was named the Bible Society president in 1821. And Francis Scott Key, the writer of the United States' national anthem, served as a Vice President from 1817 until his death in 1843. Today, people around the world are longing for the hope and truth found only in Scripture. Consider making a one-time donation today to empower believers with God's Word in their own language. Every $2 you give provides another Bible. The website is www.AmericanBible.org. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “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.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, May 8th, in the year of our Lord 2026, my 60th birthday. Follow us on X or 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.

In this episode of The Care Ministry Podcast, Laura Howe is joined again by Rebecca Taguma from the American Bible Society and the Trauma Healing Institute. Together, they explore what many churches are quietly experiencing—everyday overwhelm, loneliness, and emotional exhaustion—and how this is shaping the way we care for and disciple people. This conversation reframes emotional resilience as part of discipleship, not a separate ministry, and offers a hopeful, relational path forward for churches. They also introduce Anchored in Hope, an accessible resource designed to help churches build connection, resilience, and support in everyday life. This episode is especially helpful for leaders who feel stretched, are carrying more than they should alone, and are looking for practical ways to build a culture of care. Quotes “It's really easy to be lonely in a crowd if it doesn't feel safe.” — Rebecca Taguma “Church leaders are struggling right now… it's been unrelenting.” — Rebecca Taguma “God created us to be in relationship with one another—and to heal in relationship with one another.” — Rebecca Taguma “Care happens in relationship. Programs are just the vehicle.” — Laura Howe Resources Anchored in Hope – Trauma Healing Institute Healing the Wounds of Trauma Small Group HMS Amazon Store

Help Persecuted Christians TODAY: https://csi-usa.org/quickstart/ Christian Solidarity International On today's Quick Start podcast: NEWS: Franklin Graham warns Christians are unprepared for spiritual warfare as biblical literacy declines—and a “Pro-life Spiderman” activist faces jail time after a high-risk protest at the Las Vegas Sphere. FOCUS STORY: A new American Bible Society report reveals shifting patterns in how Americans engage Scripture—and why that trend might actually be an opportunity for believers. MAIN THING: Nearly 500 voices unite at the Museum of the Bible for a powerful, nonstop reading of Scripture—cover to cover—in a weeklong event called “America Reads the Bible.” LAST THING: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 — A reminder that all Scripture is God-breathed and equips believers for every good work. SHOW LINKS Radical Revelations with Raj Nair https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radical-revelations/id1888511250 Faith in Culture: https://cbn.com/news/faith-culture Heaven Meets Earth PODCAST: https://cbn.com/lp/heaven-meets-earth NEWSMAKERS POD: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/newsmakers/id1724061454

Are there disagreements and disputes in your family?  In your community?  Everyone's Wilson's Daryl Crouch talks about how we can set the table for peace summit and lead the way in peacemaking.  John Plake of the American Bible Society start open up this year's State of the Bible Survey.  How much of the Bible have you read?  For many Americans, it's not much?  Many are flirting with God's Word, but don't seriously engage it.  How can we encourage more deeper and meaningful engagement? The Reconnect with Carmen and all Faith Radio are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here  

A Google search of “how many versions are there of the Christian bible in English?” resulted in the following result(s), in AI mode.…….“​There are approximately 450 to over 900 English versions, translations, and paraphrases of the Christian Bible available, depending on whether individual revisions are counted. While the American Bible Society notes about 900 printed English translations or paraphrases, Patheos notes over 450 distinct versions. These range from literal (e.g., KJV, ESV) to thought-for-thought (e.g., NIV) and paraphrased (e.g., The Message) translations. Key aspects of English bible versions:​Total Translations: Estimates often cite over 900 versions, including partial translations.​Most Common Versions: Widely used translations in modern English include the New International Version (NIV), English Standard Version (ESV), King James Version (KJV), New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), and New American Standard Bible (NASB).​Types of Translation: Versions are categorized by their approach, such as formal equivalence ("word-for-word") or functional equivalence ("thought-for-thought").History: Since William Tyndale's first English translation in 1526, hundreds of versions have been produced.Distinction: Many versions are actually revisions or updates of previous translations, such as the ESV being a revision of the RSV. ”……We know religion to be a form of worship, and each belief system contains different principles and teachings. Within the Judeo-Christian faiths, these teachings teach us what was believed to be holy or miraculous and what was to be considered abhorrent and sinful.And to think along the lines of “BIGGER than any bibble,” well, that's blasphemy, and we speak heresy.. again, to each their perspective.

This podcast episode centers around the profound exploration of soft skills in leadership, with a particular emphasis on the transformative power of empathy, communication, and relational dynamics. Gene, our esteemed guest, returns to delve deeper into the essential qualities that redefine effective leadership, highlighting the necessity of balancing hard skills with the softer attributes that foster genuine connection and trust. Our conversation offers invaluable insights gleaned from Gene's extensive experience in various leadership roles, including his tenure as the President of the American Bible Society and universities. Furthermore, we examine the intricate processes of forgiveness, accountability, and personal growth, underscoring how these elements are crucial for nurturing a healthy organizational culture. Throughout this discourse, we aim to elucidate the significance of developing a leadership style that prioritizes both effectiveness and faithfulness in one's mission.Takeaways: The importance of soft skills in leadership cannot be overstated, as they profoundly influence team dynamics and effectiveness. Developing a team of individuals who possess superior skills in their respective areas is crucial for effective leadership. Leaders must learn to balance the demands of effectiveness with the necessity of faithfulness to their core values and mission. Engaging in courageous conversations is essential for fostering forgiveness and reconciliation within organizations. Leaders should cultivate a culture of accountability to ensure they remain grounded and aligned with their organizational mission. Taking time away from work is vital for leaders to gain perspective and avoid burnout, enabling them to serve more effectively.

The President and CEO of the American Bible Society is this year's recipient of the Tru316 Medallion Award! On this episode, Bruce C. E. Fleming introduces the Medallion Award presentation, followed by a mix of testimonials by ministry leaders from Wycliffe Bible Translators, Missionary Aviation Fellowship and more who honor Dr. Jennifer Holloran, followed by her own words of acceptance at the 2026 event. You can see a video of the testimonials by these leaders on the Tru316 Foundation You Tube Channel. Here is a link: https://youtu.be/MfFBkBx3gQ4 Go Deeper. We met at the headquarters of The American Bible Society in downtown Philadelphia across the street from historic Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States! The video of the full event is available here: https://youtu.be/w79qDzJpCWU . The Tru316 Foundation (www.Tru316.com) is the home of The Eden Podcast with Bruce C. E. Fleming where we “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16. The Tru316 Message is that “God didn't curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.” Once Genesis 3:16 is made clear the other passages on women and men become clear too. You are encouraged to access the episodes of Seasons 1-11 of The Eden Podcast for teaching on the seven key passages on women and men. Are you a reader? We invite you to get from Amazon the four books by Bruce C. E. Fleming in The Eden Book Series (Tru316.com/trubooks). Would you like to support the work of the Tru316 Foundation? You can become a Tru Partner here: www.Tru316.com/partner

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseIsaiah 66:5 Thought for the dayDeb BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 66Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseIsaiah 65:1 Thought for the dayDeb BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 65Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

If you've been broken down by sexual sin, we have good news for you: God has provided the means for transformation. It's in His word. But it's not simply a matter of knowledge. As a matter of fact, there's an increasing amount of church attendees who know the Bible really well, but also habitually indulge in sinful behavior. Transformation is a matter of submission—submission to a process which Residential Counseling Director Luke Imperato lays out clearly in today's message.   Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible Copyright 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today's English Version- Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship. CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseIsaiah 64:8 Thought for the dayDeb BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 64Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship. Opening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseIsaiah 63:17 Thought for the dayDeb BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 63Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening PrayerRay BorrettBible verseIsaiah 62:4 Thought for the dayDeb BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 62Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer Handbookprayer handbook WTW 2026.pdfSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

BACK in 2004. I took our kids back to Africa in 2004. Here's what happened. Due to a minor plane crash and having to make the trip overland, our kids went on into the Congo and I stayed behind with no plans for the week in the Central African Republic. THEN the invitations poured in! I happily taught many groups, pastors, deaconesses, school teachers, night watchmen and even high government officials! They were trilled at the positive news of Eden!NOW in 2026! We have two special events coming up! YOU are invited to our Event at the HQ of the American Bible Society on March 21 2026! We'll be presenting the Tru316 Medallion Award to ABS President Dr. Jennifer Holloran and our Keynote speaker will be Dr. Beverly Nyberg! Dr. Nyberg studied at the University of Nebraska and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. she has been Adjunct Professor at The George Washington University and Senior Consultant at Common Root Consulting. At the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) State Dept. she for 11 years she was responsible for the US Government global programs for children affect by HIV/AIDS. PEPFAR. She also had served with the Peace Corps in Africa and provided field leadership in DR Congo with The Evangelical Free Church Mission. The Tru316 Foundation (www.Tru316.com) is the home of The Eden Podcast with Bruce C. E. Fleming where we “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16. The Tru316 Message is that “God didn't curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.” Once Genesis 3:16 is made clear the other passages on women and men become clear too. You are encouraged to access the episodes of Seasons 1-11 of The Eden Podcast for teaching on the seven key passages on women and men. Are you a reader? We invite you to get from Amazon the four books by Bruce C. E. Fleming in The Eden Book Series (Tru316.com/trubooks). Would you like to support the work of the Tru316 Foundation? You can become a Tru Partner here: www.Tru316.com/partner

In February, we will be reading the Psalms and Proverbs from the Contemporary English Version (CEV) of the Bible. This translation is remarkable and has been made possible by the American Bible Society. They have diligently studied the Hebrew text and provided us with a powerful and insightful translation that opens our minds and souls. Our Creator has entrusted us with His words and heart.

In February, we will be reading the Psalms and Proverbs from the Contemporary English Version (CEV) of the Bible. This translation is remarkable and has been made possible by the American Bible Society. They have diligently studied the Hebrew text and provided us with a powerful and insightful translation that opens our minds and souls. Our Creator has entrusted us with His words and heart.

In this episode, Dru Johnson and Mike Tolliver reflect on the Center for Hebraic Thought's evolving impact and expanding community. They revisit the promise made in 2025 to annually assess their work and celebrate how that commitment has borne fruit: from the flourishing Hebraic Thought Facebook community and its scripture reading groups, to the launch of a Michael Polanyi reading club. They announce the inaugural Bible First Conference Series, co-hosted with the American Bible Society, exploring how various Christian traditions engage politics through a biblical lens. The conversation highlights recent standout books—many by past podcast guests—including Becoming God's People by Carmen Imes, Leviticus on the Butcher's Block by Phil Bray, and Grounded Theology by Cynthia Schaefer-Elliott and Libby Backfish. Dru and Mike also preview the new Tracing Biblical Thought book series, designed to bring scholarly insights to general audiences in accessible 100-page volumes. The episode closes with a candid discussion about cultural headwinds—from Stoicism to Neoplatonism—and the Center's commitment to reclaiming biblical categories for the church. They emphasize the need for translations and tools, like the Lexham English Bible and the NET Bible, that bring readers closer to the thought world of Scripture. We are listener supported. Give to the cause here: https://hebraicthought.org/give For more articles: https://thebiblicalmind.org/ Social Links: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HebraicThought Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hebraicthought Threads: https://www.threads.net/hebraicthought X: https://www.twitter.com/HebraicThought Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hebraicthought.org Chapters: 00:00 Navigating Change: New Beginnings in 2026 03:09 The State of Hebraic Thought: Community and Events 05:57 Engaging Conversations: The Bible First Conference 08:58 Exploring New Literature: Book Series and Recent Releases 12:08 Anticipating Future Works: Upcoming Books and Insights 21:45 Exploring Biblical Forgiveness 22:42 Justice and Discipleship in Biblical Politics 23:32 Resources for Studying Scripture 24:43 The Value of Modern Translations 31:42 Challenges of Hebraic Thought in Modern Culture 36:27 Neoplatonism vs. Stoicism: Cultural Influences on Thought

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship. CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://www.plough.com/en/subscriptions/daily-prayer Bible verseIsaiah 23:6           Thought for the dayRay Borrett Bible PassageIsaiah 23Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible. Prayer HandbookClick here to download it Supporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribe To contact Ray:Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://5dailydevotional.com/short-prayer-for-today-7th-january-2025/ Bible verseIsaiah 22:13           Thought for the dayRay Borrett Bible PassageIsaiah 22Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible. Prayer HandbookClick here to download it Supporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribe To contact Ray:Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrt

As we finish celebrating Jesus' first coming, we invite you to consider precisely why Jesus came to earth in the first place. There's so much hope for the sinner in considering these things! But there's also a call: a call to repent of sin and believe the gospel. And it's this call which our Residential Counseling Director, Luke Imperato, gives in today's sermon.   Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today's English Version- Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission. Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers. Scripture taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2012 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible Copyright 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 Today is the 7th of January 2026. Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://5dailydevotional.com/short-prayer-for-today-7th-january-2025/ Bible verseIsaiah 21:15           Thought for the dayRay Borrett Bible PassageIsaiah 21Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible. Prayer HandbookClick here to download it Supporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribe To contact Ray:Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://www.plough.com/en/subscriptions/daily-prayer Bible verseIsaiah 19:21           Thought for the dayRay Borrett Bible PassageIsaiah 19Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible. Prayer HandbookClick here to download it Supporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribe To contact Ray:Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://www.plough.com/en/subscriptions/daily-prayer Bible verseIsaiah 20:3           Thought for the dayRay Borrett Bible PassageIsaiah 20Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible. Prayer HandbookClick here to download it Supporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribe To contact Ray:Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

EEM's Dirk Smith, author of "The Impossible Dream," shares about the dream getting God's Word into everyone's hands, and he shares accounts of how God's Word transforms lives of those who read it.   John Plake of the American Bible Society gives a summary of the State of the Bible 2025 report, and tells us what to look foward to in the 2026 study.   The Reconnect with Carmen and all Faith Radio podcasts are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here  

In this episode of the Celebrate Kids podcast, Dr. Kathy explores the profound impact of scripture on identity and personal growth. She reflects on the tendency many have to rely on their own problem-solving abilities rather than turning to prayer or the teachings of the Bible, especially when facing challenges as parents. Dr. Kathy emphasizes the importance of embracing the truth of scripture to foster a deeper understanding of oneself and to experience the goodness of God. She also discusses insights from the American Bible Society's study, "The Eighth Chapter," which examines the state of the Bible in the USA, highlighting the necessity of scripture in rebuilding identity for both adults and children. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that encourages listeners to seek out the light of truth in their lives.

Why do Scripture-engaged people report lower loneliness, anxiety, and despair? In this episode of Facing the Dark, Dr. Kathy Koch and Wayne Stender unpack new research from the American Bible Society and explore why biblical truth forms a deeper, more secure identity than modern ideologies. Together, they examine how Scripture, identity, security, and the work of the Holy Spirit bring lasting belonging, resilience, and hope—for adults and for kids

Welcome to Walking the Way and the season of Advent. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://onlineministries.creighton.edu/prayer-spirituality-resources/praying-advent Bible verseIsaiah 9:6Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 9Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer HandbookClick here to download itSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way and the season of Advent. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it p means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://onlineministries.creighton.edu/prayer-spirituality-resources/praying-advent Bible verseIsaiah 8:14Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 8Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer HandbookClick here to download itSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way and the season of Advent. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship. CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://onlineministries.creighton.edu/prayer-spirituality-resources/praying-advent Bible verseIsaiah 7:8Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 7Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer HandbookClick here to download itSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Bill English of Bible and Business and On Path Coaching responds to an article talking of retiring business leader Warren Buffett, calling him a "Zen master."  Is this largely secular person really a religious leader?  Why the use of this language?   He also talks about ethical decision-making.  American Bible Society's John Plake helps us dig more into the State of the Bible Report 2025, looking at the issue of trust in the Bible and in people and institutions.  He also addresses how Bible engagement impacts generosity.   The Reconnect with Carmen and all Faith Radio podcasts are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here  

Welcome to Walking the Way and the season of Advent. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://onlineministries.creighton.edu/prayer-spirituality-resources/praying-advent Bible verseIsaiah 6:8Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 6Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer HandbookClick here to download itSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Welcome to Walking the Way and the season of Advent. My name is Ray, and I really want to say thank you to everyone for listening in as we continue to explore what it means to have a regular rhythm of worship.  CreditsOpening Prayerhttps://onlineministries.creighton.edu/prayer-spirituality-resources/praying-advent Bible verseIsaiah 5:12Thought for the dayRay BorrettBible PassageIsaiah 5Good News Translation® (Today's English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.Prayer HandbookClick here to download itSupporting Walking the WayIf you want to support Walking the Way, please go to: https://ko-fi.com/S6S4WXLBBor you can subscribe to the channel: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/walkingtheway/subscribeTo contact Ray: Please leave a comment or a review. I want to find out what people think and how we make it better.www.rayborrett.co.ukwalkingthewaypodcast@outlook.comwww.instagram.com/walkingtheway1@raybrrtt

Brian From welcomes John Plake from the American Bible Society to unpack the latest State of the Bible survey and what it shows about faith, flourishing, and identity across generations. Plake explains why Bible-engaged people report dramatically higher well-being, how church community strengthens personal identity—especially for Gen Z—and why young adults are showing renewed curiosity toward Scripture. The conversation offers surprising data, hopeful trends, and practical encouragement for anyone wondering where Americans stand with the Bible today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Wednesday, November 12th, A.D. 2025. 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 Chinese Communists arrested and detained three Christians Communist authorities in central China arrested and detained three Christians from a house church this month. Two of the Christians are pastors. They are facing trumped up charges of “fraud” and had previously spent over two years in custody. Officials often use such charges against house church leaders for simply receiving tithes and offerings. ChinaAid noted, “In recent years, the charge of ‘fraud' has increasingly been used by local governments across China as a common tactic to suppress pastors of house churches systematically.” Psalm 14:1, 4 says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. … Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up My people as they eat bread, and do not call on the LORD?” Japanese soldiers address attacks by bears Japan deployed troops to the northern part of the island country last week to deal with a string of deadly attacks—from bears. Since April of this year, bears have killed at least 13 people in Japan and injured over 100 more. That's the most fatalities on record. Experts are blaming the attacks on a poor acorn harvest this year. Bears are now leaving their natural habitats and wandering into urban areas to find food. In one incident last month, a bear attacked shoppers at a supermarket 80 miles north of Tokyo.   Supreme Court affirms Trump's call for biologically accurate passports In the United States, the U.S. Supreme ruled in favor of the Trump administration in a case involving so-called gender identity.  The ruling allows the State Department to require passports to list the holder's biological sex at birth. The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines.  The ruling stated, “Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the government is merely attesting to an historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.” Nebraska defunded Planned Parenthood Nebraska became the latest state to defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.  The state's Republican Governor Jim Pillen  signed an executive order last Thursday to end Medicaid funding to abortion providers. Nebraska made the move after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed South Carolina to defund Planned Parenthood.   Listen to comments from Nebraska State Attorney General Mike Hilgers. HILGERS: “Today is a culmination of years of work to ensure that Nebraska taxpayers no longer have their tax dollars going to fund abortions in the state of Nebraska. It's a fight that has gone on even from my time in the legislature.  “When we first got Title X funds, we stopped Title X from going to abortion providers, and now, thanks to [Nebraska] Governor Pillen's leadership, we have finally gotten to a place where taxpayer funds will no longer support abortions.” Age of first-time home buyer has increased to record high of 40 The National Association of Realtors released their 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. The share of homes being bought by first-time buyers dropped to a record low of 21% over the last year. Meanwhile, the typical age of a first-time buyer climbed to an all-time high of 40. Jessica Lautz, Deputy Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors, said, “The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory.” Regular Bible readers are more generous The American Bible Society released a new chapter from its State of the Bible USA 2025 report. The research found people who read the Bible regularly are more likely to be generous. Among Christian denominations, Evangelical Protestants have the highest percentage of givers and the highest median amount given. John Plake with the American Bible Society said, “The correlation between Scripture engagement and loving behavior and generosity is undeniable. The more people engage with Scripture, the more likely they are to give of their time, talents, and treasures and to act lovingly toward their neighbors.” In 1 Corinthians 9:7, the Apostle Paul wrote, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” Florida's first search-and-rescue otter And finally, officials in Florida are deploying their first ever search-and-rescue otter. Splash, the two-year-old otter, is now helping the Martin County Sheriff's Office in search and rescue missions. Splash uses a unique bubble technique to detect scents underwater. This allows him to find missing bodies more effectively than dive teams can.  Listen to comments from Sheriff John Budensiek to CBS12 News. BUDENSIEK: “We see a lot of innovative things with technology [Artificial Intelligence], but we're going back to the basics of using an animal to do what they do best, and that's to go in their own environment and detect things that don't belong there.” A rescue otter.  What a brilliant way to employ one of God's creatures to rescue those made in God's image! Close And that's The Worldview on this Wednesday, November 12th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.