Podcasts about Prevailing

Guest: Brad BrandonMinistry: Across NigeriaPosition: Founder & CEOTopics: recent developments regarding Christian persecution, the U.S. State Department designating Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, & the "Persecuted & Prevailing" conference in Washington, DC 12/4Website: acrossnigeria.org, washingtonpolicyinstitute.org

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

SOUND:RUN:BREA(D)TH by Pheobe riley Law, 2025. Sound:run:brea(d)th had its origins in the sound-runs I embarked on each morning, speed-dating with each locale, listening to their rhythms alongside that of my own breath before returning to them to listen at a slower pace. I filmed also, on an old, low resolution camcorder, moving through open and indoor spaces, connecting with people and occasionally discovering an electronic pulse or a cute sounding object that I knew I wanted to draw attention to. I think of this piece as a theatre; a space with multiple shifting scenes; uncovered things covered; field recordings; public squares / architectural spaces / the inner sounds of locally grown fruit / soil in the apartment garden / plant roots and branches / a milk vending machine along the Bega river / bird deterrent devices. The sections / scenes become muffled, abstracted yet stay open; unearthed organic matter and micro-worlds, architectural resonance and the ultrasonic attractive and border. Each fragment shaped by or attempting to shape its environment and context. Spending some months with the recordings, and composing musical elements from them, I find links between old and new technologies, a personal and social sense of time, and the use of sound covered and uncovered. // A piece composed with recordings made during SONIC FUTURE RESIDENCIES organized by SEMI SILENT and hosted by Simultan Festival in Timișoara, October 2024. // Pheobe riley Law (1997) is an installation artist with a focus in sound, performance, photography, and sculptural activation. Using a symbiotic approach, she builds dialogues between different bodies, borders and devices, activating, flexible new relationships. Prevailing interests include sonic mapping, exploring the life of non-human actors / inanimate objects & thinking about aspects of human activity through the lens of division and borders. She sometimes playfully reverses the roles of humans & non-humans, revealing the object-hood of the human essence, and an animate character of the ‘inanimate' being. In one of her recent installations and performances Machine Equities she explores the sonic landscape of machines as actors and singing collaborators. Previous and ongoing explorations focus on: the relationship we have to the natural world; machine technologies as our collaborators; the role salt has on aquatic life and the activation of micro-worlds such as moss, soil and motorized machines. // Recordings, composition and mixing by Pheobe riley Law for SEMI SILENT. Co-produced by Simultan.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Jamie Barfield, the Lead Pastor at Palmetto Pointe Church in South Carolina. Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with four locations in South Carolina, a campus in Southern Illinois, and Spanish-language services reaching even more people. Is your church in a season of slow growth or scarcity? Wondering how to stay faithful and creative when resources are tight? Tune in as Jamie shares powerful lessons from 18 years of ministry—how his team built a thriving, multiplying church by embracing perseverance, stewardship, and servant leadership. The long road to growth. // Palmetto Pointe's story is one of persistence and faithfulness. It took three years to break 100 in attendance, five years before Jamie drew a paycheck, and six before the church had its own building. Today the church averages 2,500 weekly attendees and continues to grow—up 31% last year alone. Jamie credits that perseverance to remembering the “why” behind ministry: reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ. Stewardship over scarcity. // In the early years, Jamie says the constant feeling of “not enough”—not enough money, volunteers, or influence—could have been crushing. Instead, it shaped the church's DNA around stewardship and innovation. Rather than throwing money at problems, the team learned to think creatively and maximize what God had already placed in their hands. That approach still drives their ministry today. Faith that looks forward. // While rejecting the “name it and claim it” mindset, Jamie embraces faith-filled vision. Even when he doesn’t know how to get to big things, he continues to be faithful with what he has right now. This conviction shapes how he leads – every resource is treated as a seed that can grow if cultivated with faith and hard work. Developing leaders intentionally. // One of Palmetto Pointe's most distinctive practices is its 12-week leadership development process, a hands-on journey that every potential leader must complete before serving in a leadership role. Participants are recommended by current leaders and walk closely with Jamie throughout the course. During those 12 weeks, participants serve across multiple ministries and complete weekly assignments that build humility and discipline. Only after completing the program do they join the pool of eligible leaders. Multiplying wisely. // As Palmetto Pointe has launched new services and campuses, Jamie has learned key lessons about healthy multiplication. Each expansion begins with identifying potential pain points, recruiting dedicated volunteers, and ensuring no one burns out. Before adding services, his team recruits a core group committed to that specific time slot for at least nine months. Encouragement for church leaders. // As a district overseer, Jamie has a heart for pastors—especially those in smaller churches who feel stuck or discouraged. His advice: make one Sunday amazing. Pick one big day—Easter, Mother's Day, or another big day—and go all in. Then pick one person and invest deeply in them. Small, faithful steps of stewardship often lead to exponential impact. To learn more about Palmetto Pointe Church, visit palmettopointechurch.com or connect with Jamie on social media at @pastorjamieb. 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! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone Hey friends, Sunday is coming… is your Sermon Done?Pastor, you don't need more pressure—you need support. That's why you need to check out SermonDone—the premium AI assistant built exclusivelyfor pastors. SermonDone helps you handle the heavy lifting: deep sermon research, series planning, and even a theologically aligned first draft—in your voice—because it actually trains on up to 15 of your past sermons. But it doesn't stop there. With just a click, you can instantly turn your message into small group guides, discussion questions, and even kids curriculum. It's like adding a research assistant, a writing partner, and a discipleship team—all in one. Try it free for 5 days. Head over to www.SermonDone.com and use promo code Rich20 for 20% off today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad to have you tune in today. We’ve got a great conversation. Really looking forward to talking to a leader who I know you can learn from, talking about stuff that is really important as we think about our churches and think about the future. It’s our honor today to have Jamie Barfield with us. He is part of the leadership team at Palmetto Pointe Church. I don’t know why that’s stuck in my mouth coming out.Rich Birch — It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country with four locations in beautiful Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, a location in Southern Illinois and Spanish services as well. He’s an ordained bishop in the Church of God, serves as a district oh overseer for the Myrtle Beach and surrounding areas. He’s also served, he’s got a lot going on, in the State Evangelism Board for the Church of God in South Carolina. Welcome to the show, Jamie, a real expert on the show today. Appreciate you being here.Jamie Barfield — I don’t know about expert, but it is an honor to be here. I learned a lot from the school of hard knocks, so I will be definitely able to answer from that point point of view.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Now multiple locations, which is we see that 73% of churches over 2000 have multiple locations. For leaders that don’t know the story, kind of give me the story of your church. Tell me a little bit of what’s going on. If it were to arrive this weekend, what would that look like?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, wild, wild story. 18 years. We just celebrated 18 years. Rich Birch — Congratulations.Jamie Barfield — Took us three years to ever break 100. Five years before I was ever getting a paycheck from the church. Rich Birch — Wow.Jamie Barfield — Six years before we ever had our own facility. Seven years before I ever had another staff member with me. Right before COVID hit, we were doing four services. And then obviously COVID shut everything down. And last year, God’s favor has just been upon the church the last few years. Last year, we grew about 31% last year – it was wild. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. And what does attendance look like now on the weekends at your church?Jamie Barfield — We had 2,500 last Sunday. Rich Birch — Wow. Jamie Barfield — And we had but 2,500 last Sunday and that we we had about, of that probably 2,100 was here at our our main location here in Myrtle Beach.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Well, I appreciate that you paced out the timeline there, because I think there’s a lot of church leaders who, or church planters who are in these early days, and it feels like, and the early days could be half a decade, you know, it could be a long time.Rich Birch — Take us back when you think kind of the mindset of that, what what what was that experience like? How did you keep going? Talk us through what did that look like?Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Early on, you know, and I talked at a conference last weekend about your “why”, knowing why you’re in this to begin with, knowing why you started and never forgetting the thing that actually put you in ministry to begin with. You know, that moment God called you, that moment that he asked you to do something great for him.Jamie Barfield — And in those moments or those seasons, um early on specifically, when you were ready to throw in the towel and ready to quit, you always had to be reminded of, okay, God, why am I doing this? What is it that you put inside of me that pushed me to want to do something great for your kingdom?Jamie Barfield — It was never about a paycheck. It was never about being on an amazing podcast like this. It was never about speaking at conferences. It was always about reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ and doing our best to get that out there. And so in moments where you wanted to throw in the towel and you wanted to quit, you always go back to those seasons of, okay, God, why did you call me into this to begin with?Rich Birch — And what, what, when you answer that question in your own life, where does that, but you know, kind of, when you think about the why, how, what is what’s the kind of image that comes to mind or language that you wrap around for, for you?Jamie Barfield — I’m very visual. So I think of standing before the throne of God one day and him saying, well done, my good and faithful servant.Rich Birch — So good.Jamie Barfield —And I’m so it’s going to be such a beautiful moment, but it also also motivates me .bBecause I think in that moment that I’m going to go in there almost nervous of the time that I wasted or the time that I gave up or the time that I… And I’m so I’m so motivated by that moment that I just want to stand there and have him look at me with a big smile on his face and say, you did it. You did everything that I put before you to do. You did it. Good job, servant.Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, early on, if we could talk for real here… Jamie Barfield — For real. Rich Birch — …like church planting, man, it’s it’s it’s tough.Jamie Barfield — It’s the hardest thing ever.Rich Birch — And those early years, yeah, those early years, it’s like, I don’t know. It’s like, you’re not rolling in cash. You don’t have the resources. You don’t have the people. Man, how how did that go for you? The kind of scarcity? How did that shape the way you lead, innovate? Talk us through that piece of the puzzle.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, lack of money, lack of volunteers, lack of influence in the community. You know, it it feels like you know the the word attached to church planting so often is lack. I don’t have enough.Rich Birch — Yeah, right.Jamie Barfield — And that mindset inside of church planters, it’s going to be the thing that either crushes them or is going to cause them to innovate. For us, we just decided it was going to be the thing that pushed us or that drove us. And so the scarcity mindset that you spoke about at you know the beginning of ministry was some some things that were birthed inside of us that created some stewardship principles that we still follow today at our church. You know, we’re very much penny pinchers. We’re going to try the best to figure out the best way rather than just throwing money at problems.Jamie Barfield — You know, I got buddies that, you you know, with the best of intentions, they just think that they can you you know, throw money at situations or at problems and it’s going to fix everything. And our mindset is just, we’re just going to be innovative. We’re going to try to figure this out and do it the best way we can without expecting that money is going to fix everything, or that volunteers are going to fix everything, or that influence is going to fix everything. So even at the start, all of that lack created or birthed something in us that has followed with us for the last 18 years.Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d I’d love to talk a bit a bit a bit more about that. Well, first of all, I think it’s I think it’s good that you’re underlining mindset. I know for me as a leader, and it took me way too long to figure out that like kind of my approach. You know, I’m not like, ah you know, name it and claim it kind of person. I don’t think I can like, you know, I can’t just like make stuff up.Jamie Barfield — Sure.Rich Birch — But what I do know is if I don’t have the faith for it, if I don’t believe that God’s going to do something, then it doesn’t happen. Jamie Barfield — Yeah, for sure. Rich Birch — And so I’m not sure how that happens. There’s like a weird connection there between what I believe about faith and like, and I probably some people are like, man, this guy’s got bad theology. But talk us through that mindset and how, maybe give us a couple examples of how that has impacted you even today.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, yeah. So I agree completely. The the you know concept of name it and claim it versus you got to have faith and where is that balance? And I’m unsure as well, probably got bad theology as well. But I definitely think that, you know especially early on, like it was, God, I see big things in our future. And I’m not sure how to get to big things, but I know I can’t settle with these things that we have now. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.Jamie Barfield — So I have to press forward to make the things that we have in our hand now. I have to be a good steward of what you’ve given me. You know, he is faithful with little. You’re going to reward us with much. So, God, I’ve got to be faithful with what you put in my hands now.Rich Birch — That’s so true.Jamie Barfield — And I’m going to do the absolute best with this that I have in my hand now. But I’m going to do everything I can to make this thing better. Because I see bigger, because I see greater in front of us. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so I’m not going to just stop here and say, well, this is all that I have. This is this is all that I’m ever going to be. I’m going to do more for you with what you placed in my hands. I’m going to be that servant that whenever you walk away from me, you gave me two talents. I’m go to do my best to turn it into four.Rich Birch — Yeah that’s, yeah, that’s amazing. That’s that’s so good. I love, you know, we wanna be multipliers of what, you know, what’s given. And I think the the financial stewardship thing makes sense. I think that’s understandable. You can see where, man, we gotta be good we gotta use the resources we have.Rich Birch — What about on the people side? When you think about kind of being good stewards of your people, maybe developing leaders, that sort of thing, how does that work? What practices have you helped has have you kind of kept this mindset of innovation, kind of getting the most out of our people, that sort of thing. How has that impacted how what you do even today?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, so I grew up in a very small church, you know maybe 70, 80 people. Maybe on on big Sundays we had 120 on Easter or something of that nature. And I saw leaders being thrown into situations, not trained well, not knowing church culture, not knowing what expectations were, not knowing the pastor’s heart. I saw all of that growing up.Jamie Barfield — And those leaders that were thrown in oftentimes would find themselves burnt out by focusing on things that they really had no passion for. And the pastor maybe didn’t know what the thing inside of them that was the thing that really you know would drive them. And so we just decided whenever, you know, probably 10 or 12 years ago, we just decided we were going to create a process of knowing our our leaders and our leaders knowing me well.Jamie Barfield — And so so we we go through a you know, I tell them all the time as we do a 12 week course. It’s not really we call it leadership development, but it’s not really leadership development. It’s more about you have to learn this culture. You have to learn my heart and my expectations for you. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — But I’ve also got to learn your story, and your passion, and your vision. Because I want us to walk away from this 12 weeks together, I want to walk away better prepared for a future together. And so as you’re walking this 12 weeks out with me, you’re you you know they’re serving everywhere in the church and serving in kids ministry one week and you know making coffee one week and all of the things. But what we’re learning in that season together is expectation. And you’re learning me and I’m learning you, but we’re putting expectation on what it takes to be a leader. And so as they finish this 12-week process with me, they then go into this pool of just to even be considered to be a leader in our church. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s interesting.Jamie Barfield — So everybody that’s ever been a leader in our church, before they ever get to a leadership role, they’re a part of this pool because they’ve been through this 12-week journey with me. And I’m there with these people every step along the way, because again, I’ve seen it done so poorly that I just wanted to make sure that my fingerprint was upon leaders and volunteers in such a way. Rich Birch — That’s cool.Jamie Barfield — You know, there’s again, go back to a parable of Jesus, you know, the sower and the seed, you know, there’s this, there’s this principle of where you sow, if you sow in good soil, that it’s going to produce a good fruit. And so these people that are, that are, have a passion for the kingdom of God and want to do something great for the kingdom of God, those are the people that I want to invest my time, effort, and energy into because those are the people that are going to produce the, the largest or most productive harvest.Rich Birch — Okay. I want to double click on this. Jamie Barfield — For sure. Rich Birch — There’s a ah bunch there that I want to unpack… Jamie Barfield — For sure. Rich Birch — …which is fantastic. So how, so how do you identify or how does your team identify people that land in this 12 weeks? And then I’d love to talk a little bit about, you know, the, actually the mechanics of it what’s going on in those 12 weeks.Jamie Barfield — They have to be recommended by a leader in our church.Rich Birch — Okay.Jamie Barfield — It’s the only way to join the 12-week journey.Rich Birch — Okay.Jamie Barfield — So a leader in our church sees them, watches them serve or whatever inside of the church, and then they recommend them to my assistant, and we we start the journey with them.Rich Birch — Okay. And those, is it like you run it in like a couple of seasons during the year? It’s a class and like a cohort matter. What’s the content? Just give us a ah a bit of, you know, a bit more about that.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, we do we do two… Yeah, we do two semesters of it. So twice a year we run it. And it is ah one night a week. We meet at the church. We go through ah hour, hour and a half you know class type setting with constant homework through the week. And homework looks as simple as, you know, we we read the book, Andy Stanley, Next Generation Leader. We read through that together.Jamie Barfield — Homework is serving assignments on Sunday. Homework is cleaning the church. You know, little things like that that just creates this culture, this this servanthood inside of them. So once ah once a week, we’re here at the church learning together. But then through the week, we’re constantly um connected and, um you know, again, working, efforting to to sharpen them through the 12 weeks.Rich Birch — That’s cool. And you know you mentioned it multiple times. So you’ve really kept ownership of this group. They’re meeting with you. That I want to underline for folks that are listening in.Jamie Barfield — Yeah.Rich Birch — You know, your church you said is 2,500 people. There’s a lot of pastors of a church of 2,500 that would say, hey, I don’t have time to meet with this. Kind of unpack that a little bit more. I know you mentioned this already, but I want to kind of unpack what what are you thinking about there? What’s the advantage? How far does that scale, you think?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, I am a huge advocate of whatever it is that you do, whatever’s on your plate. There’s some things that you have to do as a pastor or as a leader. And leadership development ought to be something that you have your fingerprint on. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Jamie Barfield — Whether it’s [inaudible] as much as mine is or whether it’s just, hey, I’m creating class and I’m stepping in every now and then, but somewhere, somehow, you have to be touching your leaders in the church and they have to know your heart. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — Whenever they go away from this class and they’re serving wherever, and maybe even they’re on a campus or doing whatever they’re doing, when they walk away from me, they know me, they know my heart, they know my, my expectations.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so I don’t have to go into, you know, seasons and step into kids ministry and try to put out fires and fix problems because they know me from the start before they ever get involved in certain ministries. They already know me and already know my heart. And so it just makes the the family community atmosphere of the church healthier…Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — …because from from birth, this is from birth. This isn’t something that we’re trying to teach on the run. This is something we teach from birth to through the process. And then whenever they launch into whatever ministry they um lead or or serve in they already have all the foundational principles, all the pillars are built.Rich Birch — That’s interesting. I love it. That’s, that’s great to learn more about. Talk to me about an expectation that ah that you have of your leaders that might be a little bit different. That might be like, oh, hey, it’s, you know, kind of in the secret sauce category that you’re like, hey, this is a part of what God’s using when, you know, hey, if you’re leading here, this is what we want you to be like, or something activity or something like that.Jamie Barfield — Yeah. So so for instance, servanthood is something that I’m very passionate about. I am a servant. I expect leaders here at this church to be servants. I think Jesus is the greatest leader of all time, and he was a servant leader. It’s who he was. It was a part of his you know, character. And so, so servanthood is something that we, my wife and I portray to our leadership. And then we give expectation that this is what we expect from leaders inside of our church and throughout every department of our church.Jamie Barfield — I think that is, that is, you know, something as simple as when you see some trash in the parking lot, as you’re walking up, you pick it up. All the way to when we’re having church events here, my wife and I are the last ones to eat. We’re not first in line. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — We’re making sure everybody else is served because we want we want to make sure that we are servant leaders inside of our our team.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So I’d love to know, you guys have launched multiple locations, obviously multiple services within that. Multiplication is, to me, is a sign that you’re developing leaders. There’s something good happening on that front. You can’t do that unless you, you know, have multiplied leaders. Talk us through some of the lessons you’ve learned around multiplication as it relates to leadership development and how that all works together.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, I will say that good leaders multiply themselves, but so do bad leaders. Rich Birch — Oh gosh, that’s true. Oh man.Jamie Barfield — And so that’s and so that’s that that’s that’s dangerous as well. Rich Birch — Yes. Jamie Barfield — And so as as we multiplied, you know, from multiple services to, you know, multiple campuses and all the things that come with multiplication, as we have walked through the seasons of multiplication, we’ve always identified early the needs that were going to be present and tried our best to make an effort to make them not as painful as they could have been if we wouldn’t have identified them.Jamie Barfield — And so something as simple as you know whenever we you know we were talking about launching multiple services, when when we launched into multiple times, we’ve launched into multiple services and been able to you know, through growth, knock out walls and go back to one and then we’re at two and then we’re at three, knock out a wall, back to one, two, three. And then right at COVID, we were doing four. But the the healthiest way that we ever launched a service was we did a 8 a.m. and a 10 a.m. The 8 a.m. was for volunteers only. So it was kids’ workers. It was, you know, we did, but did we did a full service. We did the band. We did I did my full sermon. It was volunteers only, but you’re welcome to come. Rich Birch — Right. Jamie Barfield — But this is strictly, you know, we’re focusing on volunteers. But then whenever we launched into two, as that second service filled up, we launched into two. We completely changed service times. What was a 10 a.m. service, now we went to 9 and 11. So then everybody was forced and instead instead of saying, oh, well, this is my service time. Now everybody was forced to choose a different service time. Rich Birch — Right.Jamie Barfield — So the 8 a.m. people we you know went to the 9 a.m., obviously, and the 10 a.m. people had to choose, do I want to get up an hour early or do I want to come an hour later? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so it was almost it was actually a 45 to 65 percent split whenever we went to the 9 and the 11. So it was the healthiest way we had ever done it, so incredibly beautiful.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And so just, you know, if somebody’s watching this and they’re looking to go to two services, I would suggest have a volunteer service, go all in because that starts training your your band to do two services. It starts training your volunteers of what time they’d have to get there to be able to do multiple things. It kind of creates that buffer of a tension point in the future and being able to look look in advance to say, hey, let me let me work some of these issues out before we get there.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. um Kind of related to that, I feel like this is the year of like the three service questions, third service questions. Like I’ve had so many people in this last year reach out to me. I’ve written, I think three or four blog posts, probably 10,000 words on different stuff I’ve learned um about this because it’s like just keeps coming up. Like even today, literally today, I got an email about it this morning.Rich Birch — So talk me through what what you’ve done at Palmetto Pointe around identifying when we pull the trigger for more services. Is that what mix of that is like opportunistic—we’re creating new space—or it’s reactive, like which of how much of it’s proactive, reactive? And how do you, you know, your church is growing, you’re growing quickly. How do you, how do you keep a far enough ahead? Cause you can’t just decide, Hey, we’re going to do new services. You got to do planning to make it all happen. Talk us through what’s that look like? How are you kind of the, how, how do we know how to identify when we pull the trigger? That sort of thing. Talk us through what that looks like.Jamie Barfield — Yeah, reactive is terrible. I’ve done it twice. Reactive to, oh no, you know the parking lot’s full. Let’s plan a second service. You know, hat’s terribly difficult. You know, the proactive approach of, I see growth, here goes what, you know, we’re already talking about Easter next year, okay? Here goes how many people are gonna show up. How many services do we need for Easter? And then how much did we grow last year for Easter? So if those people come back, what can they expect the next week?Jamie Barfield — And so for me, it becomes, opportunistic, yes. Launching multiple services are going to help your church grow. But as you’re launching multiple services, the growth versus the attrition, how is this going to wear your team out? Is this going to wear your staff out? Is this going to wear your band out or your kids’ ministry workers out? And that balance of, okay, at what point do you press forward and what at what point do you pump the gas or pump the brakes? Jamie Barfield — And so I would just say for us, what we learned through this journey is, you know we want to make sure that when we launch into a another service that there’s a core group of people that are going to be a part of that service. I need you to I need you to say for nine months you’re going to be a part of this service and this is your thing.Jamie Barfield — And so when we launch into another service, we’re going to make sure that this group of people wants to be there, and this is their church and their service. And then for us, we’re going to make sure that we have a completely different staffed kids’ ministry, completely different group, so we’re not wearing out the already wore-out volunteers of kids’ ministry.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And depending on the time slot, we’ve we’ve tried three different time slots for our third service, but depending on the time slot we choose, it potentially may be a completely different band as well. Maybe the same worship leader, but a completely different band. Because those are the really the two areas, kids ministry and band and the staff. Those are the three areas that are really going to wear you out with multiple services.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s some really clear thinking there around that. Really appreciate that. You know, at 31%, if you continue to grow, I know you know this, you know, that’s like just less than two and a half years, you’ll end up doubling. Jamie Barfield — Right. Rich Birch — So you’ll be a church of 5,000 if you continue at this rate.Jamie Barfield — Crazy.Rich Birch — And that that becomes difficult to stay in front of. You know, I’ve led in churches that are growing at that rate. And it’s it’s hard to to keep the skis out in front, you know, keep things moving in the right direction.Rich Birch — Let’s pivot in a totally different direction. I want to take advantage of the fact that you’re a district overseer, in your movement. From your perspective, from your vantage point, what are you seeing across the church these days as it comes to growth and and challenges? And kind of what are you learning as you’re in that kind of coach seat?Rich Birch — I’m taking advantage of the fact that you’re coaching other leaders.Jamie Barfield — I actually love that you asked me this question because I was talking with a guy yesterday, and we were talking about how smaller churches specifically, those pastors are really struggling with grasping what their expectations of congregants are, and what the congregants’ expectations of the church should be.Jamie Barfield — We as small you know smaller church pastors specifically, but we expect them to show up and to give and to serve and to connect, but they don’t have those same expectations on their life. So 30, 40 years ago, those were the expectations of a church attender.Rich Birch — Right.Jamie Barfield — Now they’re not.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Jamie Barfield — And so we have these unrealistic expectations that are creating frustrations from the pulpit to the pew. And I think it’s it’s creating this disconnect, or or honestly, I’ve seen some pastors even preach maybe very angry towards their congregation because of the unrealistic expectations placed upon those people. And so I would say maybe just to the smaller church pastor, which again is 80% of America, you know…Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yep.Jamie Barfield — …those those guys listening to this, maybe be more understanding of how life has changed in the last 30 or 40 years. I’m not saying lower our standards of righteousness or scriptural truth, but understand that travel ball is a thing and it’s always going to be a thing. And you know, school plays and you know, families going on vacation. Rich Birch — Right.Jamie Barfield — Man, we celebrate when families go on vacation. I’m not mad at you for taking a vacation because I want a vacation, you know? Rich Birch — Yes.Jamie Barfield — And so we celebrate when families go on vacation. So just creating realistic expectations for the congregation rather than what the, what the expectations were 30 or 40 years ago.Rich Birch — That’s good. I like that. You know understanding where people are are today and not you know not overburdening them with ah a previous model. I think that’s a really good word for sure. How can we think about that same pastor that maybe sees that frustration and and takes the, you know, the pastoral word of like, yes, I’m not going to exacerbate my people, but I want to help clearly articulate. I kind of want to point to a brighter future for them. Jamie Barfield — For sure.Rich Birch — How do I what what would you suggest to them? How do you how should we do that? Jamie Barfield — Well, first off, I would say one of the things that I see giving life to pastors is them connecting with other pastors. Rich Birch — So true.Jamie Barfield — I would just encourage a pastor watching this to make sure that he has or she has somebody in their life that’s outside of the bubble of their own church that may be going through something similar to their to what they’re going through.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — And I just think pastors encouraging pastors. We’re on the same team. We’re in this together. Pastors, encouraging pastors. I love what you do here where you celebrate ministries and what they’re doing. I just see that giving such life to um to other pastors that are discouraged and frustrated and aggravated. So I would start there. I would say, man, pastors, find another pastor and speak life into them.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — Maybe maybe the second thing I would say is you know maybe maybe an encouragement to, you know, to pastors who have wanted to try something new and try something different. Maybe just an encouragement to you know and to to do it, man. Just do it. Just try it.Rich Birch — Give it a try.Jamie Barfield — See what happens. Throw spaghetti up against the wall and see what sticks.Rich Birch — You get a lot of grace from most, I think most of the people in our churches, we have the the negative voice person in our head, the person that like doesn’t love what we do and is like a complainer or whatever, but that’s like a rare minority in most churches. Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like most of the people in the church are cheering for the pastor, cheering for the leaders… Jamie Barfield — That’s right. Rich Birch — …and are like, man, I love that guy. I love that girl. And if you were to say, Hey, I’d love us to try this thing. It’s just a test. Let’s see what happens. Most people would be like, let’s do it, you know, and, and I, you know, that’ll be fine. And if it goes bad, then don’t take yourself too serious and say, well, we tried that. That didn’t work. And that’s okay. um Yeah, that’s good. I love that. That’s a great word for sure.Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Agree. Agree completely. Agree completely.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, just as we’re kind of landing today’s episode, any final words as we think about for people that are listening in about, you know, what you’ve learned through the years? I love the mindset stuff we’ve been talking about and just this whole area of like our our you know our approach to scarcity, how that works. But anything else you’d love us to think about today as we’re hanging up today?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, yeah um maybe maybe maybe just to um to the guys that are feeling guys and gals that are feeling stuck, um you know maybe maybe short on everything. Lack is a big thing. Here goes here would be my encouragement. Make every Sunday amazing the best you can, but pick one day and throw all of your energy towards that one day. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jamie Barfield — Maybe it’s Christmas Eve service coming up, or maybe it’s an Easter service or Mother’s Day or, you know, a manufactured big day, ah you know, a back to church Sunday or something of that nature. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jamie Barfield — Pick a day and throw all of your energy towards that one day. Pick a person and start investing in a person. You may not be able to do a leadership development process, but pick a person and start investing your life into that person.Rich Birch — Dude, that’s so good.Jamie Barfield — Pick one event in the community and just show up for it. Just you know wear a church shirt and show up for the event and shake hands and hug necks and tell everybody, hey, you know. Pick one area of ministry and you know you know go go to your kids’ ministry and say, how can I make this better? You don’t have to fix it all right now. Rich Birch — That’s so good.Jamie Barfield — You don’t have to you don’t have to be great at everything right now. You don’t have to have the most amazing, you know, Mother’s Day yet. But man, you can find one thing and just start focusing on something. And I think this is where that mindset of there’s more out there. I’m going to focus on something and make this one thing that God has put in my hand. I’m going to make this thing better.Rich Birch — Dude, that is such good advice. You know, don’t drown in the all the things you wish you could do. Pick one thing and just do it. I love that. Jamie Barfield — Pick one thing and do it.Rich Birch — A friend of mine was a church planter and i was like, I think it was either the first or second Easter they did they went all in on the like Easter egg drop, which I know lots of people have done. But it was a smash success for them. They, you know, it was like five times their normal attendance. It was fantastic. The local news showed up. It was, and it gave, man, it breathed energy into the church for months. Jamie Barfield — Yes. Yes.Rich Birch — Like they lived off of that because it was like, hey, that was a win. Yeah, that’s, that’s so good. Well, this has been a great conversation today. Rich Birch — I love talking to church planters. You know, I was recently with a leader of a church. We were walking around his facility and their buildings about 250,000 square feet, giant building. And he was talking about himself as a church planter. He was like, you know, referring to that. Rich Birch — And and I joked with him. I said, well, at what point do you stop being a church planter? Like when you, you know, when you you just are doing a $20 million dollars building or whatever, I think, you know, somewhere along the line. But he’s like, no, once a church planter, always a church planter. We’re always, ah you know, the same thing. So I’ve really appreciated this similar conversation today.Jamie Barfield — That’s exactly right. Rich Birch — Jamie, if people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online?Jamie Barfield — Yeah, palmettopointechurch.com, it’s all over social media.Rich Birch — Perfect.Jamie Barfield — pastorjamieb, all of all of the social media handles are that. Love to connect with them…Rich Birch — That’s great.Jamie Barfield — …palmettopointechurch.com, I’d love to connect. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Jamie. Really appreciate you being here today, sir.Jamie Barfield — Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Hour 1 – The Drive opened the show explaining how the two thoughts around the Chiefs are; the end of a dynasty or don't let this team get hot.

Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Virginia Prodan #Podcast. Topic : Christian Persecution with Jenny Nohelty - our guest. Jennifer will talk about the event in Washington DC at the Museum of the Bible on 12/4/2025 - as #WashingtonPolicyInstitute is presenting #PersecutedandPrevailing #ChristianPersecution. For Tickets to the event go to: https://www.washingtonpolicyinstitute.org/events/persecuted-and-prevailing-addressing-christian-persecution-in-the-modern-world/ Jennifer Nohelty is serving as the Board Chair and CEO of the Washington Policy Institute, focusing on journalism accountability and upholding faith-based American values. Jennifer will talk about the event in Washington DC at the Museum of the Bible on 12/4/2025 - Persecuted & Prevailing - presented by Washington Policy Institute.  She has over 25 years of experience in the field, working with diverse families and organizations to align donor goals with impactful initiatives.  Board Member of the Quad City Planned Giving Council and National Christian Foundation Wisconsin. Jennifer has been working in planned giving for over 25 years, following in her father's footsteps as a gift planner and wanting to serve her donors, she worked with innumerable donors. Jennifer has been married to her best friend for 33 years and they have been blessed with 3 children – a daughter (who is married to her “favorite” son-in-law) and 2 sons, and 2 pretty incredible grand-daughters. Until recently Christian persecution rarely made makes the news and when it does, the media seems to gloss right over it.  President Trump is now putting the spotlight on the mass murders of Christians taking place in Nigeria.  "Nigeria is the most dangerous nation on Earth to follow Christ," according to the House Appropriations Committee said "For simply practicing their faith, Christians are actively being kidnapped, attacked and slaughtered. " It's estimated that as many as 8,000 Christians are murdered in Nigeria every year.  I experienced persecution.   I am Virginia Prodan—you host at Courageous Leadership with Virginia Prodan; an #international #humanrights #attorney, #keynote #speaker, #author of *Saving My Assassin*, and survivor of socialist Romania. I know firsthand the price of freedom, the power of faith, and the courage it takes to stand for truth in the face of opposition. On this channel, you'll find weekly episodes that inspire and equip you to: - Strengthen your #Christian #faith and live with bold #courage - Defend #freedom and #values in an increasingly hostile culture - Learn powerful lessons from history—especially from life under socialism - Discover your God-given purpose and calling - Learn powerful lessons from history—especially from life under socialism - Lead with conviction at home, in the church, and in society.

We hope this message encourages and inspires you!Want more like this from CoastLife Church?YouTube: CoastLife Church - YouTubeFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/mycoastlifechurchInstagram: https://instagram.com/coastlifechurch...GIVE: https://www.mycoastlifechurch.com/giveLooking to get connected? We'd love to meet you! We offer several different ways to connect and be in community: Join a Together Group, Register for CoastLife+, or become a part of our Serve Team today by visiting: CoastLife Connect Card - CoastLife Church (churchcenter.com)Give: To support and be a part of or growth and global impact click here: https://www.mycoastlifechurch.com/give

On that day, the church below will join the song of the church above.Tuesday • 11/4/2025 •Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week After Pentecost (Proper 26) This morning's Scriptures are: Psalm 61; Psalm 62; Nehemiah 12:27–31a,42b–47; Revelation 11:1–19; Matthew 13:44–52 This morning's Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

10-29 David C. Japha Learn more about the interview and get additional links here: https://www.thetimesusa.com/attorney-fees-in-litigation-the-prevailing-party-fee-applications-and-strategy-part-2/ Subscribe to the best of our content here: https://priceofbusiness.substack.com/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCywgbHv7dpiBG2Qswr_ceEQ

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Sunday AM - 10.26.2025 - Pastor Jerry Rowley "Prevailing in perilous times" by GBFPC

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1 Samuel 1:1-18

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Buy Jesse's new book on Spiritual Warfare here: https://tanbooks.com/products/books/spiritual-warfare-q-and-a-for-priests-and-laity/ USE CODE NATHAN15 FOR 15% OFF ANYTHING AT TANBOOKS.COM Subscribe to our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@seekingexcellence_In this episode, Nathan Crankfield and Jesse Romero delve into the themes of spiritual warfare, the impact of Charlie Kirk's assassination, and the nature of evil. They discuss the importance of authority within the Church, the role of laypeople, and the necessity of evangelization in combating ignorance. The conversation also touches on the reality of hell and the theological implications of the Charismatic Renewal. Jesse emphasizes the need for resources to guide Catholics in understanding spiritual warfare and the tools available to them.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Welcome04:11 Spiritual Warfare and Cultural Impact08:47 Understanding Evil: Brainwashing vs. Choice13:48 The Role of Truth in Wickedness19:36 Charlie Kirk's Faith Journey24:56 Demonic Affliction and Spiritual Warfare30:13 The Concept of Invincible Ignorance32:45 The Importance of Evangelization37:40 The Role of Evangelization in the Church41:05 The Reality of Hell and Salvation45:01 The Balance of Authority in the Church53:52 Confronting Evil Within Ourselves

At today's Holy Communion service, Pastor Femi Paul shared a brief exhortation on The Communion of Prevailing Peace. He reminded us that the peace Jesus gives is not fragile or fleeting but powerful enough to overcome fear, opposition, and life's challenges. “Prevailing Peace” is God's gift that steadies the heart, keeps us calm, and empowers us to triumph through Divine Strength & Superiority! Just as Jesus declared to His disciples, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19–21), we too can walk in peace that prevails in all circumstances and brings divinely orchestrated victories. As we shared the body and the blood, we received not only a reminder of Christ's sacrifice but also His enduring promise of peace that secures our hearts and minds.

Prevailing Prayers by Word Mission Church International

Prevailing Prayers 2 by Word Mission Church International

This week, Dudley brings us his Monthly Message, The Prevailing Word, from Acts 19, a chapter filled with extraordinary miracles and the reality of spiritual conflict. In it, he walks us through the dramatic story of the Seven Sons of Sceva, offering clear insight into spiritual warfare explained through Scripture. We see how the power of Jesus' name cannot be borrowed or imitated—it must be lived through faith.Dudley also reflects on how the Word of God “prevailed” in Ephesus, transforming lives, leading to repentance, and even sparking a bonfire of sorcery books. This Bible study reminds us that our work in Christ matters, that every act of love pushes back darkness, and that the same Spirit who moved in Acts still empowers the church today.Get Dudley's Weekly Word delivered right to your inbox every Friday! Click here to get access ➡️ https://dudleysweeklyword.com/opt-inFor more information and resources, visit https://kerygmaventures.com/podcast/ Follow and subscribe:Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/41N9SAP Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3LEIxeo YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kerygmaventures Watch our "Conversations At The Ranch" series: https://bit.ly/conversations-at-the-ranch Watch our “Dudley's Monthly Message” series: https://bit.ly/dudleys-monthly-message 

A new MP3 sermon from The Narrated Puritan is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The All Prevailing Plea Subtitle: Spurgeon's Prayers Personal Speaker: C. H. Spurgeon Broadcaster: The Narrated Puritan Event: Audiobook Date: 8/28/2025 Length: 9 min.

A new MP3 sermon from The Narrated Puritan is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The All Prevailing Plea Subtitle: Spurgeon's Prayers Personal Speaker: C. H. Spurgeon Broadcaster: The Narrated Puritan Event: Audiobook Date: 8/28/2025 Length: 9 min.

Restore My Soul - Prevailing Over Psychological Warfare - Live from ATL - Bishop Kevin Foreman

Restore My Soul - Prevailing Over Psychological Warfare - Bishop Kevin Foreman

On today's ID the Future, Science After Babel author David Berlinski continues discussing his newly released book from Discovery Institute Press. In this conversation with host Andrew McDiarmid, Berlinski explores a chicken-and-egg problem facing origin-of-life research, a blindness afflicting some evolutionists focused on human origins, and the mystery of why science almost flowered in ancient Greece, early Medieval China, and in the Muslim-Arab Medieval Empire, but did not, having to await the scientific revolution that swept through Europe beginning in the sixteenth century. Check out the endorsements and get your copy, paperback or e-book, at scienceafterbabel.com. Source

Send us a textSupport the showThank you for joining me! I pray these message enhance your walk with the Lord.

In this episode of the NPZ Law Show, Snehal Batra, Managing Attorney at NPZ's Raritan, NJ office, breaks down an important update for entrepreneurs and startup founders:Can you self-sponsor your own H-1B visa through your own company?Thanks to the H-1B Modernization Rules of January 2025, the answer is yes—with strict requirements.Snehal outlines everything you need to know about the self-sponsored H-1B, including:-What kind of business structure qualifies-Why sole proprietors are not eligible-Employer-employee relationship documentation-Performance of specialty occupation job duties majority of time -Prevailing wage obligations-The role of business plans and financial projections-How to use a concurrent part-time H-1B to transition safelyWhether you're on OPT, an H-1B holder planning a move, or an aspiring founder in the lottery process, this episode provides vital guidance on how to legally and strategically sponsor yourself.For more help, visit www.visaserve.com or call 201-670-0006.

Health issues for many with the smoke filled air around CCO Land. More from WCCO Chief Meteorologist Chris Shaffer on the WCCO Morning News

Tune into Pastor Andrew's message as he concludes the "316 series," exploring the most important gift God has given us: the name of Jesus Christ. This episode unpacks the power, access, and authority held within this single name, demonstrating its significance in every realm. Drawing from Acts chapter 3, Pastor Andrew highlights the first miracle performed post-ascension, where Peter and John heal a lame man in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Discover how this name grants believers ultimate access to the Father—acting as a "master key" that simplifies reaching God, unlike various complicated methods. Learn that the name of Jesus provides all authority, prevailing over heaven, earth, and under the earth, impacting jobs, families, friendships, and even terminal illnesses, as God has "given him the name which is above every name" (Philippians 2:9-11). Pastor Andrew challenges listeners to utilize this gift, reminding them that "whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you" (John 15:16). He illustrates how miracles, healing, and deliverance flow through the use of His name (Mark 9:39, Mark 16:17-18), and how salvation offers a reconnection to the Father—a finished work received by believing and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. This powerful message emphasizes that your identity in Christ, combined with the master key of Jesus' name, provides everything you need to navigate life effectively.

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/orokpomichaelYoutube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ApostleOrokpoMichael

This week's interview wasn't initially intended for the podcast and wasn't recorded that way (Brewing Industry Guide subscribers read it last month (https://brewingindustryguide.com/expanded-qa-lester-jones/)), but the topics are salient and the audio listenable, so we thought it would be an interesting change of pace. Lester Jones is the VP of Analytics and Chief Economist for the National Beer Wholesalers Association, and has some pretty deep data-driven insight into what is reality and what is just vibes in today's world of beer sales which he shares in this conversation. Throughout, we try to unpack what's actually going on, comparing anecdotal experience to real sales data, for a more accurate picture of the opportunities and challenges in today's beer world. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For years G&D Chillers has chilled the beers you love, partnering with 3,000+ breweries across North America and beyond. With our 24/7 service and support, your brewery will never stop. Remote monitor your chiller for simple and fast access to all the information you need, and gain peace of mind your operation is running smoothly. Berkeley Yeast (https://berkeleyyeast.com). Berkeley Yeast bioengineers ordinary strains and make them extraordinary—enhancing the flavors you want and eliminating the ones you don't. Visit berkeleyyeast.com to learn more and start brewing with science on your side. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): As breweries expand beyond beer into other segments like mocktails and CBD beverages, Old Orchard is here to help. We can formulate custom blends featuring specialty ingredients. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer. Indie Hops (https://indiehops.com) Lórien seamlessly combines traditional elements of European noble hops with an elegant twang of American modernity. Learn more about Lórien and the rest of Indie's varieties at www.indiehops.com. Indie Hops — Life is short. Let's make it flavorful. XTRATUF (https://xtratuf.com) XTRATUF has been making rugged and reliable boots for 75 years. Built for the harshest conditions, the Legacy Collection styles are oil, acid, and chemical resistant with a non-slip rated outsole. Be prepared for whatever comes your way and shop the latest XTRATUF boots on xtratuf.com. Veterans Blend from Yakima Chief Hops (https://www.yakimachief.com) The 8th Annual Veterans Blend from Yakima Chief Hop is available through pre-order! $1 from every pound sold of Veterans Blend will be donated to this year's non-profit Soldier's Angels. Plan ahead and place your Veterans Blend pre-order with Yakima Chief Hops at yakimachief.com. Brewery Workshop (https://breweryworkshop.com) If you're launching a brewery or acquiring an existing one, consider our brewery workshop and new brewery accelerator, September 14 through 17th in Fort Collins, Colorado. Over four days, we engage in panel discussions, technical brewery tours, networking, and small working group sessions that help you better understand and prepare for the challenges of brewery operation. Tickets are on sale now.

The Prevailing Promises of God (broadcast date: 07/13/2025)

A new MP3 sermon from The Narrated Puritan is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: What Should He Do Who Finds Himself Under A Prevailing Sin? Subtitle: Cases of Conscience - Owen Speaker: John Owen Broadcaster: The Narrated Puritan Event: Sunday Service Date: 7/9/2025 Length: 5 min.

Case 10 When a person is faced with the danger of sin, the next step is to burden their conscience with the guilt of it. The truth is, our minds are often slow to comprehend the danger of sin due to various reasons, and our consciences are reluctant to bear the weight of its guilt. I am not referring to individuals with hardened consciences, who feel no guilt no matter how much is placed upon them, but even the consciences of reformed individuals.

Psalm 90,Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.3 You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning:6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.7 For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh.10 The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.11 Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.16 Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! Admiral Jim Stockdale was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the Navy — some of you have heard of him before. He was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War and he's most famous for an ordeal that began on September 9, 1965. He took off in his A-4 Skyhawk for a normal mission, but this time, on his way back, he got shot down, ejected from his plane, and landed in a village where he was captured by the enemy. They held him as a prisoner of war from 1965 to 1973 — he was kept in solitary confinement for four years, in leg irons for two years, and he was physically tortured at least 15 times.And he survived. He was later released and obviously everybody was fascinated by his story. Stockdale wrote a couple of books about his experience, but he was made most popular by a business book that includes an interview with him. In that book, the author asked him, How'd you do it? How'd you make it through that time?And Stockdale said here's the key:“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end […] with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality […].”In other words, you must hold together brutal facts and prevailing hope. This has become known as the “Stockdale Paradox” — or we could just call it the message of Psalm 90.Stockdale's answer is what we find in this psalm, which is relevant to all of us, because Psalm 90 is about life in a fallen world. The question behind this psalm is: How do you make it here? How do you do really live in this world? — that's the question. Anybody interested in that?! And this psalm shows us how in two parts: Verses 1–11 is You face the brutal facts.Verses 12–17 is You remember our prevailing hope.That's what we're gonna look at this morning. Father in heaven, thank you for your ancient words! And thank you for your Holy Spirit who is with us now. Speak to us, this morning, we pray, in Jesus's name, amen. Facing the Brutal Facts (verses 1–11)There are at least three ‘brutal' facts here, and as we look at them, I want us to think of these as facts that we would tell ourselves. So I'm gonna say them as things that you would say to yourself — #1 is this … if you want to make it in this world, face the fact that…1. God is God.Psalm 90 starts here:“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.”Verse 1 shows us right away that Moses is looking up! He starts with “Lord, you” — which means he's reading his situation in light of the Lord. This is a prayer of faith. And so whatever else he might say in this psalm, we know first that he's saying it to God — he's bringing it to God. And he knows God. Verse 2:“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”God is God. And God didn't just start to be God yesterday, but he has always been God. He was God before there was anything else. Before the mountains of the earth — before even the earth itself — God was who he is. He's bigger than us; he's older than us, and he's in control. We don't need to say anything about ourselves until we first understand this: It's not our world that God is part of, but it's his world that we're part of it. It's not that we fit him into our plans, but we exist for his purposes. It's not our story that he serves, but it's his story that we find ourselves in.So before you get stuck in your own head — or if you need to get unstuck — remind yourself that God is God. I think Psalm 90:2 is a great verse to memorize. It's the foundational, barest fact of all facts. God is God!We start there. We say that to ourselves. And then, soon enough, we get to ourselves and we realize that if God is God, we are not God. We are creatures. We are created. We're made. We are not from everlasting to everlasting, but instead we're time-bound.One of the interesting things of this psalm is the prevalence of time language. Just listen to all these words used: Generations, years, morning, evening, days. These words show up 15 different times in 17 verses. And what they're doing is they're forming the confines in which we live. When it comes to us, there's a beginning and an end to our lives here …And that brings us to the second brutal fact. Face the fact that…2. You will die. This is where Moses goes next, in verse 3. He's says to God, You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”And this sounds like Genesis 3:19. The mention of dust alongside the allusion to death takes us back to the Garden of Eden and the curse of sin, and that helps make sense of Moses as the author of this psalm. Moses, perhaps more than anybody, was well acquainted with the brutal facts of the human condition. He wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, including this quote from Genesis — so he knew the story well! He knew everything from the creation of man to the fall of man to how the reality of sin played itself out in the idolatry and rebellion of the people of Israel. Moses wrote the origin story, and he had a front row seat to its implications.And Moses knew that death was the consequence of sin.That's something we don't tend to think about. We know death is certain, but we don't usually connect it to the curse. We don't think when someone dies: This person died because of God's judgment on sin. But that's where Moses goes! Look at verse 7:“For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”Verse 11:“Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?”Moses connects the dots between God's judgment and death, and he leads us to do the same. That's the point of this rhetorical question in verse 11. He says Consider this! Think about this — because you probably haven't!Do you realize how effective God's curse on sin has been? God meant what he said when he told Adam in Genesis 2:17,“You shall surely die.”And for thousands of years, for billions and billions of people — for 110 people around the world every minute of every day — God has proven what he said. Every funeral you ever been to. Every loss in your life. Every graveyard you see with rows and rows of tombstones. They all testify to at least one fact: death is the curse of sin that God said it would be — Genesis 3:19, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That is the only reason people die! Because God said that's what sin would bring. Because that's the judgment of God that sin would cost — God has never stopped paying that out. There is no escape.And for most of history, humans have been more in touch with their mortality than we are today.Today, as a society at large, we prefer to distract ourselves from it or numb ourselves to it. But that wasn't the case even 100 years ago.This Spring, Melissa and I were looking around at an antique shop, and I found this old framed print called “The Ages of Man.” It's an illustration of a man in eleven stages of life. At the center of it, there's the Garden of Eden and Adam eating the fruit — the fall of man which brought the curse — and then over to the left there's a stair climb up to a peak, and then a decline — it's goes up and then down, from cradle to grave. It's a visual reminder that you're gonna die.So I bought it … and brought it home, and put it in my study. And as I researched it, come to find out, there were countless prints like this, or iterations of it, that started circulating in the 16th century in the Western world. This particular one was published in 1906, but there are thousands and thousands of them in several different languages, and people used to have these prints hanging up in their homes and they'd see it everyday. We can hardly even think about our mortality. But brothers and sisters, friends, Psalm 90 is clear. You're going to die. Face it. Now to #3 … if you want to make it in this world, face the fact that…3. Life is hard. In case you thought death was the worst part, think again. The worst part, the brutalist fact, is that life is hard. And it's hard in part because it's so brief. That's the real contrast between God and us in Psalm 90. He is from everlasting to everlasting, and us … well … we get swept away with the rain. We're like a dream. We're like grass that's renewed in the morning, but then by evening, it's gone. Verse 9: our years come to an end like a sigh. Sigh — and we're gone.To really bring this point down for us, Moses gives a number in verse 10: Seventy years. That's the average. And this is fascinating. Think about this. Moses wrote this thousands of years ago — and there are different life expectancies in different parts of the world and there's been a little variance the past 200 years, but, altogether, 70 is about the average! Moses is right, and he's been right for a long time. Now, for some, Moses says, you might get to eighty. But you're talking that's an elite league.But 70–80 has been the standard life expectancy for most of human history — that's fascinating. Back before the flood, people lived a lot longer (I think that's the reference in verse 4). Kenan lived 910 years; Methuselah lived 969 years — that's a good run, but even that is like nothing before God. Methuselah's life to God is like yesterday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon! — that's a thousand years to God, so what about for 80 years? 70? Your life?It's a passing shadow. A vapor. And of that little vapor, that teeny little span, verse 10 says, is “but toil and trouble.”Wait, are we in Ecclesiastes? This sounds like Job on the worst day of his life (see Job 14:1–2)!No, we're in the psalms, and Psalm 90 is true. In that illustration of the stages of life — that picture now in my study — there's a caption beneath each decade that describes the decade, and the older the man gets, the bleaker the caption is (I had to use Google translate because it's in Swedish). But the caption under age 90 says, “At 90 years old, lame and bent, he has lost all memory of the joys of life.”It's kinda sad, but it's true to life under the curse. It's Psalm 90. And we need it. Now, of course, we can push back on all of this with some legitimate “whattabouts” — Whattabout this? Whattabout that? There are many blessings in this life! God's mercy is more! Amen! … but through verse 11, we need to hear Psalm 90 as it is. We find here the brutal facts about life in this world:God is God (not you).You're going to die.The brief time you have here is hard. Stockdale would say you gotta face the facts. Hold it here.But that's not the ending. Brutal facts are met with prevailing hope, and we find that in verse 12–17. Remember Our Prevailing Hope (verses 12–17)Verses 12–17 are six verses of petitions. Each verse is Moses asking God to do something surrounded by the background of these brutal facts. And we see two things here about hope.First, we see what hope does. How it drives Moses to pray a certain way.But secondly, and I think most important, we need to know what the hope actually is.We'll start with the is.What Hope IsIt's verses 13–14, and these are two verses I want to make sure you see. So everybody, do what you can to look at verse 13. Find verse 13.Moses prays: “13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”And the keyword here is “morning” in verse 14. It's the third time it's used in the psalm. Before I explain it, let me tell you first how I've always read this verse: I've understood it to mean that the way to rejoice and be glad all your days is to start each day, to spend each morning, getting your heart happy in Jesus.Meditate on the word of God, remember the love of God — private worship every morning. If you do that every morning, your days will be glad.That's how I've read Psalm 90:14, and that's been my practice, and guess what? I think it's true!I encourage all of you to start each morning in the word of God — be satisfied with the steadfast love of God! And, at the same time, I don't think that's what this verse is saying … because the word “morning” here is not referring to the literal morning.When “morning” is used in verses 5–6, it's symbolic of the earlier years of a person's life — it's the ascending stairs. When “morning” is used here in verse 14, it's symbolic of the new day of resurrected life. It's the reality of God doing what Moses prays in verse 13. Return, God! Come back! Fulfill your promises! Restore your people! Make all things new!In other words, “morning” in verse 14 is talking about heaven — the eternal morning.Moses is saying: if we can be satisfied with God's steadfast love in heaven — if that's our future, if God does that — then all our days here, on the way to that future, can have joy and gladness. Because we know that whatever happens here, the best yet to come! Whatever happens here, the worst thing is never the last thing. We have a future! We have a future with God! That's our hope. That's what the “morning” is referring to, and this starts to make sense. The petitions here demand this.In verse 15, Moses prays,“Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us …”He's saying, For as much time as it's been hard here, give us that same amount of joy! But look, if life itself is hard, if all of life is “toil and trouble” (which is what verses 1–11 tell us) then verse 15 requires another life.Moses is asking for a new life — that's the hope of heaven. The prevailing hope of Psalm 90 is a new heavens and new earth where we will be with God, in his fullness of joy, where at his right hand are pleasures forevermore.That's what the hope is, and now what does the hope do?What Hope DoesTwo things: work and wisdom.First, the hope of heaven means our work matters.Verse 17, Moses says:“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!”Now this is saying a lot! It means that the brutal facts of verses 1–11 are not meant to make us despair, but to make us sober. The reality of our creatureliness, the certainty of death, the brevity and hardships of life — none of those things mean that life here has no meaning if heaven is real.If this world is all we have, then sure, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry — Blah to everything!” But if heaven is real, if we have a future with God, and our lives here are consequential to that future, then our work here matters. We have things to do, and we should do them. We plant and grow and harvest and share. We design and build and steward and multiply. We are blessed to bless, saved to serve, given to that we might give. And we should be steadfast in these things, immovable, always abounding in this work because we know that because heaven is real, our work here is not in vain (see 1 Corinthians 15:58).Our work matters.Second, the hope of heaven means we need wisdom.This is verse 12: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”Now, what I'm about to say is going to be so plain and simple you're gonna be like “Duh!” Here it is: If heaven is real, and your life here matters, then it's wise to know your life here is brief.This is starting with the end in mind. Start with heaven. That's our future, church. Jesus is real and he has gone to prepare a place for us, and he's going to come again and take us to himself that where he is we may be also. Jesus said that! Heaven is as real as Jesus is!And then, you mean to tell me that my life in this world has meaning for that?! My life has consequence for that? God can use my life here to impact heaven?Sign me up! — How much time do I have?!Not a lot of time. Limited time. Your days are numbered. Now what effect does that have? It gives us wisdom. It gives us wisdom to make the most of the time we have.I have another little framed picture in my study. Melissa's late grandmother gave it to me (and I think it also came from an antique shop). But it says, Just one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.Josiah Bennett exhorted us with these words a few weeks ago. This is how we want to live. It's how I'm trying to live!We recognize the brevity of life here, and we do it full of the hope of heaven, the realness of Jesus, at the center of our minds and hearts — hold those two things together … heaven is real and life here is short … wisdom!This is our prevailing hope: Heaven is real. So our work matters and we need wisdom. So says Moses in Psalm 90 … face the brutal facts; remember our prevailing hope — which is not just a strategy for survival, this is how we thrive. This is not merely about how to make it in this world, but it's how to have joy and gladness all our days even amid the sorrows.Father, would you do that?This now brings us to the Table.The TableOne thing I want to make clear this morning is that the hope that Moses talks about here, and our hope, is not abstract, but it's personal. There's no doubt in the Psalm, anytime there's language about God returning, or the restoration of God's people, it's always pointing to the Messiah. Jesus is the person of our hope. Jesus himself says, in Revelation 22,“I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16).He is the one we hope in. He is what makes heaven heaven. We look to him this morning, and I want to invite you to do that. If you've never put your faith in Jesus, you're stuck in verses 1–11. Without Jesus, there is no hope. But you can have hope this morning. Come to Jesus. Ask him to save you. Make Jesus your hope. And for those of us who have done that — if you've trusted in Jesus — at this table we remember him and give him thanks! We want his glory to be magnified.

In this sermon, Pastor Jonathan Parnell expounds upon Psalm 90. This psalm helps us understand how we can make it through a life in this fallen world. There's three brutal facts that we must face, and then that's met with our prevailing hope. It gives us a strategy for how to thrive with joy and gladness all our days even amid the sorrows.

Is it nothing to us that the greatest number of those who are called Christians, and enjoy prosperity in the world, do live in open idolatry, to the unspeakable scandal of Christian religion and imminent danger unto themselves of eternal ruin? — nothing that so many do openly renounce the humble, meek spirit of Christ and the gospel, endeavoring to persecute, ruin, and destroy other Christians, perhaps better than themselves, because they cannot captivate their souls and consciences in obedience unto their impositions?