Christ 2r Culture Podcast

Recently the heat went out on our Spencer campus. People came to church in winter clothes, boots, and mittens. The good news is that they came. What brought people to church was the relational warmth of the people, not the temperature warmth of the building. Would you rather attend a church with a warm building but cold people or a church with a cold building but warm people? Join us as we look at the relational warmth of the church and how it reveals the true state of our spiritual health.

n 1977, Maria Rubio of Lake Arthur New Mexico was assembling a burrito when she noticed the skillet marks on one of her tortillas resembled what she thought was the face of Jesus. Excited, she showed it to her husband and neighbors, who also thought the burn mark on the tortillas looked like Jesus. She went to the priest to have her tortilla blessed. The priest, who was not accustomed to blessing tortillas, reluctantly agreed to its blessing. Mrs. Rubio took the tortilla home and put it in a box on a pile of cotton. Mr. Rubio built a special altar for it and put it in a wooden utility shed in the backyard. The shine of Jesus of the tortilla was open for visitors. Within months more than 8,000 people came to visit the shine. In two years, 35,000 people had visited the shrine in the wooden tool shed in the Rubio’s backyard, all to see Jesus on a tortilla. People kept coming for 28 years. Then in 2005, Mrs. Rubio’s granddaughter took Jesus the tortilla to school for show-and-tell, there, the tortilla was dropped

What is the most valuable object on the planet? Is it the Mona Lisa? Is it the gold in Fort Knox? If a man is starving and within hours of death, none of the most priceless objects on the planet mean a thing. What he longs for are the essentials that keep us alive, food and water. When it comes to the Bible, we should not let our familiarity with the book cause us to underestimate the importance of the book. The Bible is like food and water. God uses it to create and sustain spiritual life. In this series, we discover the essentials for a healthy Christian life. Join us as we learn the importance of regular Bible study for a healthy Christian life.

Schools have adopted a new system of writing for children. It is called Inventive Spelling. Children are allowed to write words in any way that feels right to them. This is intended to help children feel good about themselves and build self-esteem. Is allowing encouraging children to do whatever feels right to them the right way to raise our children? Join me as we look at God’s instructions on how to raise children.

Queen Elizabeth died on September 8, 2022. She was the longest-reigning British monarch. An estimated 250,000 people visited her casket, and representatives from 168 countries attended her funeral. The queen’s funeral was the most-watched television event in the twenty-first century. It is an understatement to say the queen’s death was a big deal. As we finish 1 Samuel, we come to the death of King Saul. After a 40-year reign, his death led to a national crisis. Join us as we look at King Saul’s death and what we can learn about living and dying well.

Robert Robinson is the author of the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” After writing the hymn, he walked away from God. While traveling in his elderly years, he met a woman who was reading the hymn he wrote! When she asked him about the hymn, his eyes flooded with tears as he told her that he was the author but walked away from God. The young woman reassured him of God’s love for him, no matter what he had done. He turned his heart back to the Lord and was restored as a Christian. As we continue our study in 1 Samuel, we see how God’s grace restores backslidden David. God’s amazing grace is eager to restore any of us who have wandered away from Him.

We live in a world filled with fear. There is fear of war in Europe, fear of inflation, and fear of COVID. As we continue our study in 1 Samuel we see Saul lived his life and final days in fear. The good news is we do not need to be that way! Join us as we learn how to live life without fear.

In 2010, the journal of Cognitive Therapy and Research examined the way depression changes the decision-making process. The researchers concluded that the likelihood of someone making a poor decision increased with the number of depression symptoms one develops. As we return to 1 Samuel, we find David battling depression as he is exhausted after running from Saul for years. In desperation, he stops relying on God to protect him. He relies on himself and makes poor decisions. Join us as we learn what can happen in our life when we wander from God.

In 1914, Wrigley introduced Doublemint gum. The name came from chemists who realized a double distillation process improved the flavor. Just as doubling the flavoring process made gum better, in the Bible sometimes repeats similar stories to drive its point home. In 1 Samuel 26, David has another opportunity to take Saul’s life, but he again chooses to respect Saul instead of killing him. Join us as we find out why choosing not to take revenge a second time made things better.

The people we choose to surround ourselves with are some of the most significant decisions we make. “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future,” says motivational speaker Jim Rohn. A good Christian friend is better than a thousand followers on social media. As we continue our study in 1 Samuel, we find how God uses Christian friends that can speak candidly and lovingly to us when they see us making sinful or unwise choices.

In the movie The Straight Story, 73-year-old Alvin Straight from Laurens, Iowa, travels to Mt. Zion, Iowa, to mend a broken relationship with his 75-year-old brother Lyle from whom he was bitterly estranged. Alvin’s legs and eyes are too compromised for him to obtain a driver’s license, so he hitches a trailer to his used John Deere 110 tractor and sets off on the 240-mile six-week journey to restore the broken relationship with his brother while they are still alive. It is an amazing story of forgiveness and loving an enemy. 1 Samuel 24 is another story of the power of forgiveness as David finally has the chance to kill Saul. Instead of killing Saul, he chooses to love and forgive him. Join me as we learn the power of forgiving our enemies.

Have you played Nascondino? That is the Italian name for the game hide-and-seek. Italy hosts the hide-and-seek world championship on a large playground each summer in the city of Bergamo with 70 teams from 11 different countries. In the Bible, hide-and-seek is more than a game. For David, hide-and-seek was a life-and-death struggle as he ran from King Saul. Join us as we learn the good God intends in our life when we endure difficulty.

Bryan Brown is a Christian attorney who is licensed to practice law in Kansas and has been admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. His application to the Indiana Board of Law Examiners was denied based on his admitted adherence to God’s laws above human laws. He was required to receive a psychological assessment after they asked him about his views regarding the final judgment, sexual morality, and gender roles. The Letters of John remind us we should not be surprised when the spirit of the antichrist shows up around us and we are hated like Jesus. Join us in our study as we meet an Old Testament antichrist and learn how to avoid his seductive work to destroy God’s people.

In 1993 Harrison Ford starred in The Fugitive. In the movie, Harrison Ford played Dr. Richard Kimble, a man who was wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. He escaped from custody and put the U.S. Marshalls on a wild chase as he narrowly and often creatively slipped from the grasp again and again. As we continue our study in 1 Samuel, David has become a fugitive. He is on the run. He is also narrowly escaping attempts on his life. The stress of his world falling apart gets the better of him, and he starts relying on himself instead of turning to God for strength, wisdom, and rescue. Join us as we learn the danger of relying on ourselves instead of God and how to return to God after we have walked away from Him.

34-year-old Joaquin Romero was helping a woman get hooked to a zip-line platform when she started sliding out on the line. He grabbed her harness to stop her but couldn’t hold her back. Both slide to a position of about a hundred feet above the ground. Fearing the woman would fall because of his extra weight, he made the heroic decision to put her life before his own and let go, plunging to his death. In 1 Samuel 20, we meet Jonathan and learn how God used him when he put God’s plan to save David’s life in front of his own. We learn why God loves to use people who are willing to give up their own will to get behind God’s will for the future.

Cats are said to have nine lives for their uncanny ability to survive near-death circumstances. As we continue our study of David in 1 Samuel, we learn that David is like a cat. Saul couldn’t kill him, no matter how hard he tried! God helped David escape death more than nine times! Join us as we learn how God’s hand of protection works not just in David’s life but in our own.

The news is hard to watch. Politics and manipulation are everywhere we look. The Internet filters the news. The media spins the news. Underhanded schemes to smear political opponents surface all the time. This is nothing new. In 1 Samuel 18, we look at God’s involvement in politics and how God has a good plan that will succeed, no matter how hard people fight against it.

In 2015, Malcom Gladwell wrote his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. He claims David and Goliath is a lesson on how to handle obstacles, disadvantages, disabilities, and other setbacks in life. Is the story of David and Goliath nothing more than a lesson on how to face hard times and find victory when you are the underdog? Join us in this study as we learn what David and Goliath teach us about God and the confidence we can have in him.

Have you noticed something is terribly wrong in the world? The evening news is a constant stream of world horrors ranging from wars to school shootings. There is suffering, death, sickness, deception, outright lying, and evil everywhere we look. People are popping Prozac like Tic Tacs just to deal with it. What has gone wrong? In this study, we look at the many ways sin shows up in our lives and the bad excuses we use to justify our sin. It will all help us understand why Jesus can be the only answer to the problem of sin.

Have you noticed something is terribly wrong in the world? The evening news is a constant stream of world horrors ranging from wars to school shootings. There is suffering, death, sickness, deception, outright lying, and evil everywhere we look. People are popping Prozac like Tic Tacs just to deal with it. What has gone wrong? In this study, we look at the many ways sin shows up in our lives and the bad excuses we use to justify our sin. It will all help us understand why Jesus can be the only answer to the problem of sin.