Good Christian People

Jesus told His followers that the evidence of their relationship with Him would be how they love each other. We’ve done a pretty good job at huddling up and loving those inside our Church circle – those we consider to be our “tribe”. But, we’ve really dropped the ball when it comes to loving those who are outside of our circle. From the very beginning, people have struggled to recognize who their neighbor is and how we should extend compassion to those who are different than us. In this episode, we take an in-depth look at one of the most popular parables of Jesus and discuss how we are to show compassion, and more importantly, WHO we are to show love to.

For the Gospel to advance and continue past us, passing on our faith and discipling the next generation is key. Too often, the Church has missed the mark discipling younger people. Either we entertain/babysit without discipling, or we don’t prioritize spiritually engaging the next generation because we don’t see their immediate (or even long-term) value. In Part 2 of this conversation, we sit down with Dave Kurtz to continue discussing the importance of discipling the next generation, the unique challenges of current ministry in the midst of Covid, and offer practical tools to equip parents to disciple at home.

Resources suggested in this episode:

www.cpyu.org

www.karapowell.com

www.downloadyouthministry.com

Parenting Podcasts:

https://biglifejournal.com/blogs/blog/top-parenting-podcasts

https://player.fm/podcasts/christian-parenting

For the Gospel to advance and continue past us, passing on our faith and discipling the next generation is key. Too often, the Church has missed the mark discipling younger people. Either we entertain without discipling, or we don’t prioritize spiritually engaging the next generation because we don’t see their immediate (or even long-term) value. In Part 1 of this conversation, we sit down with Justin Hanneken to discuss the importance of discipling the next generation, where we’ve failed in the past, and answer the question of who is primarily responsible for discipling the next generation. Also, we laugh. At each other. A lot.

Please take a minute to support Justin Hanneken and Ends Cycling:

https://www.endscycling.com/

One of the greatest threats to Church unity - the Gospel - is legalism. We have been set free by Jesus, and then turn around and create new cages, through extra-biblical rules, to take the place of the cage we left. These rules are not mandated by God, they rob the Gospel of its power (because we earn merit with God through works now), and create division in the Church. In this episode, we discuss the insidiousness of legalism and engage with five questions to evaluate where you stand with legalism. Also, we travel back in time to 1999 with a relic from our past and Jeff's "Great Christian People" example is big-time cheating...but it's so good.

One of the main reasons people leave the Church is being burned by the leadership. Whether intentionally/unintentionally, hurt caused by Church leadership can be incredibly wounding and doesn’t just run them out of a specific church, but away from the Church as a whole. This episode's confession really hurts, and we introduce BabyTown, which feels like it's going to become a long-running reference.

The inaugural episode of GCP: the Podcast! Join us (Jeff Higgins and Tim Byer) for an honest look at the flaws of the Church (corporate and individual) and how we can be - and do - better. This episode, we tackle hypocrisy. Plus, we confess our sins at the end of each episode. Who does that?