Love First Podcast

Love First Podcast

By Don McLaughlinReligion & SpiritualityChristianity
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Love First Podcast episodes

  • Open or Closed?
    In this week's episode, Don McLaughlin to going to walk us through one of the biggest questions that people have right now: Should the nation remain closed or should we open?
    Then, he hosts an interview with Eric Kee. Eric is a minister among the Navajo People in Tuba City, AZ. Their conversation centers around the impact of the pandemic on the Navajo Nation and the church family in Tuba City.
    As always, the podcast will be available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Youtube after the episode airs on Facebook Live.
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  • How to Become a Responsible Christian Citizen 🎙
    The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic continues to illustrate the life and death impact of how we live in relation to those around us.
    Good citizens save lives. Irresponsible citizens put others at risk with their lethal decisions. But what does it mean to be a responsible citizen? That’s the discussion Don McLaughlin is leading us through on this episode of the Love First Podcast
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  • The House that Hate Built
    Self-interest leads us to build based on hate. We see it in the ancient world of Jesus and the world we live in today. People make choices that are politically expedient and self-serving. The way of Christ is fundamentally different than that, though. The way of Christ about self-sacrifice instead of self-preservation. The way of Christ builds a house on love, not hate.
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  • Episode 3: What to do when you don't know what to do
    On the front end of the coronavirus, many denied it would happen. Now we realize it’s real, it’s dangerous and its impact is overwhelming. Think about a video of a tsunami – from a distance the wave doesn’t seem that big. But as it gets closer, it leads to destruction. Today, we see how serious the virus is.
    When we were asked to take measures at first it seemed doable because it would only be temporary. College students asked to extend their spring break, high school students taking online classes, parents becoming homeschool teachers – what was just going to be for a short while has now become longer term. Employees who first had hours cut are now being laid off, companies closing their doors.
    We started making adjustments. But over time, those adjustments start to take a toll. Now we don’t know what we will need to change or for how long. Sometimes, we also are unsure if the adjustments we’re making are good to make. This is why community matters. Sometimes we need to reach out and ask others for advice. We need others, and others need us: the gifts we each have can help each other.
    We see this example of community in the early church. In Acts 16, Luke writes that one of the apostles’ plans was to travel to Asia Minor, but the Holy Spirit said no and stopped them. Then the apostle Paul had a vision in which he saw a man from Macedonia asking him to come and share the gospel with the Greeks. So, Paul and his companions travel further west and end up in Europe – which is how the Western world heard the gospel. That adjustment was vital to the spreading of the gospel. But take note – Paul shared his vision with the community, and they made the decision together. Even though the vision was to Paul from God, the community made the decision together.
    So, what do you do when you don’t know what to do? Well, sometimes you just do.
    1. Do what you should have been doing before this. Take care of life, but also take care of life after life. If you haven’t given your life to Jesus, or it’s been awhile since you’ve asked God for a new relationship – do it now. And if you need to mend relationships with parents, children or siblings – take care of that now.
    2. Do what’s doable even if it’s brand new to you. Take the time to learn something new. Get out of your comfort zone.
    3. Support the good that is being done by others. Even if you don’t agree fully with the person, the leader or policymaker, realize that supporting the good they are doing for the community, state or country, doesn’t mean you are giving up your integrity or giving someone a blanket endorsement.
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  • Episode 2: We're All Connected
    Have you ever stacked up dominoes and knocked them down? In a way, we are all like a game of dominoes – we are all connected, and during this pandemic it can feel like we are all stacked up ready to fall. We have this sense that this is an inevitable situation and there is no way to stop it from affecting us.
    People respond to this feeling in several ways. Some mock it. Others are in denial or are experiencing grief. And for some it leads to feelings of resentment, bitterness and anger, looking for someone to blame for this pandemic, someone who caused the first domino to fall.
    Looking for someone to blame for what troubles us is not new. Think about Moses and Jesus – when things were going well the crowds followed them and praised them. But then as things got difficult, the crowds turned on Moses and on Jesus and blamed them for all their problems. In more recent past, we have done this too. We have a history of naming a virus by the people or ethnicity that we think caused it and it perpetuates hatred and violence.
    Scott Berinato, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, wrote an article about how the discomfort we are feeling may be grief. It’s an anticipatory grief and a sense of impending loss because we fear what we are going to lose. It’s normal to feel these things.
    But there’s another way to play dominoes. The original way. Dominoes weren’t made for us to stack up and knock over. If you look at the face of every domino, they have numbers or blank spaces and it’s all about connecting the dominoes. The way you win the game is you become imaginative about connecting – you study the dominoes and look for ways to connect, not ways to knock someone down.
    The way to play dominoes is figuring out how we connect for good. How we connect in love. In 1 John 4:19, scripture says we learn love through the character of God and then we discover we are capable of that kind of love because of God.
    So, where does the pandemic of hate come from? You may not think that you hate people. You may say, “I’m not blaming the virus on a particular culture or person. I didn’t attack someone.”
    There’s a famous teaching of Jesus that helps us understand hate as a spectrum. In Luke 14:26, Jesus says unless you hate your father, mother, brother, sister, your own self, you can’t be my disciple. Why would Jesus say you have to hate people?
    The key that unlocks the meaning of hate is in Matthew 10:27, where Matthew writes about the same story. Here it says that unless you love me more than father, mother, sister, brother, even your own life you can’t be my disciple.
    Why the difference? In both the Hebrew and Greek languages, the word hate is a spectrum. The Greek word for hate can be translated as “neglect by degree.” It is about the choosing of one and the not choosing of another. When Jesus says unless you “hate” others, he is saying you must choose me over all others.
    In that context, maybe we are haters. Maybe we all risk neglecting others by degree when we choose to think of ourselves first, instead of thinking about others. In a very pragmatic and practical sense, we can be haters. It’s like seeing the stacked dominoes and feeling as though it is inevitable that we will be knocked down versus looking for imaginative, innovative ways to connect with one another.
    Deliverance and relief will come. In every pandemic this is true. Researchers, academics, leaders across the world are figuring out how to work together. God created the world for imaginative, innovative connection. And He is the connector.
    Think about the story of Esther. Her whole story turns on a virus – the virus of hate. In this case, there is a conspirator who is trying to influence the leaders to exterminate the Jews. Esther is called upon by her cousin Mordecai to do something. He says to her: “Who knows but for such a time as this you were made Queen.”
    But before Esther responded to the call, she and Mordecai had to be converted. Mordecai took Esther in when she’s orphaned. She was a minority, a captive in a foreign land. Mordecai spent this vulnerable young girl’s whole childhood teaching her how to protect herself. When circumstances shift, he realizes that his instruction was incomplete. He taught her how to protect herself, but he hadn’t told her that advocating for others is also important. These two are not in conflict, protecting herself and others were both things she could commit to.
    Esther ultimately responds, “if I die, I die” and she sees that there is more to her life than her protecting herself. We now have an opportunity to show the world we know how the game is played and won. Just like Mordecai learns and teaches Esther. And just like the heroes of history: women and men willing to sacrifice themselves for others.
    To beat the coronavirus, we have to physically distance ourselves. But in reality, we can’t win with social distancing – when close ourselves off from each other, we become lonely, fearful and depressed. That is why the World Health Organization recently said we need to shift our vocabulary from social distancing to physical distancing. This is more than semantics. We know we need each other. We still need to be social, but during this time we have to physically distance ourselves.
    Our willingness to socially distance ourselves is what leads to fear and hate, it’s the root of racism, sexism, every ism. And it didn’t begin with technology. It started when sin entered the garden of Eden. Jesus came into the world, he closed the distance between us, to show us a different way. For those who stacked up the dominoes in their favor, he disrupted everything. And for the vulnerable, outcast and hurting, for those who needed connection, Jesus restored them.
    There’s two ways to play dominoes: one of them kills us, and the other revives us. Let’s think connection in order to cure the pandemic of hate.
    Questions:
    Go to LoveFirst.org to submit a question. The first three people to submit a question will get a free copy of Love First: Ending Hate Before It’s Too Late.
    Why do some people deny the impact of the coronavirus and do not take it seriously?
    Three possible answers:
    Some people lack information or have misinformation.
    There are some people who make a living off of creating strife and stirring up controversy.
    And some are grieving – and one of the stages of grief is denial. (Refer to the HBR article)
    Why do some people panic, and some people don’t? What do I do if I meet someone who is panicking?
    Panic can be rooted in previous trauma, family systems, implicit memory. And there are a lot of reasons why someone panics or doesn’t panic. The most important thing we can do is meet people where they are.
    Our Family minister and executive director of the Genesis counseling center, Dr. Major Boglin, recommends that when people are panicked or concerned, we should meet them in their pain. Don’t scold them, judge them for panicking or dismiss their concerns. Instead, create a place of safe connection. Assure them of your concern and connection and let them share with you. Let them talk about their concerns. As they feel more comfortable, safe and calm, they likely will be able to move out of fear and into a problem-solving mindset.
    Thank you for listening to the Love First podcast. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast. Go to LoveFirst.org to join us.
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  • Episode 1: Fear doesn’t serve us as well as we think it does.
    In the launch of the Love First Podcast, Don McLaughlin talks about what it means for the Church to lean into Faith, Hope, and Love in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
    Listen on multiple platforms:
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3HrLXmVhMTswl43aRRfUw6
    Radio Public: https://play.radiopublic.com/love-first-podcast-60nEk7
    Pocket Cast: https://pca.st/40ll
    Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy80YzBkMmE0L3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz
    Apple Podcast: Coming Soon
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About Love First Podcast

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This is not just a podcast to inspire more love; it's a revolutionary call to love better.