Real Life Theology Podcast

In this episode Adam Brewer of Southwest Church of Christ in Jonesboro, Arkansas, shares how the church saw 81 baptisms in 2025 through Spirit-led discipleship, recovery ministries (Promise House and Breaking Bonds), and intentional small-group mentoring.

He reflects on joining the Holy Spirit’s work, the importance of emphasizing baptism, and practical lessons about evangelism, prayer, and discipling new believers.

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In this opening episode, Scott Sager introduces Renew.org's Amazing Baptisms series and outlines the history of the Restoration Movement, explaining the origins and divergence of the Churches of Christ and the Independent Christian Church.

The episode highlights baptismal evangelism, shared beliefs like believers' baptism and weekly Lord's Supper observance, and the growing collaboration between these groups as they rediscover common ground and learn from one another.

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Mark Moore on Discipleship: From Written Scripture to Jesus and the Spoken Word

Bobby introduces Bible teacher and author Mark Moore (Core 52), who speaks on discipling people through Scripture in a church context where many are new to the Bible. Moore explains barriers to Bible engagement and describes reducing biblical essentials to 52 core verses, then highlights three passages about Scripture: 2 Timothy 3,, Hebrews 4 (logos, pointing to Jesus as the living Word), and Ephesians 6. He warns against using Bible knowledge to impress rather than to obey and emphasizes memorization as a tool for meditation, sharing a story of a young woman helped by memorizing Romans 8.

00:00 Introducing Mark Moore

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Ajai Lall shares his personal background and the history of the Restoration Movement, explaining why he believes it calls the church back to the New Testament blueprint: Christ as head, Scripture as final authority, and a commitment to unity and missional disciple making.

He highlights the movement's 19th‑century origins, its core principles — Christ alone, Scripture alone, unity in essentials, liberty in opinions, love in all things — and the emphasis on evangelism, self‑supporting churches, and practical mission work in India and beyond.

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Josh and Lashi Howard share a message challenging listeners to live as true disciples who make disciples across generations. This episode exposes the cost, courage, and transformative power of life-on-life discipleship, prayer, and immediate obedience.

Listeners are invited to examine their own faith, commit to training and releasing others, and join in prayer and sacrificial action so one obedient life can spark revival in families, communities, and nations.

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Building a Disciple Making Church: One-to-One, Scripture, and Multi-Generational Ministry

In this session, Matt Wilson shares how Ecclesia Christian Church grew over 11 years from a living-room gathering to more than 2,000 weekly attendees by centering everything on discipleship and community rather than platform-building or treating churches as stepping stones. He emphasizes loyalty to where God places leaders, warns against rushing small groups without qualified leadership, and advocates one-to-one discipleship, slow leader development, and resisting “terrorist” pressure tactics from demanding members. Ecclesia built clear pathways (DNA/core classes), discipleship-oriented serving teams, and an annual Easter-to-Pentecost churchwide 40-day disciple-making initiative with prayer, fasting, meals, and baptisms. Tina describes “Step Into Scripture,” a reproducible whole-Bible, yearly reading and table-leader model that builds biblical literacy across the body. They highlight integrating all generations, empowering students (including “Student Takeover”), and honoring every ability through ministries like Shine for special needs, aiming to equip the church to reproduce disciples.

00:00 Welcome and Warmup

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Obedience-Based Disciple Making

Ajai Lall emphasizes sacrificial obedience, noting Barna research and reporting severe persecution, including 125,000 Christians killed yearly and 14,600 church buildings and properties destroyed in India in 2024. Yet describing continued growth in places like Iran, Iraq, and India. He shares examples of believers worshiping and preaching at a police station after being beaten, a church that planted 109 churches and trained 400 gospel workers, and a former Taliban-involved man who became a church planter in India and abroad. He highlights Jesus’ authority, purpose, promise, and barrier-breaking unity, urging discipleship driven by compassion, action, and love.

00:00 Introducing Ajai Lall

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Jesus Is King: The Discipleship Gospel

Jonathan Storment, argues that entering God’s kingdom requires repentance—surrendering to Jesus as King under His authority. Using stories ranging from a traffic-stop misunderstanding to conversion, he explains that rebellion against authority runs deep in humanity. He warns that American churches can become “sociological, not Christological,” reshaping Jesus to fit cultural, political, or personal preferences. Citing examples like Jefferson’s cut-up Bible, the slave Bible, the Jesus Seminar, and altered Chinese Bible passages, he says some “Jesuses” and gospels must be rejected. Drawing from Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus’ authority and the cost of following Him, he urges leaders to stop editing Jesus and instead be changed by Him—the crucified, enemy-loving King—so the church can again turn the world upside down.

00:00 Welcome and Intro

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This video comes from the 2025 RENEW.org Driven Conference. This video features Orpheus Heyward, teaching on why the Word of God must be preeminent. Heyward argues that Scripture should hold first place in Christian faith, local ministry, and global impact, not competing with Jesus’ preeminence but revealing it as God’s documented revelation. Using 1 Corinthians 2, he contrasts worldly wisdom with God’s wisdom, emphasizing that the gospel’s power does not depend on persuasive speech but on the Spirit’s revelation of God’s hidden redemptive plan. He explains the “natural man” cannot accept spiritual truths, warns against watering down Christianity for comfort or acceptance, and urges churches to remain spiritually grounded in the Holy Spirit’s revealed Word as final authority.

00:00 Orpheus Takes Stage

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View the article at RENEW.org -- https://renew.org/review-the-desecration-of-man/

Renew Review of Carl Trueman’s ‘The Desecration of Man’

Using an analogy of sentient inflatables denying the existence of air pumps, the script summarizes Carl Truman’s book The Desecration of Man and its thesis. Building on themes from The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Truman argues that without God nothing remains sacred, and attempts at self-deification produce a culture defined by transgressing limits and boundaries. The episode highlights Truman’s explanation for alliances among Western radicals and disparate causes as a shared project of overthrowing what prior generations considered authoritative or holy, and it emphasizes his chapter on sex, where sex becomes central to identity while being stripped of sacred limits, reducing people to objects. Truman’s proposed remedy is consecration through robust Christian belief, worship, and practice.

00:00 Sentient Inflatables Setup

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