The goodness of God but hell, atonement but hell, reformation but hell, scripture but hell, Calvinism but hell; in this podcast Peter Hiett describes hell as “Satan's big but.”

In this conversation Peter walks us through the story of our own creation, the goodness of God’s reconciling love, the relational kindness of a God who encounters, sets free and transforms.

Peter describes a God who delights in His creation, a God destroys what is evil, creates what is good, and invites us to observe our own creation in Christ Jesus.

QUOTES

Regarding relentless love and hell “At that point I was simply saying I want to hope this is true. And they said, “you can hope it, but you can’t believe it’s possible.”

“Knowledge of evil is believing I have to justify myself.”

“It's really not very complicated at all. If you take out the middle point of (Calvinism’s) limited atonement, you're left with a beautiful picture of this God who is raising his children and creating them in His image and He does it through His atonement and His atonement won't fail…” 

“When you announce good news, you don’t say, “Now this is what you need to do about it, you just tell people, and the news changes folks.”

"But if you’re a part of the institution, you want people to give to the budget, you want them to go on the church retreat, you want them to come help pull weeds in the garden. So, you’re always tempted to say, “believe this or…something.” Well, hell is a huge “or something.”

“The good news, the Word, it carries the power within itself, you don’t need to con anyone into obedience.”

“His goodness is beyond anything we’ve understood.”

"Regarding Romans 5 “As in Adam all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive, and it’s the best most beautiful news.”

“That sloppy universalism that just says ‘Oh God feels great about everybody and it doesn’t matter what you do.” It leaves everybody feeling empty because we all know something is really wrong with humanity and really wrong with me and my neighbor. I think scripture reveals that, yeah, were half made, were not finished yet. God is gonna destroy what is evil and create what’s good and you’re observing your own creation in Christ Jesus. And in the end, absolutely everything is a gift of your Father and you can’t even begin to comprehend how much He delights in you.”

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How to experience God, confession, faith, fear, freedom, our true identity, and cruciform, others-focused, self-emptying, unconditional love barely scratches the surface of this packed conversation on the goodness of God. Jamie and Donna Winship share how we can discover our true identity through a relationship with God and each other.

QUOTES

“So, we lose the great commandment and pick up the great commission, we’re exchanging love for conflict.” Jamie

“Most people aren’t even aware that they are living separate from who they really are.” Donna

“Your true identity is the essence of who you are at your core and it’s something to be discovered through your lifetime and worked out in relationship. You cannot set apart your identity from relationship with God and relationship with other people.” Donna

“I think it’s important to note that your identity is not your gender, not your sexual preference, not your job, not your political party, not your religion…” Donna

“You can study business ethics all day long but if you’re in a scarcity model its always gonna come up to not enough.” Jamie

“You’re in a world that’s every day says “there’s not enough.” It’s the lie that we live in. But there is an alternative world view.” Jamie

“You can’t intellectually have faith. Faith comes from experience and experiential relationship.” Donna

“All identities we discover about ourselves are identities of Jesus in one form or another.” Donna

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Union, a Triune God, mutual indwelling others-centered love (perichoresis) approaching scripture to discover Jesus, and communion are some of the themes Rod Williams dives into. What if “all” means "all" and God isn’t distant? There is no distance, no separation in God and this conversation is a beautiful invitation to awaken to that discovery and our union with Him.

QUOTES

"To build the kingdom of God you need a clear picture of Jesus that you communicate in love."

"If you’re believing in a little stick figure Jesus that you walk on to get to the real God, you're not believing in the real Jesus, you're believing in something we manufactured to build our empires."

"Still, today you'll hear people say ‘Well God is love but God is fear,’ which comes from our Greek dualism… the reality is God is not two conflicting things. We invented conflict, God is not in conflict.”

"No one comes to the Father but by me. We make that an exclusive statement but it's not, He’s saying 'I am here,' and this is why you can come to the Father."

“Here’s the deal, we can have a Father who can’t be in the presence of sin, or we can have Jesus be God, but we can’t have both.”

“Beholding is more important than explaining most of the time.”

"He does nothing as a judge he wouldn’t do as a father,” George McDonald

"God bless some of the movements we’ve been a part of because they talked about the Father Heart of God. But they didn’t go back and fix their theology."

“We can’t talk about union as a kinder gentler Arianism or a slightly more practical Gnosticism, we have to look at it as, 'This is LIFE.'”

“So many of the race problems and identity politics and all that stuff will just fade away as we begin to see we all have the same origin.”

“We were made to have ecstatic experiences in the mystical union with God.”

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Co-Author of A Church Called TOV, Scot McKnight talks about his new book written in response to the abuses of power, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse within the leadership of Willow Creek, Harvest, and sadly churches of all shapes and sizes.

We talked about TOV (which means goodness) and how when we practice empathy, compassion, extending grace, putting people first, telling the truth, promoting justice, and serving others, TOV emerges in the culture and we all become more Christlike.

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Matt Chandler, pastor, and writer, recently used the phrase “a sexy fad” when describing the deconstruction movement. Derek and Jason highlight his statement to dive into the nature of their own de/ and reconstruction. They have become even more convinced that God is in the restoration business.

This podcast dives into sin, grace, reconciliation, and God's love for all His kids, the church deep and wide. Ultimately, the guys kick off season three embracing Rom 8:38-29 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God’s sovereignty revealed by Jesus through cruciform, self-giving love, the nature of trust, intimacy, and union, and the transforming truth that there is no shadow of turning with God, in this podcast the guys explore Jason’s upcoming book, Leaving (& finding) Jesus.

This conversation juxtaposes an inclusive, reconciling, self-giving, unconditional view of God's love against an excluding, hierarchal, punishment-focused, conditional view of God's love. 

You can pre-purchase the book at
http://afamilystory.org/product/pre-order-leaving-finding-jesus/ 

Bruxy Cavey, author, and pastor of The Meeting House, dives into relational faith, loving God through loving our neighbor, repenting with a hopeful future focus, how doubt is connected to our faith, how we are not people of the book (bible) we are people of the person (Jesus), and three perspectives on hell concluding with the fact that the New Testament church never leveraged hell to get people to make a decision for Jesus.

Naeem Fazal, founding pastor of Mosaic Church, and author of Ex-Muslim, talks about deconstruction or reimaging God. Naeem talks about the importance of being able to recognize God outside of our personal context, how to view sin, how to approach scripture, and a beautiful gospel that’s not just about a Jesus who saves but about a Jesus who is restoring humanity and all creation.

To learn more or to support this podcast go to www.afamilystory.org

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Paraphrasing the sermons of George MacDonald, Dale Howie shares his sometimes painful, often beautiful, journey of awakening to the irreducible truth of life discovered in relationship. He speaks to grace, our common Fatherhood, our inclusion in Christ’s life, death and resurrection, our union, and the wonder of our humanity. A humble storyteller and relational theologian, Dale speaks as a father on behalf of Our Father, who loves all His children with a reconciling love.

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Intimacy within marriage, the connection between intimacy and mutuality, the nature of trust, the definition of sex, addressing transactional vs relational thinking, dismantling obligation, addressing objectification and broken ideologies developed from Eph 5:22, “Wives submit to your husbands…” Sheila Gregoire practically rethinks sex so husbands and wives can experience intimacy, joy, and deeper connection.

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