Who's the greatest?

That's the argument the disciples were having on the road to Capernaum, and the timing could not have been worse. Jesus had just told them, for the second time, that the Son of Man would be delivered into the hands of men, killed, and raised after three days. They didn't understand, they were afraid to ask, and so they filled the silence by ranking themselves. When Jesus asked what they were discussing, they had nothing to say.

In this episode, the guys walk through Mark 9:30-37, where Jesus sits down, calls the twelve, and turns the whole scale of greatness upside down. The first must be last of all and servant of all. Then He takes a child, someone with no status and nothing to offer, into His arms and says that receiving one such child in His name is receiving Christ Himself, and receiving Christ is receiving the Father who sent Him.

So, what about us? Where are we quietly arguing about who is greatest, and who are the people with nothing to offer that Christ is calling us to receive? Join us as we learn what greatness looks like in the kingdom of a crucified King.

What would it look like if youth ministry belonged to the whole church, not just the youth room?

In this episode, Pastor Steven sits down with Pastor Travis for a look inside the youth ministry at Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church. Travis unpacks the family-based philosophy that shapes everything from Wednesday nights to discipleship groups: parents are the core disciplers of their kids, and the covenant family surrounds every student with mature believers who take a genuine interest in their lives. Youth group, as Travis puts it, is protein powder, a supplement to a healthy diet of discipleship at home and in the church, never a replacement for it.

Whether you have kids in the youth group or simply want to pour into the next generation at CMPC, this episode will show you where to start. Show up, take an interest, and pray for our students and their families.

What would it look like to see the glory of God with your own eyes, and still be told to take up a cross?

In this episode, Pastor Steven and Pastor Travis are joined by Ruling Elder Marty Moore for a look at Mark 9:1-13 and the Transfiguration. Before the discussion, Marty kicks off a new segment, "Meet the Session," sharing his story from a small Ohio town to nearly 26 years of service as a ruling elder at Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church.

The conversation traces the deep connections between the Transfiguration and the mountain encounters of Moses and Elijah, showing how Mark presents Jesus as the God of Sinai who comes down the mountain to shed the blood that actually saves. The group wrestles with the Father's command to "listen to him," what it means to behold Christ through Word, prayer, and sacrament, and how beholding his glory is the way we are transformed into his likeness.

So, what about us? If our vision of Jesus is big enough, it will displace the world's grip on our hearts and free us to take up our cross and follow him.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

In this episode, Pastor Steven and Travis dig into Mark 8:27-38, the turning point of Mark's Gospel, where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ and then immediately gets it wrong. Jesus receives the confession, then begins teaching that the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, and be killed. Peter's rebuke earns him the sharpest words in the Gospel: "Get behind me, Satan." Peter had the right word but the wrong idea, imagining a Messiah with a crown and no cross.

From there the conversation moves to what it means to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow a crucified King. Pastor Steven and Travis wrestle honestly with what being ashamed of Jesus looks like in a culture where church attendance is acceptable but bold witness is not, and they share stories of what the gospel has actually cost them in workplaces, friendships, and daily life.

So, what about us? Are we willing to weigh temporary comfort against eternal glory, or have we made ourselves so safe that following Jesus costs us nothing at all?

What would it be like to be led by the hand to a place you cannot see, by someone you have only heard about?

In Mark 8:22-26, a blind man in Bethsaida takes that risk, and Jesus meets him with remarkable tenderness. He takes him by the hand, leads him out of the village, and heals him in the only two-stage miracle in the Gospels. First the man sees people "like trees walking," then a second touch makes everything clear. Pastor Steven walks through his sermon "Do You Still Not See?" and shows why Mark places this story between the disciples' confusion in the boat and Peter's confession, making the gradual healing a picture of how spiritual sight often comes by process rather than in an instant.

The conversation turns personal from there: slowly learning to believe you really are forgiven, extending the gospel to people who seem beyond it, and how gradual sanctification should shape our patience with one another in marriage, family, and church life. Whether your conversion was sudden or something you can't pinpoint, every step of coming to see clearly is a miracle.

What does the next season of life look like at Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church? 

In this episode, the tables turn as Pastor Steven sits down for a state of the church conversation eight months into his ministry at CMPC. He reflects on first impressions versus reality, the surprising blessing of a healthy session, and why the fourth "E", embrace, made its way into the church's familiar tagline.

From worship and equipping to engaging the community and finding real belonging in a two-service church, Pastor Steven shares where we are, where we're headed, and what he's asking of the congregation in this season: patience and buy-in. Episode 24 closes out our July series with a look at what fruitfulness could look like a year in.

What does it take to leave everything behind and carry the gospel to a country where only 180 Presbyterians exist in the entire nation?

In this episode, Pastor Steven sits down with CMPC-supported missionaries Nathan and Kasia Tunnell to hear their remarkable journey to the mission field in Gdansk, Poland. From Nathan's dramatic conversion after a near-fatal car accident to Kasia's childhood in a Roman Catholic home in Poland, the Tunnells share how the Lord wove their stories together and planted a burden for the Polish people through a missions talk in the CMPC youth room. They recount the refining years of seminary in Greenville, including the premature birth of their daughter Amelia, and how God used every trial to prepare them for pastoral ministry abroad.

The Tunnells also paint a picture of the work ahead: strengthening a small church plant on the Baltic Sea, training Polish elders in practical Presbyterianism, and praying toward a self-governing, self-propagating, self-funded Polish church. They close with practical ways the church family can love and support them in the six months before their planned January launch, from prayer and financial partnership to simply pushing a wheelchair down the hallway on Sunday morning.

What happens when 2,500 pastors and elders gather to do the business of the church, and how does it trickle down to a congregation like ours?

In this episode of So, What About Us?, Pastors Steven and Travis are joined by Ruling Elder Marty Moore to unpack the 53rd PCA General Assembly. The three, part of the contingent Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church sent to Louisville, walk through how General Assembly actually works, from the parity of teaching and ruling elders to the committees of commissioners, the review of presbytery records, and the record-setting 90 overtures that came to the floor. Along the way they explain the roles of the newly elected stated clerk, Fred Greco, and moderator Mel Duncan, and reflect on the big-ticket items that drew the most debate, including Overture 37 on female deacons, the Danvers Statement, term limits for permanent committees, wine at the Lord's Supper, and the financial troubles at Mission to North America.

More than a procedural recap, the conversation lands on a note of encouragement. What could have been a series of bruising fights turned out to be a remarkably collegial assembly marked by institutional refinement rather than deep theological division, a sign, the panel suggests, that the PCA sits in a healthy and stable place. The takeaway for Chestnut Mountain is grassroots Presbyterianism: the real work of the church happens not on the assembly floor but in the right preaching of the Word, the faithful administering of the sacraments, and the ordinary love of a congregation for one another week by week.

We send students out of town and out of country on mission journeys all the time. But what if the same gospel work could happen right here, in our own community?

In this bonus episode we ask the question: So, What About Them? Pastors Steven and Travis are joined by Andy Nelson to look back on the inaugural City Outreach Project, a week where 24 students set out to serve three groups they named the three M's: the ministries of the church, its members, and the "munity." The week mixed worship nights, teaching, and a whole lot of serving, from a backyard Bible club to a food bank to painting houses and pulling limbs in the yards of church members.

But the projects were never the point. The people were. You'll hear about the longtime member who said she "felt like a queen" after students spent an afternoon in her home, and how two widows ended up on the phone with each other, gossiping in the best possible way about how wonderful these teenagers were. You'll hear about four boys standing around a kitchen at 10:15 on a Tuesday night, eating Snickers ice cream bars with Mike and Denise, building the kind of multi-generational friendship that no scheduled program could ever manufacture.

Anchored in James 1 and 2, where pure religion means caring for widows and orphans and the hungry, this conversation traces how serving the local body actually helps us understand the gospel better. The guys connect it all to Acts 1:8 and Paul's heart in Romans 12: healthy missionaries come from strong local churches, and a church that reaches the nations starts by reaching its own community. These aren't competing visions. They're two parts of the same stream.

Listen in, be encouraged by how hard these students worked and how deeply they love the Lord, and ask along with us: so, what about them?

What do you do when the Savior of the universe says "Beware" and your heart doesn't even flinch?

Fresh off the 53rd PCA General Assembly (coffee in hand), Pastor Steven closes out the summer in Mark with the Feeding of the 4,000 in Mark 8:1-21. On the surface it looks like a rerun of the Feeding of the 5,000, so why would Jesus do the same miracle twice? Pastor Steven makes the case that it's no accident: Jesus deliberately carries the very miracle He performed for the Jewish crowds over to the Gentiles, redefining who the people of God really are. Not those marked out by bloodline or law-keeping, but those marked out by faith in Him. Along the way there's a haunting seminary story from Louisville, two different baskets that quietly reshape the whole passage, and the Pharisees demanding a sign Jesus flatly refuses to give.

Then comes the warning we'd rather treat as a curiosity: beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. Legalism and worldliness, two opposite errors that turn out to be far closer than we think, both of them ways of either manipulating God or ignoring Him. So, what about us? We turn the passage back on the pew: the quiet danger of believing we're better than the person beside us, the covenant kid who assumes he doesn't need much grace, and what it looks like to keep being fed by the small, steady, daily meal of the gospel.