One week away from Election Day, how should we vote? No, not who should we vote for... but how should we think through and prepare to cast our ballot on November 3rd?

We as Bible-believing, followers of Jesus have a responsibility to steward our resources and decisions well. So whether you decide to vote or not vote, vote Republican or Democrat or other, may you place your vote with a conviction that God will be honored by your decision, with a desire to promote unity in the body of Christ, and with a firm hope that no matter the outcome, He is still on the throne.

After watching the popular Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, how should we as Christians engage with social media and the ways that technology can often become addictive and destructive? We live in a culture that is constantly bombarded by notifications, social media posts, news stories (real or fake), and pressures to be constantly connected. How are we to glorify God through all the noise?

This week, we decided to rebroadcast a past episode on the Sabbath in light of our current sermon series through Genesis and how we see the God of creation set the precedent for work and rest.

How can we pursue worshipful rest in our lives and celebrate the good gift of rest that the Lord has given us? Let's be a people who work hard for the glory of God and rest and renew our souls to the glory of God!

Religion and politics, everyone's favorite topics.

We often try to separate these two things, but it is important for Christians to engage with politics in a way that is honoring to God. So how do we do that? How do we engage in conversations about government, how do we know what to believe about different candidates and parties, and how do we keep from making politics an idol in our lives?

Let's talk about it! Let us know any other questions/comments you may have at this link: bit.ly/amateurideas.

A quick teaser for upcoming episodes of the podcast on politics. If you have any questions or ideas for us to talk through in these episodes, let us know at this link: bit.ly/amateurideas.

Stay tuned for TWO episodes on Christianity and politics coming in the next few weeks!

A list of some of our favorite things, what we are reading, watching, listening to, eating, and more. God has given us good gifts of things to enjoy!

Have something you want us to talk about? Let us know at this link: bit.ly/amateurideas

In this episode, we talk about the growing thought process of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The idea that:

Moralistic - God wants us to behave
Therapeutic - Life is all about being happy
Deism - There is a God, but He isn’t personally involved in the everyday lives of people.

On the surface, some of these things sound good. But it can be very dangerous when it sneaks into the way we view God and live our lives.

Music is everywhere! In every store, in every movie or show, it's taught us about Alexander Hamilton, even elevators have their own music.

God gave us music as a gift and He makes it pretty clear through scripture that we are to sing, play instruments, and make joyful noises to the glory of Him. Let's talk about the power of music.

It seems like darkness, hatred, injustice, sadness, and pain is all around us. Everywhere you look, every time you scroll through social media, every time you turn on the news, you're confronted with another death, another criminal act, another argument.

So how should Christians live through all of this? How are we called to respond? We are called to live differently from the world, but what does that look like? Let's start the conversation and seek to love God and love others together.

Woah... these last few months have been crazy. So much has happened and it's hard to even summarize where we've been.

But we are committed to relaunching The Amateur Christian Podcast to navigate this broken world together as followers of Jesus who have no idea what we are doing, but are thankful for a God who does.