After our last podcast on the racial divide, we were surprised at the audience reaction. Most white people I know loved Vince's perspective hoping it would define a way forward for us, while many people of color didn't think his experience spoke for them. We invited one of those who wrote us, Gil Michel to join us to further shed light on the racial divide and continue the conversation that will hopefully lead to better understanding. Gil is along time God Journey listener, and a bi-vocational pastor of an inner city fellowship in South Bend, IN. With the recent brouhaha between President Trump and the NFL, it seemed important for us to take another look at the racial tensions in our society.

Podcast Notes:

Previous Podcasts about Race: Just Mercy and Reaching Across the Racial Divide

The Doll Test that Gil referred to

NY Times Article by Eric Reid on Why Colin Kaepernick and I Decided to Take a Knee

Gil Michel hosts a podcast at HisStoriespodcast.com and pastors That Church Downtown

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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There's a difference between God always being with us, and those moments where he specifically manifests his presence in the outpouring of his grace or the revelation of his heart and will. It seems that while we humans have the desire for God to make himself known, we are willing to settle for our plans and activities if he does not. Perhaps that is one of the downsides of our weekly attempts through song services and sermons to get God to show up and do something to make himself known bigger than what's in our own hearts. What if he doesn't conform to our schedule, nor seeks to overcome all we are trying to do on his behalf? Is this what Paul meant when we warned us about having "a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." (2 Timothy 3:5), and those who are "always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." (v. 7). The reality of God lies not through our activities, but our surrender to him and his ways.

Podcast Notes:

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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"Repentance is responding to God's invitation to life and living it differently than I already am." That jewel comes out of a letter to Wayne and Brad from Lauren in Tennessee. It is part of a compelling story where she was faced with choosing between doing what she wanted or responding to the Spirit's nudge to lay down her life for someone who was mistreating her. Jesus did say, "The greatest among you will be the servant of all," but that is never easy to live. That theme keeps cropping up as Brad and Wayne catch up from the last couple of weeks as they both helped move their sons cross-country. The kingdom of God invites us to live counter to the world's pursuit of its own pleasures and actually connect with others in a way that transforms us from the inside out and allows the kingdom to break into the world. Choosing his way in our circumstances is rarely our first thought, but doing so will shape us into the men and women he wants in the world.

Podcast Notes:

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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Vince Coakley, host of The Vince Coakley Show out of Greenville, SC and a friend of Wayne's, joins the podcast for a very different look at the growing racial divide in our culture. From Charlottesville to #blacklivesmatter, it appears America is coming apart at its racial seams. Is it? How can we change the conversation so that we move toward constructive resolution of our racial angst instead of continue to diverge into a polarized culture? Vince shares from his own childhood and the lessons he's learned about navigating American society as he finds his identity in Christ. This is an honest conversation about racism, immigration, and the current temper of our political dialog.

Podcast Notes:

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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A variety of reactions to an earlier podcast about God's judgment, draws Brad and Wayne into a further conversation about how we explore truth inside a relationship with Jesus. Is it enough just to seek what makes us comfortable or sets us at ease? Our exploration of his love does not negate our hunger for truth, but actually intensifies it. Love is the conduit in which God brings truth, especially the difficult realities in our lives. They talk about what touchstones they use to help them know if what they are seeing is just a comforting thought or the truth as God knows it. They talk about the value of listening to the Spirit, finding an anchor in the story of Scripture, and giving weight to the thoughts of those further down the road than they are. Paul's passion for righteousness did not change after his conversion, only the process to find it, did. It was no longer something he could attain by keeping rules through human effort, but that which would flow out of a growing trust in the Father's love. But want it, he did!

Podcast Notes:

Working Through the Story of Scripture: The Jesus Lens

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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Why do prayers for rain in Pokot go unanswered for tens of thousands of people starving in a severe drought, while God seems to change the weather for two Americans hiking through Norway? That provocative question rises out of an earlier podcast starts Brad and Wayne on a conversation about sorting through the ways God works in our world, and why he rarely does the things we think love would compel him to do. They talk about the inherent conflict such questions provide, and how it is tat we move from theories about the way God works, to actually discovering how he is working in and around us. How do we follow God with some degree of freedom, knowing that his thoughts are way higher than our own?

Podcast Notes:

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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Some people don't think Brad and Wayne talk about they devil enough as a real adversary that has impact on the circumstances of our lives. Responding to a listener's question they share from their own experiences about the reality of the enemy in the world, how they deal with him, and why an unhealthy focus on what the enemy is doing can distract us from our life in Jesus. While aware of his reality, they are not fearful of his activity because he was disarmed on the cross by the work of Christ. They talk about dealing with exorcism, fruitless efforts to cast out the flesh, and how to resist the major way he works with us — by inviting us to live in the domain of his lies rather than the truth of who God is and what he is doing in people around us.

Podcast Notes:

Japan Connection Page

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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After a brief contemplation as to whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is the antichrist or a pastor wanna be, and how much gets distorted in our lives when we have to monetize our gifts. After that Wayne and Brad fall into a conversation about judgment at the end of the age. Are we going to stand accountable to God for what we've done and said during our lives and how we've treated others? Scripture seems to suggest that we will. Or, does the Resurrection zero out our past and everything starts over from there, as many believe? As God's children judgment is not something we need to fear, but embrace with joy. Father is coming to set things right in the universe and that may give us the opportunity to be part of some amazing hearings in the brokenness of human relationships. What a way to start eternity!

Podcast Notes:

Japan Connection Page

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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If God wants a relationship with us so much, why does he make it so difficult? Or does he? It seems like it some times, to be sure, but would that be true to his nature? Wouldn't he rather do it in the simplest way possible so that he would help us come to know him as he really is? What begins as a discussion of healing and some of the physical challenges in the Jacobsen household these days invites Brad and Wayne to discuss why our hopes in God sometimes fall short, and how it is that he could be revealing himself and we miss it because of our religious sensibilities or misplaced expectations. Learning to live in his love and life is a bit of a journey, not because he makes it difficult but because it is quite a process to connect broken humanity with the transcendent God who made heaven and earth.

Podcast Notes:

Japan Connection Page

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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Can you imagine a world in where people couldn't tell a lie even if they wanted to? Knowing the damage that deceit and duplicity do to relationships, that may well be heaven. But not everyone would agree since many use lies and pretense to cover their own shame and brokenness. Living loved will increasingly give us the freedom to see God as he really is and find our way back to honesty and truth. Perhaps it would be better said that heaven is a place where there is no reason to lie — ever! That's why salvation is not just about forgiveness, but finding a path to God that will transform us from the inside out, and why performance-based living will never set us free. Almost everything in Scripture can be turned into religious rules that kill, or be seen as relational realities that invite us to hope and freedom.

Podcast Notes:

Japan Connection Page

Helping with Agriculture in Pokot

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