The Laymens Lounge

“I immediately saw that neither pious homilies or straightforward religious education were cutting it. Instead, I brought in albums, video and newspaper clips. By exploring the stories behind pop music, entertainment and sports reporting with them I was able to unpack the underlying worldview. Not only does this approach work, it works without any complaints of preaching or indoctrination. Vital in today’s pluralist society. Stories are disarming!... We’ve used the same approach to name and shame the individualistic and materialist belief system that mugs so many today.” – Mark Roques

“Our weary hearts long to hear the gospel reverberate around us in surround sound. We hear the voices of our fellow church members and remember that were not in this alone. God has welcomed us into his family.”

Listen in as we sit down with Matt Merker, author of “Corporate Worship: How the Church Gathers as God’s People” (Crossway, 2021), asking him about all things worship/singing at church. Questions include:

1. Can you give us a historical overview of worship since Jesus?

2. What trends are very much products of the 21stcent?

3. Is worship with singing more sacred than, say, worship by other mediums (like presenting our bodies as living sacrifices to God… praying to God in lament… swimming in the ocean with a grateful heart… leading a peaceful and quiet life, etc.)?

4. Who is the singing for?

5. How should we views questions/comments like “How was worship?”… “Worship was awesome today!”?

6. To what end do we worship?

7. Is worship an experience or a transaction?

8. Can you help us set a proper expectation of a dedicated time of worship?

9. Can you speak to a few of the current trends we might hear in a worship time like “We want more” and “Who needs a fresh touching?”

10. What if I go to a church where the lyrics are just completely off? Do we just check-out and read the Psalms - or do we full-on find a new church - or do we sing-a-long with things we can’t sing in-faith about?

Not long ago, Dr. Michael Kruger came across a list of ten principles set forth by proponents of progressive Christianity. They are, in effect, a new Ten Commandments. What’s striking is that they are far less about God revealing his desires and far more about man expressing his own—less Moses, more Oprah.

Yet each of these “commandments” is partially true. Indeed, that is what makes this list, and progressive Christianity as a whole, so challenging. Half-truths can sound quite appealing until you recognize their foundations and implications. In connection with Dr. Kruger’s booklet, The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity(Cruciform Quick), listen in as Dr. Kruger diagnoses and critiques a few of these tenets and offer a brief biblical and theological response.

Liberal Christianity never really goes away. If the church is going to hold fast to “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), we must, in every era, be able to distinguish the true faith from the false.

Ok, so were saved… Now what? Once we know we are firm in Christ, we ask, along with Luther, what should we do now? We know we don’t perform good works to get saved, or to stay saved, or to improve our salvation, or to impress God… So why do works at all then? We agree with Luther/Wingren saying “God doesn’t need your good works… But your neighbor does.” We are free to work, we are free to return to a pre-fall era where work was first introduced as the original great commission (in the great cultural mandate “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it…” “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…’”). Join us as we sit down with Dr. Michael Berg, author of “Vocation: The Setting for Human Flourishing”, and have one of the most edifying and compelling nuts-and-bolts discussions on the Christian life as we have ever had where Dr. Berg, so clearly shows us, that vocation is “the setting for human flourishing”. Amen.

When the desire to be on fire for Jesus is a living hell

“Is there a God for those who are not changing anything but diapers? Is there a God for those who simply love their spouse and pour out rarely appreciated affection on their children day after day? Is there a God for the mom who spends what feels like God-forsaken days changing diapers and slicing up hot dogs? Is there a God for the man who hammers out a day’s work in obscurity for the love of his wife and kids? Is there a God for just and kind employers? Generous homemakers? Day-laborers who would look at a missions trip to Romania like it was an unimaginable vacation?... The question stretches out into the pew where it steals away into suburban homes and places of work and various schools. It breaks into bedrooms and boardrooms... Is there a God who makes sense of the life lived between the seismic and the extraordinary? Between the missions trips? In between the joy and the pain? Is there a God for the meantime? …I think there is.”

There are some great books out there for us Christians: There’s Calvin’s Institutes, Bavinck’s Dogmatics, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Confessions of St Augustine, Pilgrims Progress… There's James KA Smith, Tish Warren, and NT Wright… All great books and brilliant authors, But, this book, Matthew B. Redmond’s - "The God of the Mundane: Reflections on Ordinary Life for Ordinary People" – (perhaps my favorite book of all time) might be the most important book written the last 40 years. This is the one I want my kids to read, this is the book that I want every Christian I know to read. This book scratches the collective itch most 21st century Christians have. Indeed, it’s a lovely thing when the Gospel really becomes truly good news for all of life and Matthew B. Redmond does just that. Now, give is a listen and let all of God’s people say “amen”!

The Trinity is not a Mere Concept, Idea or Formula

Questions to Dr. Sonderegger

1. What did God’s internal relationship look like as Father, Son and Spirit BEFORE anything was ever created?

2. Does understanding their pre-creation relationship explain why the Son was sent by the Father instead of the Son sending the Father to be incarnate and save us?

3. Explain Eternal generation and Is Eternal generation still happening?

4. Was creation some kind of overflow or byproduct of God’s internal relationship as Father, Son and Spirit?

5. When people believe the gospel they are placed in Christ. Since we are now one with Christ by the Spirit are we now in the Trinity? If we are in the Trinity by grace what does that mean for us?

6. After Christ return or the day of the Lord will the Trinity just get back to business as usual however with the difference only being the Son has a bride now?

7. What do you think it will be like to experience the Trinity forever in glory?

Dr. Ross Hastings is a pure and utter delight and a fount of wisdom - a medium for compelling truth for the Christian just trying to make it through the day. Bombarded with temptations from within and without, how do we actually wage war, how do we “by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh”, and is this moral battle itself the telos and goal of the lived-Christian-life? What is participation and what does the Trinity have to do with ethics, making good choices and being a better dad neighbor? Please, please, take some time to listen-in as we sit down with Dr. Hastings and discuss years of his gathered wisdom and nuggets from his book “Theological Ethics: The Moral Life of the Gospel in Contemporary Context” (Zondervan Academic, 2021). Truly one of the best interviews we’ve had – may it be a blessing to all weary and rooted saints as it was to us.

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In the late 1960s and on into the next decade, Francis Schaeffer regularly received requests from evangelicals across North America seeking his help to replicate his innovative learning community, L'Abri, within their own contexts. At the same time, an innovative school called Regent College had started up in Vancouver, British Columbia, led by James Houston and offering serious theological education for laypeople. Before long, numerous admirers and attendees of L'Abri and of Regent had launched Christian "study centers" of their own―often based on or near university campuses―from Berkeley to Maryland. Join us as we sit down with Dr. Charles Cotherman, author of “To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement” (IVP Academic) to discuss the beginning, and lasting legacy, of both L’Abri and Regent College - and how people like C.S. Lewis, F.F. Bruce, R.C. Sproul, Hans Rookmaaker, John Stott & J.I. Packer all were a part of this noble endeavor.

We all know Santa Claus didn’t really punch Arius in the face at Nicea (but we still share the memes), but there are a few other urban legends of Church history we need to come corrected on. In this episode Dr. Michael J. Svigel, author of “Urban Legends of Church History: 40 Common Misconceptions” (B&H Academic), takes us on a fact-checking crusade and puts some serious chinks in the armor of pseudo-history. 

Join us as we sit down with Dr. Vincent Bacote, (interview part 2 of 2) (Associate Professor of Theology, Director of Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College) author of “Reckoning with Race and Performing the Good News In Search of a Better Evangelical Theology” (Brill, 2020) – listen-in as we have a thoughtful discussion on race, properly navigating blind-spots and how to view common experiences of minority/majority engagement. We’re not woke, but we’re not asleep – this is a volley where we hit race, tension, evangelicalism, priorities, and seek to attend to the concerns of others by taking the time to check for blind-spots and do the work of getting to know one another. May we have ears to hear. Amen.