The Laymens Lounge

Join us as we sit down with Winfield Bevins, author of "Simply Anglican: An Ancient Faith for Today's World" (Anglican Compass, 2020), asking him why so many Christians are trading their “Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy” shirt for icons of Chrysostom and prayer books, and find out what itch Anglicanism and liturgy scratch that the new-Calvinism doesn’t.

Listen in as I try to interview John Goldingay on Genesis.

What are “Ethics”? What is the need for Ethics when we have Theology? What do ethics have to do with my normal life? How can I become the person I want to be? How can I try to live like Jesus and Hudson Taylor when they were at another level? How can I be a better human when Im depraved? All these, and more: listen in as we have a discussion with Dr. Pieter Vos around his new book “Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics after Protestantism”.

There is a reason Tish Harrison Warren is widely received amongst us rank-and-file saints. She’s a Christian, she’s a human with hopes, fears and doubts. It seems many authors and teachers write and speak to the Christian’s normal lived-life by, unfortunately, responding to questions that nobody is really asking. But then there is Tish Harrison Warren. Here she invites us into her own journey of ordinary-grief where, along the way, she speaks and observes as one of us. Listen in as we discuss everyday life prayer in the context of the grief and sorrow of: stubbed toes, daughters left out at school, unfulfilled desires, miscarriages, depleting health (and even that sort-of lingering sorrow that is like a heavy fog, where your just kinda' bummed and you don’t know why), and turnover ways we can endure the mystery of suffering - in light of the glorious resurrection of our elder brother Jesus, because, as Tish says, "I think the Resurrection is the really big deal of the universe."

The purveyor of common grace that Tish is, here are some shot from the hip suggestions of glory for your edification, reading, listening, & eating/drinking pleasure:

"The glory of God is man fully alive.” - Irenaeus of Lyons

“Dogmatics is far from an abstract business but is connected by a thousand and one threads to everyday life.” - Cornelis van der Kooi

Is it weird to anybody else that Theology often seems like a gentleman’s club, a hobby for academics and has really very very little to say about the rest of us as we try to “work out [our] salvation”? Why must high-truth be placed so high so that I need astronomical training to get there? Why are our seminary professors content with asking about (in Latin, of course) if God can make a martini so large that He cant drink it, instead of asking things like: “I know God loves me, but does He like me?”, “What does the Gospel have to do with the fact that I hate how I’m getting fat as I’m getting older?”, “How should my faith inform my life as I’m driving my kids to baseball practice?”, “Does God love a backyard BBQ as much as I do?”, etc. I’m not saying that Cornelis van der Kooi and Gijsbert van der Brink answer these questions directly in their “Christian Dogmatics: An Introduction” (Eerdmans 2017), but they sure do give us the tools we need to get there. This is, hands down, the best Systematic Theology I have ever read. Please do buy a copy as soon as you have a chance, and until then, listen in as we sit down with Dr. van der Kooi and discuss a few aspects of the Christian life that many of us face in 2021.

"Unless we rest in God's personalizing of us, we will try and 'personalize' our faith through our own intensity and emotions. Often, the 'personalness' of the gospel is secured through second-rate means, such as gratitude for salvation, or an individual sense of God's presence, or a missional call. These are wonderful things, but they are false securities. On the contrary, the only thing that can guarantee the personal nature of our faith is God's own personhood… Framing our whole existence around the personalness of God-as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- is what ensures that our "spirituality" (or "piety") remains personal." - Julie Canlis

"In an era of 'doing' - of activism, of measurable ministry - "being" can be one's personal hell. It is the hard task of laying tasks aside in order to contemplate and receive the words 'This is my beloved SOn, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. 3:17). Only when we hear that word can our tasks have any meaning at all. Spiritual formation is all about entering this Father-Son relationship, about living out the truth of our adoption. It is formation as relation." - Julie Canlis

Join us as we sit down with Dr. Julie Canlis and discuss ordinary life for ordinary Christians.

"J. Gresham Machen was one of many to fall under the spell of football. 'When I see a vacant field on one of these autumn days,' Machen wrote to a friend while in Europe in 1905, 'my mind is filled with wonder at this benighted people which does not seem to hear the voice of nature when she commands every human being to play football or watch it being played.'”

Join us we sit down with Dr. Paul Putz (Assistant Director of the Faith & Sports Institute at Truett Seminary) and discuss the intersection of sports & Christianity asking questions like:

LINKS:

“People have this weird and irrational tendency to begin a new year with the assumption that things will truly be new during the next twelve months, that calendar changes equal humanity changes. I admit, quite sheepishly, that I sometimes share this weird notion... You think, My commitment to the straight and narrow is strong’ but your heart tells a far different and darker story.” - Chad Bird

Happy New Year! Bring your New Year's Resolutions, and desires for growth, and listen in as we sit with the golden-penned, and down-to-earth, Chad Bird as we discuss resolutions, failed resolutions, spiritual disciplines, sanctification, law and gospel, and the Gospel.

Through thirty-three objects, Tim Challies explores the history of what God is accomplishing in this world, whether through princes or peasants, triumph or trial and (notating his findings in a book and DVD set). Each object offers a tangible link between the present and the past, between the Christians of the 21st century and those who lived and died in centuries past. Join us as we sit down with Tim and discuss some of his comings and goings.

You can watch a free episode of “Epic” here: “Epic Episode 8: India”

NOTE: Since this recording, our brother Tim Challies lost his beloved son Nick, please do pray for the entire Challies family.

Join us as we sit down with J.D. Greear and discuss the implications of Christmas and how the “hopes and fears of all the years are met in” Jesus.