There are lots of anxiety-inducing things going on at personal, local, national and global levels—can we really believe live fearlessly in the midst of everything? How? Lisa Whittle is an author of six books, most recently: Put Your Warrior Boots On: Walking Jesus Strong, Once and for All.  Lisa calls us to a life of courage, not because of anything we have done or can muster on our own, but because of what Christ has done and is doing for us and through us.

Our second guest, Morgan Jackson is Senior Vice President of the organization and shares with us some of the amazing things God is doing through audio Bibles.

Currently, around 93 percent of the world’s population have a cell phone- which is good news for the spread of the Good News.   Faith Comes by Hearing is seeking to create audio versions of the Bible in every language. is working to see a viral movement of the Word of God. Technology is helping spread the good news of Jesus Christ to those who have never before heard the Bible in their mother tongue.

Birga Alden is guest hosting for Carmen this week. First, she interviews Steve Stewart, the founder of Impact Nations, an international organization committed to releasing spiritual, economic and social transformation in developing countries. In his latest book When Everything Changes: Healing, Justice and the Kingdom of God, Steve is calling Christians out of their self-created “safe zones” and into the places of need, brokenness, and despair. This is what Christ did for us and what he calls us to do for others.

Then, regular guest George Barna joins us to discuss research on what beliefs are held by born-again Christians. George Barna is Executive Director of the American Culture and Faith Institute.

Related articles and resources:

ImpactNations.com

Watch short videos on the latest findings from American Culture and Faith Institute

Saturday night, terrorists killed seven people and injured dozens more in London, UK. This is just the latest in a recent string of high-profile attacks. Fear is pervasive. What is our response, specifically as Christians? It is really tempting to also turn inward and toward fear.

Our first guest is a refugee-turned-Pastor, who fled Iraq when he was 18. Jalil Dawood helps us see the recent wave of refugees as God sees them: people in need of Christ. There are many ways to get involved with refugee care, from reaching out personally to being involved with an organization that helps refugees start a new life in their new home.

Then, we talk with Stephan Bauman. the former founder and CEO of World Relief, an international relief agency. He recently wrote a book which addresses something close to home for many Christians who are grappling with great uncertainty and fear as they look around them. How can a believer reject the fear that is so prevalent and “live a life of authentic faith” with courage?

Related articles and resources:

The Refugee: A Story of God’s Grace and Hope on One Man’s Road to Refuge

World Refugee Care

Break Open the Sky: Saving Our Faith from a Culture of Fear

REAIR

Our guest Kara Powell, director of Fuller Youth Institute, says in order to attract young people to church, you can leave your skinny jeans at home. It’s not about being cool– but warm.

Billy Hallowell is Senior Editor of Faithwire News and the author of a new book exposing the seismic cultural shifts in our culture. How are the forces of Hollywood, media and our universities shaping the future generations? What can we do today to bring some healing?

Related articles and resources:

To attract young people to your church, you’ve got to be warm. Not cool.

http://churchesgrowingyoung.com/

Fault Line: How a Seismic Shift in Culture Is Threatening Free Speech and Shaping the Next Generation

Full interview with Miroslav Volf

President Trump announced today the US will no longer participate in international climate change agreement, the Paris Accord. The climate has been changing since the first days of Creation. Things are not today like they were in the Beginning. Imagine the air and water quality in the Garden of Eden. We live a long way from Eden because we’ve been living a long time in the garden of sin. But if you’ve read the Bible to the end you know that God’s redemptive plan includes the Creation itself.

Do you long for adventure? Are you drawn to the wild places? Whether that describes you or someone you know, we have the perfect interview to get you ready for summer. Roger Thompson is an entrepreneur, author, and adventurer. He has written a book to help you find the higher calling in adventure. We Stood Upon Stars: Finding God in Lost Places is a travel book as much about those we travel with.

God is drawing us to discover the much bigger sense of who He is. -Roger W Thompson

 

Related articles and resources:

Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement

A huge crack across one of Antarctica’s largest ice shelves is nearing its breaking point

There was a massive truck bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan diplomatic quarter, which killed (at least) 80 and wounded hundreds – including 11 Americans.

Even as we rightly condemn this act of terror, we need to address a sobering reality: we in America have made a mockery of ourselves by making light of and even making jokes about the horrific ways in which terrorists are slaughtering people around the world. Kathy Griffin tweeted a horrific photo of a decapitated President Trump and was widely criticized. She stepped outside the acceptable bounds of public discourse, drawing attention to the declining state of our civil conversations today. Where does it end? 

In our second half, we talk with a distinguished professor of the social sciences and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, Dr. Rodney Stark. We discuss his latest book on why “God” is necessary for religion. Sound obvious? Not so much. Throughout history, and even today among some denominations, it has been argued that religion is possible without “a god.” This argument would say a system of beliefs is what makes a “religion.” Dr. Stark helps unpack the issues with that argument and unveils why the object of your belief matters.

Related articles and resources:

Civil Discourse in decline, where does it end?

Why God? Explaining Religious Phenomena

On this special day, we take a break from the headline news and honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. We have the opportunity to speak with Wesley Hobbs Bauguess. She is both a Veteran and an Army widow. 

Wesley shares with us about her husband Larry, who was assassinated after a peace meeting in Pakistan. It has been 10 years since she answered that knock at the door that changed her and her kids’ lives. She helps us understand what it looks like to walk this journey and how we can come along slide military families.

She is the author of God, Country, Golf: Reflections of an Army Widow

 

More about Wesley:

God, Country, and Golf

PGA.com Helping heal after enduring tragic loss | The Spirit of Golf

Related ways to care for veterans for those families who lost someone in service:

Folds of Honor: Provides educational scholarships to spouses and children of America’s fallen and disabled service-members.

Patriot Foundation: Provides support for the families of Airborne, Air Assault, and Special Operations soldiers, and other selected warriors killed, wounded, and injured in the Global War on Terrorism.

Ramadan begins this week, and there have been numerous attacks and declarations from Islamists calling on Muslims to violence during the holy month. How do we respond? We pray with vigilance but resist the kind of fear that produces the level of hate which resulted in the murders of two men on a public transit train in Portland Oregon.

Those of us from the historic Reformed tradition know well the process of catechesis from the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms. But many American Christians grew up with less liturgical expressions of the church. What is catechesis and why is the value of it to our spiritual lives and communities? Collin Hansen is Editorial Director for The Gospel Coalition and joins us to talk about a new resource available, the New City Catechism. We discuss with him who the practice of reintroducing catechesis can help ground us in the faith and pass it on to the next generation.

Related articles and resources:

Trump’s statement on Ramadan is almost entirely about terrorism

Teen on Portland train: ‘They lost their lives because of me and my friend’

The New City Catechism

 

President Trump’s international trip provides a really important opportunity to talk about peace. Trump visited locations important to the three monotheistic religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. We look back over his trip and ask the question: what is peace?

The New England Journal of Medicine released an article on why people choose assisted suicide. The researchers were surprised by the findings. Most people who choose assisted suicide for “existential” reasons, rather than pain. The study found people expressed a desire to control their life and death. They were seeking autonomy, but the reality is, we are not in control of so many things.

One of the things we cannot control, ultimately, is our health. Dr. Jamie Aten has been on the show in the past related to his role founder and co-director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute (HDI) at Wheaton College. But today, we talk with him about his own personal disaster. At 35, Jamie learned he had stage 4 colon cancer. We hear his story about surviving cancer and how we can come alongside those face a personal disaster.

Related articles and resources:

Attack On Coptic Christians Kills At Least 28 In Egypt

Jamie Aten: A Walking Disaster

Spiritual advice for surviving cancer and other disasters

Wheaton’s Humanitarian Disaster Institute

Who is my neighbor? It was a question religious leaders posed to Jesus, and it is a question we confronted as children through popular TV show host Mr. Rodgers. When events like the Manchester attack shake us, we are again motivated to consider: who is my neighbor?

For how not to treat your neighbor, we have a potential Member of Congress in Montana in mind today. Servant leadership includes the very difficult, and often humiliating, a posture of dealing with people who espouse a range of opinions through protest and sometimes vile behavior. 

New Orleans Mayor, Mitch Landrieu delivered a powerful speech on race worth reading on how we treat our neighbors- all of them.

So who is my neighbor? The one who shows mercy.

Addie Zierman describes herself as both a believer and a cynic. She blogs about “sermon notes for cynics” and is the author of When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over. She shares her journey of faith to this point, why she’s back in church and why she takes notes.

 

Related articles and resources:

This Mr. Rogers story will probably make you cry