The Shock Absorber

The Shock Absorber is back with a bonus episode on a Soul Revival institution - Week Away. What started as a holiday amongst Christian friends grew into slightly edgy, counter-cultural move against church being watered down to just one hour a week. 25 years on, Soul Revival Church's Week Away sees 250+ people go away to spend five days in God's word and with each other. Stu and Joel chat about memories of Week Away, it's meaning and why it's such a pivotal moment in Soul Revival's yearly calendar.

01:53 Memories of Week Away
04:52 Week Away 2022 and village life
12:51 How do you get so many people to go away together?
16:51 The beginnings of Week Away and it's influence
28:41 Difference between Week Away as a church and as a youth community
31:29 How Week Away fits within the Shock Absorber

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DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Youthworks Conference Centres

CONTACT US

Shock Absorber Email: [email protected]
Shock Absorber Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Shock Absorber Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

Check out what else Soul Revival is up to here: https://linktr.ee/JesusChangesEverything

Joel gives a quick update on where the Shock Absorber is headed next.

CONTACT US

Shock Absorber Email: [email protected]
Shock Absorber Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Shock Absorber Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

Check out what else Soul Revival is up to here: https://linktr.ee/JesusChangesEverything

Tim and Joel close out the final episode of our season Whatever Happened to Evangelism? From Jesus' command in Mark 1:15 and touring through history, we gained an understanding of what has shaped evangelism up until today. Christianity is always going to be questioned but we can allow God to help us express a genuine faith and research reveals that people are more open to a conversation about Jesus than we may initially think. Tim and Joel then finish with what they've been encouraged by this season.

00:00 Intro
02:38 Cultural Artefact: Tim's experience of confident Christianity
13:55 Did we find out what happened to evangelism?
23:44 Christianity is seen by some as dangerous
34:29 Are people actually more open to a conversation than we think?
58:10 Genuine faith is attractive
1:10:08 What we've learnt this season

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DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Paddington Bear joins the Queen for afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace
The Bebbington quadrilateral
Does Religion Cause All Wars? episode
Bullies and Saints, by John Dickson
Tom Holland
Faith and Belief in Australia report, by McCrindle
Episode with Timothy Paul Jones
Where Did All the Evangelism Conferences Go?, by Ed Stetzer
Evangelism Explosion

CONTACT US

Shock Absorber Email: [email protected]
Shock Absorber Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Shock Absorber Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

Check out what else Soul Revival is up to

This year, 2022, marks the 30-year anniversary since the inception of Soul Revival. The guys take a look over what's been learnt over the years to help Christians be humbly confident and as a result, continue to evangelise. This includes semiotics, giving your best night to God and spending time with one another, building relationships around Jesus.

01:29 Cultural Artefact: Soul Revival Semiotics
19:15 Using different tools to evangelise
29:16 Our distinctiveness as Christians
41:45 What are we making important?
57:07 Discipleship and mission starts the local church
1:15:11 Building relationship with other churches

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Soul Revival Shop

DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Studio Q interview with The Hives
Hard Quiz
Point Break
The Black Panther Party
Hegemony
Chip Lunch Crossover episode
Cronulla Riots

CONTACT US

Shock Absorber Email
Shock Absorber Discord
Shock Absorber Website
Soul Revival Shop

A trope that's often thrown at Christians since 9/11 is that religion causes all wars. Stu, Tim and Joel are in the Third Space Studio to examine the oft-raised comment and contend that a deeper dive into statistics and world history paints a different picture. They delve into where such arguments come from, how Christians can approach it and how to hold onto the evangelical line when doing so.

2:05 Cultural Artefact: Hacksaw Ridge
9:50 War is not glorious but intriguing
14:28 New atheism, 9/11 and post-Christianity
25:03 Adopting the right posture
33:53 Where does the argument come from?
52:27 Holding the evangelical line within the discussion
1:00:55 Final thoughts

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DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Henry V speech Stu was showing before the episode
Hacksaw Ridge
World War Two channel
The End of History and the Last Man, by Francis Fukayama
Is Religion the Cause of Most Wars?, by Rabbi Alan Lurie
Encyclopedia of Wars, by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens
Richard Dawkins loses ‘humanist of the year’ title over trans comments
Thirty Years War
Rene Descartes
Did Descartes Sleep in an Oven?
The French Revolution
Does Religion Cause Violence?, by John Dickson
The Myth of Religious Violence, by Karen Armstrong
US switching from biblical American Revolution values to secular French Revolution ones, by Os Guinness
The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai's Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom, by Os Guinness

CONTACT US

Shock Absorber Email: [email protected]
Shock Absorber Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Shock Absorber Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

The Shock Absorber takes it's tour of history all the way up to the present as we continue to discuss evangelism. Some Christians are perplexed on how to evangelise among a culture that continues to look as if we disagree more than ever. After looking at culture wars, the battle of ideas and Donald Trump; Stu, Tim and Joel settle on one thing: Let's preach the gospel and have a conversation centred around faith based on Jesus, then we can all have different opinions and still gather together regardless.

Apologies for the bad audio for Tim at the end of the podcast. We had a problem with a microphone lead!

01:35 Cultural Artefact - George Floyd Protests
10:05 Culture wars or a battle of ideas?
26:30 Donald Trump: Christians for or against?
46:06 Seeing things the way God does
58:32 When we aren't afraid of dying, we aren't afraid of living

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JUMP ON THE DISCORD CHAT ON FRIDAY 10 JUNE, 1.00 PM AEST: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE

DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

George Floyd protests
Winston Churchill
Robert Baden-Powell
Robert Baden-Powell statue: Scouts founder monument given 24-hour protection as temporary removal is delayed
The Sacred Canopy, by Peter Berger
Alain Touraine
The 'teal bath' of independents heading to Parliament
Donald Trump
Donald Trump in Home Alone 2
Ryan Burge
Bebbington Quadrilateral
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Ben Uniquely Stupid, by Jonathan Haidt
Mark Sayers
Breaking Points
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution, by Carl R. Trueman
Episode with Timothy Paul Jones
The Sermon on the Mount

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CONTACT US:

Shock Absorber Email: [email protected]
Shock Absorber Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Shock Absorber Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

The Shock Absorber welcomes Timothy Paul Jones onto the podcast! TPJ's presence inspires a wide-ranging discussion about the evangelical lines, the current state of evangelism, family ministry, apologetics and how it's often more about the morals rather than the miracles when discussing Jesus with non-believers.

01:47 Meet TPJ and Cultural Artefact - Skillet
11:38 The lines of evangelicalism and the current moment
28:34 TPJ's Fundamentalist church experience and the difficulty of bundling
34:43 The state of evangelism, challenging others and creating conversations
50:55 Embracing difference + family ministry
1:05:03 Navigating different cultural contexts while preaching

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You can listen to the Apologetics Podcast here

DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Timothy Paul Jones
The Apologetics Podcast
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Sojourn Church - Midtown
Skillet
Wage War
Rose Tattoo
Carl F. H. Henry
On Christian Doctrine: De Doctrina Christiana, by Augustine
Backmasking
Roe v Wade
Research on evangelism by Barna:
Almost Half of Practicing Christians Milennials Say Evangelism is Wrong
Sharing Faith is Increasingly Optional to Christians
Is Evangelism Going Out of Style?
Most Open to Spiritual Conversations, Few Christians Speaking
Charles Taylor
Juneteenth

CONTACT US

Email: [email protected]
Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

Tim returns to the studio as the Shock Absorber discusses the 2010s and it's impact on evangelism. Following on from the three lines of Christian evangelicalism that emerged following the Scopes Trial in the 1920s, the 2010s saw the further splintering of both the fundamentalist and modernist/liberal strands. This leads to a discussion about how to hold on to the evangelical line, wrestling with what God wants us to do and testing new ideas against Scripture.

01:15 Cultural Artefact - Party in the U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus
11:24 The paths of Christian evangelicalism
20:03 Progressive Christianity and bundling
40:11 Wrestling for the evangelical line
1:09:08 The Tea Party

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DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Party in the U.S.A., by Miley Cyrus
Roe v Wade
Scopes Trial
Anglicans Bishops block marriage statement at Synod
Alain Touraine
Deconstruction
John Stott
J.I. Packer
Gun buy back program
Australian Christian Lobby
New Atheism
Rob Bell
Bullhorn Guy
N.T. Wright
Stephen Fry's "How Dare You"
The Tea Party Movement
CNBC's Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Stu and Joel continue to tour through the 2000s and look at how Christians evangelise. The 9/11 attacks signalled the beginning of a new era as the internet came into prominence. As a result, culture changes continued to accelerate and further pluralise an already pluralistic culture. This brought debate about religious extremism, atheism and inevitable changes (and responses) among Christians and the church.

01:42 Cultural Artefact - The internet's impact, especially football
06:30 The iPhone
10:44 The church responds to culture shifts post-9/11
24:06 Pluralism results in a pluralistic approach
28:11 The results of the new expressions of church
35:00 The New Atheists

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DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Liverpool F.C.
UEFA Champions League
Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
The iPhone
Apple Newton
The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger
Alan Hirsch
Mars Hill Church
This Cultural Moment podcast
Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, by Andrew Root
Liberation theology
Universalism
Mark Sayers
The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry, by Mark Senter III
Sam Harris
Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
Christopher Hitchens
God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
Daniel Dennett
MySpace
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Snapchat
TikTok
Islamic extremism
9/11 attacks
Lindt cafe seige
2005 London Underground bombings
Flying Spaghetti Monster and Pastafarians

CONTACT US

Email: [email protected]
Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop

Tim returns with Joel and Stu to examine the late nineties and early-2000s. The speed of change within culture continued to speed up and the challenge, as always was for the church to keep up. They look at different reactions to those changes including the immersive evangelical counter-culture, Christian schools, the ministries of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels and the shift towards a different version of political engagement.

02:07 Cultural Artefact - Veggie Tales, DC Talk & Newsboys
07:33 Tim's experience and the events of 1990s
16:29 The Christian Right
18:36 Culture changes accelerating & reacting to youth
31:56 Influence of Rick Warren & Bill Hybels
46:15 The Evangelical Subculture

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DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE

Jesus Freak, by DC Talk
Breakfast, by Newsboys
Veggie Tales
Columbine High School Massacre
Marilyn Manson
9/11 attacks
Concept of the End of History
The Nineties: A Book, by Chuck Klosterman
Port Arthur Massacre
George W. Bush
D. James Kennedy
Netscape Navigator
Tool
Pantera
Blink-182
Green Day
Living End
MxPx
Moshing
The Purpose Drive Life, by Rick Warren
Rick Warren
Saddleback Church
Bill Hybels
Willow Creek Community Church
Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency
5Ms model of ministry
Watergate scandal
How America’s youth lost its religion in 1990s
The Spirit of Generation Y: Young People's Spirituality in a Changing Australia

CONTACT US

Email: [email protected]
Discord: https://discord.gg/jTD5KNAYVE
Website: shockabsorber.com.au
Soul Revival Shop: soulrevival.shop