Today's Conversation

In this podcast, you’ll be inspired in your place of leadership as George shares: What leadership examples in Scripture were particularly meaningful to him; How he developed core values for his tenure; How God led him to this unique ministry calling; and The challenges and joys of leadership. Read a Portion of the Transcript Leith: ...

In Today's Conversation, Leith Anderson and George O. Wood discuss denominational leadership, including setting goals, inspiring growth from the top down, and speaking on behalf of a diverse constituency. 

In this podcast, you’ll be inspired in your place of leadership as George shares:

What leadership examples in Scripture were particularly meaningful to him;

How he developed core values for his tenure;

How God led him to this unique ministry calling; and

The challenges and joys of leadership.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: We live in a time when there are a lot of non-denominational churches. And while most churches in America are denominational churches, what’s your best case for why we should have denominations and what denominations offer to churches, pastors, and to culture at large?

George: Denominations offer resources. They offer accountability. For example, with our credential ministers, they must go through a preparation and examination, but I think more importantly I compare the association of churches banning together to local Christians banning together. When I’m with the congregation explaining what the Assemblies of God is I’ll say, “Just as you have found that you cannot live the Christian life by yourself; you need others; and by banning together you do the work of Jesus better in your community than you could do it if you were trying to be alone and a singular Christian.” So it is with churches, when we ban together, we better advance the work of the Lord, and the primary support for this is just simply the empirical data of what’s happened in the Assemblies of God.

Right from the get go, when our churches were very small, we said we’re going to do missions globally at the same time we’re doing it locally. So in the early days, they developed a very strong methodology. Today that has resulted in a worldwide network of the Assemblies of God of over 370, 000 churches and 68 million believers. That could not have happened by an individual, independent church working by itself to advance world mission. There was a need for churches to band together to accomplish the mission of Jesus. I think that’s the great asset of a denomination that it provides forward movement to make possible what could not be done by a singular church acting by itself alone.

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Today's Conversation is brought to you by Faithkeepers.

 

 

In this podcast, you’ll also hear Daniel, who trains Asian Americans for church leadership and others for ministry to Asian Americans, explain: The challenges Asian American Christian leaders face when serving in non-Asian majority contexts; The diversity within Asian American churches; The history and growth of Asian immigration to the United States; and How Asian ...

In Today's Conversation, Leith Anderson and Daniel Lee talk about how culture affects faith, differences between predominantly white churches and Asian American churches, how Asian Americans understand racism in the United States, and more.

In this podcast, you’ll also hear Daniel, who trains Asian Americans for church leadership and others for ministry to Asian Americans, explain:

The challenges Asian American Christian leaders face when serving in non-Asian majority contexts;

The diversity within Asian American churches;

The history and growth of Asian immigration to the United States; and

How Asian American believers are influencing the broader U.S. evangelical movement.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: Talk to us about why cultural identity is important for all Christians to consider. And how does that relate to how diversity is important? How do these things connect?

Daniel: Cultural, racial, family, religion — all that’s important for us. It’s important, because we want to bring all of ourselves to God — for us to know ourselves and to offer all of ourselves to God. Offer all of ourselves to be reconciled with the gospel, all of ourselves to be transformed by the gospel, and all of who we are to be taken up for kingdom work. For that to happen, we need to know ourselves to be able to do that.

Now if we don’t know who we are, what ends up happening a lot of times is we assume that these things are just normative. They’re not things that impact our faith. One of the things that I’ve learned in missional theology is … that we’re actually in a context. Lesslie Newbigin and other people actually realized all the missiological tools we learned from all the oversees missions applies to America. The fact that we are in a context, and these things can actually enhance or distort our faith. In that way, if we don’t know our context, then we can be totally captive to our context as well.

So just for the sake of understanding what the gospel is and to make sure we’re not being co-opted by cultural context and cultural influences, it’s important to know our cultural identity. In another way, knowing ourselves actually helps us to see our neighbors as well. I think that’s important. In that sense, I think culture identity and knowledge and aptitude is important.

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Today’s Conversation is brought to you by Fuller Theological Seminary.

 

In Today’s Conversation with NAE President Leith Anderson, you’ll hear a noted sociologist share findings from her research of over 10,000 Americans and explain: The fundamental questions that shape how Americans approach science; What people of faith — particularly evangelicals — believe about the Earth’s origin; What informs attitudes towards the environment and climate change; and ...

Are religion and science in conflict? How do different religious groups view science? Do evangelicals perceive tension between science and their faith? Elaine Howard Ecklund studies religious people's perceptions of science and lends us her expertise.

In Today's Conversation with NAE President Leith Anderson, you'll hear a noted sociologist share findings from her research of over 10,000 Americans and explain:

The fundamental questions that shape how Americans approach science;

What people of faith — particularly evangelicals — believe about the Earth's origin;

What informs attitudes towards the environment and climate change; and

How religious groups view scientists.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: It seems that there’s a pretty substantial and ongoing myth that religious people just don’t like science. To me, it seems that what I have most often heard is that that’s attributed either to the Scopes trial in 1925 or somebody’s got a story about a high school science teacher or college professor and somehow that anecdote takes on a whole expansive life of its own. Where did these myths get started?

Elaine: I think a quick answer is that conflict sells, so a radical collaboration doesn’t sell as well. But I think that we need to persist. In its best form, social scientific research can help us come more humbly to these kinds of conflicts and say, “Gosh, there’s some stereotypes that this group has about this other group. If we could use research to break down those stereotypes we might be able to work together for the common good a little more effectively.”

It does seem like these historical cases that particular kinds of media report what we call “over-generalization from a few loud voices,” meaning that people who write popular books — people who are likely to be quoted who are especially angry — make the rest of the world believe that the group of people who think there’s a conflict is much larger than it really is. Those are some of the things, I think, that lead us to the place of conflict. For me as a researcher and those of us who work in pastoral ministry or have other kinds of public roles, I think that makes our job especially more challenging, but there is a lot of potential there when we see this data that people are ready to receive a different story and a truer story.

When God and Science Meet

Many people perceive tension — and sometimes even hostility — between faith and science. But there’s more agreement than many realize. The NAE's "When God and Science Meet" publication brings together an impressive group of authors to put science and faith on the same page. Podcast listeners can receive a free printed copy by using a promo code included in the podcast audio.

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With their capacity for indiscriminate destruction, nuclear weapons raise profound spiritual, moral and ethical concerns. In Today's Conversation, Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains the real risks of nuclear proliferation and what needs to be done to avoid nuclear catastrophe.

In this podcast, NAE President Leith Anderson and Max Tegmark also discuss:

What we know about the nuclear programs of other countries, including North Korea and Iran;

What a "nuclear winter" is, as well as other implications of a nuclear incident;

Whether reducing the number of nuclear weapons weakens nuclear deterrence; and

Why Republican presidents have had more success in reducing U.S. nuclear weapons than Democratic presidents.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: You’ve mentioned a large number of arms, 7,000 each, for Russia and the United States. There are other nuclear powers — India and Pakistan, allegedly Israel, and now North Korea. So, what do you know about North Korea’s nuclear program, and what are the risks there?

Max: When we signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty many decades ago, the idea was that should prevent new countries from joining the nuclear club. But then India, Israel and Pakistan decided to go nuclear anyway and were never actually punished for it. And now North Korea says, “Ok, we want to be a nuclear state too.” They now have between 10 and 60 nuclear bombs and are trying to upgrade. The U.S. and Russia have about 7,000 each. All the other states — none of them have more than a few hundred each. My guess is that North Korea is aiming to get up to that level also — maybe having a couple hundred.

Relevant Links

NAE Resolution on Nuclear Weapons

Future of Life Institute Website

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If you enjoyed the program, please rate it on iTunes and write a brief review. That will help get the word out and raise the visibility of the show.

Today’s Conversation is brought to you by National Marriage Week USA.

 

In this podcast, NAE President Leith Anderson and Max Tegmark also discuss: What we know about the nuclear programs of other countries, including North Korea and Iran; What a “nuclear winter” is, as well as other implications of a nuclear incident; Whether reducing the number of nuclear weapons weakens nuclear deterrence; and Why Republican presidents ...

As president of Hobby Lobby and a committed Christian, Steve Green has a unique perspective on running a successful business according to one's faith.

In Today's Conversation podcast with NAE President Leith Anderson, Steve talks about how his faith impacts the way he leads, reflects on Hobby Lobby's landmark Supreme Court case, and shares about his legacy project, Museum of the Bible.

You'll also hear Leith and Steve discuss:

What the Bible says about business;

Advice for young Christians seeking a career in business;

What the Hobby Lobby case means for religious freedom in the United States; and

His hopes for the Museum of the Bible.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: What do you think the Bible has to say about being a leader in business?

Steve: I think our best example is Christ himself. He came as a leader but did it in the non-traditional way. The servant leadership model is what he modeled. Our role as a corporate staff — at the corporate level — is to serve our stores. Our store managers are there to serve our customer, so we’re here to serve.

… Scripture tells us whatever we find our hands to do, do it with all your might — obviously with integrity and honesty, treating people as we would want to be treated. These are all principles that we find in the Scripture that we strive to do. We’ve never done it perfectly, but that’s what we strive to do by example and through how we teach our employees to serve those that they’re here to serve.

Read Through the Bible in 2018

Thru the Bible Reading Guide is a checklist of daily Scripture readings. For over a decade, churches across the nation have used this guide to help their members make God’s Word part of their every day.

The NAE’s unique guide offers:

Daily readings in general chronological order with Psalms on Sunday;

Compact design to fit inside even the smallest Bibles; and

Packages of 50, 250 or 500 copies, discounted accordingly.

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Share the Love

If you enjoyed the program, please rate it on iTunes and write a brief review. That will help get the word out and raise the visibility of the show.

In Today’s Conversation podcast with NAE President Leith Anderson, Steve talks about how his faith impacts the way he leads, reflects on Hobby Lobby’s landmark Supreme Court case, and shares about his legacy project, Museum of the Bible. You’ll also hear Leith and Steve discuss: What the Bible says about business; Advice for young Christians ...