View from the Mount

Is preaching the most effective way of reaching the lost? Is it equipping the church to do the work of the Kingdom? Should preachers hold fast to what has been effective in the past, or change their approach to accommodate today’s culture?

In today's culture, we often see people leaving one congregation to join another. This happens for a lot of reasons, but the question is, how many of those are good reasons? When should we leave a church, and when should we stay?

We read in scripture that God is holy, and that He wants His church to be holy. But what does that really mean? How do we grow in holiness throughout our lives, and is the church pursuing personal holiness?

There are so many different ideas about love. People talk about “falling into” or “falling out of” love. We’re told that the heart wants what the heart wants, that love has no labels, and that love means agreeing with and supporting everything a person does. But what does the Bible teach about love? What does God’s love look like, and how do we demonstrate that kind of love?

In Romans 13, Paul stated that Christians are to bow to governing authorities. We also see many examples of God’s people refusing to comply when the governing authorities were in violation of God’s authority. As our government grapples with a pandemic, many of the measures they’ve put in place have restricted personal liberty. As the church today, how do we know when to submit and when to stand up and say “no”? And can our answer be defended scripturally? Matt and Jason wrestle with these questions and others in this week’s episode.

In John 17, Jesus prays for the coming church to be unified, so that through that unity the world would know He was sent by God. What did He mean by that? What does the world see when they look at the church? With so many denominational rifts, how can we find the unity that Christ prayed for?

It’s clear in scripture that the nuclear family was God’s plan from the very beginning. Families are the building blocks of the church, and of our society. In today’s world, many people are seeking to change or dismantle God’s plan for the family. Jason and Matt will discuss what God’s plan for the family looks like, what the results are when that plan is ignored, and what the church can do to lead people back to that plan.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the central belief of the Christian faith. It is the of God for salvation, and we’ve been commanded to share it with all the world. But are we really sharing the gospel with others? Do we really understand it ourselves? Join Jason and Matt as they discuss the transformative power of the gospel, its power to save the lost, and why we need reminding of it every day.

Prayer is one of the most fundamental parts of our walk with Christ. The early church was devoted to prayer, and God did great things when His people prayed. But are we as devoted to prayer as they were? As individuals? As families? As the church? Jason and Matt discuss what prayer looks like in today’s church, and what the impact might be on God’s Kingdom.

As we move into the future, we see different issues that threaten the effectiveness of the church’s mission. Some of these threats are external, as our culture turns further from God, but others are internal. Jason and Matt each prepared a list of some of the threats they see affecting the church, and this week they’ll take turns going through and discussing what those threats might be.