Vision For Life

Modern Americans have collective attention deficiency; our ability to read entire books, track complex arguments, or listen intently is collapsing. Hunter and Autumn turn to two articles to examine what this collapse of attention may mean for the church in the modern era.

Church leaders and Christian Bible college professors are noting a “double literacy loss” within their respective communities. Trevin Wax and Brad East describe the first loss as “biblical literacy loss.” Familiarity with biblical themes and stories was once high in the American populace but is now uncommon even among regular church attenders. The second loss is “general literacy loss” due to the widespread collapse of attention. If reading and study are declining, as these authors contest, how will a rising generation of Christians engage Scripture?

Resources mentioned in this episode:
"Bible Reading in an Age of Double Literacy Loss" by Trevin Wax (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/bible-reading-literacy-loss/)

"Double Literacy Loss" by Brad East (https://www.bradeast.org/blog/double-literacy-loss)

"Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World" by Maryanne Wolf (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062388770)

"Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention - and How to Think Deeply Again" by Johann Hari (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FYHKYFJ)

A dramatic increase in teen anxiety and depression in America over the past few years has caught the attention of doctors, therapists, educators, parents, and journalists. Derek Thompson, in a recent Atlantic article, attributes the rising rates of anxiety and depression among teens to four causes: high social media use, low interpersonal socialization, constant and ready access to news sources, and modern parenting.

Hunter and Autumn discuss Derek’s insights and reflect on what we can do to be a healthy church family that helps our young people navigate the unique stressors of modern life.

Article mentioned in this episode:
"Why American Teens Are So Sad" by Derek Thompson (https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/american-teens-sadness-depression-anxiety/629524/)

The gospel compels us to love our neighbors in an active, sacrificial way. And, long-term change in the lives of vulnerable people is most effective when healthy people, communities, or institutions surround them.

In this final conversation of the "Loving Our Neighbors" series, Dave and Autumn discuss classic activities of the local church, like regularly gathering for worship, and how these functions dignify the vulnerable. We can invest in stable, healthy churches for the benefit of others.

In Jesus’ teaching, love of neighbor is active, sacrificial, and not bound by the societal barriers that we tend to create. Jesus, quoting the Old Testament, states that love of God and neighbor is the summation of the law. In the OT rendering of God’s law given to Israel and in Jesus’ interpretation of those same moral laws in the NT, care for vulnerable individuals is central. The "quartet of the vulnerable" - widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor - are all mentioned over and over. Who are the "foreigners" living alongside us, specifically our refugee neighbors? How does life in Denver look for them? Loving neighbors beyond barriers is a choice. But it is not purely sacrificial. Connection to our neighbors enriches our lives, expands our understanding, and grows our love and faith.

Organizations mentioned in today's episode:
Lutheran Family Services (https://www.lirs.org/)
African Community Center (https://www.acc-den.org/)
Project Worthmore (https://projectworthmore.org/)

Love of neighbor is an imperative in the Old Testament law and in Jesus' own teaching on the continued moral ramifications of the law. Jesus depicts the love of neighbor as a sacrificial, costly act, reminiscent of his own love for us. Jen Shepard and Becky Braman join Autumn on the podcast to discuss the realities of foster care in Colorado, the Safe Families program, and how intentional compassion compels them to act on behalf of children and families in crisis.

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Safe Families, Denver Chapter (https://denver.safe-families.org/)
Reframing Foster Care by Jason Johnson (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1625860951/)

Who are our vulnerable neighbors? How can we get to know them? And how does the gospel compel us to act on their behalf? In today's episode, Autumn and Jill Anschutz answer these questions in light of the impact of our state and local educational systems on vulnerable children. Schools that perform consistently bring stability to the lives of children which links directly to outcomes they experience later in life.

Jill is a Board Member of the Charter School Institute, an organization that authorizes charter schools for the state of Colorado, and Rocky Mountain Prep, a local Pre-K through 5th Grade charter school. Autumn and Jill conclude that church's active involvement in local educational institutions can be a means to bring about good for our neighbors and discuss the various ways that involvement may take shape.

Resources mentioned in today's episode:
- Status of Denver's Children (https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/713/documents/data-resources/StatusOfDenversChildren_ADA_2019.pdf)
- 2021 Kids Count (https://www.coloradokids.org/data/publications/2021-kids-count/)
- DPS Grade Level Expectations (https://www.transformeducationnow.org/post/are-kids-in-dps-meeting-grade-level-expectations-no-they-are-not)
- Colorado Politics (https://www.coloradopolitics.com/)
- Chalkbeat (https://co.chalkbeat.org/)

Autumn continues the discussion about the sacrificial love of neighbor inherent in the gospel in today's discussion with Jason Janz and Juan Peña of CrossPurpose. CrossPurpose is one of Fellowship Denver's Serve Denver partners. Their purpose as an organization is expressed in their mission statement: "CrossPurpose is a non-profit organization abolishing relational, economic, and spiritual poverty through career and community development."

Autumn, Jason, and Juan discuss the reality of poverty in Denver, ways that "the rich" live in poverty, and how the relational wealth of God's Kingdom lived out by His church is a means to poverty alleviation.

Loving our neighbor means reflecting the grace, mercy, and generosity we have personally received from God in the spaces in which we’ve been purposefully placed. Ben Sooy joins Autumn to talk about his work at Joshua Station, a housing facility run by Mile High Ministries that serves families transitioning out of homelessness.

In Denver, three interconnected issues of homelessness, housing affordability, and social isolation keep many individuals and families trapped in chronic housing instability. How does Jesus' expectation that his followers actively love our neighbors in a self-sacrificial manner compel us to act on behalf of the vulnerable people in our communities? And how might churches in Denver respond to the needs of our homeless neighbors?

Guest Ben Sooy joins Autumn on the podcast to discuss what loving our neighbors means in the biblical conception of the term, and how the gospel compels us to act for the good of neighbors in our local communities.

In Luke 10, Jesus, in response to a question posed by a legal scholar, tells the story of a Jewish man who is ambushed by robbers, beaten, and left for dead. A priest and a Levite both pass the man, turning a blind eye to his pain and need. The unlikeliest of heroes, a Samaritan, has compassion on the dying man. Jesus goes on to say that the Samaritan's self-sacrificial care is a demonstration of genuine neighborly love.

Autumn and Hunter revisit a 7-year old article that seems even more relevant today.

In “The Coddling of the American Mind,” (The Atlantic, September 2015), Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff explain how “emotional safety” has caused many college classrooms to avoid controversial ideas. They lament the effect it has on the debate of ideas and how it leads us to confuse emotions with objective truth. A significant book by the same name followed, and years later, what started on campus seems to have spread to American society at large.

How should Christians live, raise children, and engage in critical conversations in a culture that has defaulted to “emotional reasoning?”

Article mentioned in this episode:
"The Coddling of the American Mind" by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
(https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/)