You Never Studied

The Beatles never leave. Ever. Even 50 years after Abbey Road, the album went number 1 in the UK. It’s amazing when some music has such staying power. After thinking through this idea, we apply it to the church.  Hans finished up Thomas Kidd’s new book on evangelicalism, and then he talks about why he probably shouldn’t have seen the Joker movie. 

With tens of millions of dollars to be made, companies are going all-in on the digital giving game. One such company made almost 100 million dollars processing 4.2 billion in church giving. Billion with a “B.” We tackle that topic, why churches do it, and even briefly on if that’s such a good thing in the scheme of things. Hans finished up a book on stewardship and then we end with the good news: Spider-man is back in the MCU. 

After a week of whistleblowers and impeachment talk, we wanted to change the focus. To where do we change the focus? Beer money, bad tweets, and the inconsistent way a society applies forgiveness to screw-ups like us. Evan then tackles a book on the conscience and we end with a little Star Wars (like always, it seems).

A lot has been made of Kanye’s Sunday Services. As more video comes our of recent services (and a new album announced), some folks are wondering what to make of it all. We take on that topic this week—since we are both Kanye experts. Evan tackles the end of the world in a new book he finished up, and Hans chats about the new Dennis Rodman 30 for 30. Listen in. 

We took a week off of our regularly scheduled programming to tackle an interesting topic: stats and their application to the church. A couple of folks share NPR’s “Modal American” podcast with us and were curious what we thought and/or other applications of the concept. The result: this episode. 

We aren’t great with stats, but we were able to talk about some of the ways we use metrics in our own churches. 

Benny Hinn—a notable prosperity preacher and faith healer—says he doesn't agree with things he used to proclaim. How do we handle these types of statements? Is there any room for restitution? Do we just say "Great!"? We don't have all of those answers, but we do tackle the issues. Speaking of issues, Hans recently finished up a novel on police shootings that gave him a different perspective. All of that discussion is followed up with Evan nerding out about video effects people. 

Your *definitive* guide to the better chicken sandwich is here.

Just kidding. 

But we did get our hands on one, even though they're sold-out nationwide. The convo on chicken, of course, led Hans to a conversation about church growth strategies, which led to a conversation about church books, which led to a conversation about Andy Mineo. 

This is your one-stop shop for anything you care about this week.

Evan gives Hans the details concerning last week's bad news surrounding Disney/Marvel's Partnership with Sony to use Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In short--it is not looking great.

The idea that working hard is a good thing should go without saying. However, working hard (and competing with others to work harder than them) can also be an endless cycle one gets caught up in. In this episode, we take on the idea of how churches can present an alternate reality to the world’s system of merit. From there we tackle a Screwtape letters sort of geared specifically to the church, and Hans and Evan chat briefly about the new Jim Gaffigan special.

Pastors and church leaders leaving the faith has been a common theme of the past few years. The past month has seen two folks make a public decision to leave the Faith (or start leaving the Faith). As pastors, this is something we care a lot about, so we took a little extra time this week to discuss the idea of leaving the church, how we view it, and a tie-in to church history.