If you’re like most people I know, you probably don’t share your faith all that often. It can feel creepy or just plain awkward, and there’s always that fear of rejection.
People say to me: “I think my friends may be more open to what I’m learning about God, but I really don’t know how to articulate what I believe...” OR “I rarely talk to friends or co-workers about my faith because I don’t want them to feel like I’m cramming it down their throats...” (Whatever that means?)
Here’s a cool way to share your faith that has never been weird or received poorly by others when I’ve done it like this. (more…)
If we are serious about changing the culture within the church, then we must begin to change the narrative that leaders tell. If the only stories we are telling through social media are who is preaching, what you’re preaching, and how amazing everything was on Sunday, then we will continue to get and BE what we continue to highlight.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, Caesar is joined by author and missional strategist, Brad Brisco. They discuss how the types of stories we’re commonly telling about our churches are having damaging consequences. It’s time to change all that!
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
How silly our stories about our church sound and look online.
How many of our stories betray a deep sense of consumerism.
Why changing the narratives we tell will reshape the Church itself.
Ways to discover and discern what God is already doing, and then tell those stories.
“Just stop it!” doesn’t really work when it comes to changing sinful actions, habits, or thoughts in our lives (or in others). And perhaps what you’ve been taught about sin and repentance is all wrong…
Today on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we talk about where sin really comes from and how we can move away from our particular brand of sin and find freedom. What if all sin is actually a symptom of something else?
Not many Christians think of themselves as unbelievers. We normally use the term to describe people who are not yet followers of Jesus. But there are many things about God that we all still do not believe. Often there’s a large gap between what we say we believe in our head, and what we truly believe in our heart.This is where sin comes from.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
A radical heart-level perspective on sin and repentance.
How and why God looks at the heart–not at your actions.
Four eternal truths about God, when not fully believed, lead to every human sin.
A way to stop sinning by changing what you believe to be true (powerful!)
I have a love–hate relationship with my garden and flowerbeds. On one hand, I love when they are clean, planted, and blooming at all the right times each season.
On the other, because of the rains that are present throughout every season in Tacoma, where Tina and I have our family home, I have a non-stop battle to fight with weeds that remain the fastest growing and most robust plants I have. They even grow full speed ahead during the winter, when everything else is either dead or taking a break.
I was working on my garden out in front of my house one sunny afternoon, (yes, we do get sun in the Pacific Northwest too!), and as I pulled weeds and replaced them with bright, colorful flowers, something started to shift in me. My heart softened as my nails became caked with rich, black soil. I started feeling as if I was involved in a much grander project or purpose. It was as if I was connecting to the overarching restoration of all things that God has promised to do in our world.
Is my front garden a part of that?
In that moment, it sure seemed like it. The Spirit reminded me that this is how he works within me too, pulling one weed at a time and replacing it with something beautiful. I started to think of all the people I know with weeds and thorny, spiky parts of their personality and life. Maybe I was to be patient and willing to get my hands a little dirty helping to “beautify the garden” of their lives too?
One by one, people from the neighborhood started to notice what I was up to. “Wow! That is looking really beautiful. I just love petunias!” “I was wondering if you were ever going to get around to this project.”
Not the feedback I hoped for, but I’ll take it.
One of the workers from the Salvation Army next door who loves to give me gardening advice, ambled over and said, “This is looking really good. I think I’ll start taking my breaks over here in front of your house from now on.” My flowerbeds were becoming his own little Garden of Eden in the neighborhood. A simple hour or two of gardening had refreshed and re-created my attitude in some pretty profound ways.
Maybe everything we work at is like this if we have that perspective and take the time to notice. There is possibility for redemption all around us.
So, if you’ve been putting off some actual weeding you need to do outside in your garden, or in the garden of your heart or others, the next best time to get started is now.
Most of us carry a definition of justice we picked up somewhere along the way — and it usually looks like payback. Someone wrongs you, someone wrongs others, and justice means they get what’s coming to them. But what if that version of justice has almost nothing to do with what God actually means by the word?
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we’re going to dig into what the Bible actually means by mercy and justice — and why they’re not opposites. You’ll discover how God’s justice is really about restoration, and what it looks like to participate in that restorative work in the lives of people around you.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
The biblical definitions of mercy and justice that will change how you see both
What actually produces a love of mercy in your own heart
How God’s restorative justice is bigger than any weekend service project
Where to start engaging real injustice — locally and globally
Gossip is everywhere — in our friendships, our workplaces, even our churches. We’ve all been on both ends of it. And most of us have drifted into it without realizing until after. It’s so normal it barely registers anymore. But it’s doing real damage to the people around us and to us.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we’re going to unpack what gossip actually is — and the definition will probably surprise you. You’ll discover why it’s genuinely dangerous, how to recognize it in the moment, and three ways to crush it before it spreads. This one could change how you listen to every conversation.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
A definition of gossip that instantly changes how you hear conversations
Seven real reasons gossip is more destructive than you’ve been told
Three practical moves to crush gossip before it takes hold
How sticking up for the absent person builds surprising, lasting trust
