[0:00:02] Brenton: This is Further, a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome, everybody, to the first episode of Further. I'm brenton grimm. For those of you who don't know me, and my most of you won't, I've been on staff here at Harmony for almost seven years. As the director of Technology, you've likely seen me around the church pushing buttons and turning some knobs, but lately, my role has transitioned into more media production.
[0:00:40] Brenton: So pretty much any video you see on a Sunday morning, my team and I were behind the camera on which brings us to the man that needs no introduction, Chris Carr. Hey, Chris.
[0:00:51] Chris: Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I'm really excited about the possibilities that this podcast holds. It's a new venture for us, so not sure exactly what we're getting into here, but I think it has some great potential to help us to go further in our study and understanding of God's word. And so really looking forward to how this can kind of come alongside our regular preaching ministry and help us to continue to grow in our depth and understanding of God's word in the gospel.
[0:01:20] Brenton: Yeah. So today we want to lay out a short explanation of why we're starting this podcast. As the title suggests, we want to give you an easily accessible resource that will help you to go further into what we're studying on Sundays, both to know God better and to be transformed by his word. So, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume there's a lot of content that gets left on the table as you sermon prep every week.
[0:01:48] Chris: Yeah, that's kind of an understatement. Normally, there's a ton of material that ends up on the cutting room floor, but everybody knows my sermons are somewhere between 35 and 45 minutes each week, and they could easily be if people would put up with it. An hour and 15 minutes. There's always more to talk about than we have time to talk about on Sunday morning. And most of it is really good stuff, really helpful stuff.
[0:02:18] Chris: And so this hopefully will give us an opportunity to talk about some of that content that material and enable us to even, hopefully fully more process what we do talk about and what we see in God's word on Sunday mornings.
[0:02:34] Brenton: Yeah. And what better time to start that than right at the beginning of the Roman series? This letter that Paul wrote is just incredibly rich in gospel truth, which also means that at times, it can be a very tough read. And so we hope that this podcast can bring some extra clarity and challenge to your life. Chris, do you want to talk a little bit about why you're excited about this series, and what do you hope to see come out of it?
[0:03:03] Chris: Absolutely. So history shows that God has repeatedly used romans in a uniquely powerful way, pretty much from the first moment that Paul wrote the letter and sent it to the church at Rome. And we just see repeatedly throughout church history how literally revivals have started because people have been studying and or preaching through paul's letter to the romans. And so I'm hoping something similar is going to happen at Harmony Bible Church.
[0:03:37] Chris: I'm also excited about it because I've personally seen over my lifetime and the time that I've been a believer, which is now over four decades, how God's repeatedly used this letter in my own life and how just every time I go to it, when I think I've kind of gotten it down, I find that there's something more that I need to learn, I need to understand, and I'm able to go further and deeper in my walk with the Lord. And so romans is about the gospel.
[0:04:09] Chris: It's probably the fullest explanation of the gospel in the entire Bible. And so as we talk about all the time, it really is all about the gospel. And the gospel is not only what brings us salvation, but it's what brings us transformation. And so that's when I couldn't really be more excited about this series.
[0:04:28] Brenton: Yeah, that's great and that's exciting. So we want to talk a little bit about the format, just what you guys can expect. We plan to release one episode a week to follow up from each sermon. Most of the time you're going to hear Chris, but that will change depending on who preached the previous message. So you can expect to hear from our various campus pastors as well. You will be able to find the show on spotify, on Apple, or on any other service that you listen to, podcasts on.
[0:05:03] Brenton: And one more note before we wrap up, just kind of a call for grace is to say that we are very new at this, so there will most likely be issues and some awkward interactions at times. But we do ask that you would just bear with us through that and continue to engage with with what we're doing and to see how God is going to use this. So with that, we will wrap this first one up and we'll talk to you next time.