Legendary performer (and Church of Christ favorite son) Pat Boone has a book and a new hit album, but he really wants to talk about what the Bible is telling him these days, what he sees God doing in the world, and what the choice he hopes everyone makes to obey the Word. And he proves that he still knows how to lead congregational singing! Link to Pat Boone’s book: If: The Eternal Choice We All Must Make Link to Pat Boone’s new album, Country Jubilee Link to Pat Boone’s website, patboone.com Vi...
Dec 15, 2023•35 min
Landon Saunders, a broadcaster and preacher who won millions of fans and friends around the world, went to his rest on November 14, 2023. He was 86 years old. In this episode, you'll listen to recordings of Saunders preaching and speaking in his own words. You'll also listen to two friends who knew him well. Mike Cope, director of the Thriving in Ministry program at Pepperdine University was a close friend for over 40 years. Candace Nicolds was Saunders's minister at his home congregation, Brook...
Dec 08, 2023•53 min
A few weeks before this episode, The Christian Chronicle reported that Oklahoma Christian University is closing its graduate school of theology due to budget cuts and declining enrollment. This latest news follows the trend of enrollment decline in Bible, ministry, and theology programs at colleges and universities with roots and ties in the Church of Christ. For some Christian Chronicle readers, it raised questions: Do graduate programs like the one at Oklahoma Christian University truly benefi...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Some segments edited for brevity and clarity Segment One: An Arab Israeli Christian talks about what is happening in Gaza and Israel (Sandro Jadon) Link to Erik Tryggestad’s Christian Chronicle interview with Sandro Jadon in the days imm ediately after the October 7 attack on Israel from Hamas Link to Erik Tryggestad’ Christian Chronicle interviews with Israeli Christians serving in their country’s armed forces in the days following the October 7 attack Link to The Christian Chronicle op-ed by E...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 6 min
Some segments edited for brevity and clarity This episode explores what is going on in Christian education and among people between the ages of 13 and 25. Segment One: Dr. Trace Hebert of Lipscomb University talks about his annual report on enrollment trends at colleges and universities from the Church of Christ tradition. Once again, Church of Christ students as a percent of total enrollment decreased, continuing a decline of more than 60 percent in the last 20 years. Dr. Hebert talks about wha...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 5 min
After the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, the surviving victims needed a place to resume learning...and a place to try to recover. Nearby Brentwood Hills Church of Christ opened its building and its hearts to them. Ministers Amy Bowman and Jonathan Seamon talk about what it's like to love neighbors who are grieving and recovering from unimaginable horror. 'The Blind' is a motion picture that reveals the true story of Phil and Miss Kay Robertson and their family of '...
Nov 03, 2023•49 min
Few changes in popular culture are causing more discomfort and raising more questions in the church than how the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is going mainstream in North America. It's not just outside the church. Over the last 20 years, Christians who accept and even approve at least parts of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle increased from next to none to almost one in three today. For this reason, prominent biblical scholar and congregational leader Dr. Rubel Shelly wrote his latest book, 'Male & Female God Creat...
Oct 25, 2023•1 hr 16 min
On September 6, 2018, off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger entered the apartment of Dallas West Church of Christ member and Harding University alumnus Botham Jean. Mistaking his apartment for her own, she came through the unlocked front door, found Jean eating ice cream and watching TV on the couch, and shot him with her service weapon. Jean died and a jury later convicted Guyger of murder, sentencing her to ten years in prison. News media around the world covered every minute of the tria...
Oct 18, 2023•57 min
It's been two full years since most congregations tried to "get back to normal" after COVID turned the world outside in in 2020 and 2021. Our first guest, Aaron Hill, headed up a nationwide study of how COVID is still affecting congregations and what those lingering effects portend for the future. Our second guest, American missionary Brandon Price, reports "from the ground" on both sides of the Ukrainian border, where he brings the sad news of a young ministry student who lost his life defendin...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Few articles that The Christian Chronicle published over the last year got more comments and more buzz than a report that the Mayfair Church of Christ in Oklahoma City is becoming part of Crossings Community Church, a 9,000-member multisite congregation with roots in the non-Pentecostal Church of God. Mayfair Church of Christ was once one of the "flagship" congregations in Oklahoma City, until it dwindled down to about 100 members and had to make a choice about its future. The story about Mayfai...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 6 min
New York Times columnist David French grew up in the Church of Christ, graduated from Lipscomb University (a school with deep roots and strong ties in the Church of Christ tradition), and shaped his political mind in the conservative Republicanism of the 1980s and 1990s. He began and built his legal career litigating institutions that threatened religious liberties, mostly of Christians. His experience serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq began a slow but sure maturation of his conservative ideals. ...
Sep 27, 2023•55 min
When Dan and Mary Huber (NorthWest Church of Christ) found out that thousands of Afghan refugees were coming to their city of San Antonio, Texas, they chose to extend extraordinary hospitality to their new neighbors. But they soon found themselves to be not the hosts, but the honored guests of their new Afghan friends. What happens when Christians and Muslims from different cultures and faiths gather around common tables? From the online and print edition story by Bobby Ross, Jr. The Christian C...
Sep 22, 2023•1 hr 16 min
Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer, authors of the popular 2020 book, 'A Church Called Tov,' talk to us about their follow up book, 'PIVOT'. They answer questions about how congregations can tell if toxic traces taint their cultures, what it takes to "detox" a church, and practical steps congregations can take to start the process of culture change. Link to PIVOT: The Priorities, Practices, and Powers That Can Transform Your Church Into a Tov Culture , by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer Link to...
Sep 13, 2023•50 min
This episode picks up the "Sacred Calling" special series that covers the "minister shortage" among Church of Christ congregations in North America. We ask: Does a tradition that claims to believe in the "priesthood of all believers" (1 Peter 2:5) really have a minister shortage...or a shortage of imagination? The six guests in this episode all dared to think outside the box when it comes to who is a minister. Segment One features three ministers (Danny Dodd, James Kinnaird, and Zack Martin) who...
Sep 08, 2023•1 hr 6 min
For 65 years, Harding University's School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, has been a global hub of Bible and ministry education in the Church of Christ tradition, but the school announced that it is closing the campus and moving its programs to Searcy, Arkansas. Why ...and why now? Meanwhile, a congregation is growing and the Gospel is bearing fruit in one of America's toughest neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. Hear from the man who heard and heeded the call to go there. "Faith nights" ar...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 5 min
On August 7, 37 players on the Faulkner University football team gave their lives to Christ in baptism. Hear the story from coaches and a player who were there (in the water). Personal spiritual direction is emerging as a new kind of minister and ministry among both believers and seekers. What is it? How does it work? Is it right for you or members of your congregation? Two certified spiritual directors give their take. Loneliness and a longing for connection may be as much a crisis in the Churc...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 6 min
'The Sound of Freedom', a small-budget independent film about an agent who fights child trafficking, is the box office surprise of the summer, nearly beating out Indiana Jones. In this episode, Pam Cope, who fights child trafficking in real life, talks about what the work is like and how you can help. The Christian Chronicle's Erik Tryggestad interviews three leaders at Heritage Christian College in Ghana. If the future of Christian leadership in the world will be African, it's good to listen to...
Aug 17, 2023•1 hr 10 min
In his wildest dreams, Lee Camp could never imagine this! Many years ago, the professor of theology and ethics at Lipscomb University had a crazy idea: A live stage show that mixes entertainment and interviews with thinkers who address the "big questions" of life. The 'Tokens Show' first appeared on a Lipscomb University stage in 2008 and then grew until Camp moved the production to the Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Old Opry, in downtown Nashville. In 2020, Camp launched the 'No Sma...
Aug 02, 2023•44 min
Even regular churchgoers skip Sunday morning worship sometimes. Scott McConnell of Lifeway Research reveals the latest survey on the top reasons folks skip church. Jeff Dye, a lifer in the Christian Church (instrumental), talks about what it was like to join an a cappella Church of Christ congregation. Dr. Dale Underwood of King's Crossing Prison Ministries tells the story of how so many prisoners are being baptized around the world, there aren't enough baptisteries for all of them. Segment One:...
Jul 26, 2023•50 min
God is alive and working in the world. This episode proves it. First, hear from Julia, a Russian immigrant who is ministering to hundreds of Ukrainian refugees in Houston, Texas. Then listen to Danny Mills and his wife, Heather. Danny got COVID so bad he almost died and only lived after a double lung transplant. Hear their story of survival through the grace of God, grit, and the prayers of the church. Finally, most car crashes end with damage, injury, and lots of bad feelings. Hear the story of...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min
If the jobs section of The Christian Chronicle is any proof, more Church of Christ congregations in North America have open ministry positions than there are ministers able, ready, and willing to fill them. What is the cause of this "minister shortage"? In this episode, Christian Chronicle correspondents Cheryl Mann Bacon, Jeremie Beller, and Calvin Cockrell plunge into the "ick" of money as a factor in how few (or how many) Christians choose to become congregational ministers and whether congre...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 7 min
For almost 40 years, Mike Cope preached in Church of Christ congregations from North Carolina to Arkansas to Texas. Now at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, he directs the annual Bible lectures, leads church relations efforts, and takes on the challenge of educating and forming a new generation of ministers and preachers. In this episode, Cope talks about the state of preachers and preaching in the Church of Christ tradition, the headwinds congregations and ministers face together in ...
Jun 28, 2023•49 min
When the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case on June 24, 2022, it overturned two cases, Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), that established the federal right to an abortion. For decades in the United States, many, if not most, Church of Christ members prayed, volunteered, and voted in hope that the Supreme Court would do what it finally did on June 24, 2022. In this episode, we find out how the Dobbs decision a year ago is eith...
Jun 21, 2023•1 hr 1 min
For generations, churches in Texas passed down the tradition of Juneteenth, sometimes called "America's Second Independence Day." In this episode, Karl Berry and Curtis Phillips, elders from Cedar Hill Church of Christ in Cedar Hill, Texas, talk about how their congregation is keeping and sharing the Juneteenth tradition. The Christian Chronicle's globetrotting CEO Erik Tryggestad interviews Douglas Boateng, an elder in the Church of Christ community in Angola, in central Africa. David Heflin, m...
Jun 13, 2023•52 min
Jordan Coss (Redwood Church of Christ, Redwood City, California) shares his research on Church of Christ ministers and retirement. What keeps so many Church of Christ ministers from retiring (if they even finish out their ministry careers)? What can congregations and their ministers do about it? Dr. Kelsey Kramer McGinnis, an expert in contemporary Christian music and a writer for Christianity Today Magazine, reveals how big money may be taking over Sunday morning worship in your congregation. J...
Jun 08, 2023•54 min
Capt. Victor Glover, a longtime member of the Church of Christ, will pilot the Artemis 2 mission to the moon in November 2024, but it will not be his first trip to space. Capt. Glover spent 168 days in space, including 167 days aboard the International Space Station in 2020 and 2021. Few human beings know what it's like to hold to the beliefs and practices of Christianity anywhere other than Earth. In this interview, Capt. Glover shares how his faith influences his work as an astronaut (and scie...
May 25, 2023•34 min
For National Church Planting Sunday (May 21), church planters Caleb Borchers, Ron Clark, and Brendin Williamson talk about why church planting is what America (and the world) needs now and why existing congregations should be glad to see church plants come to their neighborhoods. Barry McDonald of the Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine University talks about the abortion pill and "sabbatarian" cases due for big decisions in the federal courts in May or June. South Hills Church of Christ in Helen...
May 17, 2023•59 min
We remember the life and work of Sister Ruth Wyrick of the Marsalis Avenue Church of Christ in Dallas, Texas. Born in the segregated South of the 1930s, Sister Wyrick used the power of hospitality and kindness to forever change politics and public service in Dallas. Shay Wyrick Cathey and Christian Chronicle board member Taneise Perry reveal how Sister Wyrick's faith, hope, and love inspired her to change the course of her community's history. Then, Edward Bowen and Devon Newburn explain how the...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 2 min
"All of this started when they took prayer out of schools." This is a line that host BT Irwin heard many times over the years from Christians trying to explain bad things that seem to be getting worse in the United States. While their opinion has elements of truth about it, is their solution--to restore Christianity to a preferred place of power and privilege at the center of American institutions--truly what is best for America and for Christians in America? In his book, 'Religious Freedom in a...
May 03, 2023•51 min
Church and school security expert Dwayne Harris (Full Armor Church) talks about the most effective (and surprising) way to keep congregations safe. The growth of the Texas Bible Bowl reflects how young people are more interested than ever to know about Jesus. Audrey Jackson reports and we interview Texas Bible Bowl organizer Lisa Kirkwood and elementary division contender Melanie Mitchell. A cappella congregational "shape note" singing is not only the Church of Christ heritage, it has been named...
Apr 27, 2023•54 min
