This past year was an unsettling one. I like to think of it as the Year of Three Ps: pandemic, protests, and politics. Each one fomented conflict, but taken together, they were a conflict force multiplier. And that doesn’t even taken into account the normal stressors we face every year.
How can followers of Jesus Christ experience settled souls in the midst of unsettling times? That’s the question I’m talking about with Dr. Jodi Detrick in this episode of the Influence Podcast. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.
Dr. Detrick is a personal coach, public speaker, and most recently author of The Settled Soul: Tenaciously Abiding with a Tender God, published by Gospel Publishing House. An ordained Assemblies of God minister, she loves to talk to people at the heart level about things that matter most.
P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com with permission.
According to Stephen Covey, one of the seven habits of highly effective people is beginning with the end in mind. I doubt Covey was thinking about the Book of Revelation when he identified that habit, but I can’t think of a better way to begin the New Year than by talking about the end times. So that’s what I’ll be doing with Dr. Chris Carter in this episode of the Influence Podcast, the first podcast of the 2021 season.
I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. Dr. Chris Carter is an ordained Assemblies of God minister, missionary to Japan, and author of Revelation: The End Times and the Never Reached, published in December 2020 by Assemblies of God World Missions. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
I host the weekly Influence Podcast. Below are the 35 conversations I hosted with a variety of Christian leaders this past year. For all episodes, visit InfluenceMagazine.com/Podcast.
“Jesus uses his power to protect, to expose, and to restore dignity,” writes Dr. Diane Langberg in her book, Redeeming Power. “He calls his people to be in the world using our power under his authority, displaying his character by speaking truth, shedding light, and tending and protecting the vulnerable. How does this become a reality in the lives of individual Christ followers?”
That’s the question I’m exploring with Dr. Langberg in this episode of the Influence Podcast, the final episode of the 2020 season. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.
Dr. Diane Langberg is an internationally recognized psychologist and experienced counselor. She directs her own counseling practice, cofounded the Global Trauma Recovery Institute at Missio Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and serves on the board of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment). Her most recent book is Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church, published by Brazos Press.
P.S. I reviewed Dr. Langberg’s Redeeming Power here. If you like my review, please click “Helpful” on my Amazon review page.
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils,” wrote C. S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. “One is to disbelieve their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
With Lewis’s insight on the need for a balanced view in mind, in this episode, I’m talking with Gary Tyra about what the Bible teaches Christians about why and how to deal with the devil.
I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine, and your host.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.”
King said this about race in 1963, but it is still largely true today. According to sociologist Michael O. Emerson, a multiracial or multiethnic church is one in which at least 20% of attendees do not belong to the majority race or ethnicity. In 2019, just 23% of churches crossed that threshold.
And there is evidence of a growing class divide in church attendance, with working class Americans less likely to attend church than middle class Americans, at least among whites.
The questions pastors and other church leaders need to ask themselves is this: Does this concern me? And what can I do about it? Those are two questions, among others, that I am asking David Docusen in this episode of the Influence Podcast.
I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine, and your host.
After a D. L. Moody revival meeting, a woman approached the 19th-century evangelist and said, “I don’t like the way you do evangelism.”
Moody responded, “Well, ma’am, let me ask you, how do you do it?”
She said, “I don’t.”
To which Moody replied, “I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it!”
Moody’s answer is the right one, and it also points to the variety of ways Christians can do evangelism. In this episode of the Influence Podcast, I’m talking to Priscilla Pope-Levison about eight models of evangelism that have stood the test of time.
I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.
Priscilla Pope-Levison is associate dean for external programs and professor of ministerial studies at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas. She is author of Models of Evangelism, recently published by Baker Academic, which I reviewed here.
This podcast begins with a paradox: On the one hand, the Assemblies of God recognizes the credentialed ministry of women at whatever level God has called and empowered them. On the other hand, AG women often face barriers to ministry leadership simply because they are women.
In this podcast, I’m talking with Beth Grant and Crystal Martin about how to resolve this paradox, that is, about how to move the ministry of women from something we affirm theologically to something we practice routinely.
I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. Beth Grant is co-founder and executive director of Project Rescue, an international ministry to survivors of sex trafficking; an executive presbyter of the Assemblies of God; and author of Courageous Compassion: Confronting Social Injustice God’s Way. Crystal Martin is director of the Assemblies of God’s Network of Women Ministers, director of Cross-Cultural Missions for Chi Alphacampus ministry, and associate pastor of Central Assembly in Springfield, Missouri. Both women are ordained Assemblies of God ministers.
Preaching is one of a pastor’s most important duties. It’s also one of the most difficult. Every week, pastors stand before their congregations and proclaim the Word of God. And often, they leave the pulpit feeling that they have failed.
So, how can preachers get better at their craft? That’s the question I’m talking about with Chris Colvin and Dick Hardy in this episode of the Influence Podcast.
I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. Chris Colvin is a sermon consultant, author, and regular contributor to Influence, both print and online. He teaches The Preaching Track at ChurchUniversity.com. Dick Hardy is is cofounder of ChurchUniversity.com, which provides “online resources to unlock your church’s growth.”
“God calls people to pioneer,” says Jeffery Portmann, “and simultaneously He calls others to become settlers.” Portmann isn’t talking about the settlement of new frontiers, however. He’s talking about ministry through the local church.
In this episode of the Influence Podcast, I’m talking to Portmann about why the Church needs both pioneers and settlers, as well as how best to be one or the other.
