Posts with a podcast.

Tag Archive for: Podcast

Podcast: All About the Council of Elders!

/in /by

Wow! We sort of dropped out of existence for a week or so! Sorry about that! Last week was the Council of Elders meeting, and this week went by suddenly in a blur. Next thing you know, two weeks have flown by!

Hopefully, this will make up for it. This podcast, recorded at the end of last week, was Mr. Robinson’s idea. Since we hear a lot about the Council of Elders in announcements and articles from Mr. Weston, he thought to himself, “Hey, Self, why don’t we put Mr. Smith on the hot seat for this one and ask him all about being on the Council?” He promptly agreed with himself that it was a good idea (he and himself get along very well together), and that’s exactly what we did. We hope you enjoy this little peek behind the curtain of the Council of Elders. We’ll add a link below the video to Mr. Weston’s update from that week if you’d like to hear about some of the topics we discussed.

Also, if you have any questions for us on the podcast or ideas for future topics, feel free to email us at podcast [at] livingyouth [dot] org. (Typed it funny there in a futile attempt to fool the bots. Probably won’t work!) We look forward to hearing from you!

And here’s that link to Mr. Weston’s update where he talks about some of the topics we covered during the COE meetings.

Podcast: Reflections on the Heard-Depp trial

/in /by

The podcast topic this week was requested by a young adult a couple of Sabbaths ago. Seeing that a lot of people were talking about it, the Heard-Depp defamation trial seemed a good opportunity to model biblical thinking about an oddly big pop culture moment, so we were all in. Then, as we were uploading it last week, we discovered we were making a basic error of fact—which Mr. Robinson explains early in this podcast—so, we re-recorded today. Facts are important! Still, we hope you enjoyed the first installment of “Five Questions” with Mr. DeSimone last week, and we look forward to doing more in the future.

Also, as mentioned in the podcast, we now have a dedicated email address you can send questions, comments, or suggestions to (thank you, IT Department!). That address (which I will type oddly in a vain attempt to fool the spam bots) is podcast [at] livingyouth.org. We’d love to hear from you! Here’s the podcast…

A Couple of Tips on Meditation

/in /by

Here’s a basic question for you: How do you draw close to God? 

If you’ve heard that one before, you might know some of the answers. The Church of God helpfully focuses on four big actions we can take to draw close to God: Christians can pray, study their Bibles, fast, and meditate.

It can be a little tricky to start doing these things regularly. Thankfully, the Church provides plenty of help on how to get the most out of prayer, study, fasting, and meditation. When I tried to start doing these activities regularly, it was a slow process, but I gradually felt myself get better at prayer, study, and fasting. Little by little, I felt like I was getting more out of these things. Some days were better or worse than others, but generally, these practices seemed to be going in the right direction in my life. 

Meditation was different—I rarely felt like I was getting much better at it. I knew the basics: think about a godly concept deeply. True meditation is not emptying one’s mind, as some religions teach. Philippians 4:8 tells us that “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” That’s a great list, but what does it mean practically? How exactly are we supposed to think deeply about those things?

Read more

Podcast: How Do We REALLY Prevent Mass Shootings?

/in /by

The tragic event in Uvalde, Texas—and the political back-and-forth about it—had us thinking this week, and it seemed an appropriate topic for the podcast. In this episode, we try to think about the issue biblically, focusing on the solutions Christ surely longs to implement. We hope you find it helpful.

(In other news, many of you have requested that the podcast be made available in other formats, and we think the time has come to do just that! We hope to have more news on that front next week. Thanks for your patience with us as we’ve learned and the podcast has grown! Your feedback has been very helpful.)

P.S. After we posted this, we forgot that we had mentioned Mr. Weston’s telecast “Will God Forget Your Children?” We’ve added a link to it below. Also, we mentioned Mr. Mark Sandor’s upcoming article on false freedom & liberty, but it has not yet been published, so we can’t link to it. But look for it in the next Living Church News, due out in July!

Podcast: Dating and “Good People” in the World

/in /by

This week’s podcast focuses on another question we’ve received: What’s so wrong with dating “good people” in the world? It’s a great question! And both the Bible and, when you really think about it, common sense provide important answers. We hope it helps, and we hope our sound quality continues to improve! Again, your feedback is so helpful. Please let us know what you think.

Also, we don’t mention an article or booklet in this episode, but an old classic by Mr. Gerald Weston came to mind—an old 2006 Tomorrow’s World article written for the “Tomorrow’s Youth” feature, in which he included six of his “Unshakable Unbreakables.” Great advice worth reviewing—or reading for the first time for most of you, given it was published almost 16 years ago!

h

Podcast: What Gives Us the Right to Be Dogmatic?

/in /by

This week’s podcast answers a question emailed to us from a Church family. The father—who grew up as a teen in the Church, himself—pointed out that, when he was younger, he would sometimes wonder what gives the Church the right to speak so dogmatically. After all, we speak pretty strongly! We draw clear lines about right and wrong and make no bones about it—and those lines differ greatly from the lines being drawn by many in the world around us. So what does give us the right to speak so dogmatically? It was a great question, and we hope you’ll find the answer helpful!

As usual, we refer to some additional items in the podcast—one LCN article by Mr. Mark Sandor about “doubtful things” and one of our foundational booklets, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy. Below the embedded video, you’ll find links to both.

(By the way: We hope you enjoy the improved sound quality! We’re still learning, but our Disclaimer Guy (Chris Leonard) is also our wonderful IT guy, and he has helped us put together a better audio set up. Let us know what you think, and thanks for your patience as we continue to learn what in the world we’re doing.)

Podcast: Why a Second Holy Day at the End of Unleavened Bread?

/in /by

We hope your Days of Unleavened Bread have been wonderfully flat, tasty, and spiritually profitable! This episode of the podcast has us meditating on the question of why God might have included a second high day at the end of the Days of Unleavened Bread and some (not all!) of the lessons He might want us to take from the events of that amazing Exodus event, thousands of years ago, connected to this day. We pray it’s profitable for you! (We refer briefly to the previous podcast about Passover thoughts concerning youth in the Church. That’s available here.)