Word of Life Church Podcast

Pearl Jam front-man Eddie Vedder has quietly written and recorded a number of acoustic-driven songs over the last six years, songs filled with meaning and substance. In 2007, he wrote “Society” for the soundtrack to Into the Wild, a movie about Chris McCandles, a young man who lived life off the grid. Vedder captures the spirit […] The post Finding God On Your iPod: Society appeared first on Word of Life Church.

Finding God On Your iPod: Society

The Grammy-award winning, Philly-based, hip-hop band The Roots collaborated with Monsters of Folk to create a prayer in the form of a song. The heart of the song is the ancient question, “Why do we suffer?” Through artistry and poetry, the song wrestles with the classic problem of evil, that is, if God is all-good, […] The post Finding God On Your iPod: Dear God 2.0 appeared first on Word of Life Church.

Finding God On Your iPod: Dear God 2.0

What are prophets? Prophets are channels, conductors, conduits of holy imagination. Prophets have enough of the spirit of God to imagine the world other than it is. They give artistic expression to an alternative way of arranging the world. Today we tend to call them poets—but prophets are really just spirit-filled poets. In Blowin’ In […] The post Finding God On Your iPod: Blowin’ In The Wind appeared first on Word of Life Church.

When we feel hurt, threatened, angered by a person, an incident, or some situation, we instinctively view it through a perspective of self-defense. If you are a non-contemplative person you will think your perspective is the total truth. We must have a change in perspective, or we will forever look at the world the same […] The post A Contemplative Breakthrough appeared first on Word of Life Church.

In his gospel John strategically places seven miracles of Jesus as signs to guide us. These signs are intended to point us to the right way to believe in Jesus the Christ. In the final installment of the Seven Signs In The Gospel of John series, we have a surprise. There is actually an eighth, […] The post Second Genesis appeared first on Word of Life Church.

Jesus’ received word that his friend Lazarus was sick and Jesus responded by waiting two whole days before he went to see him. During this time Lazarus died. His sisters, Martha and Mary, were grief-stricken. When Jesus went to see them, he did not lecture them or preach at them, but he entered into their […] The post The Defeat of Death appeared first on Word of Life Church.

While there are those who have attempted to strip all of the hardship out of the Christian life, the reality is life is hard and following Jesus is hard. The Apostle Paul said he chose to boast in his hardships, calling some of his hardships a “thorn in the flesh.” Jesus said the way he […] The post Hardship as The Pathway to Peace appeared first on Word of Life Church.

When Jesus’ disciples saw a man who had been born blind they asked the a question framed around blame. Who sinned? Who can we blame? Whose bad karma is this? The disciples belief was essentially that because something bad has happened, someone must have sinned, and somehow they deserved it. People who blame suffering on […] The post Jesus vs. Karma appeared first on Word of Life Church.

Often, we confuse God for a malevolent monster that intends us harm. Because of deep-seated shame the thought of God produces anxiety and avoidance and generates a “monster god” neurosis. This becomes the foundation for appeasement-based religion. The monster god narrative feeds into a wrong theology about Jesus— that Jesus came in order to save […] The post No More Monster God appeared first on Word of Life Church.

In Jewish culture, the sea is a representation of chaos and the origin of evil. The biblical Israelites were not a seafaring people. This is made evident by the way the bible uses the sea in metaphor. The book of Revelation the new earth has no more sea. Job, in praise of God, says, “God […] The post It Was a Dark and Stormy Night… appeared first on Word of Life Church.

At your worst, most sinful, backslidden, far from God state, God’s heart towards you is still one which burst with longing for reconciliation. God is not full of vengeance or angry with you. His attitude toward you is one of unwavering love, like a mother or father has towards his children. God knows you and [...] The post God’s Attitude Toward You appeared first on Word of Life Church.

The human condition suffers from a kind of emptiness. We are born with a pervasive mentality of scarcity and insufficiency. We don’t perceive ourselves as blessed with abundance, but cursed with scarcity. We fear there won’t be enough oil, land, water, food, money, labor to go around, so we use force to guarantee us what [...] The post The Beauty of the Infinite appeared first on Word of Life Church.

We read in Hebrews 11:1 that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. We accept this statement about faith, but how exactly is faith substance and evidence? Some have tried to make faith too spiritual by imagining faith to be a spiritual substance, a force under our [...] The post Substance and Evidence appeared first on Word of Life Church.