Episode 003 – Don’t Beat the Sheep

Being the leader in a church is hard work. Church folks can be some of the most frustrating and difficult folks to work with. But, despite their flaws (and our own) and the amount of stress and frustration we may face as church leaders, beating the sheep should never be an option. God doesn’t take kindly to it, and we put ourselves in great danger when we ignore this fact and abuse the sheep for personal gain. Unfortunately, it happens more often than we may realize as beating the sheep isn’t just a physical act. In this episode we introduce another host of the Angry Christian Podcast (Robert Platt) and explore how easy it is to fall into the angry trap as a church leader. [Ezekiel 34:1-11]

Credits:
Intro Music – “Angry Dance” by Simon Panrucker
Other Music as it appears – “Oh Yeah” by Yello, “Sweet Georgia Brown” by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey, “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex” by Ray Stevens, and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” by Fred Rogers

Don’t Beat the Sheep

My particular rod of choice was my tongue. I was (and still am) quick witted and could conjure up snarky unkind responses at the drop of a hat. All a church member had to do was corner me, or hit me up before the church service was beginning to complain about something, and the rod (that was my tongue) would get whipped out and promptly applied to the head of the unsuspecting sheep.

Is Being Angry a Sin?

Recently, I started a podcast with several friends called The Angry Christian Podcast, which explores the topic of anger as it relates to being a Christian. We talk through various topics and questions and scriptures trying to explore and understand better the concept of anger in the life of Christians. Our first episode explored the […]

Episode 002 – The Place of Anger

What is the place of anger? Is there ever a moment when anger (especially by Christians) is ever acceptable? Divorce? Abortion? Terrorist attacks? Car accidents? Self anger? We talk about these questions and more on Episode 002 of The Angry Christian, “The Place of Anger”. [Ecclesiastes 3]

Intro: “Angry Dance” by Simon Panrucker
Outro: “Yours” by Brad Bates
All other production: The Angry Christian Team

Episode 001 – Displaced

Have you ever been displaced? Perhaps physically by a natural disaster? Or spiritually and/or emotionally by your circumstances? In this episode of the Angry Christian Podcast we explore the topic of being displaced through stories (Brian shares his story of being displaced by Hurricane Katrina), scripture, and our own brand of fun. We also briefly touch on Pastor Jarrid Wilson and the American Churches sad response to suicide and mental illness.

Intro Music: “Angry Dance” by Simon Panrucker
Outro Music: “Yours” by Brad Bates

Mini Episode 003 – Jason Hampton – Jesus and Anger

Sermon snippet from Pastor Jason Hampton of Refuge Church in Indianapolis, Indiana concerning Jesus and anger. A powerful though around grief and anger.

Mini Episode 002 – Michael Ledford – Interview

Interview with Angry Christian Podcast co-host, Michael Ledford!

Mini Episode 001 – Brian Baldwin – Interview

Interview with Angry Christian Podcast co-host, Brian Baldwin!

Be Quiet and Drive

It’s the Lord’s Day, y’all. You know what that means. It’s one of the days believers gather to hear exegetical preaching and teaching to edify and sanctify our souls. That’s a lot of Christian talk for being refreshed by the Word of God. Today, one of our elder candidates preached about the light bulbs going […]

The Importance of Communication Cannot Be Over Communicated

We have all been there before. Someone (or perhaps even it is us) is trying to communicate something very important but the delivery of the message is conducted in such a way that it immediately causes the hearer to throw up walls, tune them out, or flat out reject the message. It doesn’t matter if what is being communicated is true, important, or eternally impacting…the delivery is simply abysmal and causing more harm than it is helping.

Angry Christian Chapter 1: The Beast Unleashed

It was his sixth grade year and the boy was not only in a new school, but he was in a new city and a new state as well. Every aspect of the life he once knew had been uprooted and planted firmly in the middle of the state of North Carolina in a small town called Wake Forest.

Angry Christian: A Destructive Journey Toward a Growing Compassion (Introduction)

Discovering The Enneagram Recently, I’ve been doing a book study with a number of close friends of mine (and even some new friends I never knew I had!). The study is through the book titled, The Road Back to You by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile. To summarize, the book is an introductory journey through […]

The Parable of the 2002 Mini Cooper: A Lesson On Getting Help

There once was a man who was in the market for a car that was really good on gas mileage, was cheap, and was small (he worked in a downtown area where parking was minimal). This man found a 2002 Mini Cooper with 56,000 miles on it for a darn good price. He took it […]

Be Quick to Speak and Slow to Listen…No…Wait!

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James 1:19-20 ESV For a very long time…too long really, I’ve gotten this scripture backward. Very backward. I was REALLY quick to speak and REALLY […]

Angry Christian: So Much for that Whole “Truth in Love” Thing

I’ve always struggled a bit with my temper. OK…scratch that…I have always struggled with getting angry ENTIRELY too quickly. Just ask my wife…my kids…people who have served along side me in ministry…people in traffic…Let me just be real for a moment…more often than not, my fuse was (and sometimes still is) shorter than the line to the men’s restroom at a Backstreet Boys concert.

Don’t Just Judge, Judge Rightly: An Inconvenient Truth

I used to be pretty critical about those who didn’t “go to church”. Clearly, they lacked something I didn’t because they didn’t want to be AT church. Clearly they weren’t as committed to God and the Church as I was…I who was on staff and being paid by the church to be there. That is…until […]

Smiling Faces

Christians and those of you so-called, you need to check your circle. Who’s encouraging you in the faith? Who’s reminding you of gospel implications in your every day struggles? Who has your ear, your head and your heart when difficulties arise or when drastic decisions need to be made? Take a look at the people […]

Don’t Go Alone

Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, Robin Williams, Kurt Cobain and the list goes on and on. Two people that helped shape me went out the same way that they did. There was a point in time when I could have joined this list. Not intentionally, but because of reckless abandon. A good friend of mine held […]

Getting Uncomfortable In Our Misery: The Art of Moving On

If you peruse this blog site for any amount of time, you will probably find a number of articles pertaining to the subject of moving on. And that’s probably because, personally, I have had a lot of stuff over the course of my life that I have had to try and move on from. Even […]

A Beautiful Mess

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. […]

Murder Mill Musings #003

Today felt lively. The local church showed up in great numbers and there were prominent voices in the abolitionist movement present. Joseph Spurgeon, R.C. Sproul Jr. and Rusty Thomas were among the more widely known voices pleading for the lives of the unborn among us. Solidarity is important and I think it’s something worth discussing. […]

The 3 R’s of Moving On

Sometimes I have to process things really slowly, especially when those things involve people I was close to. For instance, I have been working through processing a couple of events that took place in the last couple of months that seemed rather unnecessary and petty, but came from the least likely sources. RECENT EVENTS For […]

A Word of Caution to the Spiritual Fathers of this World

Being called a Spiritual Son or hearing someone call themselves my Spiritual Father (or mother) was something I wasn’t used to growing up in the Southern Baptist Church. Which is odd, because there is certainly this type of relationship displayed throughout the Bible.

Divinity

Question: Why do you believe the bible? Answer: Because it’s a reliable collection of historical documents written by eye witnesses during the lifetime of other eye witnesses that reported supernatural events in fulfillment of specific prophecies. Finally, they claim that these messages are divine rather than human in nature. “Thus says the Lord”, and variations […]

Prophecy

Recap: God has something to say about knowledge. The bible is a reliable collection of historical documents. It was written by eyewitnesses in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. Continuing that thought, these witnesses reported supernatural events in fulfilment of specific prophecies. I emphasize specific, because that’s just what this is. These are not some vague Nostradamus type […]

The Martyrs

In case you missed it, the third entry of this series on apologetics was about eye witnesses to Jesus’ ministry. Consider this entry part two of entry #3. This is also going to be about eye witnesses, but from a different vantage point. You see, those that claim that the disciples just “made up” the […]

Eye Witness Testimony

Recap: In the previous entries on apologetics, I’ve shared the emphasis God puts on knowledge and the unique composition of the the bible. In this entry, I’ll share the next reason I believe what the bible says and why I think you should too. The bible was not written in a vaccuum. No one just […]

The Reliability of Scripture

In part one of this series of entries about why I trust the authority of scripture, I explained how important wisdom is. God doesn’t want us to be uninformed about the legitimacy of His claims, who He is or the implications all that has for our lives. This time, my goal is to show you […]

Apologetics Intro – Bearers of Truth

Notice: All of the answers you’re looking for are in the bible. I, a pastor, or any well educated theologian can tell you all about what we believe, why we believe it, and what we know about history that corroborates with it, but you have to know Jesus and place your faith in Him as […]

6 Signs of an Authoritarian Church Leader

au-thor-i-tar-i-an /əˌTHôrəˈterēən/ adjective: favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government at the expense of personal freedom showing a lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others; domineering; dictatorial. noun: an authoritarian person Nothing is more unattractive to me than a church who has leaders and a pastor who […]

Obese Church VS Keto Church

THROWING UP THE WALLS Since I’ve begun my foray into examining and critiquing modern Church practices and settings in hopes to find what the Church really should look like, I have found that from the moment I began I have been met with a whole bunch of seemingly unnecessary defensiveness from other believers. The walls […]

Facts > Feelings I

Sometimes, I scroll through my timeline and wonder if a lot of people have any original thoughts of their own. The NPC meme sums them up in a tragicallty comical way. They have preset phrases they use to engage most issues and do not respond – AT ALL – to new information. The absolute WORST […]

Worship Is More Than a Song

CLEARING THE STAGE AND THE AIR Jimmy Needham put out a cover of the song “Clear the Stage” back in 2012, but I was only introduced to it a year or 2 ago by my former pastor. It is a song that challenges the notion that worship may, in fact, be more than a song […]

Identifying a True Christian

On January 20th, 2013, my life changed drastically in an instant. In the span of maybe an hour, I went from looking for trouble at the bar to being distraught at the realization that I was at the mercy of a God I didn’t know. All that is a story for another day. For now, […]

Stewards of Spirit & Time

No Dave Grohl, but I’ve got a confession to make. I’m a procrastinator. I waste a lot of time on mindless entertainment. I work hard at my job and building my relationship with my life, but I can be flat out lazy with other aspects of my life. I waste A LOT of time. Honestly, […]

The Tiny House Movement: A Big Lesson for the American Church

THE MOVEMENT Around 1997, a man by the name of Jay Shafer began a now growing and increasingly popular movement known as The Tiny House Movement. The purpose or vision of most who are moving toward the Tiny House movement is really quite simple: simplifying life. Don’t be fooled by these tiny houses though! These […]

An Audience With the King

A ROYAL INVITATION Imagine, the Queen of England sends word to you that she would like for you to pay her a visit. She would like for you to come to England, sit down in her living room (or whatever that looks like in a palace), just you and her, and she wants to talk […]

Wrath: People God Hates

One of the most recognized charactersitics of God is His alignment with Love. That is His defining trait. God is Love. That’s comforting, isn’t it? God is Love. God is good. God is forgiving. God is merciful. God is generous. God restores. Yes and amen, God is all of those things and more. But, God […]

The Table – What is Fellowship?

It was announced back at the end of October that the church I had been serving on staff at would close it’s doors on December 30, 2018. And so it did. This, of course, left my family wondering what we were going to do in this next season of life. Would we find another church? […]

No, Your Pastor Shouldn’t Be Expected to Lead Your Friend to Jesus and The Church Gathering is Not For The Unbeliever

Have you ever seen those commercials or read the inserts on some prescriptions that seem to describe side-effects that far exceed the issue it is supposedly treating? You know, crazy things like, “This drug treating a mild cough could cause internal bleeding, the breakdown of the intestinal walls, or cause cancer.” And you’re like “Look, […]