The Christian Chronicle Podcast

25 years ago, the attacks on September 11 changed the lives of countless Americans and people worldwide. Everyone waited anxiously, watching the news for any information about what immediately became an important event in history.  Dr. Jack Shock, a distinguished professor of communication at Harding University, served as a public affairs technician with the Red Cross in New York City during the aftermath of 9/11. He joins Wes and Marcus to share his memories of Ground Zero and discuss why sharing these stories is so important. Heritage21 offers guidance for churches to plan for the future, whether that be to renew, repurpose or replant. Learn more at http://heritage21.org/chronicle/  Please consider donating to this nonprofit ministry at christianchronicle.org/donate. If you have additional comments, ideas or suggestions, email us at podcast@christianchronicle.org.

25 years ago, the attacks on September 11 changed the lives of countless Americans and people worldwide. Everyone waited anxiously, watching the news for any information about what immediately became an important event in history.  Dr. Jack Shock, a distinguished professor of communication at Harding University, served as a public affairs technician with the Red Cross in New York City during the aftermath of 9/11. He joins Wes and Marcus to share his memories of Ground Zero and discuss why sharing these stories is so important. Heritage21 offers guidance for churches to plan for the future, whether that be to renew, repurpose or replant. Learn more at heritage21.org/chronicle  Please consider donating to this nonprofit ministry at christianchronicle.org/donate. If you have additional comments, ideas or suggestions, email us at podcast@christianchronicle.org.

A challenge many teachers and parents may be familiar with is how to engage children. Not just entertain them, but to get them interested in the content they’re learning. Add in the fact that people learn in different ways, with different mediums, and that challenge just got a lot harder.  Apologetics Press released a product last year that has engaged kids in learning stories of the Bible. Their Discovery Bible cards are like baseball cards, but feature events, characters and artifacts found in the Bible. Families and churches are using the cards as incentives in Sunday School classes, to encourage intergenerational relationships at church, and for family devotionals at home.  AP’s Youth Publications Coordinator Jeremy Pate shares the story behind the Discovery Bible Cards series and a sneak peek of what products are coming soon.  Check out the Discovery Bible Cards and other Apologetics Press resources.  Please consider donating to this nonprofit ministry at christianchronicle.org/donate. If you have additional comments, ideas or suggestions, email us at podcast@christianchronicle.org

Christians should rejoice and weep with one another, according to Romans 12:15. That support is shown in a lot of different ways, and it can even turn into ministries to help others going through similar struggles.  The Christian Chronicle has reported on a lot of stories of rejoicing and grieving in Church of Christ congregations around the world. Staff members witness some of these ministries firsthand, including the summer interns. Ephraim Rodenbach, a junior sports journalism major at Middle Tennessee State University, was one of this year’s interns. He got to interview many Christians in Tennessee experiencing what it means to rejoice and weep with one another.  Listen to some of his stories from his internship in this episode of The Christian Chronicle Podcast.  Heritage21 offers guidance for churches to plan for the future, whether that be to renew, repurpose or replant. Learn more at heritage21.org/chronicle  Please consider donating to this nonprofit ministry at christianchronicle.org/donate. If you have additional comments, ideas or suggestions, email us at podcast@christianchronicle.org.

One of the most exciting events for a youth group is church camp. There’s something special about being with other Christians for a week in the middle of nowhere. The long days are filled with Bible classes, outdoor games, worship and late night conversations with new friends. Campers leave with those memories, and even as adults, still value the unique time of fellowship.  Wes visited two camps this summer, Camp Blue Haven and the Red River Family Encampment. He interviewed counselors, teachers and attendees at each about why church camp was important to them. Heritage21 offers guidance for churches to plan for the future, whether that be to renew, repurpose or replant. Learn more at heritage21.org/chronicle  Learn more about Camp Blue Haven or the Red River Family Encampment.  Please consider donating to this nonprofit ministry at christianchronicle.org/donate. If you have additional comments, ideas or suggestions, email us at podcast@christianchronicle.org.

BT Irwin’s podcasting journey began with his father. From 2020 to 2022, BT’s podcast “Minister in the Making,” shared his father’s stories and wisdom from 50 years in ministry. Bobby Ross Jr. and Erik Tryggestad then brought BT in to host The Christian Chronicle Podcast.  The 159 episodes BT directed and hosted featured Christians all over the world, including astronauts, authors, professors, ministers, students, journalists, and even Santa Claus. Each guest shared a story about how God is working through a specific ministry or event. Through all of these, BT learned more about how congregations work in their communities and how the church continues to grow. BT, the podcast’s host from 2023-2026, sat down with Wes and Marcus to share some of the most memorable moments from interviews and what lessons he learned about the Churches of Christ through the stories he shared.  Heritage21 offers guidance for churches to plan for the future, whether that be to renew, repurpose or replant. Learn more at heritage21.org/chronicle  Click here to listen to The Christian Chronicle Podcast’s first episode Learn more about Wes, Marcus and what’s new to the podcast. Please consider donating to this nonprofit ministry at christianchronicle.org/donate. If you have additional comments, ideas or suggestions, email us at podcast@christianchronicle.org.

It is necessary for good things to come to an end so that new good things can begin. After 159+ episodes, Christian Chronicle Podcast director and host BT Irwin gets behind the mic one last time to interview the show's new hosts, Wes McAdams and Marcus Stenson.  In this episode, McAdams and Stenson share the love and purpose that led them to take on this ministry and their vision for how the Christian Chronicle Podcast will grow in its service to the church around the world.  To learn more about how to join a Thrive cohort, contact Dr. Sears here. Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Marshall Keeble (1878 - 1968) may be the most accomplished and influential Church of Christ preacher of all time. For decades, he preached all over the world, baptizing as many as 40,000 and planting hundreds of Church of Christ congregations. Today, hundreds of Church of Christ elders and ministers trace their own Christian ancestry back to Keeble. What makes this story even more remarkable is that Keeble did most of his work in the Jim Crow South, where legal and social norms limited what he could do and say. Sometimes, Keeble preached at the risk of his own life. Marshall Keeble is one of the greatest preachers of all time, but like all great preachers, his legacy is more complicated than it seems at first look. Dr. Edward Robinson, a "spiritual grandson" of Keeble, is author of Show Us How You Do It: Marshall Keeble and the Rise of Black Churches of Christ in the United States 1914 - 1968. In this episode, Robinson explores the harder questions about Keeble's ministry and what the present-day Church of Christ has to learn from one of its all-time greats. Link to Bobby Ross's Christian Chronicle story on the new Marshall Keeble exhibit that opened in 2026 at Jackson Street Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee To learn more about how to join a Thrive cohort, contact Dr. Sears here. Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

If surveys are on point, burnout is epidemic among professional and volunteer ministers in congregations everywhere. Not only does burnout end ministries, it damages churches and families as well. It's a major problem that congregations and ministers brush off or put off at their own peril. In this episode, Dr. Darrel Sears (assistant professor of Bible and ministry, York University) defines "burnout," shares his own experience with it in ministry, and talks about how churches and ministers alike can head it off and recover from it. He also introduces Thrive Network, an online small group-based ministry where ministers help each other prevent, and recover from, burnout. Link to Eliza Rohda's Christian Chronicle story on Dr. Sears's Thrive Network Link to Dr. Sears's dissertation (free online) that focuses on the causes and cure for minister burnout (includes many books and other sources for further study) Link to Christina Maslach's research on burnout (referenced in the interview) Link to Resilient Ministry (Burns, Chapman, Guthrie) (referenced in interview) To learn more about how to join a Thrive cohort, contact Dr. Sears here. Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Many Church of Christ members have preached or testified before thousands at various places and times, but Captain Victor Glover is one of the very few who spoke to an audience of billions. And he is the only one to do it from more than 200,000 miles away from earth. From April 1 - 10, 2026, Glover and three other astronauts completed a 500,000-mile round trip that took them beyond the moon and farther into space than any human beings have ever traveled. NASA's Artemis II mission captivated 8 billion people on earth and gave Glover a stellar pulpit from which to draw humanity's attention to God.  In this episode, Capt. Glover opens up about what he felt, learned and thought during his journey beyond the moon. He also shares what being on the moon mission taught him about community, grace, love and what it means to be part of humanity that inhabits earth. Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org Help your congregation or organization grow in generosity. Study Growing Into Generosity by Clark Dickerson. Let Clark help you. Call (303) 886-4531 or email clarkl.dickerson@yahoo.com. 

Max Rogers (Chatham Church of Christ, Chatham, New Jersey) is an Ivy League-educated economist who never imagined that he would every try online sports gambling, let alone get hooked on it. But one $5 bet soon turned to hundreds of bets and thousands of dollars in losses. In this episode, Rogers talks about how his experience with online sports gambling exposed him to how this is a fast-growing problem for Christians and churches in the United States. Link to Wager for More: A Christian Perspective on Online Sports and Casino Gambling by Max Rogers If you or someone you love has a gambling problem, click here for the National Problem Gambling Helpline Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org Help your congregation or organization grow in generosity. Study Growing Into Generosity by Clark Dickerson. Let Clark help you. Call (303) 886-4531 or email clarkl.dickerson@yahoo.com. 

Church of Christ folks sometimes have an uneasy relationship with church history outside of the New Testament. In a tradition that esteems the Bible as the singular authority and pattern for the church, it may feel weird or wrong to explore church history from other sources. Dr. Dyron Daughrity is a Church of Christ kid who not only grew up to be a local Church of Christ minister, he became a historian. And not just a historian; Dr. Daughrity recently became the next president of the American Society of Church History. In this episode, Dr. Daughrity argues that the project to restore primitive New Testament Christianity encourages knowing the history of the church in the 2,000 years between Acts of the Apostles and today. He also makes the case for Church of Christ folks exploring their more recent roots in the Stone-Campbell Movement. For fun, he reveals the characters and events in recent Church of Christ history that may not be household names, but are worth knowing and studying. Link to Dr. Dyron Daughrity's faculty biography at Pepperdine University Link to The Bible: Our Final Authority, the latest book by Dr. Dyron Daughrity Link to Dr. Daughrity's author page at amazon.com Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org Help your congregation or organization grow in generosity. Study Growing Into Generosity by Clark Dickerson. Let Clark help you. Call (303) 886-4531 or email clarkl.dickerson@yahoo.com.  Practice the life of Jesus with Healing Hands International at hhi.org

On Wednesday, April 1, four astronauts blasted into space for a historic mission to the far side of the moon. The pilot, Captain Victor Glover, is a Church of Christ member who often speaks of his faith with candor and clarity. As the BBC reported, Captain Glover took his Bible with him more than 250,000 miles from Earth.  This episode is a replay of Captain Glover's May 2023 conversation with The Christian Chronicle Podcast, when NASA first announced that he would be part of the Artemis II mission to the moon. Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org Join the Hope for Haiti's Children Lunch Club at thelunchclub.org Support African Christian Schools Foundation at africanchristianschools.org

Church of Christ lifers may remember Churches of Christ in the United States, an annual directory of, you guessed it, all Church of Christ congregations in the United States. The last edition came out in 2018. In 2024, The Christian Chronicle, Heritage 21 Foundation, Siburt Institute and 21st Century Christian formed a partnership, the Church Research Council, to resume publication of Churches of Christ in the United States.  But making a directory of Church of Christ congregations is not as easy as it may seem. First, there is the challenge of tracking down 10,000 to 12,000 independent congregations across 50 states and territories. Then there's the fact that some congregations will resist participating for a variety of reasons, including how creating a directory feels "denominational" to congregations that avoid anything that resembles that label.  And then there's the harder question of all: What is a "Church of Christ" and who gets to decide? In this episode, Dr. Suzie Macaluso, the lead researcher on the Churches of Christ in the United States project, talks about the challenges and implications of the directory on how Church of Christ folks imagine themselves and how they relate to one another. Link to Cheryl Mann Bacon's Christian Chronicle story on the challenges of compiling a new Churches of Christ in the United States Join the Hope for Haiti's Children Lunch Club at thelunchclub.org Support African Christian Schools Foundation at africanchristianschools.org

Bible scholar and prolific book-writer Rubel Shelly returns to talk about his two new books on heaven and hell. In this episode, he explains why heaven and hell may not be what most Christians always imagined them to be. Link to Heaven: Why It May Not Be What You Have Always Heart, by Rubel Shelly Link to Hell: Why It May Not Be What You Have Always Heard, by Rubel Shelly Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org Healing Hands International will give you or your congregation a community and a direction to put the life and work of Jesus into practice. Learn more at hhi.org.

How many Church of Christ congregations in the United States baptized 8,000 people in their first 20 years? Central Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, did. Forming in 2025, the Central Church of Christ did not choose to assemble in the desirable, fast-growing, upwardly-mobile parts of Nashville. Rather, the congregation chose to put down roots in the highest-crime, highest-poverty part of town.  Backed by philanthropist A.M. Burton, Central Church of Christ activated a dazzling array of community services and ministries that would seem ahead of their time even today. Led by minister E.H. Ijams, the congregation operated from the belief that announcing the kingdom of God and practicing neighbor love are one and the same. In this episode, Ijams's protege and student, Harold Shank, talks about the legacy of Central Church of Christ and what congregations around the world today can learn from it today. Link to The Christian Chronicle's archive of coverage of the Central Church of Christ Link to It's All About God, Harold Shank's book about E.H. Ijams and the Central Church of Christ Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org Healing Hands International will give you or your congregation a community and a direction to put the life and work of Jesus into practice. Learn more at hhi.org.

These days, the heat and wind of the political environment is kindling even in some Christians what seems to be an appetite for rage, revenge and violence. When the church of Christ allows itself to be set ablaze by politics, how can it demonstrate the grace and peace of the kingdom of God? How can it bear witness to the reconciling and redemptive work of Jesus Christ? How can it be a refuge for those who are exhausted and wounded by the acrimony of our times? Recorded in late 2025, this conversation with Tryce Prince addresses these questions head-on. Prince is director of the Carl Spain Center on Race Studies and and Spiritual Action at Abilene Christian University, contributes to the Good Culture Show podcast and writes at the First Sunday Substack. He recently published an essay, "Fighting Fire with Plants" in Christianity Today.  As the church searches its soul and tries to find solutions to the crises of these times, Prince points to a branch of the Christian family tree from recent history. The Black church in the United States responded to hateful and violent circumstances in the 19th and 20th centuries by cultivating a "beloved community" of proactive and purposeful love and peace-making. Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Lakeview Church of Christ and Northwest Church of Christ, both in Chicago, have long histories ministering to their neighbors and welcoming strangers into their pews. For decades, migration trends mean that many of their members and neighbors are from countries beyond the United States.  For both Lakeview and Northwest, embracing and supporting these newcomers has always been a simple matter of obedience to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ and the laws of the kingdom of God as the Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46.  Changes in attitudes among some U.S. voters, however, led to a new federal administration that promised to deport 10 million illegal immigrants in 2025. Federal law enforcement is now deploying personnel and tactics that are affecting Lakeview and Northwest members and neighbors.  Which raises difficult questions for congregational leaders. What will they do when obedience to the Christ could bring them to not comply or not cooperate with the U.S. government? What will they do if law enforcement tries to enlist, search or surveil their congregations? In this episode we hear from Chicago ministers Walter Pierce (Lakeview Church of Christ) and Carlos Estrada and Patrick Odum (Northwest Church of Christ). Link to an archive of The Christian Chronicle's coverage of Lakeview Church of Christ Link to an archive of The Christian Chronicle's coverage of Northwest Church of Christ Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Kids and young adults growing up in congregations with "Church of Christ" signs on their buildings have honest questions: "Who are we? How did we become who we are? Why do we do what we do?" These are important questions for young Christians trying to decide whether to remain with the church of their upbringing or strike out in search of something different. And, if "restoration" truly is essential to Christians who identify with the Church of Christ, then it must be a fresh practice for each new generation. These are the reasons why Church of Christ youth ministry veterans Luke Dockery and Jared Pack wrote Origin Story: Churches of Christ and the Restoration Movement.   The book, which uses comic book illustrations and fast-moving, punchy language, seeks to orient a new generation to Church of Christ history. In this episode, the authors discuss why church history beyond the New Testament is still crucial for present-day Christians to learn and study. They also make their case that restoring the New Testament church is always a present and future pursuit and never a past-tense accomplishment. Thus, restoration demands both an awareness of history and an orientation toward emerging generations. Link to Zack Martin's Christian Chronicle review of Origin Story Link to Origin Story: Churches of Christ and the Restoration Movement Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Declining birthrates in the United States will drive down college enrollment over the next 15 years. Some experts predict that hundreds of small private colleges and universities will close. Of the 14 colleges and universities in the Church of Christ family tree, as many as ten of them have characteristics that put them at higher risk in the new higher education market. Many of these schools are innovating in ways that cut costs, increase operating margins and revenue and at least give them a chance to grow or maintain enrollment enough to survive. But will a necessary focus on margins lead to less focus on mission? Dr. Joshua Travis Brown, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and research fellow with the Center for Skills, Knowledge and Organizational Performance at the University of Oxford, shares what he found when he researched how small private colleges are managing tradeoffs between margins and mission. That research appears in his book, Capitalizing on College: How Higher Education Went From Mission Driven to Margin Obsessed (Oxford Press). Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org