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Life’s tough--Get a helmet...or a relationship with Jesus! Join Dennis and Christine each week as they use over 3 decades of experience in church ministry and faith formation (with a little wit and wisdom!) to help listeners encounter the love of God and live well in the modern world.
"Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low . . . Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed.”
Isaiah 40:4-5
The Future Is Ours © 2020 by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
Episodes
Thursday Jun 06, 2024
Forgiveness Is Hard - Forgive Anyway!
Thursday Jun 06, 2024
Thursday Jun 06, 2024
Who in your life, past or present, is in need of your forgiveness? Who in your life have you trespassed against and need to seek forgiveness from? Forgiveness is hard, but holding on to our hurts and the wrong done to us by another enslaves us to those trespasses and creates a hardness of heart that actually prevents us from experiencing the mercy of God when we trespass against him! The justice sought in our current cancel culture has no room for mercy or forgiveness, and if we’re honest, we’d have to admit that there is likely someone in our life who we have “cancelled” because of some trespass committed against us. What is the path forward that leads to true healing and true reconciliation and frees us from the prison we’ve created for ourselves? Yes, forgiveness is hard, but we must forgive anyway because forgiveness is a key component of Christ’s mission of redemption and salvation for at the heart of forgiveness is mercy, and that mercy is merely another word for God’s love. In this episode, Christine and Dennis address the nature and importance of forgiveness in living a life of discipleship, and provide some ways for listeners to soften their hearts so that forgiveness is possible and the healing they long for becomes a reality.
Thursday May 30, 2024
Who Is the Holy Spirit?
Thursday May 30, 2024
Thursday May 30, 2024
The Holy Spirit is a mighty advocate, helper, and guide in achieving the goal of becoming the saint God created each of us to be, but who is the Holy Spirit and how can we relate to Him? Often referred to as the "Forgotten Person of the Blessed Trinity," the Holy Spirit can seem somewhat nebulous and abstract in comparison to the Father and the Son. In this episode, we look at the evidence for the existence of the Holy Spirit found in Sacred Scripture, and delve into the Holy Spirit's relationship to the Father and the Son. More importantly, we break open the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a disciple in order to help listeners come to better know this Person of the Blessed Trinity in the hope that they will be able to develop a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, and embrace the Holy Spirit as the advocate who works in earnest within them to help them grow in holiness.
Thursday May 23, 2024
Can We Be Spiritual But Not Religious?
Thursday May 23, 2024
Thursday May 23, 2024
Those who claim to be spiritual but not religious are one of the fastest growing "religions" in America and across the world, but can one truly be spiritual without being religious? Are they mutually exclusive? Delving into the issue, Dennis and Christine look at this spiritual path and offer some perspectives on why this path is not optimal for those who are genuinely seeking something deeper and more personal in their relationship with God, how the human person is created to be both spiritual and religious by nature, and why our relationship with God is meant to be not just personal and private, but also public and communal. We provide some guidance for family members on how to have conversations with a loved one who has chosen this path, as well as some insights for those walking this path to consider. In the end, we hope listeners will come to see how God desires so much for us in our relationship with him than what we limit ourselves to, and how being spiritual and religious offers us the "more" that we truly long to experience.
Thursday May 16, 2024
Coffee (and Tea) Talk - Candid Conversations on Living as Disciples of Jesus
Thursday May 16, 2024
Thursday May 16, 2024
For this episode, Christine and Dennis have candid conversations about a variety of questions pertaining to living a life of discipleship. We discuss some misperceptions about Catholicism, share how and when we feel closest to God, what we struggle with the most in our relationship with God, our favorite Biblical figures, and even the pros and cons of cry rooms at church and Gregorian Chant vs. Christian Rock. We hope listeners will benefit from some of the insights and sharing from our candid exchange with each other, and find something helpful in their own walk of discipleship. The spirituality quiz Dennis references may be found online at https://vocationnetwork.org/en/articles/show/63-find-your-spirituality-type. The quiz looks at four different paths, but there are many other paths of spirituality that are not a part of this quiz like Benedictine, Carmelite, Dominican, Redemptorist, and Servite to name a few.
Thursday May 09, 2024
Marian Devotion - What's Not to Love?
Thursday May 09, 2024
Thursday May 09, 2024
As we enjoy the beauty of the month of May, a month traditionally devoted to honor Mary, Christine and Dennis delve into how we, as Catholics, truly honor Mary. We explore the meaning behind some of the doctrines and beliefs about Mary, and delve into four unique but relatively unfamiliar titles of Mary using meditations based on the writings of St. John Henry Newman. Listeners will not only come to see the beauty and importance of Mary and her role in the life of Christ, the life of the Church, and in our life as disciples, but also how these four unique titles can inspire us to model our lives after her in our attempt to live as intentional disciples of Christ Jesus. When it comes to Mary, the model of perfect holiness, of what's not to love?
Thursday May 02, 2024
Where Are You God? The Problem of Evil & Suffering
Thursday May 02, 2024
Thursday May 02, 2024
Suffering is real. Evil is real. Yet, how do we reconcile the existence of both with a God whose very nature is Love? How can an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-benevolent God allow suffering and evil to exist? These age-old questions are challenging because the existence of evil and suffering is used to disprove the existence of God or at the very least it is used to show that God isn't who he claims to be. Join Dennis and Christine as they delve into the nature of God and his relationship to evil and suffering. We hope to lead listeners to experience a paradigm shift in how they perceive suffering and evil in their lives that will enable them to see where God is in the midst of it all, and to live in the assured hope that he is doing something about it.
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
What Is the Bible and Why Does It Matter?
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
Thursday Apr 25, 2024
The Bible is many things to many people, and how we understand the Bible impacts everything we claim to be true in our faith and in revelation. It even influences our relationship with God! So, ensuring that we have a solid understanding of what the Bible is and is not, and of how we can be certain that what it contains is true and accurate is of paramount importance to living out authentic discipleship. In this episode, Christine and Dennis discuss the nature of Sacred Scripture, what makes it Holy, and how we can claim that it is the Living Word of God. We also delve into the doctrines of Divine Inspiration and the Inerrancy of Scripture in order to help listeners understand what these doctrines actually claim, how they work, and how they enable us to experience a more profound encounter with God. Listeners will not only come to understand these concepts more fully, but also see more clearly the truth, beauty, and power of Sacred Scripture, especially as it pertains to their own lives.
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
The Exodus - Its Relationship to the Resurrection and Us
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
The Resurrection event is the culmination of God's story of salvation, but this wasn't the first time God saved his people. The Exodus event and the Passover have deep ties to the Eucharist and the Resurrection, and they prefigure God's saving action through the Cross, but what does this have to do with us today? In this episode we talk about the name of God revealed in Exodus and what it says about him. We'll examine the saving action of God in the not only in Exodus Event and the Cross, but also in our everyday lives, and we'll discuss the importance of understanding what a memorial is and its implications for us when we gather for the new Passover - the Eucharist. Listeners will hopefully come to a deeper understanding of how the God who is the Great I AM is very much acting in our lives today, just as he was during the time of the Exodus and early Church following the Resurrection, and how God continues to save us through Christ Jesus in the Church, especially in the Eucharist, which is our new Passover.