TGC Podcast

Melissa Kruger and Jen Wilkin led a conversation during a session at the 2021 TGC Women’s Conference titled “Gospel Parenting During the Little Years.” Each with older children now, the pair addressed questions regarding parenting their children through the younger years. From understanding accurate metrics for how difficult parenting small children should be to proactively teaching them the Bible in your home to relational vs. authoritarian leadership and choices about education, the women shared from their own experiences, both positive and negative, to encourage mothers facing similar challenges today.

Pastor and apologist, Sam Allberry, addresses the reasons Christian pastors have become less trustworthy in society, and how they might become trusted again. Pastors need to appreciate why trust has been lost, Allberry says, and they should prioritize compassion, honesty, pointing people to Jesus, and striving to become more like Jesus themselves. The more like Jesus pastors are, the more trustworthy they'll become.

Today’s generation of young people is more anxious, more depressed, and less Christian than ever before. What is causing this? Chris Colquitt, campus minister for Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at Northwestern University, explores how safetyism and fragility are hazards to Generation Z's mental health and spiritual health.

Colquitt says the Christian gospel provides realism that challenges our fragility (“In this world you will have trouble,” John 16:33), but also hope to sustain us ("But take heart! I have overcome the world.”).

In 2005, Al Mohler wrote an article about the call to Christian maturity through triaging theological issues. As with prioritizing particular injuries and illnesses in a hospital, there's great need for ranking theological issues in order of importance within the church.

At TGC21, Matt Smethurst moderates a panel with Al Mohler, Gavin Ortlund, and Afshin Ziafat as they discuss how to separate primary, secondary, and tertiary theological beliefs. Smethurst defines the three categories as follows:

1. Primary doctrines are central to Christianity—things you have to agree on to be a Christian.
2. Secondary doctrines separate churches and create denominations due to differing beliefs. These are things you must agree on in order to be church members in the same body.
3. Last-order issues aren't definitional for any kind of confessional system, and they allow Christians to remain unified while holding their differing beliefs.

Gavin Ortlund shares that love should always be the driving motivation in finding where one’s church stands on theological beliefs. He says, “When we notice we are being too sectarian and fighting too much, it is helpful to ask if this is becoming a form of self-justification.” Ortlund reminds us we're saved by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone.

Recommended resource: Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund

In this breakout session at TGCW24, Sarah Zylstra hosts a roundtable discussion with Sarah Kuswadi, Gail Curry, Carol de Rossi, and Shamsia Borhani Rafee, highlighting the spiritual landscapes of Australia, Ireland, Latin America, and Afghanistan. Each panelist shares the challenges present in her context while reflecting on ministry highlights and the encouraging ways she sees God at work in the world.

They discuss the following:

• Australia's spiritual context
• Gospel movement in Australia
• The spiritual context of Ireland
• Encouragements in Ireland
• Challenges and opportunities in Ireland
• Latin America's spiritual context
• The revival of the gospel in Latin America
• Practical ministry strategies in Latin America
• The spiritual context of Afghanistan
• Ministry to Afghan refugees in the U.S.