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.”).

Disclaimer: This breakout session was recorded before the 2019 global pandemic. Please follow your church body's guidelines when gathering in person for church services.

Jared Wilson delivered a message in a breakout at The Gospel Coalition’s 2019 National Conference titled “The Gospel Driven Church,” sharing principles that can be found in his book by the same name. In the session, Wilson addressed the gospel recovery movement of the last decade or so, expressing delight in the desire of churches and leaders to set aside the attractional model of church in favor of a more biblically sound one.

Wilson warned, however, that even those who have bought into a gospel driven focus must be careful that it not become simply nomenclature attached to the same old practices. He then delved into four practices of gospel driven churches and encouraged leaders to “continually slough off the baggage of doctrinal add-ons and distractions, cutting out the ever-rising innovations, theological and otherwise. Let us keep contending, keep trusting, keep returning to the ancient marker of the cross.”

This episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast is brought to you by Operation Christmas Child. You can build a shoebox online and OCC will pack for you based on your selections. These shoeboxes are delivered into hard-to-reach areas in and effort to share the gospel. To start building, visit Samaritanspurse.org/occ.

In this breakout session from TGC's 2023 National Conference, a panel featuring Vincent Bacote, Steve DeWitt, John Dickson, and Phil Ryken considers how race, sex, politics, and social media are tearing evangelical communities apart. They reflect on what pastors, teachers, and other Christian leaders can do to restore true Christian fellowship and empower effective gospel witness that is faithful to Scripture and relevant to culture.

They discuss:

• Challenges in the evangelical church
• The church's reputation and loyalty
• What it means to live in a post-Christian society
• The need for pastoral resilience
• The term "evangelical" and its usefulness in the broader world
• Educational decisions for Christian families
• Political emphasis in the church and the need for discernment