Mission Life Grace (MLG) Network Audio: Recent Episodes
MLG
Welcome to the MLG podcast
You can listen into our different talks and discussions on relevant topics (like our Big Chats and Leading at a Local Level) as well as catch up on recordings from live in person Meetings and more.
Many children and increasingly adults are being diagnosed with conditions such as Autism, and church can be a challenging place to be. Many parents avoid bringing their children to church, and a lack of understanding can hamper our ability to care well for such children as well as adults. As we continue our Leading Diversity series we are joined by Sarah and Dylan, parents of a child with Autism to reflect on what it's like being a family with a neurodiverse child including in a church setting. We discuss how leaders can help create an environment where neurodiverse children and adults are welcome, not to be tolerated or ‘accommodated’, but to be embraced for all that they are and bring to a local church family. The course Dylan and Sarah mentioned is HERE.
In this episode, we explore how the church should be part of our family and our family part of a healthy local church. We see the rich range of opportunities for our family to benefit from being a full and meaningful part of our local church community. We look at 5 key ways the local church helps us in our journey to be an Intentional Father allowing us to walk side by side with others
Dad’s need to be able to have difficult conversations with their children about potentially awkward topics such as sex, masturbation, pornography, relationships. However many men are not good at having these conversations with anyone let alone their teenager. This episode explores how we can do this better with our children to help build stronger relationships.
Diversity - singleness
What does it look like to be a church that welcomes single people? How do we care for those who don’t have children? What does it mean for single people to be in a ‘church family’? As part of our series on Leading Diversity, we’re joined by Jennie Pollock to discuss singleness and the conversation just flowed. Jennie is a writer and speaker, and is Head of Public Policy at the Christian Medical Fellowship. Her first book, If Only: Finding joyful contentment in the face of lack and longing, is available from The Good Book Company.
Session 5: Review and Reflect
At the half way point of our journey of Intentional Fatherhood, we want to stop and spend some time drilling in on one intentional action that we are going to plan for and work on with our children. This will help us not just talk and think about what we need to do but to actually take intentional actions to build deeper relationships with our children
Session 4: Becoming a Good Man/Good Woman
In a society where clarity around gender roles in increasingly harder to clarify we need to be able to understand what a “good man” looks like and communicate this clearly to our sons and daughters. Being a father is not about efficiency; it’s about discipleship. It’s not about time management; it’s about heart development. We need to help our sons and daughters grow into the people God has made them but how can we do this unless we know what we are aiming at? In this session we look at a way to understand better what a good and godly person is.
As part of our series on Leading Diversity, we’re joined by Dr Rachel Owusu-Ankomah to discuss questions such as what can it be like to be in a majority-white church as a person of colour? Why is an ethnically diverse church worth fighting for? Why is it hard to live and worship together with people who can seem different from us? How can I learn from the experience of those who have different stories to me? And does skin colour really make us that different? Rachel grew up in Kent and is the daughter of two Ghanaians who emigrated to the UK in the 1970s. She works as a medical doctor and also with students at the Christian Medical Fellowship.
Mapping intercultural mission — Eido Research - Impact measurement and strategy for Christian organisations
https://langhamliterature.org/africa-bible-commentary
In session 3 we look at why it is important to understand your child. This is understanding their personality, their preferences, and their physiological and psychological stage of human development. Understanding our child better will help us adapt our approach to conversations, conflict, and experiences.
Our goal as parents is to help our children discover who God has made them to be, not to try and make them like us.
Continuing our Leading Diversity series this is a fascinating discussion with Andrew Bunt. We discuss how there are many same-sex attracted people who have found that church isn’t a home for them. We discuss how local churches can be places where people are welcomed. Our conversation touches on a number of sensitive but vital issues including singleness, marriage, identity and conversion therapy. Andrew is part of a church on the south east coast and the Emerging Generations Director at Living Out, an organisation that helps people, churches and society talk about faith and sexuality. He is the author of People Not Pronouns: Reflections on Transgender Experienceand Finding Your Best Identity: A short Christian introduction to identity, sexuality and gender .
Andrew references an audit your church could consider HERE and the Living Out site contains a range of helpful materials
We need to have a vision of the day our sons/daughters will leave our homes and work backward from that day with a plan to help them gain the knowledge, skills, character, and experiences they need. This will enable them to move into the world as confident and healthy adults.
In this new series we look at some of the different groups in our church and organsations, we seek to identify their perspectives, needs and challenges to help us lead them well.
In this episode we talk with Chris Spicer a well known author and speaker about how we can intentionally build multigenerational churches where we don’t treat older folks with a grumpy, hymn loving stereotype mindset. We ask how we can learn from older people and find a role for them that isn’t boring or patronising, recognising that there is no retirement in the kingdom of God. This episode will help you better understand and value the contribution that older folks have to play in your church or organisation.
This is the first episode of our new course called The Intentional Father. This podcast supports a free course we have written based on the material from Jon Tyson's book "The Intentional Father". The aim of this course is to help fathers think about how they are parenting their children and to make intentional and practical steps towards building stronger relationships with their children to help discover who they are in Christ and how they can grow into healthy, resilient followers of Jesus. We’re inviting you to be part of a group of fathers of teenagers or future teenagers. We’ll share ideas and practices and journey together in the quest to become intentional fathers, families on mission to bless the world around us, releasing into the world young adults who know their identity and purpose and who will pass on a spiritual inheritance to many. There is no one-size-fits all approach and once we’ve considered, shared, and prayed you will be able to adapt material to be an intentional father to your teen that fits your context and your family. Perhaps more than anything we believe that doing this in community is vital as we share and pray for one another. Please find the link to the workbook here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X...
Being able to catch the mood of the moment and respond effectively for the good of the group
Groupthink is a very powerful thing, in fact there is a great deal of social psychological research that proves that people will behave in line with the group, rather than stand out from the crowd
We see it in churches all the time. There is a mood among the congregation and if the pastor/ leader/ elders misjudge that mood it can create all kinds of problems.
Managing emotions is the ability to regulate your impulses in leadership. In this episode, we explore how you can do this to help those who follow you.
This is the ability primarily to understand the emotional makeup of other people and the skill of dealing with people based on their emotional reactions. If we can’t read other people’s emotional reactions effectively we will often switch them off from engaging with us or our leadership plans. One of Tim's phrases is “read between the lines” or read the subtext. Often what people say is not what they mean.
Valuing others is also about being able to sensitively manage cross-cultural dynamics and the interplay in groups, effectively using conflict to create a positive working environment.
In this episode, we unpack the idea of being self-aware. Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions, tendencies, thoughts, strengths/weaknesses, values and abilities. Beyond just recognising your emotions, however, is being aware of the effect of your actions, moods, and emotions on other people. Self-aware people are also open to new information and experiences and learn from their interactions with others.
Self-awareness can of course be negative when it drifts into being an unhealthy focus, but being aware of how we impact others and how we are perceived is vital to growing in People Wisdom.
In our 2nd episode on People Wisdom we will seek to lay a foundation of our wisdom in God, being aware of God in your life, being grounded and secure in him. However it is also being aware of what God is doing in your life in each season, being aware of what God is doing in the church/ team, being aware of what God is doing/ speaking to other people.
This episode lays the basis for everything else we discuss. Miss this and being “People Wise” could end up just being very natural rather than spiritual. It can quickly become just human management techniques rather than God developing his church.
We are going to introduce something to you in the next mini series that has come from our own experience in Leadership over many years but has of course been influenced by many brilliant leadership authors and thinkers.
We all know leaders who we love as people, we respect them. Often these leaders have a great plan they know what to do to bring about change BUT yet too often despite their being great people, with a great plan they don’t seem to be able to get the momentum and movement from the people they are leading.
We believe that the level of “People Wisdom” that a leader has which will determine how effectively they are able to lead and create a plan which creates momentum for positive change.
In this episode we will explore our model we are calling “People Wisdom”
How do we discern the difference between someone who has genuine mental health difficulties and someone who is just using the mental label as an excuse to avoid facing the realities of life? In this episode we explore the role society has played in creating people who are mentally fragile and how as christians we can challenge these ideas.
We want to be able to help people but often what we do doesn’t seem to help or make much impact. In this episode we explore how we need a holistic approach to helping people find mental health. We consider how we can only understand the cure if we understand the cause. Our brokenness as human beings is complex and we need to see healing as more than just a quick fix and a deliberate combination of spiritual, emotional, physical and social support.
How do we recognise the role of evil spiritual forces which are working in someone’s life? In this episode we explore the role of the enemy in people who struggle with their mental health. We look at how we identify demonic influence and how as leaders we can respond appropriately to help bring people into freedom.
Data suggests that 1 in 4 of us will struggle with a mental health condition at some point in our lives. The idea of mental ill health is well established as a concept but there is still a great deal of confusion around the subject. In this episode we seek to provide a useful explanation of mental ill health, how it is caused and how we can identify it in others. Show notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oz79WMlEsflvKh0Mbj8QMZpnxmp8jPIdV89-fT2wMdY/edit?usp=sharing
Are the words Depression or schizophrenia mentioned in the bible? They aren’t, but just read Psalm 42 – you see so many signs of depression there – low mood, low energy, low interest, anxiety, loss of appetite, social withdrawal, disturbed sleep, hopelessness, self-blame… In this episode we want to try and present a balanced and biblical view of mental health, where we don’t over spiritualise or over medicalise or see struggles with mental health as a lack of faith. We explore questions of demon possession and how we can pray for those who are battling mental illness. Show Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_n96-0Nx7bDx2MXAeqjXrYaiM0Bg-v16IwXZIfQ2hUs/edit?usp=sharing
Social media (by which we mean - Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, Whats App Status/ groups) is now a major way that we connect and communicate with people in our churches as well as people outside our organisations. People don’t just want information, they want connection. Social media provides a form of connection that has previously never been possible. Should a leader be on Social media? If so, how can they engage in a meaningful way?
Has, at times, our preaching become too influenced by worldly methods and themes? Are we truly confident in the power of the word? Have we sometimes compromised style for substance? Have we lost some of the prophetic edge in our preaching?
This week in our MLG Podcast I am joined by Chris Spicer who has been preaching and teaching all over the world for many years. Together we explore these themes and look at how developing and aspiring preachers can learn to preach with greater confidence and Spirit empowered authority.
Preaching is such an important tool in the communication of the gospel and the teaching of the church, we want to be able to help preachers sharpen their skills.
Getting people to "buy in" to you as a leader and what where you feel called to lead them is super important. A leader without anyone following them is just a person taking a walk! In this episode we look at how we encourage people to buy in to our vision, values and approach. You can access the show notes here.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hQE1aWbXxXZyvrBePCRn6vTiv3nAmHkoPGrcyRhgW0o/edit?usp=sharing
We want joyful harmony right?
We hate arguing right?
We want everyone to agree and move forward together right?
Of course we do but the way to get there is probably through creating healthy conflict not avoiding it.
Conflict is inevitable, people are wonderfully unique and unpredictable. They come from different perspectives and have differing personalities which don’t always mix perfectly with others. However it is diversity that makes teams stronger, but you won't harness that strength without creating a culture where different ideas are welcomed, where people can really challenge each other and the truth is on the table even if that stings a bit.
In our latest episode we discuss why conflict is so important and how you can start create culture of healthy conflict in your team that will make it stronger.
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We hope these podcasts are helping grow and strength you in your leadership.
Why do many Christians seem so prone to believe in conspiracy theories? In this episode of Leading at a Local Level we explore how we can effectively respond as a Christian leaders to those who spread and believe fake news.
Understandably there is a lot of concern around a vaccine that has been produced so rapidly in response to a pandemic but there has also been a lot of misinformation and even conspiracy theories on the internet promoting fear, some of which have been seeping into the church.
The growing concerns around fake news and misinformation is a real problem that churches and leaders face in 2021. As leaders we need to consider how we respond to sensitively, lovingly but ensure we protect the church from false teaching.
You can read the show notes here
You can watch on YouTube here
Ever wonder how you can work all day but get little done? Or why, despite your best intentions? We have all been there.
In our latest episode of Leading at a Local Level we explore different ways of organising your tasks and to focus your time so that you can make the best use of your time.
It was with sadness that we heard about the tragic events of the final years of Ravi Zacharias' life where he mistreated a number of women and tried to cover it up. In this episode we reflect on what we can learn about how to leave a legacy that lasts.
Do you handle criticism well as a leader?
In this episode we look at how you can learn to handle it better, to use it to your advantage and create a happier, more committed team.
Feedback is vital for improvement in our leadership.
Books are great but nothing beats relevant, timely and constructive feedback. Yet so many people are starved of good feedback and struggle to develop. Feedback is a big emotional commitment but as we explore in our latest podcast it’s totally worth the effort if we want to grow ourselves and help others grow.
Do you want to do feedback well then why not listen to our latest MLG podcast Leading at a Local Level?
Everyone in leadership wants to make a difference. Who doesn't?
But sometimes we give up too soon.
We get discouraged, we get distracted by a new idea or plan or worse we just get bored and move on. One of the most over looked secrets of leadership is being a leader who follows through.
The truth is that all great change happen in small steps. Even the biggest changes in history were a series of small steps and battles that were won over time, the decisive moment was the product of small steps.
In the latest episode of Leading at a Local Level we consider the power of just following through on our promises, of stickability and being a trustworthy leader over time, doing the small things well again and again... and again
In this episode we explore how powerful the word No can be in helping us find our way to freedom. Tim and John look at when is the right time to say no