Radius Church LA: Recent Episodes
Radius Church LA
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Santa. Rudolph. Angels. Christmas carols almost give us permission to expect a little more wonder. A little magic. Even grown ups can suspend disbelief a little for Christmas. We’re told songs have been a part of Christmas since the first one. Of course, if all the magic promised in those songs came true, it would really be something. JOY that never goes away? HOPE that feels like certainty? What about this whopper? This baby was supposed to being PEACE! But it’s hard to ignore that, while we’re celebrating Christmas, sadness, oppression, and violence are still realities in our world today. Nice song, but we’ll have to suspend disbelief to sing it. Or, maybe there’s something more to what we’re celebrating than we realize.
Every family has it’s quirks. Your family might have silly traditions. Another family might be a little overboard with how much they love football. Your wife’s family might be too political. One of the results of following Jesus is a different kind of family—one that has plenty of quirks. In this talk, we uncover the oddest feature of them all.
The family we were born into probably had some diversity, but was largely homogenous. One of the greatest opportunities we have in life is to build a family around us that expands on this—that creates even more diversity than we were born into. In the talk, we’ll find out that creating a community of diversity isn’t just a fashionable thing to do, but the most logical thing to do if we’re going to pay any attention to Jesus.
We all need a few people we can be complete ourselves around. People who don’t laugh at the way we laugh or take advantage or our weaknesses or mock our dreams. But “vulnerable" can mean something scary, right? “Susceptible to harm, unprotected, unsafe.” But great families enjoy unfiltered transparency and unstoppable love. Where can you find it?
Have you ever really needed a few people to be there for you only to discover the people who were closest weren’t really committed? For many of us, that story was told early when a parent couldn’t stick around or a partner betrayed or left us when we weren’t suitable for them any longer. The kind of community we need requires more commitment than some are willing to offer. Let’s create something better.
The phrase “one another” appears about 100 times in the earliest Christian writings. “Be devoted to one another”, “honor one another”, “encourage one another”. It’s like one of the results Jesus produced in their lives was connection with other people—like a family. There’s the family you born into and family that you choose along the way. Maybe “family”, maybe “one another” is one of the most interesting things Jesus offers.
When the challenges and puzzles of life are loaded with a layer of responsibility, we get stressed. There’s a deadline, there’s a mouth to feed, there’s too any people counting on you. But the challenges of life don’t have to give us stress. The way to get past it isn’t by avoiding ad white-knuckling, it’s by making one, critical change to what you believe about stress.
Whether you’re a person of faith or not, endings can disrupt us and shake us to our core—maybe even shatter us. Whether we choose to stop or the ending happens for us, the change deserves our attention more than we might want to give it. The past has so much to offer our future, but we have to know how to mine it. Some of the resources we need for the future are waiting where we just were.
Change is hard, but we still experience it all the time. In fact, the only reason we resist change isn’t because we lack the strength to endure it, it’s usually because we don’t really care enough for the difference it would make. We COULD start that diet or we COULD break up with him, but is the potential really worth the pain of getting there? As you face this next chapter of your life, don’t ask yourself how hard it will be to change, ask yourself if you have a vision big enough to justify it.
Have you ever found yourself waiting for a sign that you should keep going or make a change? Maybe it’s a routine you’ve been trying that isn’t yielding results. Maybe it’s a dream that’s just not fulfilling you the way it should. Maybe it’s a relationship facing challenges! How do you know when it’s best to stick with it or cut your losses and make a change? Knowing when to stay and when to go is actually quite simple—it’s not often EASY—but it’s simple.
Change is an inevitable part of life. That doesn’t mean we always want it. It doesn’t mean we always choose it. But it’s going to happen. Frequently. We want to face the fact that new things can’t start without some old things ending. And, the more significant the change, the more drastic the end.
Prayer can lead to disappointment. Regardless of what you believe, you've probably prayed a big prayer or two in times of desperation or hope. And... nothing. Giving up on praying big at all seems smart. Why set ourselves up for disappointment? This message clearly shows why praying BIG matters and what to expect as a result.
If God knows everything, then why would you have to come out and say so much to him in prayer? Why do we have to spill our guts and share our deepest traumas and sins? God already knows it! Does he want us to feel worse about it? Does he want us to feel more shame and guilt? Thankfully, God invites us to be brutally honest with him in prayer because it's the only way to get past it.
It's a fact, what we say has the power to shape how we think. So, what we say in prayer matters--if for no other reason than how it could affect our perspective. In this installment of our series, Joseph outlines why it's crucial to include some words of "wow" ever time we try to connect with the Divine. It will truly change. how you handle difficult emotions and. leverage new opportunities.
Wouldn't it be tragic if God was telling you where to go and what to do, but you were tuning it out? Is that possible? What are you doing today that obstructing the clear signal of God into your life? It might sound superstitious, but it couldn't be more practical... and urgent.
We're influenced by so many voices. We might give credence to the voices of teachers, our parents, or public figures. But what does the voice of God sound like? If there is a God and this God actually speaks, how could you hear it? What might that voice be telling you?
This message is about how the silence of God is how He creates space to bring up all kinds of blossoms AND weeds. It's what "waiting with God" really means. It's how he makes us truly stronger and deepens our faith.
Not sure what you think of prayer? Maybe it seems powerful and helpful. Maybe it seems superstitious. Maybe, prayer seems lazy and unnecessary. Yet, so many people have experiences proactive results when they pray. What is it really supposed to do? Is it possible that we've got it all wrong? More importantly, is there something powerful it can do for us? Let's demystify it a little bit. A simple everyday prayer: Show me your ways, LORD, Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. (Psalm 25:4-5)
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No doubt you're a good person (not perfect, of course!) trying to do good things. It would only be fair for God to reward you for good behavior. What was so alarming about Jesus was that he didn't deal in "fair". Good people and bad people were all put on the same level with him. It made some people so angry. It made others feel free.
One of the greatest things about God is His consistency in the face of every challenge. So many people want to define God with their own personal experiences, agenda and ideologies but really Jesus just wants you to come see and find out for yourself.
Christians can be so strange, but the founder of their faith is so much stranger. Jesus didn't live like any other religious founder. Jesus didn't teach like any other religious founder. Jesus didn't die like any other. No wonder he's made an exponentially greater impact on the world than any other. But why? What core problem was he really trying to solve? Maybe it will help you too.
What does God and the bible have to say about racial injustice? In this episode we unpack what the bible actually says on racism, social justice and more!
This message launches a new growth series dedicated to making your inside world strong enough to meet the demands of your outside world. And one of the hardest parts of our outside world are the LIMITS we have to live with. We can't live forever. We can't control other people. We can't get everything we want. But maybe the limits of life help us make MORE of life.
Some people call it the "dark night of the soul" or "rock bottom" or "end of my rope." It usually happens in the wake of a crisis that turns our world upside down. Maybe a divorce, a job loss, a diagnosis, a disorienting church experience, an inability to get pregnant. Maybe the COVID pandemic! It's the times in life we ask "God, what did I do wrong?" or "what do you want from me, God?" or "Is there a God?" But the truth is, God brought you to this moment to give you something you need.
Many of the messages we learned growing up produce our emotional states - even decades later. While a lot of people assume "God will just fix it if I go to church enough or pray the right way", it certainly doesn't seem to be working for people who do a lot of church and a lot of praying. Truth is, we have to look back at how we've been functioning and choose a different story. We can't break patterns we haven't clearly identified.
A lot of spiritual ideas go something like this: "Follow God or follow your feelings." One has no business with the other. But what is our true feelings are one of the greatest ways that God reveals himself and tells us about who we really are?
Most people leave churches or leave the faith because it simply doesn't seem to work. No matter how often they do "church" things, they are still facing their greatest chellenges - insecurity, fear, disappointment, rage. And most Christians, when you look at their lives, don't seem to have any more figured out. So, how do we repair what's really broken? It won't be from doing more or learning more. The work is so much more simple and courageous than any of that.
There are still some people (millions of people, actually) who don’t just believe the resurrection of Jesus is a metaphor for starting over. Every Easter, and every day in between, they live like the event actually happened. There’s good reason to question their sanity.
Our special Good Friday service to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus 2000 years ago.
It would be great if life got easier the more you do the right thing. But the truth is, the counter-pressure may increase, the temptation to deviate from your convictions will get greater, you’ll experience more people trying to call you out, call you to break focus, call you to retaliate and get bitter. But how can do you develop the resilience to keep going?
A year of COVID and job losses and kids struggling through school and poverty rising and vicious politics has a raised an age-old question a little more often than normal. Why do bad things happen to good people? Or, the even tougher, Why do good things happen to bad people? In this message, we discover how to see a world that seems unfair in a way that makes a little more sense.
We see extraordinary acts of courage all the time. But it’s still impressive. People who stand up against injustice and racism or people who overcome cancer or people who defy the odds and recover from major setbacks It’s to our eyeballs every day are exceptional. The question is, do people of incredible courage believe in something or believe in themselves better? How can we become people of rare courage?
It seems all the information we need to learn anything is at our fingertips, at any time, for free. So why are we still making such bad decisions? How come you can’t seem to figure out a way out of the mess you’re in or the rocky marriage or the financial dead-end? The world needs more wisdom. It’s rare, but it’s possible. And, if you become someone with this “odd” quality, the people in your life will you’re your influence
Gain skills. Meet people. Apply yourself. Take calculated risks. These are all essential pieces of every success story. But there’s one, hidden force that’s more important than all of those efforts combined. It’s a certain “IT” quality that will precede you into every future opportunity, secure you in your current job and leave a great legacy when you’re gone. It’s worth finding and fight for every shift, every gig and every day of your life.
History is full of heroes who’ve put themselves in harm’s way, people who were misunderstood, people who were willing to speak up or stand up when it would’ve been easier to hide. It’s driven scientific breakthroughs, spiritual enlightenment, and the civil rights movement. But every difference started with people who chose to live differently. If you feel out-of-place, maybe God’s asking you to stare into this discomfort and decide what you are going to do with your turn.
Radius is celebrating 6 years of miracles, movement and people. God has done great things for us, but this celebration isn’t for us. It’s a time to remember what—and who—we are “for”.
The heaviest weight we can carry is guilt. It’s legitimate at first. We’ve done something and we owe a debt or we need to make it right. Feeling guilty is healthy because it means you know your choices matter. But, what if you’re still carrying it? What do you do with it? If you can’t drop it, it will quickly metastasize into shame and insecurity. Let’s drop that weight.
One, big weight we ALL carry is the weight of greed. But breaking it’s power in our lives isn’t about money. It’s not about math. It’s about your future. It’s about your relationships. Ultimately, it’s about you heart.
No matter what you experienced in the last 12 months, everyone hopes 2021 will be better than 2020. We all know we can’t guarantee that…but maybe we can become less afraid, less fragile, less vulnerable and, ultimately, impervious to whatever this next year dishes out. This week, we talk about dropping the weight of your ANGER.
Humans are incredible at adapting. If we have to lift more weight, we can train our muscles and joints to support it. But sometimes, adapting to additional strain is just learning to live with baggage.
Some people will claim to have “30 years of experience”, but the more you get to know them or get to know their marriage or get to know them at work, you start to wonder if they’ve only had 1 year of experience that they’ve just repeated 30 times. Our world has just endured a tumultuous year of racism, political division and a global pandemic. Let’s not move past 2020 without asking what a year like that will help us see clearly for the life ahead.
We all want our holidays—Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas—to live up to our expectations. We all want them to be magical. But most years—and especially after the racial pain, political circus and COVID-19 pandemic of 2020—the holidays don’t quite do the trick for us. As this series starts, we’ll wonder if there’s much more hope, joy, justice or love to have as we wander through the pain of our real life.
You may or may not consider yourself “rich”, but you might be “blessed”. What’s the difference? Why do some people, regardless of circumstances, report being “blessed” while others, given the same circumstances, feel devastated? What do “blessed” people know—or, more accurately, DO—to keep the blessings flowing?
One of the reflexes we’ve developed as Americans is the reflex to keep busy—especially is we feel under-valued, isolated or discouraged. If we believe this is detrimental to our wellbeing, we don’t just need to adjust our schedules, we need to rip the problem out from the root. WHY are we running so hard?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was some “switch” or some “pill” to turn on extraordinary power in your life? What if there was a way to be filled up with next-level faith and love and joy and wisdom?
Do you ever feel like the greatest moments are reserved for “great” people? Truth is, more often than not, God does his greatest work through ordinary people. YOU are meant to be one of those incredible stories. This is the first talk in a new series unlocking the heroic possibilities of everyday people. And, while we often think of feats of strength and daring when we think of heroes, we start today exploring a hero of…patience. What’s so noble about waiting?
In this special Fathers Day message, Joseph speaks to the heart—the heart of what makes a great Dad and why all of us need it so badly. For the Dads, we all need help knowing how to get stronger. For anyone suffering a void left by an absent or abusive Dad, we need hope that the void can be filled.
Guest speaker Jason Jaggard helps us navigate the complex topic of voting as Christ followers.
We live in a time of bombastic, tumultuous politics. It would be enough to spend time wading through all of the media information streaming into our lives, but it also seems like each of us is required to make or own political statements online or else we can’t turn the tide in the way we want. Is there a better way to not only survive this election year, but actually come out of it better as humans and humanity? Yes. And it’s so simple that anyone can benefit from it.
Mother’s Day 2020 looks different for everyone. Normally, it’s a day of celebration and gratitude for many. While it’s also a day of suffering and grief for others, this years holiday has a layer of disappointment for everyone. So this year, Joseph’s wife, Katie (mother of 2), is speaking up to help us all get real…and come out stronger because of it.
The current crisis might give the impression that our lives are becoming more limited. But the opposite is proving to be true. We now have more unstructured time, more ideas for survival and safety, more time on screens that feed us information. If you’re facing a loss of employment, you might have less income, but you have so many paths you could go next. What do we do with the tension created by far too many choices?
Life is full of experiences that give us anxiety, fear, stress and isolation. We prefer the times when life is progressing forward, but we must know there will be some incredible losses, setbacks and changes: a betrayal, a divorce, a diagnosis, a lay-off, an accident, a blunder, a death. But it’s here, in the soil of grief, that God gives us the most.
It’s what so many of us are thinking. Easter is a great picture of starting over, of incredible optimism, of good springing from tragedy. But people who actually believe a dead man came to life are taking it too far. Many of the first people to claim it lost everything because they were convinced of it! Was it really worth it?! For this special Easter message, we invite you to consider whether or not you might want a little more of that kind of crazy in your life today.
The most upside-down way you could define “life” would be with a “death”. Why has the death of Jesus defined life for so many?
You know the feeling of being left out or kept out. Maybe it’s a company policy. Maybe it’s a family tradition. Maybe it’s a religious practice. We’ve all gotten the message that “our kind” or “our class” or “our story” doesn’t belong. Many of us have also perpetuated that idea through our looks and words and actions. That is nothing like the life Jesus envisions.
There’s nothing wrong with getting well-deserved attention. If you sacrifice for someone, they should thank you. If you’re great at something, you should get opportunities based on your unique capacity. It’s perfectly fine to get a little “glory”. But there is something torturous about needing it. It’s not the best way to live.
An obstacle that most often keeps us from living our very best lives is that nagging question, “Do I have ENOUGH?” or “Will I have ENOUGH left?” when I need it? It doesn’t just come up when we think about money, we’re always wondering if we’re tall enough, pretty enough, successful enough. We need something to cut through that noise so we can get free of anxiety and fear. We need to know when enough is enough so we can get on giving and get on living.
There’s one rule that nearly everyone wants to obey. Some call it “The Golden Rule”. First uttered by Jesus of Nazareth, it’s a vision of a world in which we all put others first. But even though we want that, we also have a deep need for significance. Are the two desires really in conflict or actually an insight into the best way to live?
You ever find yourself thinking that if you just had a few more friends, gigs, dollars or hairs on your head you’d finally feel secure? Free? Safe? Strong? The real insult (and we all know it) is that getting more of what we think we need will actually deliver less than we need. So, is there a better way to live?
No one gets to tell you how to live. On one hand, this is a liberating thought. But, on the other, we’re left with the assumption that we know how to do this thing called “life”. On our own. Maybe we don’t have to make it all up. Maybe the best way to live life is one that people have known for generations.
If you could choose what people are grateful for when they think of you at the end of your life, what would you choose? Not just want…but choose. No one’s going to stand next to your casket or urn and say “He wished he was nicer” or “She had always hoped to be more intentional” or “He really wanted to overcome his fears.” No. Legacies never get built on intentions. They’re built on action.
Whatever you think you know about money, we all want to be more financially free this year and need help getting there. But you can’t just want it. You have decide if you are willing to take radical responsibility.
Throughout history, people have reported seeing miracles happen when they’ve converted their “want” to a “will”. Whether we believe in them or not, who doesn’t want a miracle to happen in the lives of people we care about when they’re hurting or hopeless? This might seem crazy, but can we really do something to make that happen?
We all know that our closest relationships influence our future more than almost any other factor. Who doesn’t want great relationships? Who doesn’t want wisdom when we need it? Who doesn’t want support when we feel abandoned? Who doesn’t want perspective when we feel lost? We all do! Problem is, how can we find and create the kind of relationships or future needs?
How would your life be better if your INNER life was stronger? How it would it help you face the inevitable challenges of the years ahead? How could that help you stand your ground when you feel pressure or anxiety? Who wouldn’t want to have a more powerful spiritual self? Move from wanting it to experiencing it.