Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 83

NEW HAPPY RANT: Reformed Mean Girls, What does calling mean, and Tebow the Author

In this episode of The Happy Rant podcast Ted, Barnabas, and Ronnie respond to some listener feedback and answer a couple pressing questions.

Are we simply “mean girls, except reformed guys” as one disgruntled former listener said?
Why do people feel compelled to announce their departure from a free source of entertainment?
What does “calling mean” and why do people use it so frequently?
Tim Tebow won an award . . . for being an author. So of course we ranted about it.

Big thanks to the Christian Standard Bible for sponsoring the podcast. if you are a pastor (and ONLY a pastor) you can get a free review copy of this bible to check out and consider using for your church at https://csbible.com/review/. To learn more about the translation and the editions available visit CSBible.com.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #141

New Happy Rant: Leaving a Church, Unfollowing People, and a Really Bad Photo

In this episode of The Happy Rant Podcast Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas do what they do – rant about a couple things that only sort of matter and a few things that do too.

What is it that drives us to unfollow people online?
When can people leave church?
Why do pastors get called to larger, better churches but congregants can’t?
A really poor choice in photographs by some seminary professors

This week the podcast is sponsored by the Christian Standard Bible. The CSB captures the Bible’s original meaning without compromising clarity. An optimal blend of accuracy and readability, this translation helps readers make a deeper connection with God’s Word. The CSB is for everyone—for readers young and old, new and seasoned. It’s a Bible pastors can preach from and a Bible you can share with your neighbor hearing God’s Word for the very first time.It maintains the familiarity of passages you love while bringing the language of the text to life in a fresh way. Visit CSBible.com to learn more.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #140

New Happy Rant: Talking NFL Draft and NBA Playoffs

In this special bonus episode of The Happy Rant Ted and Barnabas break down the NFL draft and give their impressions of the NBA playoffs thus far.

Top draft prospects at each position
Mock draft of the top 10
NBA playoff thoughts
NBA MVP thoughts

This episode also highlights a film Ted wrote and co-produced, Silverdome. They are raising funds for post-production costs. You can donate HERE if you are a good person and so inclined!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #139

New Happy Rant: Platform Building, Bill O’Reilly, and What Are People Even Doing

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted and Barnabas tackle a number of the most pressing topics in the news and on their minds. Ronnie was called away (seriously) moments before the show to attend to a pastoral matter, so he was unable to join them in their lively ranting.

Should Christians try to build a platform? If so how can we do this well?
Bill O’Reilly’s firing and how some evangelicals defend him
Objectification of women in media
What are people even doing? A new segment  in which we ask “what are people even doing?” about various things that drive us nuts. This episode features children’s birthday parties, bad NFL decisions, and Chick Fil A fear.

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to learn more about the podcast, order our signature coffee roast, and get some sweet mugs from Missional Wear to drink from.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #138

New Happy Rant: Gospel Coalition Conference Recap

In this episode of The Happy Rant Podcast Ted quizzes Barnabas and Ronnie about The Gospel Coalition’s 2017 National conference which both of them attended. Subjects discussed include:

How TGC is like summer camp for grown ups
Everyone is weird
Amazing fan interactions
Barnabas and Ronnie’s first ever in-person meeting
The best and worst speakers

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to learn more, order our signature coffee roast, and get some sweet mugs from Missional Wear to drink from.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #136

New Happy Rant: Visiting Israel, The Billy Graham Rule, and NBA MVP

In this episode of The Happy Rant Podcast Ted Kluck and Barnabas Piper discuss a range of topics from the news to their travels to the world of professional sports. Ronnie sat this one out due to a particularly pastoral week. Here’s what he missed:

Coffee talk
Ted asks Barnabas about his recent trip to Israel – the good, the bad, and the NFL opera singer
The recent hubbub about “The Billy Graham Rule” and whether it is actually the best way to handle things.
Who is the NBA MVP?
Which NBA player are you?

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to learn more, order your coffee, and get some sweet mugs from Missional Wear to drink from.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #135

NEW HAPPY RANT: Awkward Pastors in Restaurants

In this episode of The Happy Rant Podcast Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas discuss one of the most pressing issues facing the church: the awkwardness of pastors in restaurants.

Calling servers by name
Asking how to pray for servers
Praying endlessly
Which famous pastor would be the most likely to be this way?

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to learn more, order your coffee, and get some sweet mugs from Missional Wear to drink from.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #134

NEW HAPPY RANT: Bracketology with Ronnie

Yes, we know the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament are over, but don’t you wish you knew how Ronnie picked games? This is how, this entire episode. Just as importantly we have an important announcement about our partnership with laggers Roasters.

Ronnie hates sports
Ronnie picks games
Ted and Barnabas give commentary and some guidance
Bison burgers are delicious
Ronnie trolls Ohio
WE HAVE COFFEE FOR SALE

Visit HappyRantPodcast.com to learn more, order your coffee, and get some sweet mugs from Missional Wear to drink from.

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #133

That Time Russ Ramsey Made Me Cry

I am not a crier. It’s not that I am afraid to cry or to admit to crying. I certainly don’t think crying is weak. It’s just that tears don’t come easily for me.

But Russ Ramsey made me cry. Russ is a friend and Russ is writer, or should I say a writer. He can write the sober out of a Southern Baptist church the irony out of an East Nashville hipster. And he can write me to tears.

Russ sent me his latest book, Struck: One Christian’s Reflections Encountering Death, several months ago, before it was released. He asked me to endorse it, and since he’s a good friend I was happy to do so. It was an ambush. The manuscript I waded into thinking I would enjoy and recommend happily was surgery and medicine and therapy. Of course, since it’s his reflections on mortality and mourning and recovery after near heart failure and open heart surgery, that makes sense. But it was all those things for me.

I read it one week after I moved out of the home I shared with my now ex-wife. My marriage had just ended (I reflected on that here). I was grieving but wasn’t fully aware of it. I was hurting but didn’t entirely feel it. I was moving forward but mainly because life just sort of does that without permission. I had hope but couldn’t have articulated it.

Struck was precisely the book I needed but didn’t know it.

The best memoirs tell one person’s story and the reader’s story all at once. They connect experientially and truthfully beyond the details of time and place or even the specifics of the event. To ask what they are “about” is to miss the point altogether – because they are about all the ways they speak to the reader. This what Struck did for me.

Russ’s account of sickness and health, of marriage and parenting, of friendship, of pain and misery, of recovery and its long road, of faith and dependence was his story. But it was my story. Or at least it was where my story could go. It was true and beautiful and hopeful, and I needed nothing more than truth and beauty and hope. Through the pages of this book he taught me to lament, and in lament there is healing. Without lament there is arrested development and soul stagnation. He offered hope and a little humor too. Come to think of it, the latter makes the former even brighter.

I read Struck in a single evening. My only difficulty in reading it was that it’s hard to see pages through tears, old stored up tears that needed permission to depart. Struck gave the permission because pain and fear were shared. In a sense it ushered me into hope and healing, or to a new place in them.

Struck is captivating and life-giving, but not light or trite. It is the best sort of heavy, the sort that anchors you and gives some ballast to your soul. It tugs at your soul. It shows what is good and real and invites you in rather than telling you what to think and what order to think it in. I devoured it because I was starving for what it had to say and because Russ delivered it with craft and precision and pleasantness.

For you who are grieving, this is for you. For you who are dried up, this is for you. For you who fear, this is for you. For you who are in the midst of trouble, this is for you. For you who anticipate trouble, this is for you. For you who are climbing out of trouble, this is for you. It is not a book about anything any more than a window is about what you see through it. And what you see through Struck will lift your soul, though it might be through tears.

New Happy Rant: The Shack, Gay Beauty and the Beast, and Another Christian Conference Update

In this episode of The Happy Rant Podcast Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas hit on their subjects – Evangelical controversies and conferences.

Barnabas gives a recap of two of the weirdest Christian conferences
Why do Christians insist on being the best marketing vehicle for things they hate . . . like The Shack?
Is it really a big deal that there is, apparently, a gay character in the new Beauty and the Beast movie?
And how is that any different than the cartoon?

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #132