Real Life Theology Podcast

Love Your Enemies | Angel Maldonado

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From the 2020 National Gathering, this episode challenges Christians to follow Jesus' radical command to love their enemies. The speaker examines how modern society personifies ideologies as enemies, shares real-life stories of reaching hurting youth, and calls listeners to lead with compassion without sacrificing conviction.
Practical takeaways include building relationships across divides, feeding and caring for those we fear, and overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:20-21).

Courageous Discipleship | Corey Trimble

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Corey Tremble challenges listeners to pursue courageous, Spirit-empowered discipleship that neither hides from the world nor surrenders biblical truth. He explains how expository teaching, intentional relationships, and Holy Spirit-led insulation—not isolation—equip churches to reach diverse communities without compromise.
The episode offers practical encouragement to lead boldly, love authentically, and invest time in making disciples who make more disciples.

Why Am I Doing This Again? Finding Strength and Purpose in Jesus | Matt Proctor

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Matt Proctor explores Revelation to answer the weary question, "Why am I doing this again?" He walks listeners through three powerful portraits of Jesus — a terrifying King (Revelation 1), a tender Lamb (Revelation 5), and a triumphant Warrior (Revelation 19) — to show why believers should persevere in gospel allegiance.
Using personal stories, historical context, and pastoral encouragement, Proctor reminds us that Jesus’ holiness, love, and victory give purpose, courage, and hope in hardship.

Discipleship as Allegiance | Mark Moore

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Mark Moore explores discipleship as allegiance, beginning with a powerful true story about abuse that illustrates how knowing the Bible isn’t enough. He explains why regular Bible engagement is the most important discipline for spiritual growth and walks through three biblical passages that reveal different dimensions of the Word.
Mark Moore shares practical tools—like memorizing core verses—and emphasizes that true growth happens when believers both live the Word and speak it into others’ lives, leading to healing, transformation, and multiplication of faith.

Salvation to Everyone (feat. Reese Neyland)

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Reese Neyland shows that salvation means responding to Jesus' love with wholehearted pursuit, not relying on being "good enough." Using his own story of longing and the Gospel account of the rich young ruler, he explains that true faith is loving Jesus as much as He loves us — embracing grace, pursuing obedience, and caring for the lost.
The episode challenges listeners to move from mere moral effort to gospel allegiance, reminding us that Jesus first loved and that our role is to love others into that relationship.

Salvation for Everyone: Embrace the Call Beyond Your Comfort Zone (feat. Marcos Mercado)

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Marcos Mercado joins the Real Life Theology Podcast to challenge listeners to surrender biases and comfort zones so they can embrace God’s call to make disciples among people who are different from them.
Through personal stories and ministries with Spanish-speaking and West Indian communities—Marcos illustrates how embracing and engaging God’s calling leads to transformed lives and flourishing ministries.

Every Mary Needs an Elizabeth: Training Women for Discipleship (feat. Joanne Kraft)

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Joanne Kraft explains that faithful discipleship is learned through training and that churches should equip the women already in the seats to disciple younger women, using the Mary and Elizabeth example from Luke 1.
She shares personal stories—from emergency response training to parenting—and urges pastors and leaders to recognize, encourage, and raise up Titus 2-style relationships so faith-filled lives are passed to the next generation.

God's Power Unleashed: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Harvest (feat. Shodankeh Johnson)

In this episode of Real Life Theology podcast, Shodankeh Johnson shares powerful stories of how the Holy Spirit is transforming resistant communities through disciple-making and ordinary believers. From a West African chiefdom opening to the gospel after years of rejection to prisoners and former rebels becoming disciples, Johnson emphasizes that God uses unlikely people to bring abundant fruit when the church yields control to the Holy Spirit.
He calls for a paradigm shift—from professional to ordinary, control to the Spirit, and knowledge to obedience—urging listeners to trust that with God all things are possible.
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Simple Discipleship, Radical Change (feat. Jim Putman)

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Jim Putman explains how the church’s simple, biblical mission is to make disciples who make disciples through loving, transparent relationships that follow both Jesus’ teachings and methods.
This episode explores discipleship lived out in relationship, the authority of Scripture, and the danger of empty progressivism or hollow fundamentalism—pointing listeners to a church that models and multiplies life-change.

Not Ashamed: Share the Gospel With Courage (feat. Dave and Sydney Clayton)

Dave and Sydney Clayton challenge listeners to stop being ashamed of the gospel, unpacking Romans 1:16 and the evangelism guilt cycle that keeps Christians silent.
They outline a path from clarity about God’s goodness, to Holy Spirit conviction about people’s need for Jesus, to supportive community that equips ordinary believers to share the good news boldly.
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What Is the Gospel? | Matthew Bates

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In this episode from the Renew Conference, Matthew Bates unpacks the true meaning of the gospel through Romans 1—challenging common assumptions and calling us back to the Bible’s royal announcement: Jesus is King.
Too often, the gospel is reduced to a formula about personal salvation or forgiveness of sins. But Paul presents something far bigger. According to Romans 1:1–5, the gospel is the long-promised good news that:
 

Aligning Your Church for Disciple Making

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Aligning Your Church for Disciple Making: Five Shifts, One Mission
This session is on aligning churches around Jesus’ method of intentional, relational disciple making. They share personal ministry journeys and describe the challenge of shifting established, often attractional church systems toward obedience-based disciple making rooted in the Great Commission (Matthew 28) and maturity in Christ (Colossians 1). Using an iPhone vs. Android operating system metaphor, they argue disciple making can’t be added as a side program but must reshape the whole church. They present research findings that fewer than 5% of U.S. churches have a culture rooted in Jesus-style disciple making and outline four core practices seen in exemplary churches: convictional leadership, a contextual and reproducible model, high expectations, and cultural alignment.
00:00 Welcome & Why Disciple-Making Alignment Matters04:03 Jeff Story: From Slogans to a Disciple-Making Culture08:23 Paul: Leaving Membership Metrics for Making Disciples13:24 Training Process Overview + The iPhone vs. Droid ‘Operating System’ Metaphor18:59 State of Disciple-Making in North America + Jesus’ Intentional Relational Method21:40 The Great Commission Explained: ‘Make Disciples’ and Obedience-Based Faith27:09 Beyond ‘Evangelism’ vs ‘Discipleship’: One Mission—Salvation to Maturity32:38 Bobby’s Journey: Coleman, Church Systems, Disciple Shift, and Renew’s Theology41:07 Research Findings: Why Most Churches Aren’t Disciple-Making Churches44:57 The 4 Core Practices: Convictional Leadership, Model, Expectations, Alignment50:09 Why Revelation’s First 3 Chapters Matter Most (Jesus & the Churches)52:38 Legacy Church Challenge: Shifting to a Discipleship Culture Without Blowing It Up54:05 Defining a Disciple: Follow Jesus, Be Changed, Join the Mission56:01 Personal Discipleship Story: Learning to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples57:24 Why People Struggle to Disciple: The Baseball Analogy01:00:15 Early Momentum & Staff Culture Change: Baptisms, Next Steps, Monday Stories01:02:01 The Discipleship Mandate ‘Cumulative’: Jesus, Church, NT, Leaders, Gathering01:11:43 Alignment Killers: Competing Agendas, Wrong Metrics, Instant-Result Expectations01:13:36 10 Levers to Use (Not Demonize): Large Church, Sunday, Pulpit, Tradition, Doctrine01:23:20 Five-Part Roadmap: Missional, Theological, Philosophical, Organizational, Relational01:27:57 Break, Then Missional Alignment Deep Dive: Love God, Love People, Then Make Disciples01:32:38 Avoiding Counterfeit Missions: Tradition, Buildings, and Other Substitutes01:33:20 C.S. Lewis on the Church’s One Job: Make Disciples01:34:12 Mission-Driven vs Member-Driven (and Keeping Jesus’ Mission Central)01:35:04 Theological Alignment: Why Clarity Is Kindness01:36:52 Beyond ‘Essentials/Non-Essentials’: A Better Doctrine Framework01:42:29 A Replicable System for Teaching Core Doctrine (Catechism DNA)01:44:35 Micro Groups & ‘Trust and Follow Jesus’: Simple, Proven, Reproducible01:47:42 Philosophical Alignment: The Jesus Way—Intentional, Relational, Transformational01:52:29 Organizational Alignment: Leading Change Without Blowing Up the Church02:00:26 Relational Alignment: Love, Conflict, and the Messiness of Real Discipleship02:11:31 Next Steps & Final Charge: Join the Alignment Training + Keep Making Disciples
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