August 16 2011

Show open and tonight's lineup

The show opens from the Pathway Studios in Johnston with the produced intro and some studio banter about swapped seats and a bad microphone. The host introduces himself as Ben and previews the episode: a debrief of the Spirit Midwest Music Festival, an incident where two men were ejected from the show's booth, a discussion of what affects a Christian's witness, and the final round of Intern or Burn with Danielle. He also notes Spangler may drop by and that Supernaw was supposed to be in studio but will come next week.

Festival debrief: broadcasting from Spirit Midwest

The hosts recap their two-day broadcast from the Spirit Midwest Music Festival, saying the setup looked legitimate enough to make a professional radio broadcaster jealous. They thank camera crew Nathaniel and Jacob Carson, who worked through Friday's rain, and admit roughly 60% of the bands scheduled for interviews no-showed. Every band that did stop by impressed them as genuine believers and good musicians.

Mike's press-pass escapade with Southbound Fearing

Mike tells how Danielle made them press passes and how, late one night, he used his to get past the guard at the band dorms to talk to Southbound Fearing, flashing it and saying 'I'm Mike with Life on the Path.' He is ushered in, then quickly ushered back out so a band member can put on sweatpants. The hosts riff on the singer's deep V-neck, white-guy fro, and tight pants as everything Mike is not.

Night watch on the green couch: barbecue, security rounds, and Pants at 3 a.m.

Mike stayed overnight on the festival grounds' green couch to guard the equipment, woken at 3 a.m. by the smell of a barbecue vendor's overnight meat and told he was now on security rounds because the 3 a.m. guard didn't show. Wandering the grounds, he approached a shadowy figure near the tent stage ready for a confrontation, only to discover it was Pants, up since 3 a.m. for no reason and now absorbed in his phone. The hosts pitch renting a slide-out RV as next year's studio.

Faith healers target Pants: why the show ejected them

The hosts describe two men from the 'I Believe in Miracles' show — the same people who appeared right before them on Des Moines Amplified — cornering Pants at the festival and trying to heal his multiple sclerosis, insisting sickness is a sign of evil rather than just illness. They recount the men chasing down visibly disabled people including a child with spina bifida, leaving a child in tears, and one of them attempting to 'shadow heal' Pants without his agreement. Pants, who calls his MS a blessing that gave him a platform to talk about Jesus, answered them graciously, but the hosts say the combative arguing and ego involved led them to eject the men from the booth.

Is faith healing a legitimate biblical principle?

• Is faith healing a legitimate biblical principle?
• Have the miraculous spiritual gifts (healing, prophecy, tongues) ceased, or do they continue today?

The hosts hand the opening response to Dan, who argues God can heal whenever he wants but that Scripture's miracles clustered around God doing something big — Moses and the exodus, Jesus' ministry confirming who he was, the apostles in Acts — rather than being everyday occurrences. They read 1 Corinthians 12 on the gifts of the Spirit and debate whether the gift of healing continues now, landing on the distinction that personal faith does not give anyone the power to heal; prayer asks God, and God alone is sovereign over the answer.

Modern faith healers vs. how Jesus healed

The hosts contrast Jesus' healings — always complete, often of people with no faith at all, and never staged — with modern faith healers' partial 'you'll be healed when you get home' claims, loud productions, and the unverifiable back ailments they favor, noting no modern healer has demonstrated an amputation healed or someone raised from the dead. They are angered by the healers demanding the show broadcast their 'healings,' blaming sick children for lacking faith, and arguing with Pants that his MS is not a blessing. One host says the one-minute-Jesus-filter test and a prayed-over pit in his stomach told him this was ego, not God, and that their small platform carries a responsibility to filter what they can't verify.

How rare were biblical miracles, really?

The hosts count up Jesus' recorded miracles against the crowds he drew — roughly thirty people out of the nine thousand fed in the feeding accounts — and argue miracles were special, purposeful signs rather than constant background events. They discuss the bleeding woman healed through her faith while crowds pressed around Jesus untouched, and conclude that healing ultimately points to Jesus' identity and the cross, not to physical health as the goal. A host adds that modern 'healers' claiming the gift of healing are suspiciously numerous in the Des Moines area given how rare the gift is in Scripture.

Don't put God in a box: prophecy, 'God led me,' and being happy

The hosts agree not to limit what God could do, but insist any claim must be biblically consistent, noting modern 'prophecy' usually just adds private revelations to Scripture and that they never need a prophet since the Bible is in print. They mock the 'God led me to have this affair' logic, do a live Bible search finding the English word 'happy' appears about thirteen times but never as something God promises, and distinguish circumstantial happiness from the fruit-of-the-Spirit joy they see in Pants. The segment closes with their summary: they're for God healing people, people who seem ungodly doing it for ungodly reasons give them the willies.

Break: Jess Anderson festival footage

The hosts wrap the first hour's faith-healing discussion, tease the second hour's witness question, Intern or Burn, and a Dear LFTP letter, then cut to amateur festival footage of Jess Anderson shot by the Carson boys.

Second hour: the missed Jess Anderson interview and her new single

Back from the break, the hosts explain they missed their Jess Anderson interview at the festival because of real technical problems — the computer blue-screened three times and the soundboard acted up — and that they're sad to have missed Jess and Jordan. They plug her coming album, the single 'Fireflies' getting a good review, the $8 pre-order link on their YouTube channel's festival video, and note their old Jess Anderson clip is still the highest-viewed one on their channel.

Final Intern or Burn: name-that-verse quiz

The hosts run Danielle's third and final Intern or Burn round of the summer: ten multiple-choice name-the-book questions from scripture quotes, with Mike, Spangler, and Troy also guessing. Questions cover 'Unto a land that I will show thee' (Genesis 12), 'mene mene tekel parsin' (Daniel), 'Hear, O Israel' (Deuteronomy), 'Am I my brother's keeper?' (Genesis), 'The earth is the Lord's' (Psalm 24, from the 1984 Maranatha 'Psalm Alive' album), 'as for me and my household' (Joshua), 'blessed are the meek' (Matthew), 'look, the Lamb of God' (John 1), 'you must be born again' (John 3), and 'in the beginning God created' (Genesis 1). Danielle finishes with four and a half points; Spangler claims the win with five and Mike self-awards about eight.

Mama Foose's question: does wealth affect your witness?

• Can wealth or money damage your Christian witness?
• What legitimately causes your brother to stumble — and where is the line?

The hosts take up a listener question submitted by Mama Foose after their Truth Talk stage talk at the festival: can a wealthy person have an effective witness? The stock biblical answers are whether you're causing your brother to stumble and whether you're living biblically. The hosts agree money itself isn't the issue — a wealthy person can worship money, and a poor person can worship the want of it — but a lifestyle that makes it look like money is your god is visible in your actions.

The dirty-car hypothetical, mohawks, and reaching across generations

• What legitimately causes your brother to stumble — and where is the line?

A host poses the hypothetical of an effective witness who then gets into a filthy 1986 Pinto with fried chicken and a cat — can extreme slovenliness legitimately make someone stumble? A host recalls his first church, where simply showing up bathed impressed people after a predecessor's filthy parsonage. They debate whether to evaluate a stumbling block against the whole population: a mohawk may repel a 60-year-old but open doors with punks, and different people reach different crowds, illustrated by Danielle reaching teens the older hosts can't, plus a detour through dreams about Jim Neighbors and the Andersons playing basketball.

Niche evangelism: smoking, the Milligan homeless church, and 'as you go'

The hosts warn against the trap of keeping a bad habit for evangelistic cover: one shouldn't start or continue smoking just to reach smokers, though God can use the situations you're already in, illustrated by Danielle's story of a homeless church at Milligan College in Tennessee. They land on Matthew 28's 'as you go make disciples' — wherever you already are, tell people about Jesus. The takeaway: make sure any 'stumbling block' judgment is biblical, not just cultural offense, and that an off-putting trait in one culture may be an open door in another.

Can a convert keep the sin? Porn stars, strippers, and repentance

The hosts discuss the XXX Church ministry's work at adult-film conventions and ask what happens when a porn star commits to Christ but won't quit the job: the consensus is you can't follow Christ while deliberately clinging to sin, though a new believer may need time and relationship with God to get there rather than an instant demand. They extend the question to a Las Vegas church full of strippers and sex workers, agreeing the message is that the behavior is sin, pray on it, and trust God to change the life — without selling Jesus as a magic potion that makes everything worldly wonderful.

Happiness vs. joy: what God actually promises

The hosts clarify the earlier happiness point: the Bible doesn't promise happiness, but the fruit of the Spirit includes joy, which shows up even in miserable circumstances. By Jesus' standards, being kept out of hell is already a blessed life, and everything beyond that is gravy — so 'count it all blessing' means you can promise people they'll be blessed without promising worldly happiness. They close the loop on the dirty car with the admission that their own cars are pretty dirty too.

Outro plugs: YouTube clips and Supernaw next week

The hosts sign off the discussion, plug the YouTube channel's growing set of Spirit Midwest clips from Jess Anderson, Sanctified, On This Rock, Sidewalk Prophets, and Vance Lambert, and note more band interviews are coming. Supernaw will be in studio next week; Danielle will not, as she's heading back to school.

Dear LFTP: how to love Sarah when you can't stand Carl

• How can we support our friend Sarah when we can't stand her husband Carl or understand why she stays?

For Dear LFTP, the hosts read a letter about Sarah, whose husband Carl emotionally abuses her, hasn't worked in ten years, and is hostile to her adult children; the writer has dropped Carl from their circle, feels guilty, and asks how to support Sarah when she can't stand Carl or understand why Sarah stays for financial reasons. The hosts debate whether the friend is a busybody projecting her own judgment, land on the advice to butt out and stop judging, and agree with the secular-world answer they read: Sarah may need counseling and legal advice, but the friend can't run her life. They close with the sign-off and send listeners out with Jess Anderson's single 'Fireflies' from her coming album 'Not What I Thought.'