This mid-week podcast (with a sermon, lesson, or interview) is designed to help you to live with your life and your faith together. At 30 minutes or less, this podcast fits easily in your busy schedule. You can listen during your daily commute, during your lunch break, or while you are getting a bit of exercise.

Hosted by Dr. David H Green (a pastor, preacher, and teacher of the Bible), the goal of this podcast is to help you to integrate your life and faith by teaching the great and historic Christian faith and by building your understanding of the Bible. If you have a question, or a topic that you want to include, please send an email to Thrive@LifeAndFaithTogether.com.

We look forward to connecting with you as we connect our Life and Faith Together.

This is a very strange time in the United States. Our annual observance of Memorial Day comes together with news of a tragic shooting in an Elementary School. This raises important questions for every Christian. How does our faith shape our life in a time of grief? What message can we share from the Bible? And, perhaps most important, how can we communicate the message of hope in a way that it can be heard?

A note about this eposode: The recording is from the 8:30 communion service at the First Presbyterian Church in Conroe, Texas on May 1, 2022. This worship service draws a small part of the congregation and is a bit more informal that the 11:00 service. You can find video of the 11:00 worship service at the church's YouTube channel (YouTube.com/fpcConroe).

As Jesus prepared the assembled disciples to confront the most terrible moment in their life together, he had a very clear message for them. This same message continues to speak with power and importance today.

The way that we go through life is important. When a Commencement Ceremony is over, you commence. Every participant, the graduates included, go out the door to whatever is next in life. Jesus teaches that when we go through a door, our character matters.

Focusing on the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 7), we can learn more about the importance of understanding and following the Way of God.

It happens to everyone. And it most certainly has happened to you -- a moment when it feels like light has gone out in your life. Looking back at this all too human experience, there are a couple of questions to be considered:

What do you do when life goes out of your life? How does our belief (our faith) change and grow?

We can learn from the example of a man named Saul (later known as the Apostle Paul) when Saul was literally and spiritually dazed and confused. Saul was helped by a most unlikely mentor.

Believers of every time and in every place are citizens of this world and, at the same time, citizens of the Kingdom of God. According to the Bible, what duty do we owe to the institutions of this world? And what do we owe as citizens of the Kingdom of God?

The circumstances of this message may be uniquely American (the July 4th celebration of Independence Day), but the questions are truly universal.