Almost half of the world's migrants claim Christianity according to new research from Pew Research Center.

In this episode, we hear from two Christian immigrants, Eduardo and Odalis Vasquez, Church of Christ members who are part of the 7.7 million people who fled Venezuela over the last few years.

The Vasquezes talk about why and how they left their home behind and what it is like to try to make their new home in Montevideo, Uruguay.

They also share the story of how immigrants (from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela) are breathing new life into the Montevideo Church of Christ (which was struggling before the arrival of so many immigrants in recent years).

Link to Erik Tryggestad's recent story about the Montevideo Church of Christ (featuring Eduardo and Odalis Vasquez).

Link to an archive of The Christian Chronicle's complete coverage of the "diaspora" of Church of Christ members from Venezuela as they migrate around the world.

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Freed-Hardeman University online grad programs bring the world to you and you to the world. Learn more at fhu.edu/chroniclepodcast.

OnlineSpanishChurch.com can help your congregation connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbors. Learn more at OnlineSpanishChurch.com.

According to Pew Research Center, immigration is the second-most important issue to White evangelical Protestants who plan to vote in the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. Note: Pew places White Church of Christ members (7 out of 10 Church of Christ members nationwide) in the "White evangelical Protestant" research cohort. So, then, immigration may be one of the top issues for Church of Christ members in the United States today.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Kramer (Pew Research Center) shares what a new study reveals about the faith of the people who choose to migrate (almost half claim to be Christian) and how that faith influences where they go.

Frank Meza and Preston Pratt, ministers with Berry's Chapel Church of Christ in Franklin, Tenn., share the story of how their congregation is coming alongside and joining the growing Spanish-speaking community nearby. In addition to opening and sponsoring a community center in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, the congregation did away with its separate English- and Spanish-speaking assemblies on Sunday morning and now has one bilingual assembly every week.

Link to Pew Research Center's latest report on the faith of the world's migrants

Link to Berry's Chapel Church of Christ in Franklin, Tennessee

Link to The Christian Chronicle's archive of reporting on U.S. congregations and immigration

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Visit our partners at OnlineSpanishChurch.com to find out how they can help your congregation start reaching your Spanish-speaking neighbors.

The recent emergence of in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a legal and political issue is raising new ethical and moral questions among Christians. If life begins at conception, when is conception? What is a soul and when does a human being have one? Advances in science and technology mean that Christians know more about the human body than ever before, but those same advances sometimes lead to questions for which the Bible may seem to have no clear, definitive answers.

So what are Christians to do when life puts them in situations where they need to make choices about, say, whether to overcome reproductive challenges with something like IVF? How might their congregations, elders, and ministers come alongside them as they seek answers that are hard to find?

Christian bioethicists Dr. Vic McCracken and Dr. Cynthia Powell explain how they help their students at Abilene Christian University approach the ethical and moral dilemmas that often arise in health care. Beyond IVF, they also discuss abortion, end-of-life, and...mosquitoes.

Link to Cheryl Mann Bacon's Christian Chronicle feature on how professors and students at Abilene Christian University are working through the moral complexities of IVF

Link to Cheryl Mann Bacon's Christian Chronicle report on how Church of Christ folks are responding to new questions about IVF

Link to Dr. Vic McCracken's CV

Link to Dr. Cynthia Powell's CV

Link to the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral' referred to in the interview

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Freed-Hardeman University online grad programs bring the world to you and you to the world. Learn more at fhu.edu/chroniclepodcast.

OnlineSpanishChurch.com can help your congregation connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbors. Learn more at OnlineSpanishChurch.com.

LIVE from the campus of Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing, Michigan, we bring you Dr. John Nugent, author of Priestly Presence: A Church for the World's Sake (Fortress Press).

Nugent draws from the levitical priesthood as a pattern for what God calls the church to be and do in the world, most of all during a time when the struggle for power in the world is growing acute.

Link to Priestly Presence: A Church for the World's Sake

Link to Dr. John Nugent's other titles

Link to 'The After Class Podcast' hosted by Samuel Long, John Nugent, and Ronald Peters

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Visit our partners at OnlineSpanishChurch.com to find out how they can help your congregation start reaching your Spanish-speaking neighbors.

Almost one year before he recorded this episode, Rubel Shelly appeared on Episode 39 of The Christian Chronicle Podcast to talk about his book, Male and Female God Created Them: A Biblical Review of LGBTQ+ Claims. That remains the most popular episode of this show.

Shelly returns to talk about his follow-up work, The Ink is Dry: God's Distinctive Word on Marriage, Family and Sexual Responsibility.

Framing human relationships and sexuality as aspects of Christian discipleship, Shelly explains how biblical and historical sources support his argument that marriage and sex between one man and one woman is God's design and intent.

But rather than try to punish or shun those in the LGBTQ+ community (or legislate against them through government), Shelly makes a biblical case for compassion, friendship, love, and patience.

Link to Episode 39: Male and Female God Created Them: A Biblical Review of LGBTQ+ Claims

Link to The Christian Chronicle's review of Male and Female God Created Them and The Ink is Dry

Link to The Ink is Dry: God's Distinctive Word on Marriage, Family and Sexual Responsibility

Link to Male and Female God Created Them: A Biblical Review of LGBTQ+ Claims

Link to six-part video companion video series to The Ink is Dry

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Freed-Hardeman University online grad programs bring the world to you and you to the world. Learn more at fhu.edu/chroniclepodcast.

OnlineSpanishChurch.com can help your congregation connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbors. Learn more at OnlineSpanishChurch.com.

Church of Christ kid and small-town high school athlete Colt McCoy grew up to be one of the greatest college football players of all time before going on to play 13 seasons in the National Football League.

Just a few weeks before recording this conversation with The Christian Chronicle, McCoy announced his retirement from playing the sport that made him famous.

In this episode, he opens up about what it is like to do something at such a high level for so long, only to wake up one day and recognize that it is all over. He shares how, through the loss of big games (like the 2009 BCS National Championship) and missed opportunities (like being the Heisman Trophy runner-up his senior year), God taught him how to stay hopeful in loss.

McCoy also opens up about how he found ways to lead his teammates, tolerate constant (and sometimes debilitating) pain and see God everywhere he went in college and professional football.

Most of all, he explains how he kept his focus on God and on representing Christ in the bright lights, constant temptations and enormous pressure of big time football. And he lets us wonder with him what God might do next as he enters the second act of his life after football.

Link to The Christian Chronicle's archive of Colt McCoy interviews and stories from his 18-year college and professional football career

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Freed-Hardeman University online grad programs bring the world to you and you to the world. Learn more at fhu.edu/chroniclepodcast.

OnlineSpanishChurch.com can help your congregation connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbors. Learn more at OnlineSpanishChurch.com.

Darcy Todd (Woodland West Church of Christ, Arlington, Texas) is the 2024 Starbucks North America Barista Champion. She recently beat out 17,000 Starbucks baristas for the title.

In this episode, she'll not only tell the story of how she did it, she'll explain how working in a Starbucks is not so different from working in a church (one with exceptional coffee!). She'll even throw in a few suggestions for special (non-menu) drinks you should try next time you're at Starbucks.

Link to The Christian Chronicle's announcement of Darcy Todd's big win in the Starbucks barista competition

Link to the Starbucks company magazine story about Darcy

Link to Nehemiah Coffee Co. (referenced by Darcy in this episode)

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Freed-Hardeman University online grad programs bring the world to you and you to the world. Learn more at fhu.edu/chroniclepodcast.

OnlineSpanishChurch.com can help your congregation connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbors. Learn more at OnlineSpanishChurch.com.

In 2010, Ose Ehimare and her four(!) unborn children faced poor chances of survival unless they could get special medical care not available where they lived in Abuja, Nigeria. God made a way for Ose to come to the U.S. to get the care she needed for herself and her children at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

But she was 6,000 miles from home and all alone in a strange land. That's when the Northlake Church of Christ in nearby Tucker, Ga., gave her and her children a home and surrounded them in extraordinary care until they were all healthy and strong enough to return to Nigeria.

Fourteen years after their birth, Ose's four children, Alyssa, Bibiana, Noah and Valencia, asked to return to Northlake Church of Christ to be born again. On August 25, all four of them went down together into the waters of baptism.

In this episode, we hear from Ose Ehimare and Bibiana Ehimare, one of her daughters who returned to Northlake Church of Christ for her baptism. We also hear from Cathy Hendrick, the Northlake member who, along with her husband, Jeff, made their own house a home for Ose and her babies in 2010.

The closing song is the Northlake Church of Christ singing "Great Things".

Link to The Christian Chronicle's Erik Tryggestad's original 2010 report on Northlake Church of Christ coming alongside Ose Ehimare and her quadruplets

Link to Erik Tryggestad's Christian Chronicle report on Alyssa, Bibiana, Noah, and Valencia coming back to Northlake Church of Christ for their baptisms in 2024

Find more news and stories at christianchronicle.org

Donate to support this ministry of "information and inspiration" at christianchronicle.org/donate

Send your comments, ideas, and suggestions to podcast@christianchronicle.org

Freed-Hardeman University online grad programs bring the world to you and you to the world. Learn more at fhu.edu/chroniclepodcast.

OnlineSpanishChurch.com can help your congregation connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbors. Learn more at OnlineSpanishChurch.com.