5Q with Mr. Mike DeSimone of the TV Department

Well, we had some difficulties with getting the podcast up today (explained in the video, below), so for this week’s post, we’re doing something a little different. We’ve wanted to begin posting some “Five Questions” videos to pull back the curtain a bit and let you get to know some of the people and departments here at Headquarters, and in this initial outing we sit down with Mr. Mike DeSimone who runs the TV department. As he’ll point out, they do a lot more than TV-related work, including our many other video products. Their latest TW Whiteboard, for instance, that went public last night is fantastic (he’s the voice for those). We mention it in the video below, and I will add a follow-up post to this one to feature it.

The podcast will be back next week, God willing, and, until then, I hope you enjoy this first installment of Five Questions—this time, with Mr. Mike DeSimone!

A Couple of Tips on Meditation

Here’s a basic question for you: How do you draw close to God? 

If you’ve heard that one before, you might know some of the answers. The Church of God helpfully focuses on four big actions we can take to draw close to God: Christians can pray, study their Bibles, fast, and meditate.

It can be a little tricky to start doing these things regularly. Thankfully, the Church provides plenty of help on how to get the most out of prayer, study, fasting, and meditation. When I tried to start doing these activities regularly, it was a slow process, but I gradually felt myself get better at prayer, study, and fasting. Little by little, I felt like I was getting more out of these things. Some days were better or worse than others, but generally, these practices seemed to be going in the right direction in my life. 

Meditation was different—I rarely felt like I was getting much better at it. I knew the basics: think about a godly concept deeply. True meditation is not emptying one’s mind, as some religions teach. Philippians 4:8 tells us that “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” That’s a great list, but what does it mean practically? How exactly are we supposed to think deeply about those things?

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Podcast: How Do We REALLY Prevent Mass Shootings?

The tragic event in Uvalde, Texas—and the political back-and-forth about it—had us thinking this week, and it seemed an appropriate topic for the podcast. In this episode, we try to think about the issue biblically, focusing on the solutions Christ surely longs to implement. We hope you find it helpful.

(In other news, many of you have requested that the podcast be made available in other formats, and we think the time has come to do just that! We hope to have more news on that front next week. Thanks for your patience with us as we’ve learned and the podcast has grown! Your feedback has been very helpful.)

P.S. After we posted this, we forgot that we had mentioned Mr. Weston’s telecast “Will God Forget Your Children?” We’ve added a link to it below. Also, we mentioned Mr. Mark Sandor’s upcoming article on false freedom & liberty, but it has not yet been published, so we can’t link to it. But look for it in the next Living Church News, due out in July!