Podcast: All About the Council of Elders!

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Wow! We sort of dropped out of existence for a week or so! Sorry about that! Last week was the Council of Elders meeting, and this week went by suddenly in a blur. Next thing you know, two weeks have flown by!

Hopefully, this will make up for it. This podcast, recorded at the end of last week, was Mr. Robinson’s idea. Since we hear a lot about the Council of Elders in announcements and articles from Mr. Weston, he thought to himself, “Hey, Self, why don’t we put Mr. Smith on the hot seat for this one and ask him all about being on the Council?” He promptly agreed with himself that it was a good idea (he and himself get along very well together), and that’s exactly what we did. We hope you enjoy this little peek behind the curtain of the Council of Elders. We’ll add a link below the video to Mr. Weston’s update from that week if you’d like to hear about some of the topics we discussed.

Also, if you have any questions for us on the podcast or ideas for future topics, feel free to email us at podcast [at] livingyouth [dot] org. (Typed it funny there in a futile attempt to fool the bots. Probably won’t work!) We look forward to hearing from you!

And here’s that link to Mr. Weston’s update where he talks about some of the topics we covered during the COE meetings.

Podcast: Reflections on the Heard-Depp trial

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The podcast topic this week was requested by a young adult a couple of Sabbaths ago. Seeing that a lot of people were talking about it, the Heard-Depp defamation trial seemed a good opportunity to model biblical thinking about an oddly big pop culture moment, so we were all in. Then, as we were uploading it last week, we discovered we were making a basic error of fact—which Mr. Robinson explains early in this podcast—so, we re-recorded today. Facts are important! Still, we hope you enjoyed the first installment of “Five Questions” with Mr. DeSimone last week, and we look forward to doing more in the future.

Also, as mentioned in the podcast, we now have a dedicated email address you can send questions, comments, or suggestions to (thank you, IT Department!). That address (which I will type oddly in a vain attempt to fool the spam bots) is podcast [at] livingyouth.org. We’d love to hear from you! Here’s the podcast…

Volunteer for Music and Choir at Camp!

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Editor’s Note: This will be announced this Sabbath in services, but it seemed like it would be helpful to include here. We look forward to hearing from our talented teens and staff members at the teen camp this year!

This Coming Monday, June 20: Deadline for Texas Teen Camp Talent Show and Camp Choir

The deadline is approaching for all campers who would like to participate in the Texas Teen Camp Talent Show! We are looking forward to an evening of entertainment provided by campers for the whole camp to enjoy. Selections should be vocal or instrumental music reflecting godly values of wholesome, positive, and uplifting entertainment in words and/or music, avoiding worldly themes or messages. If you would like to participate, please fill out the participation form by this coming Monday, June 20. The form can be found when you log in to your MyLCG account, and it takes about seven minutes to complete. All participants must submit this form in order to be considered for the Talent Show. If you have any trouble accessing the form, please contact Mr. Rod McNair at [email protected].

We are also planning to have a camp choir. Campers and staff members are all invited to participate. If you would like to be part of the camp choir, please fill out the participation form by this coming Monday, June 20. You can access this form through your MyLCG account, and it only takes about a minute to complete. If you have trouble accessing the form, contact Mr. Rod McNair by email at [email protected]g.

A Proper Gander at Propaganda

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As you can probably tell, the world is getting really political. And the more political it gets, the more people throw around the word propaganda. But not very many people are bothering to actually define that word—and, as Mr. Sandor recently said, definitions are important. 

So, what even is propaganda? Well, the most recent issue of the Living Church News just so happens to have an article by Mr. Paul Kearns on that very subject. Mr. Kearns goes into what propaganda is and, more importantly, who’s really behind all the propaganda out there.

Intrigued? Just click the link below to be instantly transported to Mr. Kearns’ article through the mysterious power of the internets (which seems to run on some form of electricity).

Whiteboard: Seven Proofs God Exists

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As mentioned in our “Five Questions” interview with Mr. Mike DeSimone, the creator of the TW Whiteboards (that interview is right here, if you haven’t seen it), the new one that went up Thursday evening is “Seven Proofs God Exists.” Mr. DeSimone, Mr. Jonathan Riley, and the whole Whiteboard team did a great job, and we hope you like it! If you didn’t see the interview where we talked about this one, click here for that post and video.

5Q with Mr. Mike DeSimone of the TV Department

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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

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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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