One of the most humbling things that’s happened to Cameron since the publication of his first book of poetry, titled Forbearance, came when former poet laureate Ted Kooser posted one of the poems with a note saying he wished he’d written it! In this episode, Mark asks Cameron about that experience, and about the creative process behind this collect…

The Commentary is back — and we’re on a mission to recover the generational mindset of the Church, something we might call “Cathedral Thinking.” Spurred by an essay on this topic, Cameron and Mark ask what lessons the cathedral builders of old can teach us, not just about ecclesiastical architecture, but about investing our time and gifts in work t…

If we raise our kids to be rule-followers, they may very well grow up to follow the world’s rules rather than God’s. That’s the problem with mere moralism. On the other hand, part of raising children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord involves teaching them … well, the rules. In this episode, Cameron and Mark think through the challenge of m…

This year Grace launched a new approach to our small group ministry, which included a name change to better reflect the mission: small groups are now Community Groups. We’re at the half-way point for this semester’s plan, so Mark and Cameron decided to compare notes on how the new groups are going — and what they like best about the fresh format. T…

If the democratization of media in the digital age has overthrown the gatekeepers in journalism and politics, what impact is it having on the Christian faith — particularly when it comes to ecclesiastical authority? When push comes to shove, who should I listen to, the elders of my own congregation, or the influencers with the bigger platforms? It’…

One man’s heresy is another man’s Christianity — especially if the man in question is a modern historian. In this episode, Cameron and Mark contrast the approach to early Christian history within the Church to the methodologies of the contemporary academy. Are all claims to be Christian equally valid? If not, by what standard can we distinguish bet…

Last time, Mark and Cameron discussed the “end of reading” as a cultural crisis. This week they’re back to talk about its potential impact on the Church. To interpret the Scriptures well, and to be steeped in them to such an extent that our prayer and discipleship are shaped by them, we have to be reading the Word. In this episode, you’ll find advi…

There’s a crisis in the headlines: students arriving at even elite colleges are overwhelmed at the thought of having to read … entire books. Is this apparent decline in literacy something Christians (as “people of the Book”) should be concerned about? In this episode, Cameron and Mark discuss why it should matter to us, and what might be to blame.…

Grace just hosted an extraordinary conference with Dr. Dan Brendsel, the author of Answering Speech, and in this episode Mark shares a selection of his favorite moments from the event. You’ll discover how music — from pop songs to symphonies — illuminates the relationship between Scripture and prayer. And you’ll hear how the repeating motifs of the…

Think you don’t have any enemies? Maybe you’re fortunate — or perhaps you’re in denial. The Psalms say plenty about enemies, and not all of it is comfortable to read, let alone pray! In this episode, Cameron shares some of the challenges of praying the Psalms in the twenty-first century, while Mark gives some context to help explain why the psalmis…

If you’re going to follow Christ, then you’ll have to make some sacrifices. But talking about sacrifice is so much easier than having to do it! In this episode, Cameron asks Mark how to prepare for those inevitable moments when you have to make a sacrifice.By The Big Question

It may be ancient history, but it’s relevant to so many questions we’re still asking today. That’s why Grace’s new adult Sunday School class is taking a deep dive into the history of the first five centuries of the church, from the Apostolic Era to the Council of Chalcedon and the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. In this episode, Cameron quizz…

Over the summer at Grace, we’ve been reading Dan Brendsel’s Answering Speech, a profound — and practical — guide to the life of prayer. In this episode, Mark and Cameron share some of their favorite insights from the book. They also talk about Grace’s upcoming event with the author coming up on October 26-27, 2024.…

The Commentary is back! Cameron and Mark are back in the studio, reflecting on lessons from Grace’s three-year journey through the Gospel of Matthew — and looking forward to a new adventure: a study of Ephesians. But first, to get acquainted, we’re exploring the beginnings of the church in Ephesus in Acts 19.…

For three years, Mark has been preaching through Matthew’s Gospel — and so has his friend Luke Le Duc, pastor of Wheatland Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, PA. In this episode, Mark asks Luke about the greatest challenges, surprises, and insights this experience has prompted. Consider this a behind-the-scenes look at how two preachers approach the…

In this episode, Mark talks to Maestro Delta David Gier, music director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, about the lessons in transcendence and longing we can learn from artistic “God-seekers” like the composer Gustav Mahler. Particularly in our increasingly isolated and tech-mediated culture, art like this has the power to summon us to cont…

In this episode, Mark and Cameron share some of the lessons learned while getting their degrees — not in theology, but in creative writing! For Mark, the memory is almost a quarter century old, while for Cameron it’s current, but in both cases our hosts have discovered spiritual lessons from the writer’s workshop. From the importance of discipline …

Cameron is back, and he has some questions about the Olivet Discourse, particularly the way that Jesus calls us to “stay awake.” In this episode, he and Mark unpack the meaning of that term, and explore the new perspective it lends to how we should wait for Christ’s return. Instead of being passively attentive, what if Jesus is calling us to a more…

Work isn’t a necessary evil, and leisure isn’t synonymous with idleness. These are just two of the myths busted in this episode. Mark talks to Worldview Academy executive director Mike Schutt about how thinking rightly about work and leisure help us improve the way we do both. Along the way, they roll their eyes as “work/life balance,” quibble with…

Worldview thinking is a method of examining the underlying assumptions we all make in forming beliefs. In this episode, Mark talks with Worldview Academy co-founder Jeff Baldwin about an unexpected topic: the faith required to be a consistent atheist. We all take some things for granted, even those of us who claim to accept nothing on faith. This c…

Unexamined assumptions have a powerful effect on your thinking, not because they’re convincing but because cause they are invisible. In this episode, Mark and Cameron discuss three assumptions — the myth of majority rules, the myth of progress, and the myth of nature — that don’t stand up to scrutiny, narratives that need to be challenged if you’re…

THE COMMENTARY is a weekly conversation about vision, worship, and life at Grace Presbyterian Church. Since 2019, Mark has led a class line-by-line through the Westminster Confession of Faith. All the recordings are available as A Good Confession. As the end approaches, Cameron asks Mark why he chose to teach the class in the first place, and what …

At the beginning of a new sermon series on the Olivet Discourse, Mark suggested that biblical prophecy is a lot like an impressionist painting: it’s designed to be interpreted only from the proper distance. In this episode, Cameron and Mark explore this comparison and ask how it might be helpful for people who want to understand what the Bible says…

“All men are mortal,” or so the syllogism goes. But that’s easy to forget in the modern world, where the realities of suffering and death are concealed behind euphemisms and often hidden from sight. As Christians we acknowledge that death is inevitable — “it is appointed unto man once to die” — but also that death is a consequence of sin, the last …

In this short episode at the beginning of Lent, Mark shares from the latest volume of Jonathan Gibson’s series of liturgies for daily worship, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, and then follows up with a recording of his reflection from this week’s Ash Wednesday service at Grace.By The Commentary

Is it a lecture? Is it a TED talk? Is it an entertaining bit of folksy wisdom? People have all sorts of ideas about what a sermon is, and what it’s for — most of them quite wrong! In this episode, Cameron and Mark talk about the sermon as an act of worship, one of the ordinary means of grace. What does this signify, and how does it influence the wa…

Your commenters are back! When people visit Grace, one of the unique features they often comment on is the Order of Worship, a multi-page printed booklet that contains our liturgy for the service, including music, prayers, texts, and all the usual announcements you’d expect to find in a church bulletin. In the first episode of 2024, Mark and Camero…

For the final episode of 2023, something a little more light-hearted than usual: Cameron and Mark review their personal bests (and in some cases, worsts) of the year through the lens of the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Prepare to enter a little too deeply into the minds of our hosts — and enjoy a year-end roundup to tide yo…

Mark and Cameron grasp toward a theology of "place" in this episode, looking at the way human beings are situated in places throughout Scripture and trying to apply the duties and joys observed there to our own quest to find a place in the world. As we increasingly work outside the office and have options to live wherever we choose, what does it me…

Following up on our last episode, Cameron and Mark talk about the experience of using Jonathan Gibson’s liturgy for daily worship O Come, O Come Emmanuel during the season of Advent. What is a book like this for, and how is this new volume different from the earlier one, Be Thou My Vision?By The Commentary

As we begin the season of Advent, Cameron poses a question: Is it quite right to describe this season as a time of “longing,” or would a better way to think of Advent be to to consider it a season of expectation. In this episode, he and Mark distinguish between longing and expectation, discuss the similarities and differences between Advent and Len…

Mark’s recent sermon on the cursing of a fig tree in Matthew 21 left some unanswered questions about prayer, faith, and how the power of God relates to the plan of God. In this episode, he and Cameron return to the passage to consider an interesting point: when Jesus claimed that with a little faith mountains could be moved, was he simply wrong, or…

It’s hard to write a great novel these days, and those who manage find that the public isn’t exactly waiting with bated breath. In his recent book The Novel, Who Needs It? critic Joseph Epstein catalogs a list of what he terms “enemies of the novel.” In this episode, Mark tries to convince Cameron that these enemies threaten more than just the nove…

Earlier this week, Cameron made the momentous announcement that he was deactivating his social media accounts — something many of us have thought about, though few carry it out. In this episode, Mark (who hasn’t followed suit) asks about Cameron’s reasoning, and together they discuss whether social media is more a tool to be used wisely or a rigged…

Tradition may start as a supplement to Scripture, but it has a tendency over time to serve as a replacement. At the same time, since tradition amounts to interpretation passed down through time, its presence is inescapable. In other words, you’re going to have a tradition. The question is, what will you do with it? In this episode, Mark and Cameron…

One of the most fundamental questions when it comes to salvation is: “Who does the work?” Is salvation entirely a divine effort, or are we called upon to contribute — and if so, how much? In this episode, Cameron and Mark unpack the distinction between monergism and synergism, and how it relates to justification, sanctification, grace, and the call…

In this episode, Mark speaks to Worldview Academy co-founder Jeff Baldwin about work, risk, and the sense of calling. A longtime friend, Jeff takes a unique approach to risk, and as provost of Worldview at the Abbey, he’s counseled many young people at the start of their professional lives on how to pursue excellence and faithfulness in their work.…

When he was invited to a chapel service at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Mark spoke on 1 John 2.28-3.3. Between the text and some reminiscences about grad school days, he explored the relationship between how God names things and what they are. In this episode, we share that talk, titled “And So We Are.”…

Cameron and his wife Jenny are new parents, and in this episode they talk to Mark about the challenges and the rewards of their journey through infertility to adoption. Sometimes hardship opens our eyes to the struggles of people all around us. It also compels us to rely on God when we have no power over our circumstances. If you’ve ever struggled …

If you’d asked at any point over the past few years what the greatest need of our church was, one of the top answers would have been room to grow. We’ve needed a larger space to meet, and now we have one. Grace has only been in the new digs for a little over a month, but already we have seen both the benefits and the questions. In this episode, Mar…

The Commentary is back after our summer break, and Mark and Cameron tackle an essential topic inspired by Grace’s study of Matthew 18: the challenge of forming a forgiving church. For individual believers to practice the forgiveness we’re called to, we need a community that supports this Christ-like impulse. But culture doesn’t just happen. It has …

In this episode, Mark checks in with Grace’s new associate pastor Dan Reed to hear about the back-to-back experience of graduating from seminary one day and being ordained and installed as a teaching elder the next. Then he joins Cameron in the studio to talk about the passing of Tim Keller, and the lasting legacy of his example of faithfulness.…

If we’re going to restore what is lost in our world, first we may need to withdraw from the skirmish and go in search of it ourselves. We retreat in order to accomplish the retrieval, always with a mind to return to the world for the restorative work. In this episode, Mark and Cameron talk about the pros and cons of the way contemporary authors hav…

As people of the book, Christians have a special relationship to the art of reading. In this episode, Cameron quizzes Mark with a lightning round of questions about whether audiobooks count as reading, if it’s okay not to finish books you’ve started, and what to use when you need a makeshift bookmark. There are some more serious questions in the mi…

“Young people are longing for transcendence.” Are they, though? And what exactly does transcendence mean? In this episode, Mark and Cameron take a shot at naming the longing that drives so many people to search for deeper, more historically grounded experiences of the Christian faith. A lot of us feel that something’s missing, and that we’re lookin…

In this special episode, the first of Mark’s five VISION TALKS are collected in a single recording. These live recordings focus on the building blocks of Grace’s vision: the centrality of worship, church-planting, our unique DNA (longing for more grace, more depth, and more community), why our culture has to be as gracious as our theology, and why …

Inspired by Cameron’s re-reading of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic The Cost of Discipleship, this episode revisits the concept of “cheap grace.” If we’re saved by grace apart from works, it’s tempting to think that what we do is, at best, of secondary importance — and, at worst, of no importance at all. But the call to salvation is also a call to sa…

The crime of Christianity, in Nietzsche’s view, was its renunciation of life. He declared God dead and sought to sweep away the continuing influence of Christian morality. But as Cameron argues in a recent essay published on his site Conversant, the resurrection offers a powerful response to this criticism. As Easter approaches, Mark asks Cameron t…

If you’ve ever wondered how pastors get from a text in Scripture to a finished sermon, this one’s for you. Part spiritual discipline and part stewardship, the process of understanding and then proclaiming the message of Scripture is much more involved than an introductory class on homiletics might suggest. Special guest and “friend of the pod” Luke…

They haven’t read much farther than the introduction, but that doesn’t stop Mark and Cameron from discussing the new book Biblical Critical Theory, by Christopher Watkin. In this episode, they walk through some of the introductory concepts that make this such a promising text, and discuss how it might redeem critical theory and refresh worldview st…