In this episode, pastors Alan and Steven sit down to talk about one of the most important aspects of spiritual life: prayer.

What are we supposed to say? How are we supposed to do it? When are we supposed to do it? It's easy for us to get in our heads, but the message from the Word and the Heavenly Doctrines are the same: Pray anyway.

When we think of people who are "religious" we probably imagine them sitting in a church on Sunday morning. In this episode Pastor Alan and Pastor Steven take a look at the idea of worship and what it is really all about.

Is church a "life" thing or a "Sunday morning" thing?

In this episode Pastor Steven sits down with the middle school students from the Oak Arbor Montessori School to discuss their ideas of heaven and hear their "elevator pitches" for it. They share their ideas of what heaven is really all about, why some people would choose not to go there, and how we can work to build a heavenly life in this world.

We have all wondered at some point what heaven is actually like. We recently sat down with some high schoolers to get their thoughts on what their idea of heaven is and how it would work for everyone. The results were impressive and on-point. In this episode Pastors Alan and Steven discuss the teens' ideas and in the process get to the bottom of what the New Church teaches heaven is all about.

In part two of this conversation about the connection between loving other people and loving God, Pastors Alan and Steven get into some of how we can love other people who see things or do things differently than we do. Can two people live very different lives on the surface, and even attend different churches and still both be living a life that leads to heaven? How can we support people whose path looks different than ours in ways that are actually helpful without accidentally causing harm or damage to them. In other words, how can we truly love our neighbor?

In this episode Pastors Alan and Steven move from talking about our relationship with God into our relationships with others. They discuss the link between those two ideas and ask whether it's possible to love the Lord without loving other people, and vice versa. The ensuing conversation was so good we had to split it into two parts. 

In this first part, they discuss what it means to love other people and what that can look like. Spoiler alert: it doesn't just mean being nice to everyone all the time.  They break down what it really means to love someone and why hatred is incompatible with our command to love our neighbor. 

In this episode Pastor Alan and Pastor Steven discuss the question of how we treat God. It's easy for us to think of our relationship with God in terms of how He treats us, but what are we doing and what can we do to treat God well and invite Him into our lives and hearts?

If God's goal is our eternal happiness, but we are left in freedom to choose whether or not we want to follow Him, then what does that mean about how He treats all of us? How does He lead us and guide us toward happy, fulfilling lives without manipulating or controlling us? Pastor Alan and Pastor Steven take a look at some essential New Church teachings which can help us understand our relationship with God.