The Shock Absorber

Thinking and doing church a little differently...

The Shock Absorber is a christianity podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts The Shock Absorber, a christianity show with 0 episodes published.

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  Episode #99

  Strength and beauty - Francis Schaeffer and the Church That Captivates

  Sep 15, 202636 minS8

  Francis Schaeffer hoped the church would be a thing of strength and beauty. Stu isn't sure his friends would have used those words to describe the churches they grew up in. That gap, between what the church is and what it could be, is what drove everything Soul Revival tried to build. They open up Schaeffer's 1968 The God Who Is There that turned up on the podcast studio bookshelf. Schaeffer's ministry at L'Abri. The Trinity as the foundation of love. Jesus's words to the Samaritan woman at the well. The Great Evangelical Disaster and why Schaeffer feared the West was hollowing out the gospel. And what it looks like to be a custodian of a community shaped by that gospel rather than by the culture surrounding it. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome — Stu's 10th year as Cronulla Sharks chaplain and the finals 02:00 A first edition Schaeffer on the podcast studio shelf 03:30 Francis Schaeffer and L'Abri — a shelter for questions in Switzerland 06:00 How Schaeffer shaped Stu's ministry — truth demonstrated as well as debated 08:30 The God Who Is There — why God exists even when culture turns its back 10:00 Is God Dead? — the 1964 Time magazine cover 11:30 The adequate universal for love — Schaeffer's argument from the Trinity 14:00 Love between the persons of the Trinity before creation 16:00 Jesus as the only way back into that relationship 18:00 The church as strength and beauty — and whether our friends would agree 20:00 The church is where the action is — not the pub, the sporting club or the concert 22:00 The Great Evangelical Disaster — Schaeffer's fear for the West 25:00 Three principles for evangelicalism — doctrine, practice and corporate exhibition 28:00 The commitments culture as custodians of the gospel 31:00 Galatians and keeping the main thing the main thing 32:30 Larry Norman, one way and the Jesus movement 34:00 Preview — the lost episode on commitments culture returns next week Discussed on this episode Francis Schaeffer - The God Who Is There Francis Schaeffer - The Great Evangelical Disaster Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #98

  The sound of rebellion: Rock 'n' roll, the gospel and the movement the church needs

  Sep 1, 202642 minS8

  Rock and roll didn't come from nowhere. It came from the blues, which came from the gospel songs sung in the fields during slavery. It crossed the Atlantic, bounced off post-war England, came back to America even bigger, and kept evolving and Led Zeppelin turned it into something visceral and enormous and still traceable back to its roots. Joel, Stu and Tim are continuing the movements conversation. This week the thread runs from the Blitz to the Beatles to the Sex Pistols to the question every church leader needs to sit with: when does contextualising the gospel become syncretising it? And how does the church remain a movement without losing the gospel? Stu's honours thesis on the social implications of strategic bombing. Tim's contextualization sessions at YouthWorks Conference. Christopher Watkins on flour in a baked cake. John Stott on hippies looking for all the right things in the wrong places. And Ecclesiastes 3:11 — God has put eternity in the hearts of men. Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #97

  New wine, old wineskins: How movements change everything

  Aug 18, 202643 minS8

  Total Football didn't come from nowhere. It came from a culture in revolt: Dutch teenagers with nowhere to go, smoke bombs at a royal wedding, a movement that flipped one of the most conservative societies in Europe in under two years. And it has more to say about how the church adapts to cultural change than you might expect. Joel, Stu and Tim are back after a break, and Stu is bringing the Industrial Revolution, the Sunday School movement, Robert Raikes, Mark Senter's 50-year cycles of youth ministry, the Youth Ministry Wars of the 90s, and Jesus's own wineskins metaphor to bear on a single question: what happens when institutions can't keep up with culture? The answer, historically, is always a movement. The question is whether the church is ready to recognise one when it sees it. This is part one of a multi-episode conversation. Discussed in this episode It Was What it Was podcast Provo Movement Mark Senter - The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry Mark Senter - Four Views of Youth Ministry Ken Moser - No Guts No Glory Jim Rayburn - Young Life history Albert Camus - The Fall Timestamps 00:00 Welcome back — Week Away, David Jensen's talks and Tim's total football rabbit hole 01:30 Total Football — what it is, where it came from and why it matters 05:00 The Provo movement — Dutch anarchists, smoke bombs and a cultural revolution 08:30 From pipe smokers to Amsterdam — how culture flips faster than institutions 10:00 Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and the lineage of total football 13:00 The connection — what football movements have to do with church movements 14:00 The agrarian world before the Industrial Revolution — villages, stability and transmitted faith 17:00 The seismic shift — steam engines, mass migration and the collapse of the parish system 19:00 The Luddites — proto-feminism and the first movement against technology 20:30 Oliver Twist, crime, convicts and how the Industrial Revolution populated Australia 22:00 The church's failure to adapt — and Robert Raikes' accidental movement 25:00 The Sunday School spreads — Thomas Hassall in Parramatta and two peoples together 27:00 Max Weber, charismatic leaders and the sociology of movements 29:00 Jesus's wineskins metaphor as movement theory 30:00 Mark Senter's 50-year cycles — Sunday School to YMCA to Young Life to the 90s 33:00 The Youth Ministry Wars — funnel model vs discipleship model in Sydney 36:00 Soul Revival falls into something different — without knowing the war was happening 39:00 YouthWorks College and the homogenisation of the Sydney model 41:00 Preview — next episode: institutionalising relationships and the next cycle Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #96

  From Consumer to Contributor — What a third place church actually asks

  Jun 30, 202638 minS8

  Most people experience church the way they experience a concert. Someone produces the event. You turn up, participate passively, evaluate the quality, go home. French sociologist Henri Lefebvre has a word for that kind of space: dominated. And it explains more about why people struggle to belong at church. Joel and Tim close out the third place conversation, by working through the consumer vs contributor tension, Lefebvre's dominated vs appropriated space framework, and what it actually takes to shift someone's perception of church from event to community. Plus two practical measures of whether it's working, time spent and meaningful service, and why there's a difference between grudgingly turning sausages at the soccer club canteen and genuinely co-creating the culture of your church. Also: Germany qualifying for the knockout rounds, a 10-year-old girl shaping the kids ministry program at Miranda, and why Stu spends a significant amount of his time as a senior pastor convincing Christians to go to church. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome — Our House, Germany through to the knockouts and a short episode before kickoff 03:00 The unresolved tension from last week — consumer vs contributor in a third place 04:00 Why we want irregulars to become regulars — the theology underneath 07:00 Regulars as culture generators — what the sociology says 09:00 Is the tension caused by the homogeneous unit principle hangover? 10:00 Lefebvre's framework — dominated spaces vs appropriated spaces 13:00 Why church gatherings fit the dominated space model 15:00 The theological tension — scripture still has authority, leadership still matters 18:00 How the seeker sensitive model seeped into the broader evangelical imagination 21:00 What to measure — bums on seats and money on the plate vs co-contribution 23:00 Two better measures — time spent and meaningful service 24:00 The sausage-turning distinction — roster obligation vs joyful co-contribution 27:00 How do you help people make the shift? Lefebvre's tension named 31:00 Inviting people to shape the culture — the 10-year-old at Miranda 35:00 Institutionalising friendship — the theological framework underneath 37:00 Wrapping up — and why Stu spends time convincing Christians to go to church Discussed on this episode Henri Lefebvre - dominated vs appropriated spaces Joseph Hellerman - When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus' Vision for Authentic Christian Community Tim Beilharz - Understanding How Faith Grows Ray Oldenburg - The Great Good Place Saddleback concentric circles model Willow Creek seeker sensitive model Donald McGavran's Homogeneous unit principle Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au

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  Episode #95

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  Jun 25, 202650 minS8

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