Empires of the Future

This is Empires of the Future, conversations to encourage the Church in a time of change. 

You are No Longer Invited to Dinner

Is there power in your dinner table?  Over the last few decades, socializing is moving out of homes for a lot of us, and while that maybe convenient, there is certainly a loss associated with it.  In this conversation we consider why the vulnerability of having someone in your home might just be worth it, all things considered.  We draw on an article by writer Derek Thompson for his Substack. 

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-the-american-host

"The Empires of the future will be Empires of the Mind." - Winston Churchill

This is Empires of the Future, conversations to encourage the Church in a time of change. 

5 Reasons to Go to Prayer Meeting

What good is prayer?  If you ask any christian whether prayer is important to the christian life, inevitably they will answer that it is.  If you followup and ask about their own prayer life, the confidence invariably drains from them.  How do we improve our prayer lives.  The answer, dear christian, does not simply lie in yet another redoubling of effort.  It may just lie behind the difficult doors of being honest about our own hearts and learning how to pray from other believers that God has so graciously placed around us.  We explore all these ideas and more in this podcast inspired by our experiences of prayer and this article by Jonathan Landry Cruse for the Gospel Coalition.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/reasons-prayer-meeting/

"The Empires of the future will be Empires of the Mind." - Winston Churchill

This is Empires of the Future, conversations to encourage the Church in a time of change. 

How Colleges Produce Socialists

Conversations about socialism seem to be multiplying daily, whether they have to do with the shortcomings of capitalism or the election of the mayor of New York City. But how are young people being convinced of the goodness or even just the utility of socialism?  In a recent opinion column at the Wall Street Journal, Kimberlee Josephson outlines a different way that young people are brought to believe in socialism: through the very experience of life on a college campus.  Here we discuss whether the experience of life at an Ivy League campus or even a State School tells the truth about the economics of the situation, and further if socialism itself accords with human nature and the deeper desires of individuals. 

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-colleges-produce-socialists-41fe4257

"The Empires of the future are the empires of the mind." - Winston Churchill

This is Empires of the Future, conversations to encourage the Church in a time of change. 

The Revival of the Ipod

Is there a good use for old(er) tech?  For many, that answer is turning out to be “absolutely”.  Tired of the many distractions that come with using a cellphone for everything, many are picking up their old devices again seeking the peace and quiet that was associated with many kinds of old tech.  In particular, iPod sales are surging, and since both of the hosts of this podcast appreciate the utility of the iPod, it prompted a conversation about the devices we use and whether or not they’re using us.  

https://apnews.com/article/ipod-music-streaming-iphone-a6a010a1d9001abb0580b7a1cebe9c13

"The Empires of the future will be Empires of the Mind." - Winston Churchill

This is Empires of the Future, conversations to encourage the Church in a time of change. 

Should we use AI in Christian Worship?

The predictions concerning the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence are as varied as they are confusing.  It may bring on an age of plenty.  It may take every human job, eventually.  It may open up opportunities undreamt of by previous generations, if it doesn’t kill us all.  And it may do some mixture of all these things in just the next few years.  

There is a temptation in the church to take one of two positions on this: either it won’t happen and I don’t want to know about it, or it may signal the end of the world.  Faithful christians cannot assume just because a massive change is coming that we won’t need to make major adjustments to it.  This podcast is our first effort in trying to do that.  Here we discuss how much change A.I. is likely to bring in the church in particular, what uses we should avoid and what uses we could (with some care) engage with.  The technology is not going away, but like so many other technologies, it holds promise and peril already, and certainly more in the future.  

We use Ross Douthat’s recent article for the New York Times on changes in the workplace more as a jumping-off point for this discussion, but it is provided here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/opinion/ai-jobs-employment.html

"The Empires of the future will be Empires of the Mind." - Winston Churchill