Evangelicalism, Politics, and Essentials with Bill Riedel
Welcome to Church Chat, the show where we have the conversations about ministry you wish we were having. Today Josh and Emily are joined by Bill Riedel, lead pastor of Redemption Hill Church in Washington D.C.! They talk about fundamentalism vs evangelicalism, the political divide in our churches, essentials vs non essentials, how to function as a church when we disagree, getting objective about the culture in which you serve, deconstruction, the intersection of Christianity and politics and more!
Bill Riedel is the founding and lead pastor of Redemption Hill Church in Washington, DC. He was formally trained at Trinity International University (BA) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (MDiv), and has served in ministry since 1998. He serves the Acts 29 Network as the DC Area Director and on the A29 North Atlantic Leadership Team, as well as BOMS for EFCA.
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Politics and Our Christian Witness
At the EFCA East Leadership Conference in 2021, I led a breakout on Politics and Our Christian Witness. Deepening divides increase the intensity of the call for pastors and church leaders to focus on our witness to a greater kingdom and greater good than partisanship can offer, while continuing to engage in the real life…
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Why Bother With Credentialing?
Licenses and credentials are nothing new to us. If you drive a car, there is a process of written and practical evaluation to become a licensed driver, and systems of accountability for misusing the privilege of operating several tons of metal and plastic at high speed. Various professions require licensing, whether medicine, law, or real…
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What About The Dark Nights?
Deep grief is isolating. Even our best friends pull back. Why? We are not good at hearing laments from broken people. They are disorienting, unnerving, and messy. This is particularly true of people who we expect something “more” of in their lives and walk with Jesus. We slide into moralizing or theologizing against people when…
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In and Out of Season
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season. – 2 Timothy 4:2 Never in my life has it felt more out of season than this year. A global pandemic that has altered every aspect of life, including church life, ever-deepening partisan divides that amount to fundamentalism on both sides of the aisle,…
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Preserving Your Own Heart (And Sanity)
I had a moment this past week that almost broke me… We were recording our service at 7pm. And I couldn’t get my brain to slow down enough to even focus on the blinking cursor in front of me long enough to type a single sentence. I have literally been dreaming at night about…
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Does Your Work Matter?
Your work matters. Anything that brings order from chaos – forming, filling, or cultivating God’s good creation – joins Him in His work. It doesn’t always feel that way on Monday morning, though. Sometimes the message on Sundays seems to contradict all of that, feeling like the worlds of church and work are far from…
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4 Benefits of Collaborative Sermon Prep
In most churches, the preaching pastor spends a significant amount of time studying alone and crafting the sermon each week in preparation for Sunday. It’s hard work and a great labor of love. At Redemption Hill Church we have taken a slightly different approach. We study together every week. Before RHC I had never experienced this…
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Singles and Self-Sacrifice
Most churches are married-people-centric. Whether intentionally or not, churches tend to create polished and fine sounding arguments for why marriage is a prerequisite for leadership opportunities. After all, married people are more stable, right? Because marriage is a sanctifying commitment, they are more mature. Because marriage gives a beautiful God-ordained opportunity for sex, married people are…
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Does innocent suffering really exist?
Innocent suffering really exists. It happens. And it makes us just as uncomfortable as it did Job’s friends. We don’t like the uncertainty and so we come up with explanations that help to give us our understanding of the world back, and our control of it. The long speeches that make up the book…
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Trump is officially POTUS. Now what?
Guest post by Bill Riedel, Lead Pastor at Redemption Hill Church. I pastor a church in the heart of Washington, DC. We meet in a historic building that is about four blocks from the US Capitol, in the neighborhood called Capitol Hill. A lot of attention is focused on our fair city right now. What’s…
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