As anxiety, depression, and loneliness continue to rise, fewer people are attending church than ever before. But what if we've overlooked a powerful connection between faith, community, and human flourishing?

In this episode of the Truth Changes Everything podcast, we sit down with Rebecca McLaughlin—author of How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life—to explore the surprising research behind church attendance and well-being. Study after study shows that those who regularly attend religious services tend to be happier, healthier, and even live longer. Why is that? And could church be part of the solution to today's mental health crisis?

We tackle some of the biggest questions surrounding faith and community:

• Why are millions of Americans walking away from church?

• Is church really different from any other kind of community?

• Do the benefits of church attendance apply to young people—or just older adults?

• What about those who have been hurt by the church?

• How do you stay committed to a church when you don't agree with everything?

Rebecca also shares powerful insights on the impact of church on children, teens, and families—and challenges the idea that church is just a "nice add-on" to life rather than something essential.

If you've ever wondered whether gathering together in worship actually matters—or if it could even change your life—this conversation is for you.

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Many of our listeners know that apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith, but did you know there are multiple ways to do it? Different conversations call for different approaches. How do you engage an atheist who doesn't believe God exists? Must you first establish God's existence before talking about Jesus? And what about the biases we all bring into these discussions? Can the Church itself still serve as a compelling testimony to the truth of Christianity?

In this episode, Timothy Paul Jones walks us through five key apologetic methods—classical, evidential, presuppositional, cultural, and ecclesial—and explains how to apply them wisely and winsomely in real-life conversations.

Timothy is a professor of Christian apologetics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and pastor at Sojourn Community Church. He is the author of award-winning books including Church as It Is in Heaven, How We Got the Bible, and Christian History Made Easy. He holds degrees from Manhattan Christian College, Midwestern Seminary, and Southern Seminary, and is completing a Ph.D. at Stellenbosch University. Timothy frequently lectures and appears in various media platforms.

🎧 Tune in and discover how to defend your faith thoughtfully, confidently, and with grace.

Please send us your feedback and questions to: podcast@summit.org

If you went back in time and you had the opportunity to be involved in an attempt to remove Adolf Hitler from the scene before WWII, would you do it? How you answer this question may determine your position on war, peace, and violence. Is violence sometimes necessary to produce good? Or is war and violence always wrong, no matter the circumstances? How does the Christian worldview best answer this predicament, and how should we as Christians view war in general? Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, so we need to be able to define exactly what that means.

Our guest today is Paul Copan, Professor and Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He's a Christian theologian, analytic philosopher, apologist, and author, having written or edited around 45 books and contributed chapters to over 60 more. Paul is perhaps best known for tackling tough questions about God and the Old Testament in books like Is God a Moral Monster?, Is God a Vindictive Bully?, and Did God Really Command Genocide? He's also served as president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and currently chairs the Philosophy of Religion Group for the Tyndale Fellowship in the UK.