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What does it look like to live in harmony with one another without simply avoiding conflict? In this Ask Me Anything episode of Engage and Equip, Preston sits down with Monte, one of the elders at High Point Church, to answer the questions you submitted after his September 27 sermon on Romans 12:16. Monte unpacks the difference between true, Christ-centered harmony and a false peace, how to encourage kids and others toward excellence without feeding their pride, and how Christians can engage in politics without letting it become an idol. He also tackles what to do when you notice pride in yourself, whether it's wrong to feel proud of good work, and where the line is in pursuing excellence. Along the way, the conversation turns to accountability in church leadership, C. S. Lewis and other reading recommendations, why God spoke so directly in the Old Testament, and how to respond when someone else is operating in pride (2 Timothy 2:23–25). Not connected to a local church? Join us in Madison, Wisconsin, at 8:30 or 10:30 AM, or fill out a connect card below to get started. Connect Card High Point's Website September 27th Sermon Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

Can a Christian take an antidepressant, a stimulant, or a sleep aid in good conscience, and how do we know when medication is the right tool? In this final conversation of our Intoxicating Substances series, Nic, Jill, Bill, and Monte look back on alcohol, church history, and "respectable drugs," then take up questions from the lecture on psychotropic medications. The episode closes with Paul's teaching on conscience, what it means for offering wine alongside grape juice in communion, and the next steps before our congregation's vote in March. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

What does it look like to shepherd God's people well? In this training session at High Point Church, Dr. Greg Scharf explores the biblical qualifications for elders, from being "above reproach" to the "aptitude to teach," and shows how they apply to anyone who cares for others in the church. He references 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, and Ezekiel 34, as examples of shepherding and lists the elements of shepherding: praying, making disciples, guarding the flock, and seeking those who drift. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

In this podcast, Pastor Nic is joined by Dr. Greg Scharf, a pastor turned seminary professor with nearly four decades in ministry, where they discuss questions every church leader wrestles with but few will say out loud, including: should elders serve for life, how much input should a wife have before her husband steps into leadership, and what happens when a pastor's own kid is the one struggling? All this and more in this week’s episode of Engage & Equip. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

This episode is the conclusion of the live Intoxicating Substances series, where Pastor Nic and a panel of voices from the church spoke on the topic of substances that are commonly used, whether for intoxication or medication. In this episode, they discussed how one in five women in America is on an antidepressant, boys are diagnosed with ADHD at rates that dwarf girls, and benzodiazepines can kill you if you stop them too fast. The panelists discussed the most common assumption in modern mental health treatment: that these drugs are fixing a broken brain the same way insulin fixes a missing hormone. This begs the question, what if that's not actually how most psychiatric medication works? And what does it mean for how Christians think about suffering, relief, and what we're actually asking these drugs to do for us? All this and more on this week's episode of the Engage and Equip Podcast. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

How do you know if what you're feeling is God, or just your own gut talking? This summer, High Point sent a team of high schoolers and leaders from High Point to Zambia. During their time there, they saw how speaking in tongues and prophetic words weren't rare exceptions but everyday life around the fire—and it caused them to ask some hard questions. In this episode, Pastor Paxton sits down with several members from that trip: Pastor Nic, student admin Taylor, and two students, to talk about what they actually saw and what surprised them. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

Pastor Marcio Sierra and Stephanie Avila of Lighthouse Church join Pastor Nic and Abby Bernard for a conversation about what immigration fear actually looks like inside the Latino community in Madison — the interviews, the What-ifs, the counsel given when the outcome might not be okay. It's ministry from the passenger seat, not the headlines. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

After a year on staff, Sawyer Henderson made a list of things about High Point that genuinely surprised him—not the basics he'd vetted before taking the job, but what he only discovered from the inside. Nic and Sawyer work through that list together, touching on unlikely partnerships between churches, the quiet math behind who opens their home to a stranger, and a pregnancy number that stopped them both in their tracks. The conversation turns into something bigger than a highlight reel, covering what actually produces revival, why comfort might be the most dangerous thing you can hand your kids, and what it looks like when a church decides not to wait for permission to do the right thing. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

This is Part III in the Intoxicating Substances Follow-Up series, where our panelists sit down to answer the questions people are asking about weight-loss drugs, psychedelics, and more. This episode goes from the ethics of Ozempic to why mushrooms might counterfeit real spiritual experience, from the surprising science linking alcohol and dementia to one host's own confession about an eating disorder. It's a conversation that speaks honestly about genetics, agency, addiction, and what the Bible actually says about wine. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

What if the way a director frames a shot could teach you something about how to read Scripture—or how to parent, or how to trust God in a hard moment? In part two of their conversation on Wake Up Dead Man, the guys go deep on cinematography: how light, movement, and camera angles aren't just aesthetic choices but a filmmaker's way of telling you what to believe about a character — and what that has to do with the way God communicates with us. It's a conversation that starts with film theory and ends somewhere you probably didn't expect. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

Speaking in tongues, prophetic words, unexplained healings—High Point Church sees questions about all of it. In this episode, Taylor Koenig sits down with Pastor Paxton to tackle the ones that came pouring in after his sermon on spiritual gifts. Taylor and Paxton don't shy away from the messy, sometimes uncomfortable territory, including a story about a backyard healing that didn't hold up and what that taught them about honesty in ministry. If you've ever felt confused, skeptical, or even a little embarrassed by the supernatural side of faith, this conversation might change how you think about it. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

What happens when a nearly-dead church with fifteen faithful seniors, aging heating ducts, and nine and a half acres gets a second chance? Pastor Nic sits down with John Sekutowski and Mike Beresford, two former High Point staff who left the comfort of an 800-person church to gamble everything on a congregation that had already given up. They talk candidly about the moment an interim pastor told them not to bother, the awkward middle years of building trust with people afraid of losing their identity, and the strange, almost embarrassing ways new people actually started showing up (hint: it involves a full parking lot and zero invitations). Along the way they get into what changes theologically and relationally when you go from renting your role in a big machine to owning every square foot of a small one, why breakthroughs are never as spontaneous as they look, and what it actually costs to disciple people your own preaching created. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

Nic Gibson and Jill Reasa discuss some of the toughest questions to come out of their Romans series—the kind people usually only ask in private. Along the way, Nic gets unusually personal about addiction, temptation, and the moment he realized a besetting sin's power over him was mostly an illusion. It's a wide-ranging, occasionally uncomfortable conversation that treats hard questions like they deserve real answers. Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

Pastor Paxton and Pastor Adam sit down for a rapid-fire AMA built entirely from congregation questions after Adam's sermon on Romans 12—and the questions get personal fast. What do you do when you don't feel essential to the church? What if you're too depleted to give anything? What if you're genuinely bad with kids? Paxton and Adam don't dodge any of it, working through membership, burnout, jealousy over other people's gifts, and the ever-present tension between Martha's busyness and Mary's stillness — all while trying (and failing) to keep it under 50 minutes. Here's the list of questions that Paxton and Adam discuss in this episode: Are our gifts only useful within the church? Does that mean gifts used out in the world are less valuable to God? Isn't unity in Christ our greatest strength rather than diversity? (How can we be unified and still be diverse?) What is the difference between celebrating diversity in the church versus the way diversity is celebrated in the culture around us? Why does High Point require so much for membership when other churches require so little? Are we asking too much of our members? If someone says they're a Christian but doesn't attend a local church, are they not saved? Should Christians resist the rugged individualism in American cultural heritage? We're often told to serve using our gifts, but not how — how should we help people identify and confirm their gifts? What are the greatest areas of unmet need in the church? What if I don't feel connected to the body, or I just feel lonely? What should I do? Why does it feel like I'm not actually essential in this body? What if I am genuinely not good with kids — shouldn't that slot go to someone gifted for it? I have a criminal record but want to serve in kids ministry — how can I do that without being defined or judged for it? What if I show up too physically or spiritually depleted to offer anything? Is that wrong — and is that why I sense people looking down on me for not pulling my weight? How do I know if I'm becoming like Martha — focused on serving instead of on Jesus? Paul says to run the race to win, but we're told not to compete with other members of the body — how do we run to win without competing? And how do I keep jealousy of others' gifts under control? Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast

What does it actually mean to show up to church? Pastor Paxton sits down for a wide-ranging AMA following his sermon from Romans 12, and the conversation gets uncomfortable fast—probing the gap between what we say we want from church and what God actually asks of us. From the cynic who knows the price of everything to the sentimentalist who values all the wrong things, Paxton draws on Oscar Wilde to diagnose something most churchgoers would rather not admit about themselves. Plus: when is it actually okay to leave a church, how do you give generously to people who treat you as disposable, and where have all the good men (and women) gone?   Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast Engage & Equip is a resource designed to help form substantive disciples for the local church. Find more episodes at highpointchurch.org/podcast