The Communion We Share, The Ordinances We Keep

Join A Church, and Serve

What does it actually mean to belong to a local church? In this special episode of Altars & Ashes, Austin Tucker, Robbie Stringer, and former co-host Bryan Furlong discuss the biblical importance of church membership. They explore why membership is more than placing your name on a church roll, how it creates real accountability and responsibility, and why Christians are not meant to live disconnected from a local body. After losing the video recording of our recent discussion, we recovered this conversation from an older episode because the subject was simply too important to leave behind. Church membership is a commitment to be known, shepherded, corrected, equipped, and joined to other believers in the worship and service of Christ. Get full access to Dust & Glory Media at dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe [https://dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The West Was Not Lost by Accident

Before Christians can build again, we must understand what happened to the world we inherited. In this episode of Altars & Ashes, we perform an autopsy on the West. Christendom did not vanish by accident. It was surrendered through a long assault on ideas, institutions, households, churches, and law. The collapse was not merely political. It was spiritual. It was cultural. It was institutional. We discuss what Christendom actually was, why modern Christians often recoil from the word, how the myth of neutrality helped disarm the church, and why individual resistance is not enough. A single family cannot rebuild a civilization alone. We need households, churches, schools, businesses, and local Christian communities ordered under the reign of Christ. This episode is not about despair. It is about clarity. Builders must understand the ruins they inherited. Christendom was not lost by accident. It was surrendered. And if it was surrendered, then perhaps it can be rebuilt. Get full access to Dust & Glory Media at dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe [https://dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Age of Ambient Christianity is Over

For generations, Christians could rely on cultural momentum, borrowed capital, and institutions that still retained traces of a Christian worldview. Those days are gone. We now find ourselves in a world increasingly hostile to Christian conviction, Christian families, and Christian institutions. The question before us is no longer whether Christians should build. The question is whether we will build intentionally or whether we will be built upon by the forces shaping the age. In this opening episode of our 4th season focus B.D. Flemings book, Strongholds of the Kingdom, we introduce the vision of the Christian borough. We explore why faithful Christians must think beyond individual piety and recover the work of building households, churches, schools, businesses, and communities that can endure for generations. We discuss Aaron Renn’s concept of the “Negative World,” the temptation of nostalgia, the example of Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls, and the growing fragmentation that marks modern life. More importantly, we cast a positive vision for what faithful Christian life can look like in an age of cultural collapse. The choice before us is stark: Borough or abyss. Over the next season, we’ll explore the practical mechanics of rebuilding Christian civilization from the ground up, one household, one church, one institution at a time. Because the borough is the seed and Christendom is the harvest. And, every harvest begins with builders. “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations.” - Isaiah 58:12 #AltarsAndAshesPodcast #ChristianBoroughs #StrongholdsOfTheKingdom #BDFleming #Postmillennialism #ChristianCulture #FamilyDiscipleship #ChurchLife #ChristianEducation #KingdomBuilding #ReformedTheology Get full access to Dust & Glory Media at dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe [https://dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Why A Positive Eschatology Matters

In this casual conversation, we talk about why eschatology is not just a chart at the back of a study Bible. What we believe about the future shapes how we live in the present. A negative view of history often produces retreat, fear, and short-term thinking. But a positive eschatology teaches us to labor with confidence, build with generations in mind, and believe that Christ is reigning now—and His kingdom will not fail. We discuss how hope changes households, churches, culture, mission, and courage. The Church is not called to hide in the corner until things collapse. We are called to faithfulness, dominion under Christ, and joyful confidence that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” Until all Christ’s enemies are His footstool. #AltarsAndAshes #Eschatology #Postmillennialism #ReformedTheology #ChristianHope #KingdomOfGod Get full access to Dust & Glory Media at dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe [https://dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

AI & The World We Live In.... Or Whatever

Welcome back to the Altars & Ashes Podcast. In this episode, we begin a new season and find ourselves between major projects, so we take up one of the biggest questions pressing on our age: artificial intelligence. AI is no longer science fiction. It is in our homes, our phones, our schools, our workplaces, our churches, and our children’s pockets. Like every tool, it carries both promise and peril. It can help us organize, create, research, communicate, and work with greater efficiency. But it can also train us toward laziness, deception, dependence, distraction, and even a counterfeit version of wisdom. So how should Christians think about AI? Not with panic. Not with blind optimism. But with biblical discernment. In this conversation, we talk about the good, the bad, and the strange world now forming around us. We consider how Christians should use technology without being used by it, how households should think about formation in an AI age, and why wisdom, virtue, truth, and embodied discipleship matter more than ever. Technology may change quickly, but Christ still reigns. The world is not spinning out of His hand. The question is not whether AI will shape the future. The question is whether Christians will meet that future with courage, clarity, and conviction. In this episode: * Why AI matters for Christians today * The good uses of artificial intelligence * The dangers of dependence, deception, and intellectual laziness * How AI may affect students, families, churches, and work * Why wisdom is more than information * How Christians can use tools without surrendering formation * Why Christ remains Lord over every age, invention, and empire The machines may be learning, but the church must not forget how to think. Until all Christ’s enemies are His footstool. #AltarsAndAshes #ArtificialIntelligence #ChristianWorldview #AI #Technology #ReformedTheology #ChristianLiving #HouseholdsOfFaith #Wisdom #Discipleship Get full access to Dust & Glory Media at dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe [https://dustandglorymedia.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]