How is the Church positioned as we enter 2021? What’s our stance when it comes to what is happening in our culture? I’ve got some thoughts I want to share . . .

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This episode of the podcast is slightly different than my “normal” offering. In general, I like to offer highly practical and applicable teachings here on Positioned to Prosper, but today I really felt to share my heart around the state of the Church and Christianity as we enter 2021, as they have been buffeted over the past ten months by pandemic, social justice tensions and a highly contested election. And this episode may be quite pivotal for some as they determine whether they can handle my brand of delivery when it comes to absolute truth and the role of the Church to influence and shape culture as we move forward.

I’m also addressing the elephant in the room: “Erica, do you think someone who voted for Joe Biden can really be a Christian?” I’m going there in this episode of the Positioned to Prosper podcast. So if you’re interested in where this Christian speaker and educator stands on some of the most volatile culture questions facing us at the top of this newly dawning year, grab your journal and a pen, and . . . Let’s Go!

What you will learn in this episode:

• There is a difference between the Church (big “C,” the Church that Jesus is building) and a gathering of Christians;
• The role of the Church is simple and fixed while the role and sound of each Christian is varied and subject to each person’s free will;
• Why I believe the Church IS a place where topics such as money, health and politics should, in fact, be covered in relation to the Word of God and absolute truth, and we should be teaching, from the pulpit, how to navigate and influence culture as we bring the Kingdom.

Scripture References mentioned in this episode:

Matthew 16:13-19 —
¹³ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶ Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 —
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I’ve got something coming that I wanted to share with you:

I’m so excited to tell you that the Positioned to Prosper Personal Finance Series is coming to a laptop or a smart phone near you! Seriously, I’m running a live round of Positioned to Prosper on Friday nights in February and the beginning of March at 7pm ET and this will accessible online. I’ll be teaching at REVIVE Church of Tampa (that’s our church here in West Tampa) at our Friday Night ENCOUNTER services and so it will stream live on the church’s platforms, but also on my public page, Erica Pyle, on Facebook. Cool, right?

Now, maybe you’re wondering what the Positioned to Prosper Personal Finance Series is. Positioned to Prosper is a course that drills down deep into the concepts of true prosperity and the spiritual hurdles that keep us from it. Over the course of 5 weeks, in this case (the course is normally 6 weeks), we cover the four ways God provides – enough, abundance, inheritance and prosperity – and we break each of those concepts down and define them biblically and understand how to access each one.

We talk about lies and fears we’ve bought into or have been taught to believe around personal finances and money, and we do the work of breaking those things off and exchanging them for better and true beliefs. And then we get into the practicalities of personal finance – things like getting out of debt, budgeting and planning, giving, and then saving and investing and how these things work once we’ve got our definitions straight and our souls lined up with truth.

A question I get asked a lot is if this teaching series is just like some of the other popular faith-based personal finance courses out there. These are courses that are generally sponsored by your church and they do small group sessions over a number of weeks to take the community through the curriculum. You know what I’m talking about, right? So I have folks ask me if this is the same thing, and here’s what I say about that . . .

Positioned to Prosper is the pre-requisite to all of those courses. While, yes, Positioned to Prosper has components of basic teaching on getting out of debt and budgeting and giving and saving, the real power of this series lies in the deep stuff we do to redefine personal finance terms so they are aligned with Biblical principles and in breaking off the lies and fear that we’ve been dealing with – sometimes even through generations and generations – that is keeping us bound in lack and poverty mentalities and producing weak fruit in our financial lives as a result.

I tell folks to take Positioned to Prosper first and then consider taking any courses that are focused mainly on the practicalities of personal finance because, if you don’t get your thinking, feeling and choosing aligned with the truth of God first, any personal finance program or process you try to follow will simply fail when you stop working it step by step, because you didn’t align your beliefs first.

I’m offering the live sessions of Positioned to Prosper on Friday nights in February and the first half of March for FREE to anyone who wants to come. I’ll also be offering a workbook for a nominal fee so you can access powerful course materials that will guide you through the exercises and also give you the notes from the live sessions to review after each session is over. This is going to be an incredibly powerful time of clarifying your beliefs around money and how to get those beliefs lined up with real truth so you can see the power of real prosperity flowing through your personal finances. We have tons of testimonies of people getting radically set free in this area of how they relate to money and provision and I can’t wait to share not only their stories but also how they did it, because you can do it too!

Sound like something you want in on? Then I want you to head to www.ericapyle.com/prosper to get on the list so I can send you the details about how to access this free course starting February 5^th and how to get your hands on the workbook for a nominal fee. It’s going to be SO GOOD . . . be sure to jump in!

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Erica co-leads a local church alongside her husband, Doug, in Tampa, Florida called REVIVE Church of Tampa. You can visit the church’s website for more information about who we are, what we believe and how we show up as the Church in the heart of West Tampa and beyond.

REVIVE Church of Tampa

REVIVE Church of Tampa streams services live on Friday nights at 7pm ET and Sunday mornings at 11am ET. You can find those livestreams on our church Facebook page:

Live Services – Fridays at 7pm ET and Sundays at 11am ET

If you’re interested in joining the online campus of REVIVE Church of Tampa, you are welcome to join our community group on Facebook where we offer weekly discussion around the Friday and Sunday messages as well as discipleship Zoom groups and the opportunity to host others in your home as you stream services. You can find us here:

The ROCC: REVIVE Online Campus Community

About this podcast:

Positioned to Prosper is a weekly podcast that covers the ins and outs of what it means to live a lifestyle of breakthrough and victory in your relationships, health, finances and beyond. Your host, Erica Pyle, is no stranger to jumping without the proverbial parachute while maintaining a firm grip on godly wisdom. A self-described slayer of pragmatism and a “walk by faith” kind of girl, Erica is an unabashed believer in the power of God to radically transform lives. Front-footed in faith as she offers straight-up truth, strategies, and wisdom for living victoriously, and equipped with her love for the word of God, her certification as a holistic health coach, and years of experience in personal finance and taxation, Erica is ready to help you get positioned to prosper.