How to Find Intellectual Community In Your 20s, 30s and Beyond [Through Christian Study Centers]
Question: What do gain by listening to this podcast? And how about the other podcasts on your feed? Odds are, you listen to the ThinkPodcast—and many other shows—because you get a mental workout. They help you think deeply about topics that you find fascinating. But more than that, they help you think about practical steps to take to improve your life, AND they are fun. You enjoy the hosts. After a while, you even start to feel like you know them. In a certain way, there's a sense of community in listening to podcasts. People share ideas, others listen, learn, and pass them on to someone else (maybe you've messaged a link to an especially good episode to your brother, friend, or wife).
Intellectual stimulation, practical wisdom, and community—these are all things we want in our lives. And for many of us I believe that podcasts, by providing them, fill in a gap that is missing from our lives, especially since college. (I remember my time at Grove City College as being the last time when I really could make friends super easily, almost automatically—and those friendships were often sparked by an hours-long, late-night, deep, intellectual conversation about something. Maybe you can relate.)
However, podcasts don't really provide that face-to-face, in-person community. Now that you're out of college, starting a family, and holding down a career, you still want that intellectual community and fellowship in your life, but authentic intellectual community can be hard to find.
What if there was a way to find intellectual community in your 20s, 30s and beyond? That's the question that my guest Charlie Cotherman answers in his book, To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement.
We talk about: the Christian Study Center Movement, the importance of "embodied" community, the four different kinds of study centers that exist (and who they serve), and even how to launch and fund a study center.
This episode may inspire you to start a new Christian study center, or it may just prompt you to invite a few guys over for cigars and intellectual discussion around a bonfire this weekend. But either way, I'm sure it will make you think.
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