I host a podcast called Matters of Life and Death. Each episode I sit down with my dad, the doctor and writer John Wyatt, to discuss the ethics of emerging issues in science, technology, society and the church, and to think about how Christians can respond thoughtfully and faithfully to our fast-changing world. It’s part of the Premier network and you can listen to the most recent episodes below.
What can the church do for children with additional needs? – Matters of Life and Death
For decades now, the number of young people diagnosed with some kind of additional needs – whether it’s autism, ADHD, anxiety or any number of other ailments – has been steadily rising. Coming out of the covid lockdowns, schools saw numbers of those requiring extra support rocket even further. In the UK, the government is wrestling with how to reform a system which is approaching collapse, as local councils are nearly bankrupted trying to pay for the adjustments and support such children need. In this episode, we talk with Naomi Fox, the founder of an expanding network of church-based therapy centres for children with additional needs, about this slow-burning crisis and how her charity Growing Hope is trying to help. Is this an area of outreach the church should prioritise, or is it best left to the state or private healthcare providers? How do you balance providing free therapy to anyone who needs it and also offering out the hope ultimately only found in Jesus? And should believers speak out more for vulnerable children, who sometimes seem overlooked in our political discussions?
Find out more about Growing Hope – https://growinghope.org.uk/
• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com
I previously had a second show on the Premier network, called Premier Christian Newscast. It was a weekly podcast unpacking and explaining one big story from the Christian world, going behind the immediate headlines to try to understand why things are happening in the church and beyond. You can listen to episodes below.
Sexuality, persecution, abortion and mission: Has Christian journalism got it right? – Premier Christian Newscast
Sadly, today’s episode will be the last episode of the Premier Christian Newscast. To wrap the show up, we looked back over the last two years at what stories and topics have come up the most. What has been making waves in church news? What issues are we unable to move on from? And what might this tell us about what is going to be hitting the headlines in the years to come? Has the Christian media got too distracted by culture war political nonsense, and missed the more important stories right under our nose? How do we faithfully go about trying to decide what to cover and what to ignore?
We’ll be joined by Sam Hailes and Emma Fowle from Premier Christianity magazine to look back at what the Newscast feed tells us about the state of the church, and to consider what stories we expect to be keeping us busy throughout the rest of 2024 and into the future.
T I M _ W Y A T T 