The World and Everything in It: July 4, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

A stunning about-face from Penn, Lia Thomas’s former school now walking back its support, and apologizing to female athletes for cheating them.

What changed and why does it matter?

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet is standing by for Culture Friday.

Also today: dinosaurs on the loose again in the latest Jurassic Park creature feature.

Later: Our Editor in Chief tackles discernment for kids.

And a church that lights it up on the Fourth of July.

NEAL: We're just normal people who love Jesus and wanna share that love with others.

BROWN: It’s Friday, July 4th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:  Big Beautiful Bill » President Trump today will sign into law the legislation he has long referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

House Republicans sent it to his desk with this vote on Thursday:

AUDIO (vote count):  On this vote, the yays are two 18. The nays are two 14. The motion is adopted.

The bill will address a number of the president’s top priorities.

The president helped to persuade several Republican holdouts to push the bill across the finish line.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries delayed the vote, with an hourslong marathon speech, holding the House floor for eight-and-a-half hours.

JEFFRIES:  Every single one of my House Republican colleagues have the opportunity now in this chamber, not the other chamber, in this chamber … to join us as Democrats and stand up for what is right.

It was the longest speech of its kind in the history of the House.

Big beautiful bill-2 » But it only delayed the inevitable. Republicans had the votes to pass it. And Speaker Mike Johnson says Americans will be better off for it. He said they’re doubling down on the economic policies of President Trump’s first term.

JOHNSON:  We did tax cuts and regulatory reform, and that brought about a resurgence of the US economy. That's about, that's what's gonna happen here. It's about to happen on steroids.

The bill will extend 2017 tax cuts and GOP Congresswoman Lisa McClain adds:

MCCLAIN:  No taxes on tip. No taxes on overtime. Tax relief to seniors Enhanced childcare tax credits. Elimination of the death tax. More ICE agents we're finishing the border wall and funding the Golden Dome.

The Golden Dome is a proposed missile defense system for the U.S. homeland.

Democrats argue that the bill's passage is terrible news for Americans.

Congressman Joe Morelle:

MORELLE: The  driving force behind this entire legislative effort has been to grant handouts to those same billionaires and special interests, all at the expense of hardworking families.

Democrats deride the bill as tax breaks for the wealthy. And they object to new work requirements for Medicaid and food-stamp recipients. They say millions will lose healthcare as a result of the bill.

Trump-Putin call » President Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin spoke by phone Thursday for around an hour. The White House says they discussed Iran, Syria, possible energy cooperation, and of course, the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin says Trump pressed for a swift end to the war. But Putin said Russia was ready to negotiate—but would not back down on core objectives in Ukraine, including NATO and territorial claims.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce says the US remains committed to helping negotiate a ceasefire:

BRUCE: We've also stated as has Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, that this now belongs in the hands of the parties. Mm. They must have that conversation and come to these decisions themselves.

She said the United States continues to show support for Ukraine.

The call comes after the Pentagon paused the shipment of some weapons to Ukraine over concerns about stockpiles running low for domestic defense.

Israel latest » In the Middle East, all eyes are on Gaza where Hamas is reviewing a 60-day ceasefire proposal from the US to halt the war with Israel at least temporarily.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to end the war in Gaza permanently, but first all of the Israeli hostages must be released, and Hamas must be defeated.

MENCER: The obstacle, as ever, lies with Hamas but we are working through various means to overcome that.

Hamas is believed to hold around 20 living hostages and remains of dozens of deceased captives.

Under the proposal, Hamas would free 10 of the living hostages and transfer the remains of 18 of the dead.

Humanitarian aid would ramp up in Gaza, with the UN and the Red Crescent. And Israel would begin partial pullbacks of its troops from the Gaza Strip.

The proposal also calls for talks to begin immediately on a full and permanent ceasefire.

SCOTUS to hear trans athlete case » The U.S. Supreme Court will take up two cases testing whether male athletes who identify as female can compete in women’s sports. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more.

BENJAMIN EICHER: Justices agreed Thursday to hear challenges from Idaho and West Virginia. Idaho’s law bars boys from joining women’s teams at state-funded schools. It was challenged by Lindsay Hecox, a man who identifies as a woman who wanted to play on after he was kept off Boise State’s women’s track team.

West Virginia’s law faced a lawsuit from an eighth-grade boy who wants to run on a girls’ team.

TheBoth cases argue the laws violate the 14th Amendment and Title IX protections.

Supporters say letting males compete is unfair and takes scholarships from women.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments this fall and issue a ruling next year.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Jobs numbers » The U.S. job market delivered more surprising growth.

The economy added 147,000 jobs in June. That was an increase of only a few thousand from May. But, it soundly beat expectations of 118,000, which is what economists had forecasted.

Analysts say the jobs report may not be quite as strong as it appears at first glance. Private companies, for instance, hired just 74,000 workers last month. That’s only about half the 137,000 they hired last month

But overall, most experts say the economy remains solid.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: John Stonestreet reflects on patriotism during Culture Friday. Plus, Ask the Editor with Les Sillars.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Friday, the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day!

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. It’s Culture Friday and joining us now is John Stonestreet. He is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Good morning to you.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning!

BROWN: John, this is major news. The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to reverse course on the whole Lia Thomas matter. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon at the White House this week:

MCMAHON: The University will be sending a personal apology to every female athlete who is forced to compete against a man. [applause]

An apology for sending out a mediocre male swimmer who identifies as a woman to dominate a pool full of women in competition. Thomas broke at least five Penn records and even that is being walked back.

What’s striking is how thorough the reversal is—acknowledging wrongdoing, restoring titles, and pledging safeguards.

I’d love your thoughts—not just on how this happened, but on what it reveals about the whole arc of this issue. For a while, the movement felt inevitable. But this week, it looks like it collapsed almost overnight.

STONESTREET: Oh boy, there is a lot to talk about. The fact that the quote, unquote deal, which was—I saw the headlines of “University of Pennsylvania agrees.” And I feel like you need to put that word “agree” in a lot of quotation marks, because this was a “you will not do this anymore,” and it included an apology to the athletes that were wronged by this man who pretended to be a woman, and also making sure that it never happened again, and returning the rightful titles and the wins and all that in the right direction, and protecting the spaces. I mean, this was pretty thorough. There’s really a lot to talk about here.

I think the first thing is that many people were surprised by how quickly even an absurd idea like that can seem overwhelming and, quote, unquote, inevitable. Then also that it’s not inevitable. That claims to inevitability, particularly by those who have vested interest in making these claims seem inevitable—that usually is just a tactic to silence people. Unfortunately, it worked for a lot of people.

Praise God it didn’t work for Riley Gaines. Praise God it didn’t work for other people involved in this story. Paula Scanlon, who was one of the teammates of Will Thomas, took a lot of shots for that. We think of somebody, for example, like J.K. Rowling. We think of Ryan Anderson early on. We think of Abigail Shrier, whose book just was gargantuan in this.

Then we also think of a lot of people who weren’t willing to take a stand. We think of a lot of pastors that left parents hanging out to dry, left moms isolated, accused of bigotry for not going along with their child’s delusion when they knew their kid better.

There are just so many aspects of this story, and it continues to develop. But listen, unless we come to some sort of grips on a cultural level with an anthropology that we can all agree on, then this fad is going to be replaced by another one.

Unless we’re tempted, a year from now, whenever the next thing takes hold like this, to think there’s nothing we can do, that that idea is inevitable, that we’re on the wrong side of history, that we don’t want to offend anybody or hurt any feelings—let’s learn from this that claims of inevitability are just that: claims. And that this is really an illusion, because there is this thing called reality. The Christian worldview actually gets us closer to reality than anything else.

Let’s trust that. Let’s believe that. Let’s have the courage to speak out.

EICHER: Earlier you named some of the courageous voices who resisted this movement early on—the heroes. But what about villains, those behind the movement, or those who enabled it, or those who didn’t stand up to it?

There were people in positions of trust who stayed silent or caved in. Could you talk a bit about that failure of leadership, and what kind of reckoning—if any—should follow?

STONESTREET: Yeah, it’s a good question. I think there are kind of ideological villains, because, you know, you could say all of this is in Rousseau, or all of this is in Freud, or all of this is the result of some of the worst thinking of the sexual revolution, and that these ideas aren’t just theoretical ones on paper, but that ideas can grow legs.

Schaeffer talked about the line of despair, where ideas begin with thought leaders, shape academic culture, and then shape popular culture and then the popular imagination. We certainly saw that happen in a hurry.

I think we can also talk about the activists, the bullies, the villains, because this is really something where people—people who lead a movement like what was the gay rights movement—are now even dismissing these people.

But there’s also the state officials—everyone from department heads to school boards to administrators—all that at some level or another work for the government. I’m thinking of civil rights commissioners like in Colorado. I think of even the medical doctors who knew better and basically issued the threat to thousands of parents: “Do you want a dead son or a live daughter,” or vice versa?

There’s a lot to pay for here, and I don’t think the goal here should be revenge. I think the goal here is that we can somehow come up with a framing of this issue and a framing of what happened so that we don’t let so many children in particular get harmed the next time around.

I don’t know that we have the ideological ground for that. I think the deep mistrust that has been sown in this issue—I mean, people talk about the medical establishment and the trust that was lost in COVID. I’m not sure that measures up to the trust that was lost because of those in the medical profession who just made up things like WPATH.

Then, of course, you have villains who are doubling down on this stuff. For example, the American Psychological Association, who quickly commented on the ruling in the Skrmetti case that states actually could protect their own children from this nonsense.

So yeah, ideas die long. I’m not sure that this one’s fully dead. It is unbelievable to see the speed at which this one took over the world and is now being discredited so widely.

We do need to have some kind of a culture-wide deep six on this, so that we can know exactly what happened, where we were duped, and how we can never do it again. Specifically, I think the church needs to have a deep six on this—on what it means to have courage.

I won’t use the word villain, although I’m tempted to, for leaders who are just absolutely clear that we should speak out about some things—but never this. I think there needs to be at least some level of a reckoning on this.

EICHER: John, this has been one of the most consequential Supreme Court terms in recent memory, with multiple rulings that touch on fundamental questions in the culture.

You stay closely connected to these developments, I know. But of all the decisions that came down in recent weeks, what stands out to you most?

STONESTREET: Oh man, it’s a lot. This was a really consequential Supreme Court term. But I do think that one of the best things that we saw was in the Mahmoud decision, having to do with the Montgomery County School Board.

Given the fact that school boards and other state officials have so brazenly—and I would say evilly—placed themselves between children and their parents so often and so completely over the last several years, for the Supreme Court basically to say, “No, you cannot just brainwash students as if parents do not have a role in this process,”—now look, I think that the narrative has become so thorough that education belongs to the state, that it actually has led many parents to think about education as belonging to the state and not to them.

Therefore, the necessary kind of tail end of that idea is that the children actually are citizens more than their children. That is a damnable idea. That is an anti-biblical idea. That’s one that’s particularly dangerous. This was a pushback on that.

Now again, the nuances here were much more specific. But listen, if you don’t think that there are actually educational leaders in America who think that they own your kids, they know better than you—you’re just not paying attention. You don’t hate this as much as you should. I don’t mean you, Nick. I mean, or you, Myrna. I mean like in general, we don’t quite understand just how bad it is.

We had this glimpse during COVID thanks to the Loudoun County School Board. We have another glimpse here. And I know we’re going to get people writing in and saying, “Well, you know, there are good people who work in the public school system.” I agree. I think Christian adults should go to the public school system as missionaries. You’re going to face a lot of trouble if you do—but go there.

But to subject children to that right now just seems unconscionable if you have any other alternative, because it ideologically is built on a vision of what it means to be human that is so absolutely dominated by the sexual revolution and its worst ideas.

Parents are not just in the way anymore. They’re considered the bad guys. I mean, there has never been a better opportunity right now to disrupt the status quo when it comes to education in America. God help us do it in every way that we can.

We need as many alternatives as we can. We need the alternatives, especially Christian schools, to be really good at what they do. Right now that’s a mixed bag. We need to point out over and over the ideology that shapes this practice. It’s got to be exposed, because it is as bad as you think—and worse.

BROWN: As we talk today, it’s the Fourth of July—a summer holiday, yes, but also a deeply significant anniversary.

We’re marking the signing of a document that put the founders at odds with the most powerful empire on earth. We don’t often reflect on the danger they faced—but treason against King George could cost you your life. That’s the kind of courage we celebrate today.

What does this day mean for Christians who love their country? How do you think rightly about patriotism—from a Christian worldview perspective?

STONESTREET: Yeah. Well, listen, in general, when I think about patriotism and what does it mean to have national identity, I think of something that Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote in First Things years ago. He said, “When I meet God, I expect to meet Him as an American.”

He got in some trouble when he said that. He wasn’t saying that the only way to meet God is as an American, or you have a better chance if you’re an American, or that God was an American. He wasn’t saying that either.

He was just saying that part of our identity—part that we did not choose, one of the givens, if we were going to use the same word that we use on so many of these other issues of anthropology—is where we’re born, the nation to which we belong. There’s an implied stewardship there.

So I think in the terms of patriotism, we can accept this as part of the sovereignty of God, and then say, “Well, then what does God expect?” That’s different than any sort of supremacy that’s rightfully denounced.

On the other hand, I think it’s also easy to miss how remarkable the Declaration was. When I speak to students and young adults, and there are people from other countries, and I start the line, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” even the non-American students know this.

It’s a remarkable line. It’s not as remarkable to us because we’re pretty familiar with it, but it was really remarkable then. Luc Ferry says that it’s one of the Christian innovations and contributions to the world. It’s significant that he says it as a secular humanist philosopher from the University of Paris.

Basically, Christianity, he said, was to introduce to the world the idea of equality—that humans were equal in dignity, not on the outside but on the inside. That gave birth to our entire modern, democratic inheritance.

He said it is a remarkable line, because honestly, it’s not been self-evident historically that humans are equal. I mean, even in the American context, it was an aspirational idea. It was something to which America was now going to strive but never reach, and actually had a long way to go—from our national original sin of slavery to our contemporary national sin of abortion.

We don’t live that ideal out, but the ideal itself is remarkable. The only way you have equality is not because it’s self-evident by any characteristic we share on the outside—because there is no characteristic we share on the outside. It’s the second part of that line which is so important: that they are endowed by their Creator.

You only get “all men are created equal” if all men have been endowed by their Creator. That is an important observation to remember on this day that we recall how the founders at the Continental Congress in 1776, on this date, adopted the Declaration of Independence.

BROWN: John Stonestreet, president of the Colson center and host of the Breakpoint podcast, thanks again, John.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, July 4th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming up on The World and Everything in It. a summer blockbuster stomps back in theaters.

The Jurassic Park franchise roars to life again with a brand-new installment. WORLD arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino takes us to Jurassic World Rebirth.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Steven Spielberg invented the summer blockbuster 50 years ago with Jaws, but in 1993 he gave us what could be considered the quintessential summer blockbuster with Jurassic Park. The movie had everything. Plenty of action. Characters you cared about. And the kind of jaw-dropping special effects that audiences had never seen before.

Now we’re on the seventh Jurassic Park movie, and, more than three decades later, the franchise still can’t figure out how to recapture the magic of that first film.

Jurassic World Rebirth takes place 32 years after dinosaurs returned, and the planet is starting to find its new normal. The giant beasts have found the earth’s climate inhospitable, and they’ve started to die out again. Those that survive live in a narrow band in the tropics. Even more surprising, the public’s interest in dinosaurs is waning. Dinos aren’t cool any more. Perhaps it has something to do with their causing a string of disasters in the previous movies. The world’s governments have forbidden any contact between humans and the remaining dinosaurs. But one pharmaceutical company sees an opportunity in dinosaur DNA.

MARTIN: This would be a medical breakthrough that could save countless lives.

A drug manufacturer thinks it can cure heart disease by making medicine from dinosaur tissue because, you know… dinosaurs have big hearts. That’s a silly setup, but it gets even sillier because they need samples from three certain dinosaurs, the biggest land dinosaur, the biggest aquatic dinosaur, and the biggest flying dinosaur.

And what a surprise, all three can conveniently be found at the same island. So big pharma hires Scarlett Johansson’s Zora Bennett to infiltrate the forbidden island.

DR. LOOMIS: Survival is a longshot.

ZORA: That’s kind of our specialty.

Zora is a special ops veteran who now provides private security: that is, she’s a mercenary. Accompanying her on the mission will be a drug rep, a paleontologist, and a group of her mercenary friends. Don’t worry about learning their names, they’re mostly in the movie to give the dinosaurs something to chew on.

ZORA: Mr. Work here didn’t tell us everything that we need to know.

Complications arise when the team learns that the beasts on the island aren’t your garden variety t-rexes and raptors.

MARTIN: Look. This island was a laboratory of sorts. They conducted experimental work here.

DR. LOOMIS: What kind of experiments?

MARTIN: Cross breeding of species. “Engineered entertainments,” they called them.

It’s pretty challenging to make audiences care whether dinosaurs eat mercenaries. So the script throws a hapless family onto the island to give us someone more sympathetic to worry about.

TERESA: Dad! Where’s Xavier? What happened? Dad! Where is he?

The parallel stories of the family and the mercenaries require us to jump back and forth for most of the movie. And watching the family successfully navigate the jungle while the trained professionals get picked off one by one strains credulity. It’s not a good sign when your credulity gets strained in a movie with dinosaurs.

DR. LOOMIS: The titanosaur herd should be right across this valley.

ZORA: Well, they’re herbivores, right.

DR. LOOMIS: Yeah.

ZORA: That’s good.

DR. LOOMIS: But the things that hunt them aren’t.

Scarlett Johansson does what she can to save this film, but she doesn’t have much to work with. The script is a mess: The plot doesn’t make much sense and the dialogue is predictable. Then we have to suffer through mini lectures on contemporary social issues. There’s the PTSD awareness scene. The obligatory eco-babble in which we learn that the earth won’t put up with humanity’s bad behavior for much longer. And of course, pharmaceutical companies are painted as the epitome of evil. Also, the screenwriters don’t seem to understand how tax write-offs work.

MARTIN: The average cost of a created species is 72 million dollars. What would you do? Kill it and have to tell your bank, or just carry it forward under R&D?

DR. LOOMIS: What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective? Is that really the question?

But the movie isn’t all bad. No homework required. You can understand what’s going on even if this is your first Jurassic Park movie. Also, the foul language is pretty mild for a PG-13 movie. And Jurassic World Rebirth has the same director as 2014’s Godzilla and Star Wars’ Rogue One. He manages to give the film an attractive visual style. But in the end, it’s all technique and no inspiration.

In Jurassic World Rebirth, the average person has become uninterested in dinosaurs. It’s an apt metaphor for the state of this venerable franchise. Over the last ten years, each installment has made less money than the one before it. That’s what happens when you repeatedly rely on spectacle while neglecting the story.

There’s still a certain pleasure in watching dinosaurs chase people through the jungle, but if that’s what you really want to see this weekend, you would do better to just queue up the original.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: Ask the Editor.

Editor in Chief Les Sillars tackles a timely listener question: How do we raise kids to tell truth from lies in a world flooded with online deception? The information landscape is changing fast—and parents are feeling the pressure.

LES SILLARS: Listener Becky Manring wrote in to observe that parents are rightly concerned about things their kids can access online, from gambling to pornography. But her question is a little different. She pointed out that the days of everybody getting their news from mainstream sources are long gone. There’s a lot of damaging trash and nonsense out there posing as news and helpful information. She wrote:

BECKY MANRING: I want to know, how do I teach my kids to evaluate resources for truth-telling? I know how to catechize my children. But how do I help them move beyond recitation and into application when it comes to evaluating truth?

Becky, it sounds like a two-part question. First, I think you’re asking, in a digital world, how do we know who or what to trust? Second, how do we help our children to actually use discernment?

Those are among the most important questions facing our culture today. And you’re absolutely right: we need to teach our children and grandchildren how to figure this out for themselves. Because it’s going to get a lot harder. And a list of “Ten Tips for Protecting Your Child Online” is not going to get it done.

Before the internet, figuring out who to trust was often easier. We got much of our information from people we knew personally. Family. People we worked with. Went to church with. People with whom we had history. We knew from experience whether we should believe them and whether they could be trusted.

Information about the outside world came to us from various media: newspapers, networks, books, movies, and so on. These were difficult and expensive to produce but some reached many, many people. A writer or broadcaster had to have a certain amount of credibility. Reliability. So it was easier to evaluate sources.

Today anybody with a cellphone can combine personal charisma with worldwide reach. Digital technology made possible the Age of the Influencer, and the coin of the realm is authenticity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. These people look into the camera and say, “Hey, this is who I am. You know me. You can trust me.” And if they’re smart and believable and appealing enough, they can peddle any kind of garbage they want.

And now we have AI. It raises a lot of questions, but the obvious point is that we can no longer presume to take at face value anything digital. Things that we used to presume were basically accurate depictions of reality–images, voices, and videos. Those days are over.

So, back to the original question: how do we figure out who to trust?

My best suggestion is to treat online sources with the same skepticism we’d give a stranger approaching us at midnight in a dark alley. Do not think in terms of authenticity. Don’t ask, does this person seem really genuine? Attractive? Appealing?

Rather ask, Who is this person? Why do they want my attention? What motives do they have for telling me this? Do they have a history of being reliable? Do they use reliable sources themselves? Is their message consistent with reality?

Those aren’t easy questions to answer, about either a podcaster or a national network. But we have to ask them. Relentlessly.

This doesn’t mean we don’t ever believe anything new. It’s a weird world out there. And we don’t want to be like those dwarves in C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, closing our eyes and ears to the reality unfolding around us. But, just, don’t be gullible.

As for helping our children learn to be discerning, this is the most useful thing I can suggest: Be for your children a source of reliable and trustworthy information. Be clear-eyed about the world around you. Measure all claims against Scripture. Discuss with your children important topics in an age-appropriate way. Explain to them, “This is why I believe this is true and that is false.” And don’t traffic in nonsense yourself.

Finally, show your children what trust looks like in a healthy community. Build trust with your family, friends, and brothers and sisters in your church. Be honest and kind. Admit mistakes. Give them a model of what life can be like in relationships where people have integrity. Show them, in all of your life, how to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

If you have a question for Ask the Editor, I’d love to hear from you. Please–feel free to send an email or voice message to me at editor@wng.org

And one more favor: if you hear a good story on this program, would you mind sharing it with a friend or two? Thanks!

And thanks for listening. I’m Les Sillars.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, July 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Finally today: fireworks. Churches across the country will host outreach events this weekend—but one congregation goes all in.

BROWN: WORLD associate correspondent Elizabeth Shenk recently visited a congregation that doesn’t just attend the fireworks: they host them.

ELIZABETH SHENK: Even at dusk, it’s still over 80 degrees in Dunn, North Carolina. The air is full of glow sticks and music. Nearly 2,000 people have gathered to see a free fireworks show at Central Baptist Church.

NEAL:  You talk to people like, ‘Hey, we're the Central Baptist Church,’ and some people are like, ‘Oh, you're the fireworks church.’ …

That’s James Neal, the discipleship pastor for this church of over 1,000.

NEAL: You know, and like obviously…we'd rather be known as the fireworks church than the mean church or the cult church… because…it's an inroad for us to share the gospel.

Neal is the one in charge of huge outreach events like this. He starts preparing in January.

ANNOUNCER: Who’s ready for fireworks?

NEAL: This is purely…a first foothold for a lot of people in this community to get on this campus and to also see that…we're just normal people who love Jesus and wanna share that love with other people.

SOUND: [COUNTDOWN]

This is the second year Neal and his crew set up a stage and all the sound equipment outside, with one eye on the sky as a heavy cloud cover rolls in.

NEAL:  The weather, I guess is sometimes the thing that you hate the most because you have absolutely no control over it…

For the first 20 years, choirs and preachers coaxed people into the air conditioned church. Only the fireworks and hotdogs stayed outside. Bringing the singers and gospel message outside gets them directly to the people—and the elements.

NEAL: Thankfully, I think out of all these years we've only been rained out once, which is just a blessing. And I take it by faith every year. I don't even really look at the weather after a while or I don't put a lot of faith in it.

The fire department is stationed at the far end of the field behind the launching site. Firefighter Buddy Monds is keeping a close eye on the pyrotechnics.

MONDS: We usually have us some hoses, lines and water cans on standby if anything happens.

Law enforcement vehicles idle in the parking lot while the church’s volunteer security team, headed by Larry Williams, scans the crowd. Williams and his family started attending Central Baptist after coming to the fireworks show, and he wants it to continue despite the recent targeting of Christian gatherings.

WILLIAMS: The last thing we want to do is prevent outreach from our church. We feel like the posture that we have right now is working for us, and so we're just gonna continue to maintain our vigilance and pray that the Lord will always protect us.

Over the years, the fireworks show has become an integral part of the church's community outreach effort.

 NEAL: We've actually had people say that their first exposure to our church was through the patriotic explosion.

Every year the church reviews the budget and every year they pray for the funds to do one more show. And that has always meant hiring Zambelli Fireworks to run the pyrotechnics.

NEAL:  I think that if we said, ‘Hey, we're not having fireworks,’ there might be like an uprising…not within just the community, but within our own church.

For over two decades, the church hasn’t lacked the money or the volunteers. And families, like the Williamses, have made Central Baptist their church as a result.

NEAL: I've learned through all these years that it might look different than I expect. But what God does and in God accomplishes through our team and through these events, then that is something that we can celebrate and they in turn give all the glory to God because he's the one that deserves it anyways.

ANNOUNCER: Have a great and safe 4th of July…If you don’t have a church home, see you Sunday.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Elizabeth Shenk in Dunn, North Carolina.

NICK EICHER, HOST: All right, it’s time to name the team who helped make it happen this week:

Jenny Rough, Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Emma Eicher, Travis Kircher, Emma Freire, Daniel Darling, Leo Briceno, Jenny Lind Schmitt, Hunter Baker, Mary Muncy, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, Collin Garbarino, and Elizabeth Shenk.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Mark Mellinger, Christina Grube, Steve Kloosterman, and Lynde Langdon.

And thanks to the Moonlight Maestros: Benj Eicher and Carl Peetz.

Harrison Watters is Washington producer, Lindsay Mast and Leigh Jones are standing in as feature editors, Paul Butler is executive producer, and Les Sillars our editor-in-chief. I’m Nick Eicher

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” —Verses 14 through 16 of Matthew chapter 5.

Your weekly reminder here: go to a Bible-believing church this weekend. The Christian life is to be lived together. Be encouraged, and be an encourager.

And Lord willing, we’ll be right back here with you on Monday. Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.