What the Hell is a Pastor?

In which Ethan and Jo talk about running for office, what they would change about their churches (which they love!) if they could, and what keeps them hopeful in this season of doubt and distress in the United Methodist Church. 

In which Jo and Ethan talk about paperwork and translating their thoughts into the language that Boomers understand, with a guest appearance by Ethel at the end. 

A special mini-sode in which Ethan and Jo dig into the incarnation, biblical interpretation, David Bentley Hart, and how the internet impacts our ministry. 

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to grab a drink with our hosts, this conversation is almost nearly it. Ethan and Jo get a running start by talking about how we interact with our siblings in Christ in different international contexts, which somehow morphs into a discussion about movies and postmodernism, and we promise, we cut out a solid 30 minutes of pastoral phone calls and surpris...

After an extended season of dealing with conflict in their individual churches, Jo and Ethan get together to talk about the types of conflict they struggle with, their experience as younger people dealing with older churches in conflict, how they manage conflict, and what keeps them in the faith with all these frustrations swirling around them. 

In which Ethan and Jo talk about paid time off, taking care of ourselves while dealing with heavy emotions, why theology matters, and why if you're an older Methodist, you're probably a Boston Personalist without evening knowing it. 

In which Ethan and Jo have a long wide-ranging conversation that covers pastoral health, district gatherings and paperwork, hospital visits, google maps, library cards, trinitarian ontology, and many hypotheses about why we struggle so hard with evangelicalism, among other things. There are jokes in it too, we promise. 

In this episode, Ethan and Jo discuss flirting with universal salvation, God's justice, and why hell is maybeprobablykinda a thing. You know, the things you expect pastors to talk about. 

After an extended introduction about what a day Ethan has had, Ethan and Jo talk about the pastor as caretaker while also discussing the challenges of maintaining some semblance of mental health while wrestling with the ordination process in a denomination that's struggling to understand itself. No bats were harmed in the recording of this episode. 

Jo and Ethan sit down to talk about "improvements" to their doors and security system and investigate the importance of the church building to those who have worshipped there for decades. 

This week, Jo and Ethan talk about the challenges of congregational ministry when it appears to conflict with important relationships in their lives. Don't worry, boundaries are discussed.  Ethan name-drops God, Sexuality, and the Self by Sarah Coakley . Check it out for a theological exploration of how our sexual relationships can inform our understanding of and interaction with God. 

In this inaugural episode, Jo and Ethan talk about their weeks, about their typical and not-so-typical duties as pastors, and dig into the pastors they've had and how pastoral interactions in the past shaped their ministry today.