Doable Discipleship

What does it look like to love the Bible? The Bible – 66 books filled with chapters and verses, stories and histories, written by a number of different authors over a period around 1,500 years – this book is the foundation of the Christian faith. The Bible is read in churches around the world every weekend, is read daily by millions of believers, and can even be found in many a hotel drawer. But w...

It's almost Christmas Day 2023 and for this final episode of the year host Jason Wieland offers a short Christmas prayer for the Doable Discipleship listeners. Doable Discipleship will be off for two weeks and will return with new episodes on January 9. Doable Discipleship is a Saddleback Church podcast produced and hosted by the Saddleback Spiritual Growth Team. It premiered in 2017 and now offer...

In today's episode host Jason Wieland, Content Development Pastor at Saddleback Church, talks about his favorite book of 2023. It's called On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden & Gift of Living by Alan Noble. This short, 104-page book is rich in its look at anxiety, depression, and other hardships of life. It doesn't sugarcoat the realities of suffering. For anybody who may not struggle with these...

When an athlete trains and practices in his or her sport, they are achieving multiple goals at the same time. They get stronger by lifting weights. They get more agile and increase endurance by running and doing sprints. They develop muscle memory by practicing their sport and certain moves over and over and over again. All of this is in pursuit of being ready for the competition – ready for game...

There’s been an interesting trend happening in Christian culture. It seems that Christians today are more open to and looking for a practice of rhythms and self-reflection than ever before. Society as a whole has become more accepting of self-reflection and inner-work, but we’ve especially seen this become a common theme in the church. I’m talking about rhythms of spiritual practices like the Pray...

One of the most talked about topics in society today is artificial intelligence. AI has been in a sprint season recently as we hear about advancements in language models like ChaptGPT and image generators like Dall-E. Many people have ideas of what AI could be from movies like The Terminator, Blade Runner – even the new Mission Impossible movie, but what is really happening in the AI space? And ho...

Have you ever felt that life is supposed to work a certain way? You feel that if you get your boxes checked then you should be able to walk through life "normally." What we quickly learn, though, is that life is often beyond our control. In this episode of Doable Discipleship, Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Lauren McAfee, author of the new book Beyond Our C...

What is it about singing that lends itself so well to worship? There are many ways to worship God, but singing is definitely the most commonly thought of aspect of worship. In today's episode, Saddleback Worship Pastor Josh Miller joins Saddleback Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland to talk about worship and the power of song. The conversation looks at what worship is, why singing is such a p...

Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by best-selling author and renowned Christian Apologist Lee Strobel to talk about the state of apologetics and Lee’s new book, Is God Real? Everyone wrestles with some of the biggest questions in life: If God is good, why do people suffer? Why does God seem so hidden? What does it matter if God exists? These questions are asked b...

Are the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.) just good personal quality or character traits that we would aspire to exemplify or something we can attain on our own efforts? Or are they more? Are they traits that are a result, a byproduct of living a Spirit-filled life, or put another way… walking by the Spirit? How am I living my life? Acts of the flesh or fruit of the Spirit? J...

The book of Psalms is perhaps one of the most read from and turned to places in the Bible – and for a good reason. It is a wonderful well of the human experience, capturing reality and giving voice to the emotional ebb and flow that comes with being alive while all the while pointing so beautifully back to God. In today’s episode, Saddleback Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland talks with Dr....

Description:  How do you view the Bible? Is it a book of rules? Is it a storybook, or history book? Do you feel guilty when you think about the Bible? We all approach the Bible with some type of thought or opinion. In today’s episode, host Jason Wieland asks Saddleback Church Teaching Pastor Buddy Owens “What are we getting wrong in how we approach the Bible?” The conversation talks about what it...

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the vast amount of Bibles to choose from, whether at a bookstore or on a Bible app? Why are there so many translations? Is one better than the others? Which one is right for me? These questions can be difficult to navigate, so today host Jason Wieland is joined by Tom Holladay, former Saddleback Church Teaching Pastor, to talk about all things related to Bible tra...

Description:  Saddleback Church is proud to release a new limited-series podcast called Rediscovering the Lost Art of Friendship. This podcast series is being produced alongside a sermon series and small group study, though the podcast series can be enjoyed on its own. This series seeks to respond to the epidemic of loneliness sweeping across the nation by looking at five biblically-based ways to...

Description:  Saddleback Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Bayside Church Teaching Pastor/Rapper Brannon Shortt. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most-used forms of communication in human history. We use stories to teach lessons to little kids (think Aesop’s fables or fairy tales) and we continue to learn from stories as adults (think of the great works of literature, film...

Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Dr. Carmen Joy Imes to discuss her new book, Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters . What does it mean to be human? This question is something that everybody wrestles with at different points of life. In this conversation, Jason and Dr. Imes discuss what being God’s image means; the connection between creation and voca...

Description:  Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Dr. Douglas Groothuis to talk about his new book, World Religions in Seven Sentences. The conversation discusses why Christians should learn about other world religions, and then looks a three religions or thoughts discussed in the book, Atheism, Judaism, and Islam. The episode also discusses the rise of “Apathy-...

Description:  Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Saddleback Spiritual Growth Pastors Brandon Bathauer and Linda Tokar for a Books of the Bible Draft. It’s the time of year when many people do their fantasy football drafts. Here on Doable Discipleship, we draft too – just in a different way. In 2022 we did a People of the Bible Draft and this year we set our sig...

Description:  Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Dr. Jim Papandrea, author of the book How Christianity Saved Civilization . . . And Must Do So Again. The conversation discusses different ways in which Christianity revolutionized the ancient world and how we should consider Christianity’s role in the modern world. Dr. Jim Papandrea is Professor of Church Histor...

Description: Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Dr. John Mark Reynolds to discuss the connection between ancient philosophy, reading the great books, and Christianity. They discusses why Christians should care about philosophy, what we mean when we say “The Western Canon” of literature, the power of work that lasts, and how people can get started learning more...

Description:  Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Jesus Revolution writer/director Jon Erwin to talk about the hit film. They discuss how Jon decides what stories he wants to tell through film, how he thinks about crafting experiences, what the success of Jesus Revolution tells us about culture and faith-based films, the opportunity we have to tell stories and t...

Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Saddleback Lake Forest Ministry Pastor Jacob Wilson to talk about what it means to be shaped by God. They discuss SHAPE as an acrostic, look more at the theology of shape and the difference between calling and shape, and have a broader conversation around what it means to do work in the kingdom of God.   Doable Discipleship is...

Description:  Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Saddleback Mission Pastor Julie Chung to answer the question, What Are We Getting Wrong About Work? Julie earned her doctoral degree from Fuller Seminary in the field of faith, work, economics, and vocation. This episode looks at work as seen in Genesis and work as seen through redemption culture. They talk about...

Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor is joined by Dr. Kutter Callaway to discuss theology and film. Movies have a powerful and interesting way of capturing our attention, our emotions, and our thought life. What does this say about us? And how does this relate to our relationship with God? This conversation looks to answer these questions along with talking about common religious themes an...

Saddleback Church Content Development Pastor Jason Wieland is joined by Saddleback Spiritual Growth Pastor Linda Tokar to talk about what the Bible says about work. They discuss 7 key points that the Bible makes about work, including that God works and God assigns us work. The conversation spends time on how it doesn’t matter what your line of work is, there is no hierarchy of work. God is able to...