Looking Over Life

Shawn and James wrestle with the difference between needs and wants—Black Friday and Christmas aren't helping here. We ask for your input. How do you define these terms in practical ways? What are your applications or values? Did James make the right choice to buy that home wifi thingy? Send us an email. Email: lookingoverlife@gmail.com Website: lookingoverlife.com Patreon: patreon.com/lookin...

James and Shawn welcome Christopher Slabaugh to the podcast. The subject was ostensibly to talk about history, which we did! But we may have taken a few different bunny trails along the way, such as discussing how best to prepare for the apocalypse. Do you like history? What is your favorite time period? If you had to leave this time period for another, which would you choose? Let us know by sendi...

Shawn and James discuss the idea of living churches, comparing to the church of Sardis found in the Book of Revelation. Of course, James had to make a science lesson out of it! So, we drew parallels between the definition of physical life that biologists use and the definition of spiritual life that the Bible uses. We wrapped it up with an answer from Shawn: You—on your own!—can infuse life into y...

James and Shawn do a bit of crossover work by bringing some of their FWIW content to the LOL podcast. We look at the fourth habit "Think Win/Win" from Stephen Covey's popular 7 Habits book, giving everyone a peek at what we talk about in the FWIW podcast for our Patrons. What is your relationship paradigm? How can you make your interactions at work, at church, at home Win/Win scenarios? Is that ev...

Shawn and James talk about Cal Newport's method for organizing life using four buckets. You all know that James is a fan of Cal Newport's, so it is no surprise that James schools Shawn on this method for thinking about life and self-improvement.  We discuss Cal's classic four of Craft, Community, Contemplation, and Constitution as well as some ideas of our own. It's a simple way of looki...

James and Shawn talk about gratefulness and how to instill the value into our children. We talk some about the book by Kristen Welch, Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World, but we mostly just share our thoughts and experiences on what we've learned or are learning about gratefulness. We're certainly grateful for our listeners and your feedback. Please send us an email with ideas for James's s...

Shawn and James talk about the glorious James Webb telescope! Well, we mostly talk about the pictures that James Webb has been sending back. James—our James—has been very excited to talk about these photos. Shawn mostly stays quiet with his mouth hanging agape, but we do try describe our visual experience in this audio medium. Check out the links below to get a look at what we were enjoying. Do yo...

James and Shawn welcome guest Naoma Lee to talk with them about life as a single.  It was a fun conversation going over the difficulties and the perks of being a single person. Naoma gave us some tips for how married folks can related to their single friends, and she even gave some suggestions for messages preachers should and should not preach! Let us know what you think of the conversation....

Shawn and James beg for listener support before talking about why we find it so difficult to change. We discuss the idea of whether or not we are naturally good or if there is actually need to change, and if so, how we go about changing ourselves. There's a good bit of philosophical talk, but we try to give some practical tips that you can put to practice on yourself. How do you find self-work or...

James and Shawn talk about writing... on a podcast. Is that weird? James tried correcting Shawn about the butterfly effect, but Shawn rose to the challenge and proved he knows things! We both enjoy writing and writing-adjacent things, so it was fun to have a conversation about the topic. We discussed why we write and why we think we need more contemporary writers. We went over some of our techniqu...

James and Shawn are back again, this time to talk about having babies! As James mentions in the episode, we know this can be a tricky topic to navigate, but we hope you find the conversation interesting. We're sure that you may hold different views than we do, so we'd be glad to hear from you. Send us an email with any feedback or critiques.  In this episode, we look a bit at the Quiverfull m...

Shawn and James welcome another James to the podcast. James Shank joins us to talk about fasting—at last! We look at an old email from a listener and talk together about what fasting is or should be. We also discuss some of our own experiences with fasting and what we have learned along the way. Thank you for your patience with us while we took a bit of a break. We're trying to gear back up and ge...

James and Shawn go on a bit of a ramble. We talk about the scale of everything and what orders of magnitude are before giving an update of our yearly themes. Shawn "lost" his phone, but a chivalrous lady in a corn field gave it back to him—it's a wild story. We then give everyone a heads up on our schedule over the next several months so that you can know what to expect. If you don't want to miss...

Shawn and James talk about how institutions can get in the way of the gospel of Jesus. We discuss how all the trappings of the church as an institution can actually hinder the gospel and keep people away from coming to Jesus. How different are modern church institutions from the Pharisees Jesus condemned? Why is the church on the decline? Why is religion dying in the west? If you have any answers...

James and Shawn go over their yearly themes. We first look back at how we did with our themes from 2021 before discussing our new themes and goals for the year ahead. If you have a yearly theme, please let us know what you'll be doing. We would love to hear from you and gain some more inspiration. Yearly Planning – Ink+Volt (inkandvolt.com) Weekly Marriage Check-in The Three Big Questions for a Fr...

James and Shawn talk about feeling middle-aged. The conversation covers the excitement over a new stove range to grumpiness over the way Gen-Z disregards punctuation and the meanings of words. It's been a hot minute since we've been able to talk, and we literally knocked our heads against the wall until we were through. We also looked at an email question from listener Sonya about fasting. We'll b...

Shawn and James talk about why they have so many things to do. We discuss our thoughts on productivity and how that can lead to overwhelm. We also talk about feelings of overwhelm and how we deal with them. Stay for the end because we answer a listener's question on how older single people should view tithing. We'd like to hear your thoughts on that, so please let us know. If you have a question w...

James and Shawn talk with John R. Perfect about conspiracy theories.  What are they anyway? What makes them so prevalent or easy to swallow? We talked about whether or not a particular person may be more susceptible to believing conspiracy theories and what we can do to avoid falling into that trap ourselves. What do you think about conspiracy theories? Are there any particular ones in your c...

Shawn and James talk about friendship. This is an Episode Out of Time, meaning that it was recorded out the flow of episodes you've been listening to. When was it pulled together? When was it recorded? When was it edited? No one knows.... We start off the episode reviewing our Digital Declutter from earlier this year before moving into a discussion on what it means to be a friend and how to go abo...

Shawn and James talk about James's book and the trip it took to get there. We talk about long-distance biking and the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. James did that biking trail with a friend ― all 2,500 miles of it from Canada to Mexico! We also answer a listener email about tithing with our time instead of our money. We have another question coming up about how single people tithe differently...

James and Shawn welcome Andrew Crider back to the podcast. We discuss leadership. What is it? Who does it? Is it even necessary? These and many other questions are contemplated. We also do a lightning round of leadership qualities we think every leader ought to have. Which ones did we miss, or do you think there is one that is more critical than another? Please let us know! Website: lookingoverlif...

Sneak peek For What It's Worth episode! Shawn and James are glad to have Andrew Crider back on the podcast. This is actually the episode we recorded for our Patron-only podcast For What It's Worth, but we decided to let you all have access to it this time.  In this episode, we talk about what it means to be in the center of God's will—or if that is even a possibility. What do you think? Pleas...

James and Shawn talk about their Bible reading. We look at the various methods we've used over the years for reading the Bible and talk about why we choose to read it in the first place. We also discuss our favorite translations and formats, including reading-format versus study-format Bibles. How do you go about your Bible reading? Do you have a favorite translation? Let us know! Website: looking...

Shawn and James talk about money matters, specifically about giving. Why is it that churches often struggle to pay for the various programs of the church? What is tithing, and should we be giving a certain amount? We talk about giving in various seasons of life and how that could look. It is fascinating to do the math and see just how much a little giving grows when everyone contributes. We are ha...

James and Shawn talk about technological developments from the beginning of time up through the near future. In this episode, we go all over the place, looking at amazing technologies that range from the humble garden hoe to flying cars!  You may hear some background noise, but that's because we were able to record together, in-person for the first time. We were pretty excited for the opportu...