Ministry Deep Dive

Travis & Tremper welcomes Tremper Longman III back! They talk about the Old Testament Scriptures, the psalms, and how they nourish our souls by speaking to the entirety of the human condition. We need them to show us how to speak to God about the stuff that we are dealing with every day. They discuss C.S. Lewis, Dan Allender & Tremper's book: "God Loves Sex," suffering, Jesus' coming,...

Travis welcomes Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman III to the show! Dr. Tremper Longman III graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, earned a Master of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary, and completed a doctorate in ancient Near Eastern studies at Yale University. He served as the Robert H. Gundry professor of biblical studies at Westmont from 1998 until he retired in 2017. He cont...

How do you share your faith with other people? It is not just a presentation as is often caricatured. While there is a presentation aspect to it, there is much more. It involves sharing your life and allowing people in. In our world of busyness, we need to take time and rethink what it means to be hospitable. What does it mean to truly invite people into our apartments or homes and allow them to s...

Travis welcomes Ruth Ripken to the show! On the mission field, we often hear reports of what God is doing, but often we don't hear about what it's like for the families. Ruth draws back the curtain on what mission in a foreign world is like for families, enabling us to see the mission of God more holistically. Additionally, Ruth gives us a glimpse behind the veil at the women in a society where ro...

Travis is joined by special guest musician, author, farmer, and Bible teacher, Michael Card. Travis and Michael discuss the voices of the Gospels. Why did God give us four gospels when one would have been sufficient? They discuss Michael's career, his upbringing, influences, passions, tractors, racial reconciliation, the music industry, being bearded/balding, and the details in the Gospels that br...

Travis welcomes Jay Y. Kim to the show. Jay serves as lead pastor of teaching at WestGate Church in the Silicon Valley of CA and teacher-in-residence at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, CA. He’s also on the leadership team at The ReGeneration Project , where he co-hosts The ReGeneration Podcast . Some of his written work has been featured in Christianity Today , The Gospel Coalition, Relevant ,...

Travis welcomes Sam Allberry to the show! Sam is a pastor, apologist, author, and speaker. He is the author of a number of books, including Is God Anti-Gay?, Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?, and 7 Myths about Singleness. He has served on staff at RZIM, has been a frequent contributor to the Gospel Coalition, and now serves on staff at Immanuel Nashville. Travis & Sam discuss the difference...

Travis Michael Fleming and Timothy Tennent engage in a profound dialogue centered on the pressing need for a robust understanding of the human body within the framework of authentic Christianity. Tennent articulates that the contemporary culture is in desperate need of a Christianity that is genuinely transformative, as superficial expressions of faith fail to resonate with a society seeking depth...

Travis welcomes Tom Mercer to the show for their second conversation. Tom has been a pastor and leader for over 40 years. Travis & Tom continue discussing the Oikos principle. So many churches have bottlenecks that prevent them from doing what they say they are trying to do and that is reaching people. Getting people in the door to the church is one thing but introducing people to Jesus and he...

Travis welcomes Tom Mercer to the show! Tom has been a pastor and leader for over 40 years serving most of that time at High Desert Church in Victorville, California. They discuss Nate Bargatze, Victorville, growing up in a pastor's home, and the Oikos principle. The Oikos Principle-a simple approach to rethink how we share and live out our faith. It's simple when we think about it. What's the num...

Travis & Nancy Pearcey (America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual) continue their discussion on embracing God's design for the body, defending the faith by drawing attention to inconsistencies in worldviews, stories of life change of those who have embraced God's design, the importance of language and much more. At the center of their discussion is Nancy's insightful and...

Travis welcomes Nancy Pearcey to the show! In this first part of their conversation, they discuss our view of the body and how it affects us: sexual identity, splits in reality, self, and the search for meaning, especially on how it revolves around our understanding of our bodies and the necessity of having a proper understanding of it. At the center of the conversation is Nancy's book, "Love Thy...

Travis welcomes Dr. Michael S. Heiser to AW! Not only is Mike a world-class scholar, but he enables us to see the naked Bible in its context—even the hard stuff that has left us scratching our heads saying, “What?” He pulls back the curtain on tough passages, often revealing connections we didn’t know were there. Not only that, Mike is not afraid of shedding biblical light on the unseen realm—a pl...

Travis and Kevin discuss Acts 8:1-2 and Acts 9:1-2 and what it means to be a follower of the Way. Do we believe that we really need God because our physical needs are being met? What does it mean to be a Christ-follower in the world that you live in? In the United States, for example, the expression of our faith may look different depending upon where we live: in the uber spiritual LA area, and th...

Travis and James Choung discuss revival (in Word, deed, and power), the need and our pursuit of it, returning to our first love, truncated Gospel understandings, multi-ethnic church, the fading idea of relevance, and how our mindset should transition from ministering to the culture to ministering to the remnant. They discuss evangelism in a society that is increasingly post-Christian and who is eq...

Travis has a deep conversation with James Choung on our need and desire for revival. Revival has had a lot of misunderstandings grow up around it over the years. Choung and his writing mate, Ryan Pfeiffer, have sought to restore the concept of revival by defining it and providing a way forward on how we can position ourselves so that true revival can happen. Very few people are talking about true,...

What have we been up to? Not much. Just moving across states, finding and adjusting to new schools, missing church, dealing with biblical plagues, and getting covid :-) Despite the setbacks, we go back to Scripture and pick up our study of Acts. If you want to understand a person, you need to know where they have come from and if you understand where they come from, their story goes from black and...

Travis has a conversation with well-known scholar Philip Jenkins. Jenkins is an award-winning author and scholar. Travis & Philip discuss Dr. Jenkins's book, Fertility and Faith , and how secularization may affect the institutional practice of religion worldwide. Dr. Philip Jenkins has a doctorate from Cambridge in history, and taught at Penn State University and Baylor University's Institute...

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There are people ready to come to faith, but there aren't people who are willing to open up their homes, be vulnerable, and live an authentic life of faith in front of them. Are you? Travis and Nik delve into ministering in our modern culture are not often as hard as we make it. It is rather simple but requires a certain degree of time and vulnera...

Travis & Nik continue their conversation with the persecuted church and our contemporary witness in the West. Nik shows us that it's at the point of witness that we identify with the persecuted or the persecutor. If we witness, we may well be persecuted, if we do not witness, we may never suffer. They also discuss modern western Christians' lack of desire to send children to the mission field,...

Is the blood of the martyrs really the seed of the church? Join Travis and special guest Nik Ripken as they talk about all things Kentucky, family, the persecuted church, and Nik's book, The Insanity of Obedience . Growing up in Kentucky, obeying Christ's call to go to the nations, Nik & Ruth Ripken went to Malawi, South Africa, and Kenya. Sensing God's call to work among the Somalians, they d...

Join Travis as he talks with Mike Goheen and how the Gospel needs to be lived out in the West that is infected with a consumer worldview. Travis and Mike discuss the Bible as the true story of the whole world and how we are invited into that story and how we can live that story out in our specific worlds. They talk about Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), whom many consider having been a modern-day pro...

Ever wondered why people in the U.S. once they hear you are a follower of Jesus simply tune you out? Or if you talk about Jesus, they say, "Been there. Done that." Why is it that people in majority world cultures are responding so differently to the Gospel? Can anything be done about it? Join Travis as he talks with Mike Goheen. Mike is a missiologist-a person who studies to see how the mission of...

What is happening with Apollos Watered?! Some incredible stuff that can help you water your world! Who do you want to hear from? What do you want us to talk about? What is a resource that can help in your walk with God? And is there a way to get some of those resources at a discounted price? Yes! Travis & Kevin, the original tag team duo crazy enough to do this thing, sit down to discuss all t...

Join Travis for the second part of his Deep Conversation with Audrey Frank. Travis and Audrey discuss shame and the shame bearers in Muslim society...women. What does that mean? What does it mean to the women of Afghanistan in light of recent events? What does our modern cancel culture have to do with ancient concepts of shame? Everything! Listen in and discover shame, shame bearers, and the One w...