Ministry Minded: A Podcast by Step Up To Life

In this conversation, Dr. Nick Bank and Jared Kliewer—founder of Presence Ministries (www. Presence-Ministries.org)—explore the hidden emotional and spiritual cost of long-term ministry leadership, especially the quiet collapse that often goes unseen behind the pulpit. Jared shares his personal journey through COVID-era leadership strain, the loss of a co-pastor, anxiety on stage, and his eventual...

In this episode of Ministry Minded , Dr. Nick Bank and SUTL Executive Director Lincoln Murdoch are joined by Step Up To Life’s newest team member, Alex Daum, to talk about what actually makes a sermon effective. With over 40 years of preaching experience as a pastor, missionary, and church planter, Lincoln reflects on a lifetime of communicating God’s Word. Alex brings a decade of experience preac...

In this episode of Ministry Minded, hosts Nick Bank and Lincoln Murdoch (briefly, from bed post-surgery) introduce a major development within Step Up To Life: the appointment of Alex Daum as U.S. National Director of Youth Evangelism and Strategic Partnerships. Alex brings over a decade of frontline ministry experience with the Todd Becker Foundation—engaging public high schools, discipling gap-ye...

In this episode of Ministry-Minded , Nick and Lincoln reflect on a remarkable season of global ministry—spanning continents, cultures, and contexts—yet marked by a shared hunger for one thing: a clear, biblical gospel. Fresh off the Asia Summit in Bali, they recount powerful, firsthand stories of transformation—from unlikely leaders in hostile environments to pastors shaped through suffering and p...

In this episode, we sit down with several of our Step Up To Life champions from across Asia—pastors serving in Pakistan, Myanmar, India, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Japan. Through a series of honest, hope-filled conversations, they share how they continue to press forward in ministry amid persecution and ongoing financial challenges, while faithfully bringing the gospel into prisons,...

Modern psychology is often shaped by humanism and self-definition—frameworks that conflict with biblical anthropology. Many pastors sense that tension but feel unsure how to navigate it faithfully. In this episode of Ministry Minded , Lincoln Murdoch and Nick Bank are joined by licensed therapist Joe Slabaugh of CityCare Counseling (Omaha, NE) for an honest, theologically serious conversation abou...

What started as gathering of believers has become a living picture of what God can do when generations say yes together. In this episode, C.J. Greiner and Nick Failla share the story behind an unexpected church gathering that began drawing Gen Z—and quickly revealed a deeper calling neither of them saw coming. What they thought was a moment turned into a mandate: to shepherd a community where olde...

In this conversation, Jimmy George — Executive Director of Fresh Start for All Nations — opens up about the deeply personal journey behind his ministry. Before he ever helped others walk in freedom, he had to confront a “missing piece” in his own sanctification. Although he carried years of solid biblical training and pastoral experience, Jimmy realized that information alone wasn’t forming him in...

Step Up To Life Champions Tim and Bente share how God brought them together unexpectedly in Sweden and called them to partner in making Christ known through the Step Up To Life method. Together, they train others to share the Gospel clearly—leading people from belief about Jesus to true saving faith in Him. While Bente, a native of Norway, understood local customs, Tim’s humorous “Weekend Wings” g...

Taylor Foster wasn’t looking for God. A hard-charging, wild-living young man with Celtic warrior blood and a bullfighting streak, he chased everything the world offered—drinking, drugs, sex, adrenaline—but none of it filled the growing void inside. Raised around church but  unchanged by it, Taylor ran hard in the opposite direction… until God caught him. In this raw and redemptive episode, Taylor—...

Vaughn Perez , is the Student Ministry Director at CityLight Bennington Church in Nebraska. Vaughn wears many hats—he’s  an assistant high school boys basketball coach, a substitute P.E. teacher at Bennington High School, a volunteer with Fellowship of Christian Athletes , a Podcaster (Vaughn & Clay All Day) and a husband to Megan Perez , who serves on staff with CityLight Bennington in Financ...

Paul Tan joins Lincoln and Nick via Zoom to share his powerful journey from drug smuggler to evangelist. After a close brush with death in Singapore and a life driven by money, Paul encountered the Gospel and never looked back. He left a thriving business to start a halfway house that cared for up to 100 ex-offenders at a time and later stepped into full-time ministry. Now, as Step Up to Life’s As...

Bill Bowes (former Fire Chief of Papillion, Nebraska) talks with Linc and Nick about how Step Up To Life's founder (the later Elmer Murdoch) led him to saving-faith in Christ, his unexpected journey to Asbury College in the 70's, how even his training as a 'First Responder' wasn't enough to prepare him for the sudden loss of his wife,  how God had been subtly encouraging h...

Hip Hop artist Ryan Martinez of Bellevue Youth for Christ, and My Bridge Radio joins Linc and Nick to talk about how God got his attention through his future wife, how God persistently called him out of a self-focused spiritual improvement plan  into the true Gospel, and why he now uses Step Up To Life to reach students with the Gospel to help them pinpoint where they are in their own spiritual jo...

Adam Cabeen is Step Up To Life's Latin American National Director. He oversees, networks with, and helps coordinate our team of Spanish speaking SUTL Champions who take the Gospel into their local contexts throughout Latin America. These countries include Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and his own ministry locale of Columbia.  Adam and his wife Libia Maria have been...

Gary Koenig and Ray Dotzler join Lincoln and Nick to talk about how they were both brought in on the 'ground floor' for Step Up To Life roughly 30 years ago, how God surprised them in the ways He used their skills in marketing and the visual arts to reach people all over the world with the Gospel, and some of their most fond memories about our late founder Elmer Murdoch.  Support the sho...

On this episode Lincoln and Nick discuss Step Up To Life's global footprint and why this is a key aspect of the ministry biblically.  Having ministered in over 40+ countries, Lincoln recounts how he became inspired to minister cross-culturally, how God has surprised him and impacted him personally over the last 40 years ministering internationally and how even in our local contexts, internati...

Why is the word 'repentance' often vilified or treated like a 'four letter word' in Christian subculture? On this episode seasoned pastors Lincoln and Nick talk about the common misunderstandings about the biblical concept of repentance as 'works,' the unfortunate practice of accidentally presenting the Gospel as merely mentally ascribing to a certain set of facts abo...

Edward King III (AKA: 'Tank') of Youth for Christ joins Linc and Nick to talk about how God has brought him full circle from a high school kid who was so shy that he faked being asleep in school to avoid getting called on in class, to standing in the front of that same classroom telling kids how they can know Christ personally. Hear how God has woven youth into he and his wife's liv...

Most of us assume that we can't really impact the people around us or the organizations we belong to with the Gospel, but few of us actually try. On this episode of Ministry Minded Tim Bess shares how he found himself teaching a class on evangelism in his own church much to his own surprise, how he approached proposing it to his pastor, and the responses he received from a presentation he was...

Many or most of us start out disinterested or apathetic about our spiritual condition and Dr. Tim Janiszewski of Grace Central Omaha (www.graceomaha.com)  is no exception. On this episode of Ministry Minded Dr. J shares how he talked his parents into not making him 'waste his time' by going to church, how God got his attention anyway, and how he found himself on the unexpected path to vo...

We've all been tempted to overcorrect certain things in our lives. Instead of exercising self-control we might resort to a starvation diet for a season. Instead of planning ahead for the big test or presentation we might try to 'cram' just before the deadline. Humans like extremes and imbalance. We're prone to it. The same is true for sharing the Gospel. Unlike Jesus himself, w...

We might wonder what we would do if faced with the challenge to denounce Jesus or die. Pastor Kenneth Bamuleke doesn't have to wonder because he knows. On this episode of Ministry Minded you will get to hear Kenneth's incredible journey from leading a muslim mosque to helping plant over 17 churches in Uganda, Africa. Kenneth's miraculous conversion from muslim to missionary is one t...

Jason Hurt from 'Chariots 4 Hope' (www. Chariots4Hope.org) joins Lincoln and Nick in the studio to discuss what it was like trusting God after hurricane Sandy by moving with his wife Michelle and their kids from New York to Nebraska, founding a brand new ministry without a single supporter, and how Step Up To Life helps their team communicate the Gospel effectively in this unique ministr...

President of 'Christ for the City International' (www. CFCI.org) Dr. Chip Anderson joins Linc and Nick in the studio to discuss why CFCI partners with Step Up To Life, what problems it's solved in their ministry, how he went from 'Frat-boy' to 'Missionary,' and what he found out about ministering in Latin American through his Doctoral studies. Support the show ww...