Shifting Culture

In this episode, Grace Hamman and I get into a really great conversation around the medieval period and how Jesus was viewed. It’s amazing to me how illuminating it is to read thinkers of the past and how it shapes my perspective in ways that are unexpected and helps me encounter Jesus in new ways. We talk about people like Thomas Aquinas and Julian of Norwich and we look at Jesus as a Knight, as...

In this episode, Justin Davis and I have a great conversation. Justin shares his story of brokenness, pain, infidelity, and addiction and walks us through the importance of being real, being vulnerable, and being honest with God, so that true repentance and transformation can take place. I know you are going to get a lot of this one. So join us as we take off the masks we’ve been hiding behind, ge...

In this episode, Denise Gitsham and I talk about her latest book Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How to Engage Without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Soul. We talk about being ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, discernment of the Holy Spirit, unity, not uniformity, among believers., loving your enemy, engaging in dialogue, asking questions, having empathy. It’s an important conversatio...

In this episode, Steve Bouma-Prediger and I have a great discussion on creation, earthkeeping, and our role in caring for the earth as disciples of Jesus. Since the Bible starts and ends with rivers and trees, our first mandate is to care for the earth, and our vision of the future includes the earth we are now living on, we have a role and responsibility in the way we keep the earth, care for it,...

In this episode, Naghmeh Panahi shares her story with us. A story that is necessary to hear, although it is difficult. Abuse by pastors, church leaders. Backlash from the Christian community. Naghmeh shares how she was able to hold on to Christ, recover her identity as a child of God, lead a house church movement, and see Muslims from around the world have dreams and visions of Jesus, start to fol...

In this episode, Skye Jethani and I have a fantastic conversation around what we get wrong about heaven. Spoiler alert – almost everything! How can we center Jesus in our faith and not heaven? Why is the gospel more than just going to heaven when you die? How can we taste heaven here and now? How can we be people where heaven and earth overlap? What is the new heavens and new earth? Will the earth...

In this episode, Amber C. Haines, Seth Haines and I talk about their latest book The Deep Down Things, which details the story of Amber’s abuse in the church and her decision to step away. In the despair of loss, confusion, and disillusionment, a lifeline of hope was given. Seth and Amber give us practices and examples of what it looks like to find hope in the times of despair. We talk about calli...

Jared Boyd talks about finding freedom in the constraint of spiritual disciplines and a communal rule of life. Our leadership and mission can only go as far as our formation, so how do we engage in practices together in ways that help us look more like Jesus? At the core of our conversation is a desire to encounter the love of God through the presence of God. Join us as we seek to find practices i...

In this episode, Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly join us to talk about their book Metanoia: How God Radically Transforms, People, Churches, and Organizations from the Inside Out. We have a great conversation on repentance, movements, organizational change, unlearning, relearning, vision, future thinking, and more. This metanoia process that they take us through is really important. How do we have our mi...

In this episode, Scot McKnight talks about one of his new books – Pivot. This book is a follow up to A Church Called Tov which really hit a nerve when it debuted. In that book they wrote about toxic church culture and contrast it to tov culture, or goodness culture. Pivot is the book of implementation. What are the steps to get to a tov church? What are the things that we need to implement? We tal...

In this episode, Jason VanRuler and I have a great conversation about our past wounds and struggles and how we can heal from them, so that we can be healthy and whole. We can find Christ in the dark places of our lives as he enters into the suffering with us and he will be there to lead us to the next step. We talk about the necessity of acknowledging where we are at, being honest with ourselves a...

In this episode, JR Woodward gives examples of mimetic rivalry, true humility, emptying ourselves, and how to follow the scandalous way of Christ. He goes deep into the book of Philippians and the story of Oscar Romero to help ground us in the reality of how the powers and principalities play a part in creating scandals of leadership and how imitating Christ helps us lead in the way of the Kingdom...

In this episode, JR Woodward and I get into how the powers and principalities shape our leadership, what we can learn from the temptations of Jesus, how our desires produce our identity, and how we are all captive to imitation. Join us for part one of this two part conversation as we pursue imitating Christ because To not imitate Christ is to imitate the Devil and to experience all of the crazines...

In this episode, Mark Yarhouse and I have a great conversation around talking to our kids about gender identity. We get into areas like what is gender, what is gender dysphoria, how language has expanded definitions of how we see ourselves, how we can be cultural ambassadors of the Kingdom of God in our conversations about gender and how we can act with convicted civility seasoned with compassion....

In this episode, Michael Frost and I have a great conversation around his book Mission is the Shape of Water . We hear how mission has taken different shapes throughout the centuries, but the principles of mission remain the same. We hear stories about The missionaries of the first few centuries after Christ, Boniface and the Celtic movement, Zinzindorf and the Moravians, Mary Slessor, and Alice S...

In this episode, Shauna Pilgreen and I have a conversation around topics and themes from her latest book Translating Jesus. We talk about how to be translators and speak of Jesus in a way that culture can understand. We talk about being curious, paying attention, and being intentional to listen to the Holy Spirit and the person in front of us. She talks about three different spaces where we can en...

Andy joins us for the third time! The first two conversations were great and you can go back and listen to those after you listen to this one. Andrew Root and I have a great discussion around his new book The Church in  an Age of Secular Mysticisms . Because we live with an utter buffet of spiritualities and we have our choice of what we use to transform us and because we live in the age of the se...

In this episode, Andrew Whitehead and I have a conversation around Christian Nationalism. What is it? What is not not? As we deal with the idols of power, of fear, and of violence, we can root out self interest and the temptation to make it all about one group over the other. Then we can deal with these issues and disciple others to a better way: A way that looks like Jesus, that lifts up the marg...

In this episode, Kayla Craig talks about what it looks like to parent in the mess. How we are to be rooted and grounded in Jesus through the sacred rhythms of our life and the seasons God has given us. How we can implement breath prayers and the examen, how we can bring community along with us to shepherd our families well. And How we can start to order our families and lives that point to values...

In this episode, Kaitlyn Schiess and I talk about the history of how we used the Bible in America and our politics, how we can faithfully serve God and our community, how we can work for the flourishing of our local communities, how we can see the whole redemptive story of scripture and apply that to our lives and politics, and how we can navigate contentious political seasons coming up. Join us a...

In this episode, Father James Martin and I have a great conversation around the story of Lazarus and the implications of it for our life. We talk through disappointments, how Jesus weeps with us through our sorrows, brings new life, and invites us into a participatory life of helping free other people. Join us as we navigate waiting for God to act as we remember what God has done for us in the pas...

In this episode, Josh Larsen and I have a great conversation that covers many different horror genres including prophetic horror, zombie films, creature features, slashers, found-footage, and psychological horror. We talk about how each genre provokes certain fears in us like the loss of our humanity, the lack of control, nature run amok, anxieties unmet, and the brokenness of society. We then see...

Karen Swallow Prior and I have a fantastic conversation around evangelical culture and true Christian faith. We dig into the history of Evangelical faith, what myths, stories, and narratives have contributed to the underlying assumptions we have on how the world works, and we talk through how to be faithful to Jesus in the midst of unexamined culture. Join us as we start to unveil the underlying n...

Karen  Wright Marsh and I have a wonderful discussion about our invitation to wonder and amazement. Through looking at the specific lives of those who have come before us, we can find practices that will shape the way we see the world and interact with God. Through beauty, art, singing, poetry, walking, cooking, writing, and more, we can start to pay attention to God at work and become people that...

In this episode, Todd Hunter talks about the aims of Jesus and how getting back to His purposes can help us through bad religion. We talk about living in the Kingdom of God, how we receive it and how we are sent to be His witnesses, and many other facets of the Kingdom. We talk about spiritual practices, so that we can do good works when moments present themselves. We talk about the gospel – what...