Shifting Culture

In this episode, I sit down with Jenny Marrs, author, adoptive mom, and co-host of HGTV’s Fixer to Fabulous , for a tender and deeply human conversation about grief, waiting, restoration, and the steady presence of God in the middle of it all. Jenny shares openly about a season of profound loss, the long and miraculous journey to bring her daughter home from the Congo, and the everyday choice to t...

In this episode, I talk with Diana Butler Bass about her new book A Beautiful Year and the deeper story that sits beneath our experience of time. We explore how the Roman calendar still shapes us with the imagination of empire - militarism, consumerism, and control - and how the Christian calendar offers a counter-formation rooted in love, hope, peace, and a circular sense of time that keeps drawi...

In this conversation, I talk with Justin Giboney, cofounder of the AND Campaign and author of Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around, about how we can follow Jesus faithfully in the midst of the culture war. Justin shares how the civil rights generation embodied both conviction and compassion, and what it looks like to recover that kind of moral imagination today. We talk about seeing the sin in ourselv...

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Chris Hoklotubbe and Dr. Danny Zacharias about their book Reading the Bible on Turtle Island and how Indigenous wisdom invites us to see Scripture through a different lens. We explore how the Bible, written by tribal people deeply connected to land and kinship, calls us back into right relationship with Creator, creation, and one another. Chris and Danny share stor...

Glen Henry, the creator of Beleaf in Fatherhood, shares his story of how resistance turned into calling - how learning to father himself helped him become the father his children needed. We talk about the inherited baggage we carry, the control we try to hold, and the grace that grows when we choose presence over perfection. Glen opens up about fatherhood as a form of cultural resistance, the powe...

Kat Armas joins Shifting Culture to talk about her new book, Liturgies for Resisting Empire , a powerful exploration of how empire shapes the way we think about God, community, time, and ourselves. She names the ways control, hierarchy, and productivity have distorted our faith and imaginations, and invites us into practices of resistance rooted in love, rest, and belonging. Kat offers a vision of...

Pastor and author Mark Batterson joins me to talk about his new book Gradually, Then Suddenly, a powerful invitation to dream God-sized dreams, start small, and stay faithful long enough to see legacy take root. We explore what it means to move from imagination to action, how to live with long vision and long obedience, and why true success often looks like quiet persistence over time. Mark shares...

Sara Billups returns to Shifting Culture to talk about her new book Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics. Together we explore the anxiety running through our lives, our churches, and our culture and what it means to find peace that’s deeper than control. Sara shares how Ignatian spirituality and the practice of “holy indifference” can help us...

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser joins me to talk about his new book Insane for the Light , the final part of his spiritual trilogy that began with The Holy Longing and Sacred Fire . Together, we explore what it means to live faithfully through every stage of life from getting our lives together, to giving them away, to finally giving our deaths away. Fr. Rolheiser shares profound insights on the difference b...

In this episode, Carmen Imes joins me to explore her new book Becoming God’s Family: Why Church Still Matters. We look at why the church, despite its failures, divisions, and imperfections, remains central to the way of Jesus. Carmen traces the story of God’s people from Abraham and Sinai to the early church, revealing how God has always chosen to work through community. She offers a compelling vi...

Andrew DeCort joins me to explore what it means to love our neighbor — not as a vague ideal, but as a radical way of living that can heal our divisions and reshape our world. Drawing from his own story in Ethiopia and his new book Reviving the Golden Rule , Andrew shares how the practice of neighbor love dismantles fear, ends cycles of othering, and calls us into a deeper belonging rooted in the v...

What happens when “biblical parenting” becomes more about control than compassion? In this episode, I talk with Kelsey McGinnis and Marissa Burt, authors of The Myth of Good Christian Parenting , about the rise of evangelical parenting culture, from James Dobson and Bill Gothard to today’s influencer economy, and how these ideas have shaped generations of families. Together, we explore how fear an...

What if God really looks like Jesus? Not partly loving and partly wrathful, but fully revealed in the crucified Christ. In this conversation, Greg Boyd helps us reimagine everything - our picture of God, how we read Scripture, and how we live in the world. We talk about what it means to see the cross as the center of revelation, how to wrestle with violence in the Bible, and how the way of Jesus i...

Phil Sokell-Miles has spent nearly two decades helping students encounter God in the most ordinary of places - schools. As part of the 24-7 Prayer movement, he helped pioneer Prayer Spaces in Schools , a global initiative inviting children and young people of all faiths and none to explore prayer, reflection, and life’s big questions in safe and creative ways. In this episode, we talk about how th...

We live in what Heath Hardesty calls the age of disintegration - a world marked by fragmentation, distraction, and disconnection. I feel that deeply. So many of us are trying to hold our lives together in a culture that constantly pulls us apart. In this conversation, Heath joins me to talk about how apprenticeship to Jesus offers another way - a way toward coherence, union, and wholeness. Heath i...

Justin McRoberts weaves together art, prayer, and spiritual direction to help others find their way through seasons of loss, disappointment, and hope. In this conversation, Justin shares how letting go of outcomes opens us to God’s presence, why beauty is often discovered in the low places of life, and what it means to companion one another with compassion instead of control. We talk about depress...

In this episode, I sit down with author and poet Kaitlin Curtice to explore the ways stories shape our lives and communities. Drawing from her new book Everything Is a Story , Kaitlin reflects on the narratives that formed her growing up, the Indigenous wisdom that grounds her, and the liminal spaces where transformation takes place. We talk about cyclical and linear storytelling, the role of art...

What causes leaders to lose their way? It’s rarely one catastrophic decision, it’s usually the slow drift of small compromises, unaddressed habits, and unchecked desires. In this episode, Peter Greer talks about the hidden currents that pull leaders off course. We explore the dangers of personal and mission drift, the importance of confession and accountability, the tension between culture and str...

Sharon Hodde Miller returns to Shifting Culture to talk about her new devotional, Gazing at God . Building on her earlier work in Free of Me , Sharon explores how the lies of insecurity and comparison keep us trapped in self-preoccupation and how the way of Jesus frees us to lift our eyes toward God and others. Together we talk about why self-esteem culture falls short, how worship reorients us wh...

Nijay Gupta is back on Shifting Culture to share about his new book with A.J. Swoboda, Slow Theology . Together we talk about what it means to follow Jesus at a different pace - resisting the constant pressure to react, hurry, and perform, and instead cultivating practices that lead to depth and resilience. In this episode, we explore the role of lament, the necessity of community, and how theolog...

What do we do when it feels like God isn’t on our side? In this episode of Shifting Culture , I talk with Joshua Ryan Butler about his new book God Is On Your Side and the ways he’s wrestled with that very question through seasons of heartbreak, illness, and despair. Josh takes us into the Gospel of John, where one-on-one encounters with Jesus become mirrors for our own stories - the paralyzed man...

Joash P. Thomas joins me to talk about the justice of Jesus and what it means for the gospel to truly be good news for the poor and the oppressed. We trace Joash’s journey from growing up in Mumbai to working in U.S. politics, and then to encountering Jesus on the margins. Along the way, we explore how colonialism has shaped both the Global South and the Western church, why decolonizing our own as...

In this episode, I want to take a moment to step aside from the interviews and speak directly to you. Shifting Culture has always been about telling better stories - stories that help us live more faithfully and compassionately in a world that’s so often divided by fear. But to keep these conversations going, I need your help. My wife and I spend our lives training and coaching disciple makers and...

In this episode, I sit down with actor, author, and speaker Edwina Findley Dickerson to talk about her new book, The World Is Waiting for You . Edwina shares her journey of listening for God’s voice, navigating seasons of waiting, and discovering a deeper purpose beyond achievement. Together, we explore the tension between intentional planning and radical surrender, how to overcome fear and step i...

In this episode I sit down with Andrew and Kara Root to talk about their new book, A Pilgrimage Into Letting Go . Written out of their journey walking St. Cuthbert’s Way with their children, the book reflects on parenting, pastoring, and the hard but necessary work of releasing control. Together we explore why modern life pushes us to manage every detail, how uncontrollability can actually be a gi...