Soil and Roots

Episode 145 continues the story of where Soil & Roots is heading—and why the next chapter is centered on Greenhouses. Brian is joined by spiritual director Rhonda Jenkins and pastor, coach, and trainer David Smith, two advisors helping shape the future of the Soil & Roots deep discipleship journey. Rhonda and David share how performance-based Christianity, institutional ministry, suffering, and en...

In this bonus episode, Brian steps away from the usual Season 7 format to share the personal story behind Soil & Roots. Episode 144 traces the last five years: betrayal, loss, the dark night of the soul, chronic Lyme disease, financial uncertainty, and the slow emergence of a deeper calling. Brian shares how Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, A.W. Tozer, C.S. Lewis, the Critical Journey, and the lang...

What do we do when we find ourselves doubting God’s goodness? In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 142 by exploring one of the most difficult tensions in deep discipleship: how to affirm God’s goodness while honestly grieving the pain, injustice, and suffering of the world. Doc brings his own struggle into the conversation, naming the friction between ex...

Is God good, and do our hearts actually experience Him that way? In Episode 142, Brian continues Season 7, The Good Life, by exploring one of the most powerful hidden ideas many followers of Jesus carry: the suspicion that God may not actually be good. We may consciously affirm God’s goodness, love, mercy, and faithfulness, yet our lived experience can tell another story. Drawing from the Soil & R...

What if your view of God shapes everything? In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 140 on what God is really like and why our deepest ideas of God matter so much. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people who are increasingly attuned to God, others, themselves, and the world. The conversation begins with Richard Fost...

What is God really like? In Episode 140, Brian returns to one of the founding questions of Soil & Roots: what do we actually believe God is like? Not merely what do we say in our creeds, statements of faith, or Bible studies — but what do our hearts assume about Him? Drawing from A.W. Tozer’s claim that our real idea of God may be buried beneath “conventional religious notions,” this episode explo...

What if your hidden ideas about God shape your life more than your stated beliefs? In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 138 on ideas, beliefs, and the unconscious forces that shape our discipleship. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people who naturally and unconsciously think, act, relate, and lov...

What do you really believe about God? In Episode 138, Brian continues Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, by returning to one of the central ideas of Soil & Roots: our lives are not shaped primarily by what we say we believe, but by the ideas our hearts actually assume. Ideas are the unconscious assumptions, conclusions, and experienced realities in which our hearts are rooted. They sit beneath our beli...

Why do we resist the very love that could heal us? In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 136 on receiving God’s love, vulnerability, and the Good Life. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people increasingly formed by the love of God from the inside out. The conversation begins by revisiting the Good...

Why is receiving God’s love so hard? In Episode 136, Brian continues Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, by exploring one of the central questions of the journey into depth: if God is constantly inviting us into the Good Life, why do so few of us actually experience it? This episode suggests that the doorway into the with-God life is not more striving, better behavior, or additional information. It is v...