Spiritual Life and Leadership

Why don't people go to church anymore?  There was a time when you could start a church and it would just grow.  Especially if it was a new community that people were moving into.  Not anymore.  People generally just don't go to church anymore. Why not?  What changed?  And what--if anything--can we do about it? In this episode, I discuss the reality of our situation and offer a thought ab...

In this episode, Ron Ovitt shares about something called Integrated Meditation.  Integrated Meditation is a process designed to help us get Scripture beyond the head and to the heart.  Through a process that fosters deep emotional healing and profound spiritual formation, Integrated Meditation helps us get scripture into our heart and our gut and our spirit. THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Ron...

Too often, we separate our work in sacred work and secular work.  Because of this, we forget that God is present even in our most mundane, ordinary, "unspiritual" kinds of work.  Shannon Vandewarker, author of Working in the Presence of God , helps us see that in the midst of our seemingly ordinary places of work, we can draw close to God.  THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Shannon...

Ted Gillgrist is a business leader and a committed follower of Jesus.  He's also one of my oldest friends!  In this episode, Ted shares some of the wisdom he’s learned about leadership over the past twenty-five years. THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Ted Gillgrist is Vice President of Southern Diversified Distributors and a proud graduate of Slippery Rock University! (Also, Markus’ alm...

This bonus Christmas episodes contains five great mini-episodes from five great podcasts (one of which is this one)! TRUCE Chris Staron draws a connection between the musical piece, Bolero , and the hope that the people of Israel felt as they longed for the Messiah. Find out more about the Truce podcast here: https://trucepodcast.com/ THE ROAD HOME TO YOU Brandy Goebell offers twelve really helpfu...

When I read Amy Sherman's book, Kingdom Calling , it felt like the lights turned on for me.  As I read, it became more and more clear that God wants to restore healing and wholeness in our world, not merely through spiritual vocations like pastors and missionaries, but through every vocation.  Every kind of work is a way by which we love our neighbors and bring shalom into the world. In this...

While we cover some delicate ground in this episode, Steve Austin’s story of surviving suicide is one of hope.  He doesn’t avoid the reality of what led him to attempt to take his life by suicide, but he also doesn’t hide the healing he has experienced in the years that followed.  Steve Austin offers a story of hope for all who are looking for healing and wholeness in their lives.  And he offers a...

In this episode, Esther Lightcap Meek and I talk about love as the starting point for truly knowing reality, what it means to experience communion with the real—and why this matters for the on-the-ground work that you and I are doing as leaders of God’s people.   THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE Esther Lightcap Meek is Professor of Philosophy at Geneva College and author of A Little Manual f...

In this episode, we speak with Dave Ebert, Director and Founder of Well-Versed Comedy, and also the host of the Gifts for Glory podcast.   There's something life-giving about comedy, isn't there?  Why is that?  Why, after we have a good belly laugh, do we feel like the world is better than it was before?  Dave Ebert discusses what makes comedy so life-giving when it comes to restoring sh...

Jim Mullins recently wrote The Symphony of Mission: Playing Your Part in God’s Work in the World , which focuses on the ways we have been called to participate in God's mission of restoring healing and wholeness in the world.  In today’s episode, Jim and I talk about the basic “notes” of God’s mission (going with the "symphony of mission" metaphor), which come from chapter 2 of Jim&...

We live in a highly polarized culture.  We are polarized in all kinds of ways—politically, racially, even theologically.  And it keeps getting worse.  Why?  Because we don’t talk to each other.  All we see on the other side are monsters.  Even though, as today’s guest Dan White Jr. says, those "monsters" are image-bearers of God. In this episode, I speak with Dan White, Jr., about what c...

In this episode, Aaron Klinefelter shares the story of how God called him out of that evangelical tradition into the Episcopal tradition. Aaron loves getting to belong to the Episcopal part of God’s family. But he’s noticed that there are some things he’s beginning to miss from his evangelical background. THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Aaron Klinefelter is the Associate Rector at Trinity Churc...

What happened to Solana Beach Presbyterian Church ?  Oh, it's still a big church, but it's half the size it was twenty years ago.  Some would say that Mike McClenahan, the Senior Pastor, failed in some way.  He must have done something wrong and that's why this church has declined so much. Maybe.  Or maybe it's just a reflection of what's going on everywhere in our culture...

I’ve discovered that therapy—good therapy—is something that everyone needs. Especially if you’re in leadership.  In this episode, I speak with Elaine Hamilton, founder of a therapy group in San Diego called the Soul Care House . Elaine helps to demystify therapy for us.  What is it?  Why is it important?  Why do leaders, especially, need good therapy? THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Elaine Hami...

There is no easy solution to homelessness and extreme poverty.  But some solutions are definitely better than others.  In this episode, Michelle LeBeau, Director of Church Partnerships at the San Diego Rescue Mission, shares why deep inner life transformation is so important for helping people escape poverty. THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Michelle LeBeau is the Director of Church Partnerships...

Can an atheist participate with God in the healing of the world? If one who doesn’t believe in God volunteers at the local homeless shelter, should Christians dismiss that? If an atheist adopts an abused child into a home of love and acceptance, a place where that child can heal from the wounds of their past, are we to dismiss that? Those are the kinds of questions that Kutter Callaway and I wrest...

In this episode, Trevor Lee discusses the importance of getting past the ministry model that just tries to get people through our discipleship programs. Instead, we need a model that values the uniqueness and inherent worth of each person.  We also talked a lot about suffering.  And we talked about the part suffering plays—ironically!—in the healing of the world. THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:...

In a broken and confusing world, it is realy hard to know the right thing to do.  In this episode, Lisa Slayton doesn’t come with a bunch of clear-cut answers, but she does raise the right questions. And I think she points in the right direction.  We need to become people of integrity, people who live lives of coherence. The Hebrew word for this is tamim. Lisa Slayton, the CEO of Tamim Partners ,...

In this episode Steve Cuss, the author of Managing   Leadership Anxiety discusses the way anxiety can affect, not only ourselves, but all those around us. We also talk about something called family systems theory , which has to do with recognizing and managing the anxiety in a system of relationships—be it a family, a church, a business, a baseball team, or school. THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUD...

In her book,  A Little Manual for Knowing , Esther Lightcap Meek says that in order to truly know something, we must welcome “the yet-to-be-known with respect, humility, patience, and attentiveness.” In this episode, Esther Lightcap Meek unpacks what she calls “covenant epistemology,” an approach to knowing that acknowledges the relationship between the knower and the known.  It’s an approach that...

We are called to participate with God in the healing of the world through our very work–as teachers, as mechanics, as doctors, as attorneys, as salespeople.  Our work brings the goodness of God into the world. But what about when we retire?  How can we participate with God in the healing of the world then?  Is it possible to live a full life in retirement in which we understand our post-work life...

If we want to keep growing in our faith we have to go deeper than merely reading a chapter of the Bible per day. That’s where lectio divina comes in. Lectio divina is a way of not merely getting information about God or about Jesus, but a way of truly experiencing Jesus. It’s a type of reading that involves silence and listening and receiving from Jesus his presence and his spirit. In this episode...

Understanding God's mission is critical. The world today is nothing like the world as it was fifty years ago. Because of this, a lot of churches are really struggling with how to be the church in the 21st century.  People used to go to church because, well, that’s just what you did. But not anymore. Today, even a lot of Christians don’t go to church—at least not the typical Sunday morning kin...

When I first read Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up , I was captivated almost immediately by a story the author, Kathy Khang , told about a situation in which a friend physically covered her mouth to keep her from asking a challenging question in a meeting. Kathy wrote, “I didn’t realize how powerful my voice could be until someone made sure I wouldn’t be heard.” In this epi...

What happens when a couple of Hawaiian fisherman hit King Kamehameha over the head with a canoe paddle so hard that the paddle breaks?  You get the Law of the Splintered Paddle. THIS EPISODE’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: While on vacation in Hawaii, Markus came across a figure of King Kamehameha at a gift shop. Markus got curious about King Kamehameha, so he did some Google research. King Kamehameha is kn...