That Sounds Fun with Annie F. Downs

Holy Week Bible Reading: Tuesday Matthew 21:23-23:39, 26:6-13 Mark 11:27-12:44 Luke 20-21:4 John 12:2-11 (Read in the New Living Translation) . . . . . #TSFHolyWeek #thatsoundsfunpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Holy Week Bible Reading: Monday Matthew 21:12-22 Mark 11:12-18 Luke 19:45-48 (Read in the English Standard Version) . . . . . #TSFHolyWeek #thatsoundsfunpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Holy Week Bible Reading: Palm Sunday Matthew 21:1-11 Mark 11:1-11 Luke 19:29-44 John 12:12-19 (Read from my Bible in the New International Version 1984) . . . . . #TSFHolyWeek #thatsoundsfunpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show, I get to talk with my friend, Rabbi Jason Sobel. You may remember him from episode 1022 when we had him here during Advent to talk about the connections between the Old Testament and the New Testament when it comes to Jesus’ birth. Immediately when we finished recording that episode, I told him he had to come back and talk to us during Lent to help us also talk through Jesus’ re...

We’re going to keep talking about fasting today with my friend, Dr. Derwin Gray. He is the co-founding and Lead Pastor of Transformation Church, just outside of Charlotte, NC.  We also talking about memorizing Scripture and what grace really looks like as we prepare for Holy Week. Head over to spirituallystronger.com after you listen because he also mentions “virtue ethics” today and I want us to...

Today on the show, Eddie and I get to keep talking about the Winter Olympics (mountaineering is wild!), the latest wild west movie I’ve watched, snow skiing stories, the difference in weighing things vs measuring them, and what makes a good biscuit... and of course we're just adding to the list of what we want The Buddies Tour to look like!  Plus, you’re not ready to hear Eddie’s new way of saying...

It’s time to talk about fasting. Lisa Bevere is a spiritual mom to a lot of us and was the exact right person to help us kick off this conversation. What I love about this conversation is how Lisa reframes fasting not as punishment or performance — but as invitation. As a way of intentionally making space for God to move in us and through us. We talk about what fasting actually is — and what it is...

My friend Jen Lilley is joining us today. She’s an actress, producer, storyteller, and just a total delight of a human. You may know her from Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, or Hallmark and Great American Family movies. But here’s what I really love about her: behind the film sets is a woman with a deep, vibrant, anchored faith. So, while we thought we were taking a break from our theme this...

Matt Smallbone is the pastor of Church of the City’s downtown campus here in Nashville, and we’re continuing with a bit of a theme today as we talk again this week about The Lord’s Prayer. Every time we talk about it during this prayer series though, I feel like there’s something new to see and something deeper to understand. It’s wild how a prayer so familiar, so memorized, so repeated, can still...

Today Eddie and I get to keep talking about how much is going on in the world right now and just how hard it is for all of us to wrestle with it. We also talk about my ceiling falling in during the ice storm in Nashville! Our "7 minutes of serious" turned into closer to 47! But don’t worry, we of course had to wrap things up by chatting for a bit about Oscar nominations, Zootopia 2, and the first...

If you’ve ever felt stuck and don’t have the words to pray, or you’ve felt so discouraged or disoriented that you don’t know where to start, this conversation is for you. Brad Gray and Brad Nelson are both with the organization Walking the Text, where they help people understand the original meaning and context of Scripture. They’ve been friends for 25 years and have now gotten to work on a docume...

Y'all are going to LOVE this episode with my old friend Tim Timmons and my new friend, Milo Ventimiglia. You may know Milo from Gilmore Girls or This is Us, but he’s playing Tim Timmons in the brand new movie, I Can Only Imagine 2, which comes out TOMORROW! Go get your tickets, you’ve got to see this movie.  Tim toured with Bart Millard and MercyMe, and this movie tells the story of how Tim unknow...

Lauren Tomlin is a PRAYER WARRIOR which is why I called her for this series, because I wanted a friend to sit down with me and really talk about how to pray.  If you’ve ever wondered if God actually hears you when you pray or if you can trust what you hear from God when you pray, this conversation is for you. If you feel overwhelmed by all of the hard happening around us, we’re going to talk about...

Here is PART 2 of our episode with Lauren and Thomas Rhett Akins. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to part 1, go back and do that first before you listen to this episode. I want you to get the full story of what God’s been doing in their lives over the last year. They continue the story of moving their family to Uganda for 6 weeks. They were obedient in saying yes to God, and yet it was not t...

You may know Thomas Rhett from his incredible country music career or Lauren from her beloved Live in Love podcast or book, but I want you to get to know (and hear) their deep faith today. When they called me and said, “We want to tell the story of what God did in our lives last year,” I knew we had to share it. As we talk about prayer this month, I want you to hear what perseverance and obedience...

You may remember Pete Greig when he was on our last prayer series here on That Sounds Fun. He’s an author and founder of the 24/7 prayer movement, and y’all have heard me reference the daily devotional Lectio365 so many times- he's the co-host of that! I LOVE it. Today we’re talking about Pete’s recent 3 month sabbatical, how time with God and prayer shifted for him and his wife during those month...

Today on the show, I get to keep talking with our buddy Eddie Kaufholz. A new year and new us… we’re talking about mice, the Winter Olympics, The Golden Globes, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Will Arnett...and then a **special announcement** I think you’re absolutely going to love! You don't want to miss this one!  . . . . . On a related note... TheBuddiesTour.com Find the show notes here Want...

We are going to spend the next 5 weeks talking about prayer, and Christine Caine is here to help us kick off that conversation. If we’re going to be spiritually stronger in a world we cannot control, we have got to get serious about prayer. Chris is going to fire you up today about your prayer life! We talk about her prayer life as an activist, her turning 60 this year and continuing to run her ra...

This is Kevin Queen's 10th time on That Sound Fun which basically means he just lapped Hall of Fun status twice!! Today he’s helping pastor us as we get started on this journey to become spiritually stronger. We talk about one of the tensions you might face as we get started talking about spiritual disciples and rhythms. We don’t want any of this to feel like things you need to check off in order...

Today on the show, I get to talk to my friend—and one of our spiritual mothers and mentors—Beth Moore. We talk about her experience with her surgeries and recoveries last year and learning how to 100% lean on the Lord, and what it looks like to grow with God and sit with Him everyday. Plus, we got to talk about her new study: Walking with God. She’s created this study to help us understand what it...

Last year we spent the entire year talking about the seasons—how they impact us both physically and spiritually—and how our life seasons change so often without warning. We see it all around us. Things are changing SO quickly. So much feels unpredictable, a little unsteady, often hard to understand. And I just keep coming back to this reality: in a world we can’t control, we can be spiritually str...

If you are new around here, we have a yearly tradition today, January 6th. Epiphany. The tradition of you and I just chatting. The last day of Christmastide. Day 12 of the 12 days of Christmas. This Epiphany episode is the only time all year that I sit in this podcast studio alone. It matters to me that y’all know this. It matters because, in part, I want today to feel like a one on one conversati...

In this final installment of 2025 we get to Keep Talking WITH ALL OF YOU-- ALL OF OUR BUDDIES! We got to do a live call-in show so a bunch of you got to pop in and ask your questions and loved every minute. It went exactly the way you thought it would. Things were unhinged for a bit… And before we started we even had a conversation about toilet seats. And Wicked. You’re in for a treat. Come tell u...

Y’all, we have spent an entire year talking about the impact of the seasons on our spiritual, emotional, and physical lives. A whole year working through things in our TSF Seasons Guidebook. Sooo many brilliant friends have joined us to mentor us through the winter, spring, summer, and fall and now we’ve circled all the way back. It’s cold outside again. The snow is on the ground again for some of...

I have absolutely no chill about today’s episode. I mean it…you might want to grab a notebook, a pen, maybe even two, because this is a full-on mind-blown episode. Rabbi Jason Sobel is a Jewish man who believes Jesus is the Messiah, and the way he connects the dots between the Old Testament and the New? Y’all… it’s like watching the story of Jesus go from regular definition to full-on high definit...