The Daron Earlewine Podcast

Anxiety and fear feel like problems to fix or push through. Chris Hantla, coach at Identity Exchange, makes the case that they're actually a signal — a check-engine light telling you that you're believing something false about yourself, God, or how the world works. In under seven minutes, he unpacks the difference between living disconnected from God and living connected to him, using Jesus feedin...

Most of us are running our lives on an identity we never actually chose — one built to earn approval instead of received from God. Chris Hantla, coach and co-director of Identity Exchange's Catalyst Experience, sat down with Daron to tell the story of how a mission trip to a Baghdad war zone stripped away his false identity as a "successful missionary" and led him into a real, conversational relat...

Ty Earlewine spent his summer internship going through Identity Exchange, a program built around growing in knowledge of self and knowledge of God at the same time. In this clip, he and his dad Daron unpack a John Calvin quote that reframes what real spiritual growth looks like, and Ty shares how one simple shift, learning to just sit and listen in prayer instead of trying to say the right thing,...

Ty Earlewine just wrapped his first internship with his dad, Daron, and it changed how he sees himself, his faith, and his future. In this episode, Daron and Ty sit down to unpack what it actually looks like to grow in the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self at the same time, why chasing spiritual "streaks" can quietly wreck your walk with Jesus, and what it means to discover your God given...

For five years, Kelly Camp went to church every single Sunday and refused to give his life to Christ. He sat in the back row, timed his arrival to avoid the greeters, and watched soccer on his phone during the sermon. Then one hungover Sunday morning in June 2015, a single sentence from his pastor broke through everything. KEY TAKEAWAYS  ⚡️ Showing up isn't the same as surrendering. Kelly attende...

Kelly Camp grew up a pastor's kid in a legalistic home, learning early how to "play church" without ever having a real relationship with God. Then, at 18, a devastating diagnosis in his family became the moment that sent him running from God for decades. This is the origin of a story about isolation, anger, and how one unprocessed wound can shape a life. KEY TAKEAWAYS  ⚡️ Growing up close to chur...

Kelly Camp grew up a pastor's kid, spent over three decades running from God, and torched a 22-year marriage along the way. In this episode of The Daron Earlewine Podcast, Kelly shares how deep hurt, isolation and addiction nearly wrecked his life, how a hungover Sunday morning in 2015 became the turning point, and how he now runs the day-to-day staff and operations of the very kind of church he o...

Most people who get curious about Jesus never take the next step, because the next step they're offered doesn't fit their life. Working 80 hours a week, hundreds of miles from home, living in a camper on a job site. Sunday morning is not on the table. Matt LeRoy joins Daron Earlewine to walk through Follow Jesus, a 50 day journey through the Gospel of Matthew built for exactly those people. Ten to...

Most people who are curious about Jesus never start, because they do not know where to begin. Genesis? A random verse? A church they do not know in a town they are only in for six weeks? Matt LeRoy spent ten years building the answer. Follow Jesus is a 50 day walk through the Gospel of Matthew that takes 10 to 15 minutes a day. A commute. A cup of coffee. In this conversation, Daron Earlewine and...

Most of us are chasing a version of success nobody actually defined for us. Bigger platform, bigger title, bigger numbers. And when we get there, it still feels hollow. In this clip, Ken Primeau, lead pastor of Mercy Road Northeast, offers a definition that reorders everything. Success is becoming who God created you to be, then partnering with him to do what he is calling you to do. He traces it...

A stranger emailed Wayne Jacobson with a claim that sounded like nonsense. The word righteousness is not really in the Bible. It turned out to be a translation problem 500 years in the making. In this clip, Wayne walks through how one Greek word came to be translated righteousness in our Bibles when it is translated justice everywhere else, and what changes when you put it back. KEY TAKEAWAYS ⚡️...

John the Baptist baptized Jesus. He was Jesus' cousin. He was called the greatest man born of a woman. And he still ended up in prison asking, "Are you really the one, or should we wait for someone else?" In this clip from Episode 207 of The Daron Earlewine Podcast, Daron walks through the emotional weight of John's prison crisis and what Jesus' surprising response reveals about faith when your ci...

What if the way you were taught to share your faith is actually the reason people keep pulling away? In this clip from The Daron Earlewine Podcast, Daron breaks down a model he calls "attack and extract" — find someone who doesn't know Jesus, challenge everything about them, and if they accept, pull them out of their old life into your camp. It sounds bold. It feels righteous. And it is almost nev...

When life hits hard, most of us either crumble or, at best, claw our way back to where we were before. Daron Earlewine wants something better for you. In this Summer of Sermons message from Mercy Road Northeast in Indianapolis, he opens Hebrews 11 and 12 to unpack what it means to build an anti-fragile faith, the kind where pain doesn't break you, it reveals you and grows you. He names the three l...

When life hits hard, most of us either crumble or, at best, claw our way back to where we were before. Daron Earlewine wants something better for you. In this Summer of Sermons message from Mercy Road Northeast in Indianapolis, he opens Hebrews 11 and 12 to unpack what it means to build an anti-fragile faith, the kind where pain doesn't break you, it reveals you and grows you. He names the three l...

We treat sin the way Daron treated a herniated disc, by icing the symptoms and hoping the real problem goes away on its own. It doesn't. It grows, it hurts people, and it slowly stops breaking our hearts at all. In this Summer of Sermons message from Mercy Road Northeast in Indianapolis, Daron Earlewine opens 1 Corinthians 5 to talk honestly about church hurt, the danger of treating grace like a c...

Most of us treat the Bible like a long text we skim and skip. Too long, didn't read. The cost of that is bigger than we think. When you don't know where you came from or why you're here, you start living like life is random, and that quietly drains your purpose, your work, and your relationships. In this Summer of Sermons message, Daron Earlewine opens Genesis chapter one and the first five words...

We follow people all day long. Influencers, icons, feeds, and the five voices we spend the most time with. The problem is simple. We slowly become like whatever we follow, and most of us never stopped to ask if those things are worthy of our lives. In this Summer of Sermons message, Daron Earlewine walks through Jesus' shortest and most personal invitation, come follow me, and exposes how Western...

Most leaders are waiting on a dramatic, burning bush moment to tell them what their life is for. So they stall. They spin their wheels, convinced the "real" calling has not arrived yet. In this episode, Daron Earlewine sits down with Ken Primeau, lead pastor of Mercy Road Northeast, who built a thousand person church without ever planning to. Ken's whole story is a chain of small yeses. A blank ch...

What if a single mistranslated word quietly bent the way the church has understood the gospel for 500 years? Most of us were handed a faith built on personal piety, sin management, and a ticket out of hell, and then left wondering what to actually do on Monday. In this conversation, author and former pastor Wayne Jacobsen sits down with Daron Earlewine to unpack his new book Just Love and the clai...

Three generations of Earlewine men sit down at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to close out our IMS series. Cole is months away from his football identity ending and doesn't know who he is on the other side of it. Ty is staring at a future that's a complete question mark. And Dave, who came to faith from nothing and took risk after risk to follow a call, shows them what decades of trusting God act...

Most students go to college locked into a plan, then collide with reality. Daron's son Ty Earlewine got to Grand Canyon University, started his pre-PT major, and within a month sent a 2 AM text home that changed everything. In this episode, Daron and Ty sit down at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and unpack what it really takes for a young adult to hear God's voice about their calling. They talk a...

What happens when a college athlete realizes football was never going to be enough? In this episode, Daron sits down with his oldest son Cole Earlewine at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a raw conversation about junior year at Ball State University and playing football. Injuries, a "gray" wilderness season, the leadership of a team-only Bible study at "the grape," 52 teammates packed into his...

If you've ever stared at the Bible and thought "this is too big, too scary, I don't even know where to start," this episode is for you. Daron Earlewine sits down with PJ Towle and Darren "Coop" Cooper to break down the simplest, most practical way to get into Scripture. No seminary degree required. No guilt trip. Just real talk about how three guys who all struggled with reading at some point buil...

You've begged God to take it away. The sin. The struggle. The thing you can't seem to beat. And it's still there. Most of us read that silence as indictment. Daron walks through Paul's thorn in the flesh, the bronze serpent in Numbers 21, and his own three-month wrestling match to show why God's "no" is actually the path to your freedom. Ready to discover who God created you to be? Book a free 30-...