The Habit

Helena Sorensen is an author, speaker, and writing coach. This episode was recorded live at the first Habit Writers' Retreat at Nashville's North Wind Manor. She speaks with Jonathan Rogers about the particular challenges faced by women (especially mothers) who are struggling to find the permission they need to write. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com...

Pastor Scott Sauls is the author of six books, most recently Beautiful People Don't Just Happen: How God Redeems Regret, Hurt, and Fear in the Making of Better People. In this episode, Scott speaks with his old friend Jonathan Rogers about the beauty that can grow out of past hurts. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeremy Begbie is the Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Research Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School. He teaches systematic theology and specializes in the interface between theology and the arts. He is a senior member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge. Along with David O. Taylor and Daniel Train, Professor Begb...

Robyn Wall is the author of the picture books My First Book of Beards and My First Book of Tattoos (Random House Kids), as well as a story in T he Lost Tales of Sir Galahad .  In this episode, she speaks with Jonathan Rogers about perfectionism, baby steps, and watercolor lessons. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...

Flo Paris Oakes and Katy Bowser Hutson have been longtime songwriting collaborators through the Rain for Roots collective, which makes singable scripture songs for kids and grownups alike. Both children’s ministry directors, they think a lot and very deeply about the spiritual formation of children. In this episode, Flo and Katy discuss their most recent project, Little Prayers for Ordinary...

Matthew Clark is a singer-songwriter, podcaster, and essayist. He’s exceedingly thoughtful and well-read, and all that thinking and well-reading makes its way into everything he makes–and every conversation. His most recent project is an album called Only the Lover Sings , and a companion book of the same title–a compilation of essays by various writers inspired by the songs on t...

Esau McCaulley is a Bible scholar and Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He’s a contributing writer at Christianity Today, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. His book Reading While Black won the 2021 Christianity Today Book Award for the category “Beautiful Orthodoxy.” His most recent book is a picture book called Josey Johnson’s Hair and the...

Singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken released her first book in 2021. Send Out Your Light: The Illuminating Power of Scripture and Song is a memoir of a creative life and a meditation on the creative process. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad is a collection of "newly discovered" tales of the Arthurian knight's adventures in the Wild Forest. In this episode of The Habit Podcast, husband-and-wife editorial dream team Pete Peterson and Jennifer Trafton discuss their work in bringing this work to life. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform...

Leslie Bustard is a writer, a teacher, a conference organizer, a publisher, and a museum-goer, among other things. She recruited forty writers to contribute essays to Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for your Children ,  a book she curated and edited with her daughter Carey Bustard and editor Thea Rosenburg. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingf...

Mitali Perkins has been a nominee for the National Book Award. She was born in India, but has lived all over the world. So it comes as no surprise that her books for young readers all explore the crossing of borders of one kind or another. Her newest book, Bare Tree and Little Wind , is a picture book that tells the story of Holy Week. In 2021, she published her first nonfiction book for adults, S...

Tom Douglas is a country songwriting legend and a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He recently released a movie—a one-man show called Love, Tom: A Letter of Hope to a Desperate World , streaming on Paramount Plus. It's a beautiful, wise, and honest meditation on the creative process. In this episode, Tom Douglas and Jonathan Rogers talk about harnessing hurt and rejecting id...

Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas. She has written books about Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walker Percy, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Her most recent book is The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints . In this episode, Dr. Wilson and Jonathan Rogers talk about the ways that reading g...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with author and pastor Russ Ramsey. Russ is a pastor in the Nashville area, a masterful storyteller, and Jonathan’s go-to resource for all art-related questions. His love of art and story come together in his new book, Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith . It’s an art history book, but more impor...

Caroline Cobb is a singer-songwriter from Texas. In 2011, she decided to write a song for every book of the Bible in one year. That ambitious goal set her on a path that she’s still on, more than ten years later. She has said, “That year, I discovered that I love writing songs from the Bible: delving into a passage, putting myself in each character’s shoes, trying to understand h...

This week on The Habit Podcast, we invite you to listen in on a conversation between poet Dana Gioia, former Poet Laureate of California and former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Cherie Harder, President of The Trinity Forum. They discuss the ways that poetry works as a kind of enchantment, creating a state of heightened consciousness and heightened receptivity, and Dana Gioia ma...

Curt Thompson is a psychiatrist and founder of Being Known, an organization that develops resources for hope and healing at the intersection of neuroscience and Christian spiritual formation. His books include The Soul of Shame and The Soul of Desire . In this episode, Curt and Jonathan Rogers discuss the left brain and the right brain, the power of beauty to awaken us to goodness and truth, and A...

Christie Purifoy is a writer and gardener committed to growing flowers and growing community and cultivating beauty. Her newest book is Garden Maker: Growing a Life of Beauty and Wonder with Flowers . She’s also the host of the Black Barn Garden Club , an online community for aspiring gardeners. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

Dorena Williamson is an author, a bridge-builder, a speaker, and a co-planter of a multi-racial church that has been doing beautiful work in Nashville for 25 years. Her most recent picture book, Crowned with Glory , is an ode to Black hair and Black girl joy. In this episode, Dorena and Jonathan Rogers talk about representation, writing the books you want to read, and the perils of "color-blindnes...

Activist and author Lisa Sharon Harper spent three decades researching ten generations of her family’s story through DNA research, oral histories, interviews and genealogical records. That research is the basis of her new book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World—and How to Repair It . In this episode, Lisa Sharon Harper and Jonathan  Rogers discuss truth-seeking, trut...

Philip Yancey has written more than 25 books, including What’s so Amazing about Grace, Disappointment with God, Where is God When It Hurts, and The Jesus I Never Knew . His most recent book, from 2021, is his memoir Where the Light Fell . In this episode, Philip Yancey and Jonathan Rogers discuss the complex interactions between identity, memory, and memoir, and the journey from fear to...

David French is a political and cultural commentator and senior editor at The Dispatch . He’s a contributing writer at The Atlantic Monthly and the author of several books, including Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation  as well as the French Press  newsletter. He’s the co-host—with Curtis Chang—of the new podcast, Good F...

Kelly Kapic is a professor of theology at Covenant College. His most recent book is You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News . In this episode, Dr. Kapic and Jonathan Rogers discuss productivity shame, gratitude, and the truth that finitude is not a sin. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf...

Amy Baik Lee writes essays and short memoirs for The Cultivating Project and on her own blog, A Homeward Life . She is also the co-director of the Arts Guild of The Anselm Society . In this episode, Amy and Jonathan Rogers talk about the discipline of noticing small splendors, the ways that art reminds recipients that they mean something to someone, and the ways that time and distance unpack our m...

It's a new year, and a new season of The Habit Podcast. if you are looking to form better habits, heed Justin Whitmel Earley, author of The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose in an Age of Distraction . His most recent book is Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms . The new theme music for Season 4 of The Habit Podcast is Drew Miller's song "Grace." Support the...