The Micah Podcast

How do we honor scripture as the source of truth for our lives, but not manipulate it to serve our own purposes?

There is a strange idea on the rise that talking about race is the same as being racist. How can pastors and leaders navigate this challenge in order to work for justice in race relations while being sensitive to the current social defensiveness? Your Micah Podcast hosts are Rev. Joy Johnson, Rev. Jin Cho, and Rev. Bret Widman.

As of April 2023, there had been more mass shootings (163) in the U.S. than there had been days. Joy, Jin, and Bret discuss the complex relationship between guns, America, and Christianity. 

Joy Johnson, Jin Cho, and Bret Widman reflect on the “He Gets Us” ad campaign, including the “ Love Your Enemies ” ad that ran at the Super Bowl. 

Jesus’ ministry only began after facing temptations in the wilderness. What are the temptations in our preaching ministries that we must overcome in order to nurture a prophetic voice?

The Micah Mobilizers consider the state of our collective imagination today, as disciples and preachers, and wonder how artists and prophets might help to heal and invigorate broken imagination. Your Micah Podcast hosts are Joy Johnson, Jin Cho, and Bret Widman.

Joy, Jin, and Bret discuss the Micah Groups' renewed vision toward catalyzing a prophetic community for nurturing prophetic preaching.

In the wake of racially motivated mass shootings in Dallas, Buffalo, and Southern California, the Micah Mobilizers consider the church’s history of violent zealotry and contemporary silence and denial that is complicit in dangerous narratives such as the Great Replacement Theory. (This episode was recorded before the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, TX.) 

In a recent pastor’s panel discussion, Joy was rebuffed for asserting, “We are all children of God.” She brings this theological question to Jin and Bret for communal discernment.

Dr. Efrem Smith, co-pastor of Midtown Church in Sacramento, joins the Micah Mobilizers for discussion around the burdens of discipleship and leadership, particularly in this extraordinarily burdened season of pandemic, racial injustice, and war.

Joy, Jin, and Bret welcome North Park Theological Seminary student and leader Tricia Ivanoff. They discuss her Alaskan Inuit community, and the challenge of navigating competing visions of God, truth, and justice.

At this moment in history, it seems many swaths of the American church are fueled by a fire far different than the divine fire of God. Michael Emerson’s January 27 talk at Midwinter 2022 stokes this conversation.

For years, a pressing conversation in churches has been around the missional challenge of engaging a Post-Christian culture. This episode presses that conversation further in discussion of Russell Moore’s recent Christianity Today article, “ The Capitol Attack Signaled a Post-Christian Church, Not Merely a Post-Christian Culture .”

In this episode Jin, Joy, and Bret discuss feeling at home at church, deconstruction, and the culture’s shifting trust of formal institutions. They also touch on how young people are looking for liturgical congregations—something Joy calls their “ancestral homes.”