The Weight

Bishop Ken Carter is a leader. As the current bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, he is guiding over 173,000 members through Hurricane Helene recovery. In addition to that, he serves as bishop-in-residence and a consulting faculty member at Duke Divinity School. He is also the former bishop of the Florida Conference, and served as the president of the Co...

Eddie and Chris are joined by three-time guest Aimee Nezhukumatathil for a conversation about the intersection of food, faith, family, and parenthood, based around her latest collection of essays, Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees .  Aimee is the author of multiple volumes of poetry, including Miracle Fruit , Oceanic , and Lucky Fish , as well as several books of essays, World of Wonders (a...

You might say Lola Reed Allin is a trailblazer. She is certainly an adventurer, a traveler, a pioneer, and a role model to women who work in male-dominated fields. As one of the very few female commercial airline pilots in Canada, Lola escaped an abusive marriage to find a life where she not only survived, but thrived. Lola is not just a commercial airline pilot. She is also an author, an award wi...

*** Repost*** As we move closer to the 2024 election season, we thought this episode was worth hearing again. Show Notes: “Politics is an essential forum in which we can love our neighbors.” Michael Wear reminds us that Christians are called to love, love of God and love of neighbor. And if you are a Christian in politics, when you go into the political sphere, what are you doing? What is the orie...

This episode might leave you fired up for the Holy Spirit, because guest Jack Levison himself is fired up for the Holy Spirit. Not only does he see the boundless work of the Spirit in our world today, he also offers ways for us to dig deeper into finding the Spirit at work in the Old Testament, where we might overlook it. Dr. Levison holds the W. J. A. Power Chair of Old Testament Interpretation a...

Mark DeYmaz is a pastor, author, and champion of the multi-ethnic church movement. He spent eighteen years as a youth pastor in Little Rock, Arkansas, before stepping away to plant the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in 2001 where he continues to serve as Directional Leader. Mark has a clear vision for what the Church should look like: bringing diverse people together to walk, work, and worship...

It’s a podcast mashup this week as Eddie and Chris are joined by the co-hosts of Pod Have Mercy, John Stephens and Matt Russell. John and Matt are pastors at Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas (senior pastor and executive pastor, respectively), and are no strangers to deep conversations about the state of today’s Church--the challenges modern Christians face and their hopes for t...

Shelby McEwen has been jumping and flipping off things since he was a little boy, and now he has an Olympic silver medal to show for it--which joins his many other high jump accolades. Shelby is a native of Oxford, Mississippi (where Eddie and Chris currently live). He was a member of the Northwest Mississippi Community College track and field team as well as the University of Alabama track and fi...

Tod Bolsinger has built his career on developing and empowering great leaders. In this conversation with Eddie and Chris, he talks about how leaders can leverage the trust they’ve built to make risky decisions with empathy and vulnerability, how to deal with pushback, and how important it is to acknowledge the losses that come with change. Tod is the Vice-President for Vocation and Formation and A...

Is AI going to take over the world? Probably not in the way pop culture would have us imagine (or in the way Chris fears). Today’s guest, Dr. Robert Hunt, offers Eddie and Chris a broad overview of AI--what it is, how we see it, how we see ourselves in relation to it, and how we use it.  Dr. Hunt has been the Director of Global Theological Education at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Meth...

We’ve heard it on the news and seen it in the research: American Christianity is declining. Younger generations aren’t interested in organized religion. Young families aren’t raising their children with a Biblical foundation. That’s what we’re told, but what is really happening? Today’s guest has an on-the-ground perspective of how hungry the next generation is for meaningful connection and deeper...

Matt Luke is a former football player and coach, who served as the head coach for the University of Mississippi (and was a member of Oxford University United Methodist Church while Eddie and Chris pastored there.) Matt is probably most well known for helping to lead the University of Georgia football team to a National Championship win in 2021 as associate head coach and offensive line coach. Afte...

Show Notes: Kari Kampakis is an author, speaker, podcaster, and newspaper columnist from Birmingham, Alabama. She writes for teen girls and moms, and her books include 10 Ultimate Truths Girls Should Know , Liked , Love Her Well , and More than a Mom . Kari offers advice to teens and parents, but more importantly she offers compassion and understanding. Parenting is hard at any stage, even if the...

Esau McCaulley returns to The Weight for a discussion about his newest book, "How Far to the Promised Land.” This is a joyful conversation that covers some heavy topics, like reconciling yourself to your history while charting your own path and creating your own story. And sometimes, finding your place in the story means finding your place with God and allowing God’s grace to emerge in unexpe...

Whether we’re a teenager, college student, established professional, or retired, we’re constantly asking questions about our identity. All of us deeply desire to understand the truth of who we are and where we come from. For those of us in strained relationships with our families of origin, questions of identity, purpose, and belonging can get increasingly complicated. What does it take to tell a...

When we’re struck by unexpected suffering, we ask question after question attempting to find meaning in the midst of our pain. We wonder why this diagnosis, disaster, or death had to happen to us or someone we love. We wonder if God is really good. We wonder if it’s possible to live within our reality and still have hope, joy, and peace. Though these questions are important, our human nature lends...

How do we deal with seasons of doubt? How do we wrestle with the big questions of suffering and pain within the context of God’s never-ending love and come out with a firmer spiritual foundation and a stronger sense of God’s grace and work in our lives? Can we even admit our doubt, and if so, is it productive to our lives as Christians? In this episode, Eddie and Chris are joined by Dominic Done,...

Are you struggling with church? Do you have doubts and questions, but you aren’t sure where to go to talk them through? Do you have friends or family members who have been hurt by the church, or who have wandered away from the church, or, maybe, who have never been in church? In this episode, Chris and Eddie are joined by Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, priest in the Church of England and vicar of St. Martin-...

You might need a snack for today’s episode. We welcome Kendall Vanderslice, baker, author, and theologian to The Weight for a discussion about the intersection of food--specifically, bread--and worship. Kendall explores the dichotomy of the simplicity and complexity of making bread and how it connects to the simplicity and complexity of a life of faith. Kendall is the author of By Bread Alone: A B...

The Weight might be on a brief summer break, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to listen to! We’ve got five seasons of excellent conversations, and Eddie and Chris offer their recommendations for re-listening to a few from this season. (They also share some life updates and a little advice at the end.) We hope y’all have a wonderful summer, and we’ll see you in August with all new epis...

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” --1 Corinthians 13.13 This well-known, often quoted Bible verse is probably one you’re familiar with. But today’s guest, Dr. Luther Smith, wants to mix things up a little and get us to think like this: The greatest of these is hope. Dr. Luther Smith is Professor Emeritus of Church and Community at Candler Univer...

No matter what your age is, you’re probably caught up in the 24-hour news cycle, the internet, social media, and doom scrolling. You probably spend a lot of your day with a screen in front of you, and that affects us socially, emotionally, and mentally. Today’s guest gives Eddie and Chris some insight into what the church can offer in our media-saturated world. Dr. Angela Patterson is media psycho...

Dr. Scott Morris is a medical school graduate and an ordained United Methodist minister who believes that healing the sick is a vital part of the Christian faith, and he lives that belief out in a very real way in Memphis, Tennessee through Church Health. Church Health is a faith-based, not-for-profit healthcare organization that offers whole person, comprehensive health care to people facing soci...

Dr. Corneilus Plantinga has a few words to say about gratitude, and it may just change your life--physically, spiritually, and emotionally. A habit of gratitude can lower your blood pressure and help you sleep better. But the habit of gratitude also ties us together collectively, in community and in church. When there is genuine appreciation of an act of kindness or a loving word, the memory of th...

Dana Trent is an author, professor, and preschool drug dealer, and now she’s part of the three-timers club on The Weight . She talks to Eddie and Chris about her new book, Between Two Trailers , how to live in the present with a past that continues to live with you, what it means to go home when you feel like you can’t, and how important personal connections are when you’re trying to work through...