Igniting Imagination

What better way to start our season about the values the church must carry forward into the future than with the ‘gadfly of the church,’ Bishop Will Willimon! Co-host Gil Rendle points out that as the gadfly of the church, Will both loves and cares about the institution AND asks critically important questions that challenge the church to be better. You won’t want to miss this compelling story-pack...

Season 6 of Igniting Imagination is coming soon! Host Lisa Greenwood, co-host Gil Rendle, and special guests from diverse theological perspectives discuss what core values and truths to carry forward and include in the future church. What values and truths will you carry forward? Our guests this season are:   Bishop Will Willimon Dr. Angela Gorrell Father Greg Boyle and Rev. Justin Coleman Rev. Jo...

Our most-downloaded episode is back (!) for one big reason: this conversation remains incredibly relevant today. We are inviting you to listen again or for the first time to Tod Bolsinger because the way he talks about how to manage change, stress and resistance without burning out is as practical as it is inspiring. In this conversation, you’ll hear:   What’s the most important thing to hold on t...

Joe Stabile started centering prayer at age 14. If you’ve ever wondered how a lifetime of centering prayer shapes a person, listen to this conversation with Joe. Throughout his life, Joe has had a constant posture of discernment and a deep trust in where God is leading. Joe is so rooted in the Spirit; listening to him, being around him, is like jumping into a cold pool of water on a hot summer day...

Danielle Shroyer’s curiosity about the spiritual path took an unexpected turn in 2018. This founder of the emerging church movement and deeply faithful Christian leader took the path East, towards the wisdom and practices of the Eastern traditions. Her blog, Be a Soul Ninja, chronicles her experiences engaging in different Eastern religious thoughts and practices. So what does it mean to Be a Soul...

Shannon Hopkins has been asking, “God, what is the church you are building today?” for decades–and she’s been living that question. Shannon’s pursuit of new forms of Christian community inspired her to move from Texas to London where she has continued to build an incredible network of friends and colleagues who are living the questions, too. Through her organization RootedGood, Shannon is bringing...

Coté Soerens has made her neighborhood in South Park, Seattle her world. She and her husband Tim moved their family into the under-resourced neighborhood with a deep desire to discover God’s dreams for the community and participate in helping those dreams come to fruition alongside their neighbors. Coté started a coffee shop, Resistencia Coffee, that has become a third space for neighbors to gathe...

Arrabon means “a foretaste of the kingdom.” This conversation with David Bailey is full of Arrabon! David describes the significance of the numbers 8 and 2008 in his life. From an early age, David saw the benefits and challenges of cultivating a diverse community where everyone can thrive. His passion for God and scripture, together with his love of music and vision for reconciled communities led...

Dr. Kit Evans-Ford’s passion for providing safe spaces for survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence is deeply personal. Kit’s grandmother, Argrow, is the namesake for her social enterprise Argrow’s House of Healing and Hope, a bath and body social enterprise that employs female survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence. Kit shares how her family story and her own life experience...

In these five episodes of Season 5, we’ll be meeting stunning spiritual entrepreneurs who are making a profound impact as they follow God’s call on their lives. They are the recipients of the 2022 Locke Innovative Leader Award.  To help us set the stage for these conversations, we begin with Brian McLaren! In book after book (his newest book Do I Stay Christian? comes out in May… we talk about it!...

Season 5 of Igniting Imagination is coming soon! Host Lisa Greenwood and co-host Matt Russell talk about spiritual entrepreneurship and innovative ministry with author, activist, and public theologian Brian McLaren and our four 2022 Locke Innovative Leaders. Listen to this short trailer for a glimpse of our conversations with courageous leaders sharing their powerful, inspiring stories. If you lik...

In our final episode for the season, Mandy McDow, pastor of Los Angeles First UMC, shares the story of LA First who razed their building in 2002. Yep. No building. That reality forces a posture of constant discernment: God, what is the difference you would have us make in this neighborhood in this season? Theirs is not a tidy, perfect story. It’s messy and real and very much in process. We hope it...

“What does ‘Distributing Power’ look like for a congregation?” is a frequent question we get about our fourth adaptive muscle. Now we can say: listen to this interview with Mike Mather! Mike helps us make the connection between distributing power and abundance. When Mike and his congregation started actually living out their beliefs that everyone (both inside and outside of the church) has gifts,...

Adam Barlow-Thompson, co-founder of The Neighboring Movement, wants us to meet our actual neighbors. While that may seem like a simple idea, research (and perhaps experience) shows us that few of us truly engage our neighbors. Adam invites us to move from the theoretical ‘love your neighbor’ to the literal: meet your neighbors in the eight houses or apartments around you and discover the gifts God...

Most of us can readily identify with having a love-hate relationship with the Institution of the Church. Gil Rendle’s latest paper, Jacob’s Bones: On the Church’s Institutional Future, addresses our ambivalence head-on and offers a distinction that is a gamechanger. He states, “Institutions are not organizations that house values. Institutions are values and disciplines that need organizations to...

One big takeaway about the Five Muscles (Grieving Well, Discerning Purpose, Walking Alongside, Distributing Power, Expanding Imagination) is that they are all connected. Shannon Hopkins, co-founder and lead cultivator of RootedGood, profoundly understands that grieving well makes discerning purpose and expanding imagination possible. Shannon shares the origin story of her organization RootedGood....

Vice President of Leadership Ministry and host Rev. Lisa Greenwood welcomes guests Rev. Rachel Billups and Rev. Matt Rawle to discuss disruptive trends impacting churches. Drawing from recent articles about 2022 trends by Carey Nieuwhof, Joe Park, and Thom Rainer, the three discuss how multi-access is here to stay, the shift to more decentralized power, the role of authority, giving permission to...

The fifth and final muscle the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Expanding Imagination. Dr. Amy Oden teaches theology, the history of Christianity and spiritual formation. Her ability to combine deep theological thought with spiritual practice and bring ancient wisdom to inform contemporary life is not just relevant…her work is truly revelatory for th...

The fourth of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Distributing Power. Dr. Joerg Rieger is the Distinguished Professor of Theology and the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has spent the last two decades addressing the relation of theology and public life, reflecting on the misuse of power in...

The third of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Walking Alongside or Neighboring. Coté Soerens is the owner and midwife of Resistencia Coffee shop in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. She is also the co-founder of Cultivate South Park, a non-profit that lends infrastructure to neighborhood community development projec...

The second of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Discerning Purpose. Susan Beaumont is well known for her groundbreaking work in organizational leadership dynamics. She is a consultant, coach, author, spiritual director, and an ordained minister within the American Baptist Churches. She has worked with hundreds of congregations and den...

The first of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Grieving Well. Suzanne Stabile is well known as an expert on the Enneagram. This past year, she has done extensive work on grief and the Enneagram because she believes grieving in real time is so important in our world today. Suzanne offers us remarkable insights through this in-depth int...

You’re listening to Igniting Imagination, a podcast to spark the spirit within you from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. This season, we are sharing conversations about the five adaptive muscles the church must strengthen to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now. For more information about these muscles, visit tmf-fdn.org/leadership-ministry . TMF’s Leadership Ministry team had...

You’re listening to Igniting Imagination, a podcast to spark the spirit within you from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. This season, we are sharing conversations about the five adaptive muscles the church must strengthen to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now. For more information about these muscles, visit tmf-fdn.org/leadership-ministry . “God Has Work for Us To Do” music a...

Co-hosts Lisa Greenwood and Casper ter Kuile talk with Emmanuel Andre, 2021 Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner. Emmanuel prefers to be known as a “Community Defender” instead of a “Defense Attorney,” which says a lot about his approach to his work both inside and outside the courtroom. Restorative justice is more than a program. It is a way of being to Emmanuel, who believes transformation is po...