Down to Earth

Continuing our exploration of the gospel we take a serious look at the challenge of living an embodied faith, when our culture tells us to keep our spiritual life private - between us and Jesus. No one likes a bible thumper so how are we supposed to live out our faith, anyway? If you've wrestled with any of this you'll want to have a listen to this episode!

In some parts of the Church deconstruction is all the rage, and in other parts of the Church it's basically a swear word! Both extremes are unhealthy. In this bonus episode, recorded live at Masters College and Seminary in Peterborough, Ontario, we unpack why everyone deconstructs throughout their Christian life as a maturing process, and we share important biblical precedents that must be in the mix for your rebuilding process. 

If you were just dropped into the 21st century and listened to the preaching and teaching of our day you might be fooled into thinking that Jesus was a motivational speaker, but that would be the furthest thing from the truth.  In this episode we talk about how Jesus cannot be relegated to a life-coach or a cultural influencer, and how his teaching upends humanism and forces us to confront our need for God. 

Disposable dating, needing to know the end before the beginning, and misfired expectations are common laments from people wanting a healthy relationship. We held a live event to engage the conversation in February 2019 and you get to listen in on this bonus episode, which includes our husbands Dave DiSabatino and Calum Rees!

For years the Church has used fear as both a tactic to “convert” and a method to control people. But what if this was not the way Jesus intended us to live or lead? In this episode we talk about the history and forward trajectory of fear-based evangelism and discipleship with deep dialogue about how this is very different than the way of love.

Loads of us get so busy celebrating Christmas culturally that we hardly give a thought to how to celebrate Christmas as a Christian. What if Christmas could be much more than a season of nostalgia that disappoints or exercises in absurdity? Reimagining Christmas in view of the power of the incarnation and the humility and relationality of "God with us" can transform your celebration of Jesus into a season that is truly life-giving.

We're reconsidering the gospel in Season 3. In this first episode we do a deep dive in church history to see if we can pinpoint where it all went wrong and explore how a weakened understanding and articulation of Jesus' good news has disrupted our own discipleship and disabled the growth of the Church. Buckle up - this is just the beginning!

The pandemic created an avalanche of pastors exiting their jobs. What has been the tipping point and where are expectations of pastors skewed? What do pastors do exactly and how can you better support your pastor? All this and more on this pre-season bonus episode!

Every season in life is full of mountains and valleys.  In this episode we look back at some of the highlights and lowlights from season two emphasizing the direction of God in our daily lives. We also talk about what is next for the Down To Earth Podcast.

Leadership is an obsession of the 21st century, but if leadership is in fact a gift from God we must frame it theologically. Going beyond task assignment, empowering people to lead in the Church requires intentionality, both to recognize and cultivate these gifts.

If all power corrupts how can we hold authority and power as Christian leaders?  Join us as we discuss modern leadership dilemmas including deconstruction, flattened leadership models and honour culture through the lens of a Biblical framework of leadership.

Reconciliation is the last step in the forgiveness process and while it is not always possible, when it happens it is a real sign of the kingdom of God at work among us. In this episode we discuss both the theology and practicalities of reaching for reconciliation during the forgiveness process.

To be able to forgive is on some level a relinquishing of power over another individual. This is an important conversation in our season on Power for anyone who takes their discipleship growth seriously. We explore the concept of forgiveness and some of the theological complexities surrounding it, including the idea of unilateral forgiveness. We’d love to have you join the conversation.

Ever wondered how we got started, what bumps we hit along the way developing DTE, or how we discerned the arc for Season 2? Join us as we explain the backstory, what we fight about, plus the fun that goes into developing each episode.

In our exploration of power this season we knew we’d have to weigh into the area of spiritual power.  Our biblical mandate is to exercise authority over demonic power, but often we avoid this, dismiss it, or tip into weirdness because of an inordinate emphasis on demons. This episode explores what Jesus said and did in response to demons and how we can best respond in obedience to Christ.

There is no healing without experiencing the power of God. But there’s also no guarantee of healing whenever we ask for it. On this episode we explore healing from a biblical perspective and how “silver bullet” thinking can be challenged theologically. We hope you’re encouraged to keep reaching for healing, while learning to live with the “not yet” realities we all face.

Socio economic diversity was to be a signpost of the Kingdom of God at work among God’s people. But in reality we know there are always power dynamics at play when people are experiencing poverty. In this episode we tackle the question of how we upend this power imbalance both inside and outside the Church.

As the world is suffering through the Covid-19 pandemic we are realizing we’re in it together, more than the global village has ever experienced before. For many, this suffering is raising profound theological questions about God’s goodness, what faith in a crisis ought to look like, how to best love our neighbour, and much more. Jess and Joyce have a candid conversation you’ll want to listen in on and share with your friends.

Racism is a power issue we avoid talking about if we hold majority status. However, if we are going to address issues of inequity and marginalization we must confront our own racial biases and systemic issues related to race and power.

This episode gets into the fray of women in the Church. We explore the theology of male/female  relationships as well as the hotly debated New Testament passages used to preclude women from full participation in the life of the Church.

Power is the root issue underneath every conflict. And none of us get through life without engaging in some sort of power struggle! We get very practical on this episode, as we think through how to heal from power conflicts that have been either personal or communal.

Most of us have a tendency toward hyper-individualism. Collective sharing of power enables a much more robust effectiveness. On this episode we explore how we can best share power to impact the world around us.

Pacifism as non-violent protest – active / not passive, but philosophically connected to “kingdom theology” and the upside-down metrics of following Jesus.

In this episode we explore the flip side of the limitations of our power. Ultimately it is God who has all power and authority – over all creation, but also over us as individual people.

The launch of Season 2 where we are focusing the entire season on power.  In this episode we explore how we think about power and how we steward it for good in the world. 

In our current series on becoming fully human we’ve explored rest, the theology of work, the theology of the body, friendship, and creativity. In this episode we’re talking about feasting. Many of us Christians haven’t thought about food in the way that we eat and our habits as they relate to our spirituality. We tend to separate food and eating from our spirituality but all of life is integrated—mind, body, and spirit. Today we’re talking about how we feast is an announcement of the good news of the kingdom. Eat and be merry!

In our current series on becoming fully human we’ve explored rest, the theology of work, the theology of the body, and friendship. In this episode we’re talking about how creativity is part of an abundant life. As children we all have creativity and imagination but we can lose it over time if it’s not cultivated. Today we’re talking about making room for the arts, paying attention to those sign posts where God is speaking to you through the arts, and where God is giving you the opportunity to give voice to the arts.

In our current series on becoming fully human we’ve explored rest, the theology of work, and friendship. In this episode we’re talking about theology of the body. It’s easy to compartmentalize, but we’re integrated beings: body, mind, and spirit. And the body is not just something physical—it’s something spiritual. Body theology is intrinsic to healthy self-love and knowledge; what we believe about our own bodies informs how we interact with God in the world around us.

In our current series on becoming fully human we’ve explored rest and the theology of work. In this episode we’re unpacking friendships and their importance in light of our Christian faith. We tend to view friendship as trite and gloss over it, but friendship is not only essential but also a part of what God creates us for. In John 15, Jesus calls us His friends. If He called us friends it points us towards the idea that friendship is both important and vital.

In our current series on becoming fully human we’ve explored rest and what it looks like to flourish. In this episode we’re flipping the script by tackling the theology of work. We tend to compartmentalize, keeping our spiritual life to spiritual activities like reading the Bible, praying, and going to church. But our spiritual life and our work life aren’t separate. Scripture talks about Jesus as the second Adam and because of Him we have a chance to more fully live into what God intended for His creation. It’s in this context we ask, what does it look like in terms of our work?

This episode is the first in a six-part series on becoming fully human. We’re kicking off our dialogue on this topic by talking about rest as an essential component of what it means to be human. Through this series we want to answer the question of what would it look like for us to fully flourish? If there were no Fall and sin, what would our lives look like? In a lot of ways, being fully human is what freedom in Christ is about. But in order to achieve this we have to move out of sin management and toward delighting in the gift of being human.

This episode is the third in a three-part series on suffering. Something to keep in mind is our lives are made up of seasons—beautiful ones as well as winter seasons. And no season lasts forever. You may be in a great season right now, and while you should enjoy it you should also be prepared for winter. Scripture has all kinds of examples of wilderness experiences, for example Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and 1 Kings 18. We learn from these passages that no one is exempt from suffering but God is with us still.

This episode is the second in a three-part series on suffering. It’s important to prepare for suffering so we’re not surprised when it happens, because everyone suffers at some point in life. Our North American approach to suffering is escaping until we’re forced to deal with it. We value prosperity, accolade, and success and above all self. But Jesus doesn’t call us to focus on ourselves. Today we’re taking this idea further and exploring what it means to suffer for Jesus or as participants in the mission of God in the world. Is there a call to Christians to suffer? Does God invite us in some way?

This episode is the first in a three-part series on suffering. Today we’re focusing on answering the question, what is a healthy theology of suffering? We all face suffering and loss at some point. Some of us are prepared for it but for most the bottom drops out of our lives when hard times hit. North American culture treats suffering with denial and escapism. Because our audience is predominately North American, this is an issue we need to discuss in a first-world context.

A few episodes back we talked about hospitality and how it’s a lost art in our modern church. Today we’re talking a topic that goes hand-in-hand with hospitality—communion. There’s something about the table of Jesus that’s central to our understanding of salvation. The playing field is levelled, we’re made aware of our need for God, and then experience the immensity of God’s provision through His Son. Christians have different ways of interpreting communion and its meaning. We’ll unpack that in today’s episode.

In our last episode we talked about bringing worship in song as an effective way to engage our hearts. Today we’re talking about how we can authentically worship in healthy and communal ways. We tend to prefer happy over sad and see happiness as the highest life goal. But what happens when you’re sad? And why are there books like Lamentations in the Bible? We can’t always be happy clappy. This discussion is a continued exploration of worship gatherings focused on the biblical importance of lament as part of our worship.

Do you have questions about church and why we do certain things in the church? Today we’re talking about why we sing in church as well as the bigger, arching idea of worship. Music isn’t used in North American culture like it was in Bible times, or in many other cultures. Our thinking patterns are Greek in nature—more about logic, less about heart-feelings. But throughout Scripture there’s an emphasis on singing to the Lord. There’s a lot of good thought going into why we do things in the church, which we’ll unpack in this episode.

Why does church exist? Why do we gather? Continuing the discussion from our last episode, we’re talking about church and looking in particular today at the worship gathering—the structure, why we gather, and where it comes from. Last time we talked about how the emergent church movement and how there was great deconstruct in the worship gathering. After, there came an altogether resistance to the worship gathering with people asking, “What’s the point?” Our goal in this episode is to show that worship—the worship of God—is rooted in the story of God and His people.

There’s a predominant thought in our culture that while people really like Jesus they’re not sure about church, especially the church as an institution. In general, our society outside the church mistrust’s authority and this has disseminated into our culture and now into our churches. In this episode, we’re talking about church and belonging. It’s an important place to begin in the larger discussion about church and why we gather.

Justice is a huge topic and while we’ve unpacked a lot of ideas in previous episodes, today we’re talking about some of the most common questions we get asked when we teach on justice. While there is tremendous brokenness in this world, there is also the opportunity to see God at work and that’s beautiful. One of the most common themes we’re asked about when speaking at workshops and conferences is social transformation from a biblical perspective. And one of the main questions we address is, “what do you do with your money?” People wonder if we’re supposed to give it all away to the needy, if we should hold back, and what the Bible teaches.

We all know on some level that God’s call is for us to be kind to marginalized people. And not just be kind but do justice. But knowing in our head and knowing in our heart are two different things. And actually doing something about it is worlds apart from knowing about it. Every believer, every person who says he or she follows Jesus is called to care for those who are most marginalized in society.

Christian hospitality. What is it? When most people hear the word “hospitality,” they think it’s something reserved for senior citizens or those from “hospitable cultures.” In order to think about hospitality from a biblical lens, we need to move past our cultural ideations. Why does God emphasise hospitality? And what does it mean? We’re not talking about Pinterest perfection, we’re talking about why Christian hospitality is supposed to be a normative practice for all of us.

In our last episode, we talked about discerning the bad news people live with and then bringing a good news announcement in contrast, as an act of justice. We also talked about not just looking at the needs but at the gifts in the people we’re serving, carrying on the idea of asset-based community development. We’ll unpack this topic more by telling a few stories in this episode.

There’s a lot we can say about justice, but today we’re focusing on looking at justice from the lens of kingdom theology (our topic last time). Caring for underprivileged people isn’t restricted to people who have a calling or spiritual gift of mercy. Letting someone else take responsibility for justice limits your experience of God’s heart and it also limits your joy. One of the most prominent themes in Scripture is God’s heart for the widow, orphan, foreigner, and poor. So how do we adopt God’s perspective on justice?

What’s God’s mission in the world? Known as kingdom theology, this doesn’t just refer to heaven in the general sense. Jesus equated the gospel with the kingdom come (Mark 1:14-15). When we talk about kingdom theology, we want people to know, more than anything, that Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of the kingdom of God in power, because the King himself came to earth in the person of Jesus. In this episode, we’re focusing on Kingdom theology of mission. In other words, how does seeing with a Kingdom perspective inform how we go about God’s mission in the world?

God isn’t interested in making you a better person. He’s interested in making you a new person. In this episode we’re talking about the idea of gospel transformation—the idea that the gospel and God’s highest and best for humanity is that He wouldn’t just leave us where we are. But that He would come in and change us from the inside out. Ezekiel 36:26 is the most poignant Scripture to begin this discussion. God is speaking and He says, “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you. And I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Since the beginning of time it was always in the heart of God to be more than some sort of add-on that we have in our lives. God’s full intent for us, as humans, is to be fully new, to be fully transformed.

Imagine opening a novel and starting in chapter five. You’ll miss the premise of the whole book. Then why do so many people start their Bible study in the New Testament? Today’s discussion is about narrative theology, or meta-narrative. Meta-Narrative means studying the big story—the whole overarching thread of the scriptures. This is different from systematic theology, which is micro-detail analysis of the Bible. You can’t get a full picture of the Bible unless you have both the Old Testament and the New Testament. When you have that overarching meta-narrative, you have an integrated understanding of who God is.

Stories are all around us—but many of us believe they’re are just for kids. Today we’re discussing the importance of story from a Christian perspective. People have limited attention spans and story helps focus our mind. We relate to story, we remember story, and we understand God through story. By listening to a story, and depending on how we embody it, we can reflect on what God is doing; story helps us notice what God’s doing in the world around us. In our quest for deeper discipleship we need to examine how we interact with the stories around us.

In our pilot episode, we discuss how conversation can change the trajectory of people’s lives. When we allow deep conversation to happen, it allows us to get a vision of what our lives could be. Storytelling is of particular importance in conversation. We’ve got a story in the church like nobody’s business. Stories make our points memorable and make us relatable. Our longing is for deep discipleship in the western church and we think story is the key to achieving it. We’ve all heard “12 people changed...turned the world upside down” but the question now is, “How come the world is not being turned upside down today?” We think there are more we as Christians can push towards—deeper discipleship; God’s people actually affecting change in the world.