Podcasts about Blue Like Jazz

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras from Climbing the Assimilayas, an organization dedicated to helping churches build systems that move people from first-time guests to engaged disciples. With years of experience working inside and alongside growing churches, Greg and Tommy bring practical insight into one of the most overlooked—and most critical—areas of church health: assimilation. Are people showing up at your church but not sticking? Do you feel like guests are slipping through the cracks despite your best efforts? In this conversation, Greg and Tommy unpack what's changing about how people engage with church today and how leaders can respond. A seismic shift in why people are coming. // One of the biggest changes in churches is a shift in motivation: people are no longer primarily coming to church for community or life improvement—they're coming to find God. Where previous generations often needed to be convinced of the benefits of church, many new guests today are already spiritually curious or even actively seeking Jesus before they arrive. Greg shares stories of individuals with no church background who are reading Scripture, watching content like The Chosen, and showing up ready to take decisive steps like baptism. This means churches must recalibrate their approach—not just creating welcoming environments, but facilitating genuine encounters with God. You're missing more people than you think. // Tommy identifies a foundational issue: most churches are only tracking a fraction of the people actually engaging. Many leaders celebrate the number of new guests they can count, but in reality, they're missing a significant percentage—especially families checking in children or people who never stop at a guest table. Churches often aren't lacking opportunity—they're overlooking it. Recognizing and responding to all entry points into the church is critical if leaders want to move more people toward connection and growth. Stop telling your story—start naming theirs. // A common mistake churches make is focusing on communicating their own story—how the church started, what it believes, and why it exists—rather than connecting with the story of the guest. Guests aren't primarily interested in your church's narrative; they're asking what God might be doing in their life and how your church fits into that. Instead of offering multiple vague next steps, churches should provide clear, guided invitations that help people take one meaningful step forward. When churches shift from “Here's who we are” to “Here's how we can help you,” engagement increases dramatically. The first questions every guest is asking. // Every new person is subconsciously asking, “Is there anyone here like me?” That question shapes their experience from the parking lot to the worship service. But today, a second question is emerging: “Is there someone worth imitating?” Guests are looking for more than information—they're looking for transformation. This has led many churches to create space for prayer, reflection, and personal ministry during or after services. These moments often become powerful connection points where guests experience both God and meaningful relationships with others. People are looking for people—not programs. // Both Greg and Tommy emphasize that guests aren't primarily searching for better programming—they're searching for meaningful relationships. That means churches must prioritize relational connection over information delivery. Simple actions—like learning someone's name, asking thoughtful questions, and creating environments where people feel seen—can have a greater impact than any polished program. Designing clear pathways for connection. // Greg outlines three key journeys every church should consider: from the “screen to the seat” (first-time attendance), from the “seat to the circle” (relational connection through groups, teams, etc.), and from the “circle to the street” (living out faith in everyday life). Each stage requires intentional environments and clear next steps. Without these pathways, guests may attend once or twice but never fully engage. Every response is a sacred opportunity. // Tommy closes with a powerful reminder: every form submission, every piece of contact information, every small step a guest takes is a miracle. People don't casually give their information—they do so because something significant is happening in their life. When churches fail to follow up or steward those moments well, they're not just missing a system—they're missing a person God is drawing. Leaders must treat every interaction as sacred and respond with urgency, care, and intentionality. To learn more about Climbing the Assimilayas, access their free assimilation audit, or explore their Sherpa Tribe coaching community, visit assimilayas.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone Hey friends, Sunday is coming… is your Sermon Done?Pastor, you don't need more pressure—you need support. That's why you need to check out SermonDone—the premium AI assistant built exclusivelyfor pastors. SermonDone helps you handle the heavy lifting: deep sermon research, series planning, and even a theologically aligned first draft—in your voice—because it actually trains on up to 15 of your past sermons. But it doesn't stop there. With just a click, you can instantly turn your message into small group guides, discussion questions, and even kids curriculum. It's like adding a research assistant, a writing partner, and a discipleship team—all in one. Try it free for 5 days. Head over to www.SermonDone.com and use promo code Rich20 for 20% off today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We have got repeat guests on the call, which you know what that means. These are people I love dearly and who I know have so much that they can help you with. You’re going want to stay plugged in. In fact, this is one of those areas that I think many of our churches are stumbling on and are not doing a good job. We’re not doing what we should be doing. And that doesn’t just come from like, it’s a hunch. I’ve literally been in dozens of conversations where what these guys have shared literally illuminates our thinking and helps us take steps towards being a more effective church. So you’re going to want to stay tuned stay tuned for the entire conversation. Rich Birch — Super excited to have Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras with us. They’re with an organization called Climbing the Assimilayas. Greg is the director of First Steps and Content Development Eastside Christian Church, a fantastic church. Been on the podcast a number of of times. They’re a multi-site church with six locations in all the places that make sense, California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Of course, those fit together.Rich Birch — And then Tommy is is the head sherpa at Climbing the Assimilayas. Super excited to have both of you guys on. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Greg Curtis — Yeah. It’s awesome to be with you, man. Always.Rich Birch — Always fun to connect. Why don’t actually, before we jump in, Tommy, why don’t you tell us about Climbing the Assimilayas? How do you guys help churches? What do you do to come alongside us and help us get better at what what we do?Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I’d love to. Climbing the Assimilayas was started by Greg back when I was brand new in ministry. I was a groups pastor who had just taken over sort of the rest of the pipeline of getting people into groups because I realized I couldn’t get anybody into groups because I wasn’t in charge of anything that was happening before that.Tommy Carreras — So I met Greg in like 2013, 2014. He had just taken over the role of assimilation at Eastside. He kind of designed the role himself when his lead pastor—I’m telling your story now, Greg. Usually you get to tell it.—But his lead pastor, Gene Appel, said, hey, what what do you want to do in this next season? And Greg kind of designed the role based on what he saw was super necessary in the church and also what he was really well designed for.Tommy Carreras — And he was right. Because it was exactly what I needed at the time. It was just trying to figure out what a replicable and scalable system looked like for making things more personal and more effective at getting people to take real next steps. And it sounded really simple, but it was so unbelievably challenging because I just kept getting it wrong myself. And I had no idea where to actually go for advice on any of this. And he started figuring it out, started universalizing some of the principles that were working for him at Eastside and testing those with other churches.Tommy Carreras — I was at his first ever base camp training at Eastside. And so a long friendship began there. And then I just believed everything he said at that point and customized it, contextualized it for ministry and in also Southern California, but a different part. And, you know, it’s California is like five states total. Rich Birch — Right. Sure.Tommy Carreras — So it was much different than Eastside, but also all the principles held up. And so that’s what he’s been doing ever since. I came alongside him a few years ago to sort of throw gas on the fire. I had transitioned out of my role in ministry and started doing a few things with multiple churches. And this was one of them. And it has been a blast to help build these systems in churches that are super hungry for helping people connect, but can’t quite build the systems or just don’t have the models out there that are able to adapt and flex with the changing culture and the changing needs. Because those needs of guests have changed a lot over 12, 13 years.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. And friends that are listening in, both Greg and Tommy are the kind of leaders that I just say, you should just do what they say. Like, just listen to what they’re doing and do it. And you’d be amazed at the results that we’ve seen at churches all across the country. And so you’re in for a treat of a conversation today. Rich Birch — Greg, since we last talked, so I think that was maybe a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, what have you continued to notice that’s maybe different around how people are engaging, connecting? We’re talking about getting first time guests, the kind of people that are arriving, trying to help those people get assimilated, get connected. What what have you noticed maybe something that’s that’s maybe different in the way people are engaging right now that’s different than maybe even a year or two ago?Greg Curtis — Yeah, over a crescendo over the last two years has been remarkable in its shift towards—this is going to sound crazy because we’re talking to churches—they’re wanting God now. And what I what I mean by that is prior, we were having to sell the benefits of following Jesus, most growing churches, which there are, and I think it was a compelling thing to share with the culture.Greg Curtis — And so people were coming to church to find community, to find help with parenting, to find support in marriage or to, you know, a variety of different things. And so the draw and and what was causing people to engage with church was really what can, what help in my life? How can I increase the quality of my life? Maybe even get some pretty powerful pain points addressed.Greg Curtis — This has shifted. I’ll put it in the terms of our um our young adult pastor. His name is Charles. He came to me. He said, Greg, prior to a few two, three years ago, maybe not even that long. He said, young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community, and about 20% to find God. He goes, it’s flipped. It’s flipped. Now it’s 80% God and 20% community.Greg Curtis —  And that has expressed itself in some remarkable ways. I’ll just throw two out. At the end of last year, i was covering somebody, ah a pastor who was gonna baptize somebody after the service. He had to be gone, so I said, yeah, I’ll cover it. So in our context, I’ll meet that person ahead of time and kind of show him where to sit in the service, when to come out, where the baptistry is, et cetera.Greg Curtis — And I met her, she was 28 years old, named Connie. And I said, as we’re walking through the baptistry, so, you know, I asked these typical questions, how how long have you been coming to Eastside, which is my church? And ah she says, oh, I’ve I’ve never been to Eastside.Greg Curtis — And was like, oh, so you’re from our online campus? And she goes, no, I’ve never really heard of Eastside. And I said, well, what’s led you to be baptized today?Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And this was her story. She goes, I grew up in a very non-religious home and I’ve I’ve never been to church. And I have, I vowed I’d never even date a religious person, but I had some friends three months ago that invited me to watch The Chosen with them.Greg Curtis — I didn’t want to. I got I was mad at myself for getting engaged after the first episode. Kept watching. Decided to buy myself a Bible two months ago. I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided, I love Jesus and I want to follow him. And I could tell what I needed to do was get baptized. But get this. I’m the game day operations coordinator for the NFL. So I work on Sundays. And I just Googled who would baptize me on a Saturday. And your form came up and I filled it out. So here I am.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.Greg Curtis — Yeah. And and I’ll tell you what. She didn’t know, Rich, that this baptism was going to be in front of other people until we were in the water and the whole church was looking at her.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.Greg Curtis — Okay. The questions she had, we’ve we’ve remained in touch. The questions she asks are so precious. I mean…Rich Birch — So good.Greg Curtis — …but I’m telling you, I met with somebody, I’ve had a few of those that are similar. That one’s pretty dramatic, but are very similar. No background at all. They’re coming because they’re having a God moment before they get to us.Rich Birch — Yeah. Greg Curtis — And that’s a big shift because God is doing something literally worldwide and in our culture right now that they’re coming to us to find God and and they’re already they’re already encountering him in some way and they need help with that and want it. And that’s a huge shift.Rich Birch — Yeah, I would agree. I’ve seen that in our context, in our church, so my specific home church that I’m a part of, Connexus. I’ve seen that at our church. We’ve seen it in the churches we work with. There is a um a measurable change in the way, kind of the state that people are at when they arrive. You know, that the way I’ve said, echoed similar to what you’re saying there, Greg, is like, There used to be, you know, you and I are of a certain age. I can remember a time when, you know, people would kind of stumble into church and they, you know, they were there for all different kinds of reasons. And, you know, we had to hold their hand for a long time. Rich Birch — But it seems like now people are arriving and they have ah It’s like a God question on their heart that they’re looking for an answer for. It’s they’re, they’re arriving already asking something significant. And, you know, we’ve got to meet them there. We can’t, we can’t just leave that.Greg Curtis — So get get this. I’ve often, I think I’ve probably said this on your podcast before, but for for our church, Christmas is our Super Bowl. It’s our number one outreach event for the year. Traditionally, we’ve gotten 18% of our guest leads from Christmas for for the year.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.Greg Curtis — Okay. But yeah, but we tried something in light of this. Because we’re we’re we’re looking at this and trying to meet God in in this. And we did something we have never done at Christmas services. And that’s, we it’s so counterintuitive. We invited people, we just shared the gospel. If you want to be baptized right now, We’ll do it.Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.Greg Curtis — And we have never done that because, and and you’ve heard me say i Christmas guests are different than other guests of the year. They’re not there to find God. They’re there because Aunt Sally invited them to a Christmas service before the dinner and gift exchange. So they’re on their way someplace. They’re not going to do anything. And we just thought, let’s just try it. Rich Birch — RightGreg Curtis — And it probably, we we were we were prepared for, we thought maybe, you know, we’re a church of, I don’t know, 12-, 15,000 today. We thought maybe we’d get 120 people to respond, but we prepared for 200 just in case. We had 399 people… Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s incredible. On Christmas Eve. Greg Curtis — …get baptized by coming to a Christmas service, not knowing that they were going to do that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible.Greg Curtis — So that just that that just illustrates there’s a seismic spiritual shift going on. And I think meeting guests there is going to be very smart for us in this hour.Rich Birch — Yeah, and I want to, that’s a great place to start. I think sets up, tees up the conversation we will be having today, which is, friends, I think a lot of our churches could be missing some of these folks as they’re as they’re connecting. And I want to really mine from you guys. You guys are the experts on this. You interact with a lot of churches. I want to mine for our our listeners some help for them. So Tommy, from your vantage point, you work with churches across the country where we’re asking questions like this.Rich Birch — How do we get these people plugged in? How can we help these first time guests take steps towards ultimately groups, teams, get plugged into whatever it is that we’re trying to get them plugged in. Where do you see that leaders keep getting stuck when it comes to helping people take their next steps beyond this kind of first weekend? Where do we keep stumbling? What do you see consistently bubbling up in the churches that you’re working with?Tommy Carreras — Yeah. Yeah, there’s a few really specific things. And the first one is, first of all, we always have to move as far left or as far up, however you’d like to think, left to right, top to bottom. We have to move all the way to the left or all the way to the top. And the problem is there aren’t enough people in your funnel in the first place.Tommy Carreras — We’ve talked about this before, but a really, really popular church that I’ve been talking to a lot recently, and working with—by “popular”, I mean it’s growing, it’s a few thousand, so it’s there’s something there, obviously, and really popular online pastor. Not not super duper 2 million followers, but like quarter of a million. That’s a lot. Right. And just a wonderful guy. Right. Tommy Carreras — They announced really proudly recently that they had 1300 new people in the last year and their church of 25 to 2800. And I, looked him and said, guys, guys, that’s not even half of how many new people walked in the door. And they just looked so con confused.Tommy Carreras — They’re like, that’s a great number. I’m like, that’s a that’s a great number. It’s a really bad percentage, though. And it’s just wrong. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, ugly.Rich Birch — Right.Tommy Carreras — It’s just wrong. The idea is most often we’re trying to help people take next steps, but we’re just looking at half or less than half of the actual people that are there. And so if we can’t get the top of the funnel right and recognize who’s there, and some of that is just missing the data that we do have. You can give this one away… If you’re not treating your new families like new guests, you’re ignoring them. You’re not missing them. You’re ignoring them because they’re giving you all the info. They’re giving you all the info besides their social security number, right? We need all their info for having their children. And we’re just missing that opportunity usually because we don’t treat them like, well, they didn’t go to the new guest table. But well, who cares? Bring the new guest table to them, right? Just bring it over there and treat them as such. And so that’s a huge one. That’s 30 to 40% of your new guest leads are actually coming in through kids. And so we have to stop ignoring those people.Tommy Carreras — But also it’s all about that invitation. If we can’t get that invitation right originally, then we’re always going to be looking at less than the actual amount. And then fewer people are going to take next steps because fewer people are being invited to take next steps. And so the top of the funnel is the first problem. We’re just not dealing with all the information. Tommy Carreras — The bigger sort of meta problem that I think has has been really interesting to watch is that most churches end up trying to tell their story instead of name their guest’s story.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And so if you want to go like the StoryBrand route, and if you’re a Donald Miller fan, which I think, Rich, you are a Donald Miller fan, like it, how could you not be, right?Rich Birch — Sure, sure.Tommy Carreras — Like, “Blue Like Jazz” and “StoryBrand”, where does this guy stop? But the idea is we try and play the hero so that they’ll choose us. We’re trying to make sure all our theological ducks are in a row. We need to tell them the story about the incredible call that that God had on this this church planter’s life 23 years ago and that incredible first moment. And and they’re just sitting there going, Okay, that’s really cool…Rich Birch — That’s interesting to you.Tommy Carreras — …but it has nothing to do with them. Yeah, that’s super interesting. And that sounds like a great documentary that I would watch the trailer for. But that’s it. And what we’re not trying to do, though, is name their story, how they might be feeling right now, and how we might play a part in their story.Tommy Carreras — So instead of trying to say, here’s the story of our church, do you want to get on board? Those assimilation environments, whether it’s your “one program”, which is our language for, you know, the the program that you invite somebody to to help them take a next step into belonging and purpose. Instead of trying to name our story as an organization and say, here’s where you can fit into it. We’re trying to say, here’s the story we believe that God is writing in your life. And we might be able to play a part of it. It’s way bigger than us as a church, but we would love to play a part in it. And here’s the specific next thing that we would like to try and do for you because God’s writing your story and it’s a really good one. And we think we can plug in right here, right now.Tommy Carreras — And that’s the other thing. It’s a lot of times we’re just trying to go and here’s all the ways you could connect. And Greg’s been saying this since 2013 when I met him. But, you know, if you give if you give somebody A, B, C and D, they’ll choose E, none of the above. We’re just we’re giving them options and really they want guidance. And so if we can say, hey, here’s the thing that we have found is the best step for most people like you right now. Then they can just say yes or no.Tommy Carreras — And yes or no is great because if they say no, we just downsell and say, well, what do you want? What are you looking for? What what can we help you accomplish in your story and in your life right now? Not what environment do you want to be in? Because they don’t know. They don’t know what the deliverable of a group is. They don’t know why they would do it. We just have to say, what what do you want then?Tommy Carreras — And they say, oh I’m kind of looking for this, this, this. And you go, oh well, this is an environment that might be built just for you. And so we’re just trying to come alongside their story. But most often we’re trying to convince them that our story is really compelling. And that’s just falling way too flat.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So much there. Unpack. Friends, rewind. Listen to that. There’s good stuff packed in there. Greg, sticking with this idea of options versus guidance, you know, when we’re thinking about a new person that walks into our church this weekend, this season, what do you think they’re actually trying to figure out in those first few weeks? What are the kind of questions that are on their minds that we’ve got to try to guide them towards? What are you seeing in the churches you’re working with? How should we be trying to guide those people?Greg Curtis — Multiple thoughts come to mind with that one. I’ve always said, and I do think that it’s still true, that the number one question when any of us are in a new environment is, and we’re not conscious of it really, but we look around and is there anyone here like me? And that’s that’s the inner question everybody is asking whenever they go to someplace that’s foreign or new to them. And that, you know, in a church context, that starts in the parking lot.Greg Curtis — And that sounds unusual. But if you’ve if you’ve driven in in on your motorcycle and every other car is a Mercedes and a Beamer, when you pull up, you know, you start to feel other than. And it’s people just look around, is is there somebody here like me? Greg Curtis — And I do think, like I had mentioned before, they are trying to figure out if this is a place where I can encounter God. So I do think we need to calibrate our services in such a way that they do encounter God. And I think that there’s a shift and I can’t wait to see how it gets ferreted out. But the shift in worship that needs to be happening is not just singing great praise songs and, having compelling announcements and and great teaching that is given to you, but having moments where they they actually feel like they’re encountering God, you know what I mean, in some way. And not that he’s not encountered, you know, through his word and and and and in worship. But um you know, ah creating a little bit of space ah for that, I think, going to actually speak to what they’re trying to figure out, which is, okay can I figure out God here? I have so many questions.Greg Curtis — And when they encounter God, that covers a multitude of sins, so to speak. Like, they may have three burning questions, but when if they actually encounter God, the questions almost go into the backseat because, oh my gosh, I just I sense God here. And when I say this, I’m not being theoretical. I just met with a gal, another 28-year-old, yesterday. And again, no church back when whatsoever.Greg Curtis — Her father was Jewish. She passed away a year ago. And she just feels orphaned and started looking for God and started watching us online for two weeks and then came and got baptized her first week she came because we happen to be doing one of those baptism things that we do maybe five times a year.Greg Curtis — And so we sat down, she had her little Bible that we print. It’s one of these few dads that we make. We call it a Bible, but we just print out text for the Bible because we’re doing an Old Testament survey kind of thing called the Old Testament Junk. But she’s she’s like, I think I should get it. Like she just figured out that’s not actually a Bible. And she what what Bible should I get was her first question.Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Right.Greg Curtis — Her other second question. because I said, you got a real pastor of front of you. Where do where do you which what kind of Bible should I get? The second one was, how do you pray?Rich Birch — Love it.Greg Curtis — This is the kind of stuff that as we were growing up, you said we were men of a certain age, that we used to anticipate and dream that people would ask us these incredible discipleship questions, like the disciples asked Jesus, Lord, how do we pray? And he gives them Lord’s Prayer. And we were prepared for those questions, but we were unprepared for a culture that was pretty disinterested. And so we’ve gone to the other paths I mentioned before. But now they’re asking the questions that we we are very prepared to answer, but I think we’re just got a little unused to it. And we need to put those things right in our pocket again because they’re asking. Greg Curtis — And so those are the kinds of of things that that they’re looking for in their first few weeks. And I think they’ll gauge and they are gauging our church by different things than they were a couple of years ago. You know, yeah, sure we have our kids program needs to be good and safe. You know, and and and we can’t do a sloppy job, you know, as we worship God corporately. But they’re gauging it by is God here? Am I meeting him? How can I connect with him? And that is just a very beautiful thing to see happen. That’s a great shift.Rich Birch — You know, I kind of sticking with that. One of the things I’ve been doting as I’ve been interacting with churches across the country is something that a friend of mine, Jeff Brody, lead pastor at Connexus has said. He talked, he’s talked about how we’re trying to offer what we’ve been calling accessible encounter, that it’s like we are trying to, so he wouldn’t say this next part, I’m saying this, so I don’t want to put words in his mouth.Rich Birch — But, um you know, i come from I come from the attractional church movement. That would be my background. Happy to say that that is my background. I know you’re not supposed to admit that, but that’s where that’s my background. It’s like you’re not supposed to say or that’s who it is.Rich Birch — And you know, what we were trying to do there was trying to connect with people who don’t normally attend church. And that’s still our heart. That’s still what we’re trying to do. But what we’ve realized is people are looking for an encounter with God that is that does go beyond. It transcends like, here’s three great ideas for this week at work or whatever. It’s it’s like, hey, I’m coming with real questions.Rich Birch — And so people are looking for something in the service that does have a transformational experience or an encounter to it. Sticking with you for a second, Greg, do you see that trend? So we’re doing more, I’m seeing more churches doing more kind of prayer stuff at the altar, end of the service experience, light these candles if you’re praying for that, fill out this card and post it on the cross. More of those kinds of experiences than I’ve seen before. What do you think about that, Greg?Greg Curtis — No, I feel that too. But that do you know what that does, is it shifts me into one thing I didn’t say is, I also think they’re looking for a person, a resource that they can talk to also. Tommy Carreras — Yeah.Greg Curtis — And I think that when we have those after church like prayer moments, like what what how that’ll look at our church is, and we’ve we’ve decided for this very reason to increase the frequency of them because we didn’t do them often. Now we’re doing them a little bit more regularly, more cyclically. But we we’ll have a prayer team, and I love being on the prayer team that’s at front afterwards because of the content that we were talking about.Greg Curtis — And lines will form of people, and we just pray for them and and talk to them and look in their eyes and sometimes connect them to resources if you know, that’s appropriate. But we just watch the people just line up for that, you know. And I just think people are looking for also a person or a guide, you know, that they could ask some questions of. Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And so I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who’s, I think he’s 31. And um his name is Kellen. Love this guy. He’s a leader on staff at a church in Georgia. And his thing, and I’m not saying this is the answer, but because I don’t think anybody knows the answer right now, because all of this, there’s not, and it’s really multiple answers, right? It’s just a bunch of things. But I’ll throw this in as an ingredient in the thought soup, you know, that’s percolating right now on all this. He was saying, especially with all the younger people returning to church, he that he sees a shift in the attractional church model maybe that may be happening over the next five years, where instead of the worship service being the attractional event, and then we get them assimilation-wise into small groups and ministry teams, that it it may be the reverse of that.Greg Curtis — Where because they’re looking for God in a person, they end up in somebody’s home at, at a, something that may look like a small group, as we think of them, and conversations over coffee. And they get so enraptured in it that it starts there. And then it ends kind of like my friend, Connie, who, who came the NFL gal, it ends at your church. It doesn’t start there. That’s the shift. It starts to end there. And that may mean in the future, our attractional church model and worship may shift to something that’s unapologetically for those who are following and seeking Jesus, not trying to get them to. And that’s a big shift. So so the the the river flow may be shifting. And I just think that’s an interesting thought. It’s been in my head for a while.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Tommy Carreras — I think it’s so funny that you mentioned that people are looking for a person, because I was hoping to jump in and say, I think that all of this is like they’re looking for people, not experiences. Rich Birch — Right.Tommy Carreras — And so thank you for for going there. The question that came to mind, because I’ve always loved your question to to remind us how simple and basic the initial need of a guest is. Anybody in any new scenario, is anybody here like me? I think the question that they’re asking next, is anyone here worth imitating? Because also imitation, imitation is the way we learn. It’s the way we grow. It’s why Jesus is a, is a person we follow, not a doctrinal set of beliefs that we adhere to. Tommy Carreras — That’s not the point. The point is the person we follow and the people we’re becoming and everybody wants to become someone better. And that’s not actually a legalistic gross, like, Oh, you’re just prideful. No, no, no. We’re designed to be phenomenally wonderful people that look like Jesus. That’s what our, our actual heart’s desire is. Tommy Carreras — And so if God’s leaning into that desire in people, then their first question is going to naturally be, is anybody here worth imitating? And we can’t tell people that we’re worth imitating. We can only show them that we’re worth imitating. And how do we show them? We walk up to people we don’t know and say, Hey, I don’t think I know you yet. And you deserve to be known. I’m Tommy. What’s your name? And just take it from there. Tommy Carreras — That’s somebody that’s worth imitating. That is somebody that’s confident and inviting and welcoming and kind and compassionate and interested and curious. That’s who I want to be. And so I’m going to naturally say, oh, if that’s the first person I met here, what are all these other people like? This could be wonderful.Rich Birch — Right. Greg Curtis — Yeah.Tommy Carreras — And so I think those two questions really build the the exact desire set, or at least the first initial desires of somebody who’s who’s coming to church, especially somebody who’s explicitly coming to get to know God and to be the best version of themselves. And they’re they’re actually saying, and I think God defines what that best version looks like. That’s like the best news ever for churches. But we tend to miss it because we design for information transfer and not relationship building. And that’s just not what they’re looking for.Greg Curtis — Yes.Rich Birch — So sticking with that, Tommy, I’d love to, I’d love you to unpack that a little bit. Think of maybe I’m a church of a thousand. So it’s, you know, this thing’s got some energy behind it. And I want to design this, these kind of initial first steps. I want to design our weekend experience and then whatever I’m asking for people to make, to try to get them towards some relationship and get them towards some people. What are some of those initial things that we should be thinking about to try to help them take those first couple steps? What are some of the, these initial steps. Again, picture a church of maybe a thousand. What’s that look like? So it’s gotta be done at scale.Rich Birch — I love the idea of like, you know, I could note people in the room who I don’t know, but like, we all know you get up over a couple hundred and it’s like, I don’t know. By the time you get to a thousand, you look around your lobby and you’re like, I don’t know any of these people. Like I don’t know who any of these people are.Tommy Carreras — I don't know any of these people. Yeah.Rich Birch — So how do we, how do we build a system for lack of a better word that helps us move people towards that?Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I think that first we have to get clear on our goals as a team and we have to get clear on every environment’s goal and make sure there is an environment for every step of the journey. Nobody’s just going to take a big swing. Right. And also we, I would love to live in a place and and be in a church where this is just like, I don’t have to design any systems because all the people just naturally do it. Tommy Carreras — And I would say that often, like I want to, I want to, I want our church to be a church where we don’t even need a group connection event because everybody gets invited to a group personally. And that wasn’t because I was actually hoping that would be a realistic thing. I was trying to set such a clear picture of my actual goal that we could just move 5% in that direction. We could get 20% of our people invited instead of going through a connection event. That would be awesome. Even 5% is better than zero. Tommy Carreras — And so I tried to set ah a visionary goal just for the sake of the culture building. But we have to build the systems and and be really obvious about it because people are also walking in with baggage and they’re walking in with a clear picture and they’re they’re asking to be proved wrong in most cases. Well, i don’t know about in most cases, but in plenty cases, they’re they’re hoping they’re proved wrong. Tommy Carreras — Well, church people just like each other. Well, church people are going to judge the places that don’t have it together yet. Lightning is going to strike when I walk in the door. I’m not actually going to be useful here. I’m going to be a burden. All of those things, that’s the baggage they’re walking in with, not just because of church hurt, because of life hurt. And that is exactly why we’re here, to meet that and say, that’s actually a lie. That’s actually a lie from the father of lies. And you’re here to meet the good father that has only truth for you. And I’m going to show it to you. Tommy Carreras — But we need the systems and the environments that build it correctly and that that lean toward those and produce those kinds of relationships or relational touch points. We need to set clear goals and we need to be relentless in our invitation into those environments. So just having a new here sign on a booth is not an invitation. It’s information. But when my favorite way to announce, for example, which should be an announcement, every single service, hopefully twice in the service. Hey, if you’re new here or you consider yourself new here, and if if you haven’t done this yet, we’d love you to go have a conversation at this place. We want to put this gift in your hands or this something and, and, and here’s what I would always say. And if you’re thinking that the free mug is a bribe to get to know you, you are exactly right. The mug is great, but what’s better is that we think you’re worth knowing and we want to make sure that you have every opportunity to have a familiar face next time you walk in the door.Tommy Carreras — Not, we want to meet you because it’s part of our organizational goal to identify this many guests so that hopefully you give at some point. That’s not a great message. The great message is you’re worth knowing. We think you deserve a familiar face who calls you by name next time you walk in the door. And hopefully also there’s going to be a next time. And we’d like to ensure that there’s a next time. So yes, it’s a bribe. All we want to do is get to know you. We stop by the place. Tommy Carreras — And that, that really worked because also we’re not being slick. We’re being honest. We’re being vulnerable. We’re being transparent. We’re saying we’re just here to do this and whatever it takes to get you there. That’s great. You can leave the mug. The point is we would love to get to know you because you’re worth knowing. And so we’re trying to make sure those environments exist. And then we also have to follow it up. Tommy Carreras — And that means training people training. empowering volunteers to actually accomplish the goal as opposed to accomplish what they think is the goal, but never really was. And so if they’re like, I got to sell the church. Nope. No, no, no. You got to remember their name and ask three personal questions about them. That’s my, that’s my goal for you. Just do that. Tommy Carreras — And if they come to the next thing, like we’ll, we’ll get them to the next thing. You got to mention the program that we want them to come to. That’s fine. They’re not going to come next week anyway. They’re not ready for that. Just get to know them. Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And so we’re setting real goals and making them very attainable for those volunteers. And then we’re also doing it ourselves in staff and we’re not hiding in the green room, just a little note. But you know, if you’re on staff and you’re hiding in the green room, you know, would fix that. Just fix it.Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. Stop doing that. I love that. So super tactically, Greg, because we’re talking, we talked, you brought up the ethical bribe. I like to call it the like, Hey, we’ve got a great coffee mug or a water bottle. And you know, it’s one of those things. I love how you framed that, Tommy. Cause I like, think that’s a, that’s a great way even just to like unpack this exactly what we’re trying to do. I think that’s fantastic.Rich Birch — Greg, you’ve helped us think, you’ve helped me think so clearly around um how are we collecting people’s contact information, which is just the start of the of the relationship. Like we’re I think sometimes we can get that turned upside down. It’s like we’re trying to hit the metric because for some metric reason. No, no, it’s ultimately about trying to start a relationship. What are you learning about the timing, the context of all of that, of that kind of part of the service that we’re asking when we’re giving them? You know, what is the ethical bribe, all of that?Rich Birch — What are you learning these days for this very tippy top part of the transaction we’re talking about, the very first step? Is there anything that you’re learning there that we should be thinking differently about?Greg Curtis — I don’t I don’t know. I’m always cautious about saying what I’m learning as if it’s been learned. Rich Birch — Right. Greg Curtis — I think that we are experimenting with some new things in light of this. And I would say that one of the big shifts is it’s look, how do I say it? In light of everything we’ve said already about them looking for God, right? And not just life help. They, I think looking at their discipleship, there’s an old word, you know, but they’re they’re learning to follow Jesus, right? Their discipleship, becoming a follower of Jesus. We have always looked at that through just a biblical theological doctrinal lens. Like, do they know this? Have they done that kind of thing? Greg Curtis — And I think it’s an interesting thing to look at it through the journeys that they experience at at when they come into a new church from their angle. So I call them, I’ve said this before, I think to your crowd, but I call those three journeys the journey from the street to the seat, which really became from the screen to the seat after COVID.Greg Curtis — Right. Like I mentioned, the gal I met with ah on Sunday, she had already attended our church twice online before she had come. And many churches I have talked to, their average is about four times that they’ve attended your church online. But that journey from, say, the screen to the seat where they’re ah they’re seeing you on their television. But then it’s the parking lot, the greeters, the info counter, kids checked in, ushers, whatever. Right. That journey is is so important. Greg Curtis — And that journey is about but ah belonging. But then you get the journey from, ah that’s really the growing journey, which is what they’re there for. And that’s a journey from the seat to a circle. And that’s because the circle is the environment we know works best for somebody to grow, where they’re just kind of FaceTime with people, you know, that in Tommy’s words, they might want to imitate, right? And learn from.Greg Curtis — But it’s so important to get that information. We’re making a big shift where instead of like we’re actually experimenting and saying this for the last few weeks at our church where we’re not collecting their information at all at the at that stage. What we’re doing is saying just come get a free get come get…in our case, we have like a grill where they could get a free meal. Come get a free coffee drink or meal or whatever on us. And we’re we’re not asking them for anything. We’re just creating engagement.Greg Curtis — But we’re starting to shift because we are baptizing, like in our in our case, over the last 15 months, we’ve baptized over 1800 people. And that’s a big that’s a big shift from targeting what I call cold leads to warm leads. You know, you want to get engagement, start collecting stuff and engaging with people when they’ve been willing to get wet in front of people they don’t know, because they made a decision to follow Jesus. That’s a warm lead.Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — Somebody, you know what I’m saying? And in the, in the spirit of the parable of the talents investing where the, you’re starting to see results, you know, in the fruit and just being strategic about that.Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — That’s where we’re pouring in some of our, of our best stuff. We’re experimenting with that. I’m not telling people to do that yet because we don’t know how that’s going to work for us.Rich Birch — Yes.Greg Curtis — So let me just say that in the… Rich Birch — Yes. That’s good. Yeah.Greg Curtis — But moving them from the seat to the circle through that kind of engagement, you know through whatever one program you have, inviting them into a ministry team, a small group. And then that third journey is the journey, you know once it’s belongings established, growing established, then it’s it’s going, the journey about going.Greg Curtis — That’s the journey from the circle back out to the street. And it’s really just equipping people to to not just know Jesus, but to be more like him and to imitate him ultimately, even through their other people examples. And ad I just think that there’s some great environments that we can talk about later that really equip them to do that. Because we may look at the Bible and see, here’s discipleship steps. But from the guest vantage point, it’s their journey from the screen to the seat, the seat to the circle, and the circle back out to the street. And so what environments are we creating?Greg Curtis — And like you said, how are we engaging with them? When do we get their contact info, right? When do we invest in in the engagement? And for us, it it seems a worthy experiment to shift to, because we are seeing so many baptisms in light of the the huge God interest, is to start it’s like a it’s a it’s a discipleship moment to let the discipleship issues drive when we do what. And look at it through the lens of these journeys that guests experience our church with. Right. So that’s a little bit about, you know, what we’re looking at in there and on the front end.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I friends who are listening in, I was really hoping that you’ll take steps to get connected with Greg and Tommy. We’ve talked about a bunch of stuff. The problem with these things is, man, we can just keep going. And like, there’s so much in this that I find fascinating and, you know, I’ve always loved when people connect. Rich Birch — I do want to kind of pivot and talk a little bit about how you guys help churches. So first, maybe Tommy, talk to us about, you’ve got this incredible free audit that you’ve made available for folks. Talk to us about the audit. How will it help us? We’ll put a link to in the show notes about it. But I really think 100% of the people that are listening today should take this. This would be a great next step for folks coming out of today. Talk us through this a little bit.Tommy Carreras — Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite things about the audit, because it’s it’s a brand new tool that we just rolled out. Because we had a 63-point checklist before, and it was phenomenal. I worked through every item on that checklist…Rich Birch — Yes.Tommy Carreras — …when Greg initially rolled it out a long time ago. And what we did was we took our own medicine and said, how do we reorganize this instead of around an organizational checklist of do we have the features that we think are valuable? Instead, we said, well, what what milestones are going to help a guest on their journey. And so we, we organize the assimilation audit around the three journeys of the guest, not the environments of the church. Tommy Carreras — Now the audit does say, well, this is an environment that meets them in this thing that they’re looking for on their journey, but, do you have the environment? Is it working? Is the main question usually is, is it actually working? And we give you some actual markers around whether or not it’s working. Because the the reality is you have the programs, you have the ingredients, you have the volunteers, you probably have a great Sunday experience. And yet all the people are still disappearing or at least most of them. And they’re, the problem is they do it quietly. They don’t write in and tell you… Rich Birch — Right. Tommy Carreras — …by the way, I left because I didn’t find somebody that I could imitate quickly enough because what I really had was all this baggage from this… They don’t tell you any of that. You just never knew they were even there. Rich Birch — So true. Tommy Carreras — And so what we’re trying to do is look at the experience and go based on all the churches that we’ve worked with, Greg, for over 12 years and seeing this happen over and over and over and seeing the remarkable consistency in the issues and the challenges. We said, here are the leakage points in the system. And some of them are pretty surprising. Some of them are super obvious. But what this will do is actually help you audit the effectiveness of those experiences, organized by what the guests are hoping they experience. They’re desperately hoping you can provide for them on their journey.Tommy Carreras — And the best part about it, honestly, like it’s a Google doc right now. That is, I’m just giving you that admission because also it’s not a fancy tool that I vibe coded like Rich recently vibe coded one of his really cool assessment tools. I haven’t done that yet. And the the reality is though, it’s a Google doc because also you should write some notes on this thing and you should sit around it as a staff and share it and have real conversations.Tommy Carreras — Cause the, the, the gold of this audit is going to be in the conversation and the arguments: No, I think it’s red. No, it’s yellow. It’s doing okay. But what about this person? What about this person?Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — Will somebody go pull up the numbers? Because the numbers… That’s where the gold is in the audit. And it’s, I mean, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of stuff to dig through in your system because it’s 49 points. It’s 49 stops along the way on those three journeys. But you’re going uncover so much. And then I think that it’ll give you a really clear pathway toward, okay, well, here’s what we should do first. Rich Birch — That’s good.Tommy Carreras — And that might be the most important thing about it.Greg Curtis — I would just say, too, on that point that for your listeners, if you’re at a point where you are either feeling alone in in wanting to see a breakthrough in engagement or you have a team and you guys are just kind of spinning your wheels and you have the same results all the time and wanting to see them increase and they really don’t that much, this thing is do it for a few weeks together in meetings. It will invigorate. And you’ll do it do it with a team, even if if ah ah but ah a team of key volunteers yeah in a smaller context.Greg Curtis — But make a day retreat or something out of it and really go through it. And you will find that you, oh my gosh, you can shake out all of the obstacles, all the pain points and weaknesses. It will be very, very helpful and rejuvenating. And it’s free. So there’s that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. I really do think this would be a great next step for everybody who’s listening in. Super helpful. Great. It’s crazy that it’s free to me. You know, don’t don’t trash talk that it’s just a Google Doc. Like, man, a lot of intelligence built into that that, you know, we want people to take.Rich Birch — And then the second thing, Greg, could you tell us about the Sherpa tribe? Because I think there are people, well, I know there are churches that are listening in that, you know, you talked about earlier, there was this, you know, hey, there’s 1300 guests or or, you know, sorry, Tommy was talking about the fact there’s 1300 guests at this church, and they should have had a lot more. That has been my experience with 100% of the churches that I’ve talked to around these issues, we’re missing people. So how does the Sherpa tribe help with that? How does that actually help us find those guests, get them to stay, get them to serve and to start growing? What does that look like?Greg Curtis — Well, alongside of looking at the guest journeys in these three ways that I earlier described, we we find that each church, once they do the audit, has a different weakness. You know what I mean? Some of them are common, right? But they ah they’re at their own place and shoring up and strengthening different aspects of that journey. Greg Curtis — And so what we did is we took our video course, which was one of our mainstays, and we started breaking it up and creating a ton more videos that breaking up around 10 minutes and then creating action points for each one and allowing ah people who become part of our Sherpa tribe—which you can go to assimilayas.com and click on Sherpa Tribe, find out more—to to to go right where they need it and study the things and action points that they need. Go deep in that. And then weekly meet with Tommy or I, with other people just like them from around the country and beyond that in these Zoom sessions where there’s no agenda but you. Rich Birch — Right.Greg Curtis — And you bring your questions and what you’re struggling through in this. And we have the most dynamic and fun conversations that create breakthroughs for teams through those through those Zoom moments. Tommy, would you add anything to that?Tommy Carreras — No, I think the the other the other piece of the puzzle that’s so powerful is we’ve seen the we’ve seen the best results from the folks who haven’t just jumped in to go like, I got to shore up a thing and get some information and and then get out and then you know milk it for all it’s worth and just get in.Tommy Carreras — What they’re really, that the churches who are getting the most out of it are the ones who say, this is the year where we fix this. Greg Curtis — Yeah, yeah.Tommy Carreras — This is the year where we look different at the end of it. This is the year that our staff gets it. There are no more people just sitting around in workflows or process queues 29, 42, 83 days overdue. That is the biggest crisis that we could have now because we all get it. We’re speaking the same language and we’re serving each other and we’re doing all these things to shore up all of these systems because it’s not just one person. And most likely it’s most people’s second or third job on their actual plate. Tommy Carreras — And so we’re trying to skip them up to third base on all of these different kind of sections of their assimilation system. And we’re trying to give them the people and the contextualization that’s going to make it come to life for their entire team. But it’s it’s the churches that go, we’re going to make it this year is going to be the one where things change.Tommy Carreras — And they they dive in and they go, I’m going to commit to this thing because they believe that it’s a keystone. It’s almost like a keystone habit. We fix this. Everything else is going to make more sense in our church. And that’s assimilation is a mindset and ah a sort of almost a belief system, not just a couple different environments in our church or a couple different process cues. And so those are the churches that are really crushing it inside the tribe.Rich Birch — Yeah, that that’s fantastic. And friends, again, we’ll link to that. It’s assimilayas.com where you can you know connect more with Tommy, with Greg, with everything that they’re they’re doing. And you know super hearty endorsement from me. You guys do great work and I think it’s super helpful for many churches. This is one of these areas that if we don’t keep an eye on over time, we’re just missing people. We’re missing people taking steps closer to Jesus.Rich Birch — Tommy, why don’t I give you the last word here? Any kind of last encouragement as we wrap up today’s episode that you’d like to share with listeners who are you know thinking about these issues? Obviously, these people are the better part of an hour in. What would you say to them as we wrap up today’s call?Tommy Carreras — Yeah. I was at a church recently and they I was working on mostly data with them. Okay. And they said, hey do you want to talk to the staff for 20 minutes? And I said, okay, sure. Random. I’m going to try and convince them that data matters. And that they okay, they should love their church management software at the end of this 20 minute talk.Tommy Carreras — And by the end of it, they did actually. They believed me. But the whole idea was I led with there’s a whole bunch that got to it, but the the crux at the end was every form response. Every time somebody gives us their information is a miracle. God has moved heaven and earth since before time began to get them to put their name, email, and phone number on that stupid Planning Center form. And it’s a dang miracle.Tommy Carreras — And if that’s true, then every single person in a queue or a workflow or a form, you know, submission, whatever you call in your church management software, that is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders.Greg Curtis — Yeah.Tommy Carreras — And every red light overdue, 23 days not started, all of those are massive warning signals in our ministry. All because it’s a miracle that anybody would say yes to anything. And how could we not do everything in our power to lean in meet them there and steward their next step and get them across the gap that they are not going to and may not be able to cross on their own.Tommy Carreras — That’s the opportunity ahead of us. And it’s just sacred. And I hope that we don’t miss it.Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, thank you so much, guys. really appreciate you being on the show. Again, that’s assimilayas.com. We’ll link to all of that, but appreciate you being here today. We’ll have to have you on again in the future because this is such an important area, but appreciate you being here today. Thank you. Tommy Carreras — Thanks, Rich.

Steve Taylor (the one and only) checks in to discuss Sketch, his latest film production (in conjunction with writer Seth Worley and starring actor Tony Hale). We also touch on Steve's musical career including his classic "Meltdown (At Madame Tussaud's)", artists he has written for/produced, and the influence of his dad and mom. Tim grew up loving Steve's brand of alternative/punk rock--full of energy & witty lyrics, packed with meaning and way ahead of their time--frequently tackling difficult subjects head-on, challenging people (often the within the church) without making himself the center of attention, if such a thing is possible. Examples include "I Want To Be A Clone," "(We Don't Need No) Color Code," "Lifeboat," "I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good," "What Is The Measure of Your Success?," and "Bannerman," among a trove of others. Taylor also directed many music videos for his songs (and other artists) and wrote/collaborated with a number of artists including newsboys. As a record label executive, he was very involved with Chevelle, Leigh Bingham Nash & Sixpence None The Richer (including their worldwide smash "Kiss Me", Burlap to Cashmere & L.A. Symphony. Taylor has also performed in other bands including Chagall Guevara, and invested years of his life as a filmmaker including "The Second Chance" (with Rev Jeff Obafemi Carr & Michael W. Smith) and with "Blue Like Jazz," an adaption of Donald Miller's book. Sports clips:Cam York (Philadelphia Flyers defenseman) (Flyers YouTube page)Saquon Barkley (Philadelphia Eagles running back) (www.philadelphiaeagles.com) Dave Dombrowski (Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations) (Phillies Media Zoom Call)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Todd Fadel is our guest this week. He is an individual whose life experiences defy easy categorization. He was the lead singer of a Star Wars-themed side project to Tooth and Nail grunge band Sometime Sunday. He was a worship leader at a non-traditional church in Portland, Oregon. He helped run TOMFest. He's also a big fan of Evie. Most of our conversation in this episode is about his work running Meow Meow, an all-ages venue in Portland that straddled the Christian and secular music worlds in the early 2000s. Adam Voith's novel in progress that is mentioned in this episode. The film adaptation of Don Miller's best-selling book, Blue Like Jazz, is mentioned in this episode. It was directed by the legendary Steve Taylor. ---Do you have a Christian rock story to tell? Want to respond to this episode? Leave us a message at (629) 777-6336.If Rock That Doesn't Roll is important to you, support us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/rtdr (join via the website, not the iOS app for a 30% discount)Or make a one-time donation: https://coff.ee/rtdrIf you can't afford a donation, please tell five friends about the show.You can connect with us on Instagram or by emailing RTDRpod@gmail.comSign up for our Substack to keep up with show developments.Buy RTDR merch here.

Click here to listen to the full episodeThe concept of story is a powerful way to dramatically improve how you connect with your customers and grow your business. Donald Miller, CEO of StoryBrand, helps thousands of companies clarify their message and grow every year. In this episode, the master storyteller explains why story is so important when talking about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers. Mentioned in this episode:Blue Like Jazz by Donal MillerBuilding a StoryBrand by Donald MillerInspirational quotes from today's interview:“The more complicated and convoluted our world becomes…story still has the power to cut through all the nonsense.” — Brian Buffini“If you understand story, you understand a lot more about what's going on in life.” — Donald Miller“People are looking to be invited into a story.” — Donald Miller“We need to find where our story and our customer's story overlap.” — Donald Miller“If you're selling a product, you're solving a problem.” — Donald MillerItsagoodlife.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of the Faith Film Fan Podcast, host Rick Altizer welcomes filmmaker, musician, and creative visionary Steve Taylor for a deep dive into his remarkable journey through film. From his early days directing and producing to his current role mentoring and connecting talent, Steve has consistently championed bold stories and fresh voices in faith-based media.Steve reflects on projects like Blue Like Jazz, Show Me the Father, and his upcoming documentary He Calls Me Daughter, sharing the lessons he's learned along the way. He also gives listeners a behind-the-scenes look at his latest feature film Sketch—a project that almost didn't happen but is now showing in theaters nationwide.This conversation is more than just a story about one movie—it's an inside look at the ups and downs of filmmaking, the importance of collaboration, and the heart behind bringing powerful stories to the screen..

302. From Music to Movies: Steve Taylor's Creative Adventures and the Making of Sketch the Movie In this episode of Creative Chats, Mike Brennan interviews Steve Taylor, a multifaceted artist known for his work in music and film. They discuss Taylor's creative journey, influences, and the making of his latest film, Sketch. The conversation delves into the challenges of filmmaking, the importance of mental health themes in storytelling, and the collaborative nature of creative projects. Taylor shares insights on staying true to artistic integrity while navigating production challenges and the significance of believing in one's creative vision. 3 Key Takeaways:

Donald Miller didn't set out to build a $100 million marketing empire; he just wanted to master the art of storytelling. While writing memoirs, he uncovered a powerful truth: every great story relies on a hero and a guide. That insight led to the creation of the StoryBrand framework, now used by thousands of businesses to clarify their message and scale. In this episode, Donald returns to unveil StoryBrand 2.0, an AI-powered upgrade of his classic framework. He shares how to position your business in a way customers can't ignore, using seven messaging soundbites to cut through the noise and transform your marketing, sales, and advertising goals. In this episode, Hala and Donald will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:26) The Captivating Power of Storytelling (04:37) The Birth of StoryBrand and StoryBrand AI (07:05) How Storytelling Helped Him Build a $100M Business (12:51) His Daily Routine and Productivity Tips (14:27) How the StoryBrand Framework Transforms Marketing (19:12) The 7 Soundbites Entrepreneurs Need to Drive Sales (31:43) Controlling Ideas vs. Taglines in Marketing (36:08) Leveraging Stakes for Greater Marketing Impact (39:49) Crafting Irresistible Story Gaps in Your Communication (45:38) Analyzing Brand Taglines and Messaging Strategies Donald Miller is the CEO of StoryBrand, Business Made Simple, and Coach Builder. He is the bestselling author of Building a StoryBrand, How to Grow Your Small Business, and his latest, Building a StoryBrand 2.0. Donald has helped over a million businesses, from scrappy startups to top brands like Chick-fil-A, scale through clear and compelling storytelling. He recently launched StoryBrand AI, a platform that combines his proven framework with artificial intelligence to generate sales marketing assets in minutes. Sponsored By: Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/PROFITING OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first 6 months at OpenPhone.com/profiting. Airbnb - Find a co-host at airbnb.com/host Boulevard - Get 10% off your first year at joinblvd.com/profiting when you book a demo Resources Mentioned: Donald's Book, Building a StoryBrand 2.0: bit.ly/StoryBrand2_0  Donald's Book, Blue Like Jazz: bit.ly/Blue_LikeJazz  Donald's Book, Building a StoryBrand: bit.ly/Building_aStoryBrand  Donald's Website, StoryBrand AI: storybrand.ai  Donald Miller: Storytelling for Business | E120: bit.ly/Storytelling_Business  Donald Miller: Be Your Own Hero | E153: bit.ly/BYOH-apple  Donald Miller: How To Make Your First Million | 214: bit.ly/MakeFirstMillion-apple Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals   Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap  YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting  LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/  Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/  Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com  Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new  Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, SEO, E-commerce, LinkedIn, Instagram, Social Media, Digital Marketing, Content Creator, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, Social Proof, Marketing Trends, Influencers, Influencer Marketing, Marketing Tips, Digital Trends, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Marketing Podcast.

In this episode of the Moved by Grace podcast, I'm sharing a special collection of books that have profoundly impacted me throughout my journey of growth, grief, healing, and wonder. Whether you're seeking to deepen your faith, contemplate resilience, or simply lose yourself in an engaging story, there's something here for everyone.Books Mentioned (with links):​Early Will I Seek Thee by Price – A timeless devotional that encourages us to pursue God in the quiet moments of the morning. Find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Early-Will-I-Seek-Thee/dp/0800783239​The Hero Code by Admiral William H. McRaven – A collection of short reflections on courage and service, delivered by a Navy SEAL. You can purchase it on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Hero-Code-Lessons-Learned-Lives/dp/1538719967/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3772EVR59OESL&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.b99oO0ai_blqOWSIE1-9hm3XW4l9kSxSEQ2D6yGj3VO9U5KJSOzFxIiMEByHHTp2-U62C4NblWaNFqY7vd56YHDVhGHaGxnQvN9OnkbmT1sl9mIRbZOudI8qMlOZHTCucXHjORPLexWDIzZCOR01IAj0GjGSaWpwMbB36LFDrj1zxo4pCsBID5-qsIs_eoxZw-RFPFWRRhicn0iE4q-0rw.HuoOJ7eYXwloyGtvFXsn-uBZF1EP8SAc1JJDBjXwpAA&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+hero+code&qid=1747081823&sprefix=the+hero+code%2Caps%2C141&sr=8-1​Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller – A candid exploration of faith that challenges conventional notions. You can find it on Amazon.​Everything All at Once by Steph Catudal – A lyrical memoir that delves into the complexities of grief, love, and the fragility of life. You can purchase it on Amazon.​Help Is Here by Max Lucado – A comforting insight into the work of the Holy Spirit. You can find it: http​Meditations from A Course in Miracles – Daily spiritual reflections that focus on forgiveness and peace. You can purchase it on Amazon.​The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch – A powerful reminder to live with purpose and make the most of our time. You can find it on Amazon.​The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes – A suspenseful and haunting thriller that explores the themes of memory and truth. You can purchase it on Amazon. Tune in and explore further: www.movedbygracecounseling.com

Welcome to episode #981 of Six Pixels of Separation - The ThinkersOne Podcast. Donald Miller is one of the most influential voices in modern marketing - a bestselling author, business strategist, and the creative force behind StoryBrand (a framework that has reshaped how leaders and organizations communicate). In our conversation, Donald breaks down the timeless power of story and why clarity - not cleverness - is the most underrated competitive advantage in business today. His new book, Building a StoryBrand 2.0 - Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen, expands on his original seven-part storytelling framework with sharper tools and practical applications for the modern marketer. Donald is also the author of several bestselling books, including the spiritual memoir Blue Like Jazz, the personal development reflection Scary Close, and A Million Miles In A Thousand Years (loved that one!), alongside business classics like Marketing Made Simple, Business Made Simple, Coach Builder, How to Grow Your Small Business, which have collectively shaped how individuals and organizations think about story, purpose, and growth. We explore why curiosity is the secret starting point in every great customer journey, how AI is accelerating both efficiency and confusion in marketing, and why simple messages are often the hardest to write. Donald also opens up about the creative process behind writing, how to chase ideas worth finishing, and why businesses fail not from a lack of creativity - but from poor communication. Whether you're leading a brand, launching a product, or refining your personal pitch, this conversation is a masterclass in messaging. Enjoy the conversation... Running time: 55:49. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts. Listen and subscribe over at Spotify. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. Check out ThinkersOne. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on X. Here is my conversation with Donald Miller. Building a StoryBrand 2.0 - Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen. StoryBrand. Marketing Made Simple. Business Made Simple. Coach Builder. How to Grow Your Small Business. Blue Like Jazz. Scary Close. A Million Miles In A Thousand Years. Follow Donald on X. Follow Donald on Instagram. Follow Donald on LinkedIn. Chapters: (00:00) - The Power of Storytelling in Branding. (12:46) - Understanding Consumer Relationships with Brands. (26:02) - The Art and Science of Effective Marketing. (29:00) - The Ineffectiveness of Modern Advertising. (32:42) - The Importance of Clarity in Messaging. (36:46) - The Role of Creativity in Marketing. (41:15) - The Impact of AI on Marketing. (46:24) - The Future of Marketing and Strategy. (49:45) - The Creative Process and Writing Books.

The White House is defunding USAID, one of the largest distributors of foreign aid, and blaming it on wasteful spending—like a D.E.I musical in Ireland. But as Phil, Skye, and Kaitlyn unpack, the real losers are Christian relief organizations like World Relief and Catholic Charities, which now face devastating budget cuts. Then, it's been over 20 years since the release of Blue Like Jazz, the bestselling book that made faith feel cool. Did it offer a helpful critique of evangelicalism, or was this the beginning of the rise of vibes-based Christianity? Also, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat joins Skye to discuss his new book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. He explains why our increasingly secular culture is still drawn to spirituality and why rejecting religious institutions in favor of “DIY faith” may not be the answer. Plus, we have a trailer for a new season of Why I'm Still a Christian. Holy Post Plus: Bonus Interview with Ross Douthat: https://www.patreon.com/posts/122056691/   0:00 - Show Starts   2:18 - Theme Song   2:41 - Sponsor - Hiya Health - Go to www.hiyahealth.com/HOLYPOST to receive 50% off your first order   3:45  - Sponsor - Rocket Money - Find and cancel your old subscriptions with Rocket Money at https://www.rocketmoney.com/holypost   8:25  - Trump and Christian Persecution   12:22 - Elon Shuts Down USAID   19:53 - Did USAID Really Fund That?   24:29 - Principle of Unitary President   35:42 - Blue Like Untethered Christianity   39:57 - Consumerist Christianity and Vibes   46:41 - Why I'm Still a Christian Season 2 Sneak Peak!   48:05 - Sponsor - Sundays Dog Food - Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to https://www.SundaysForDogs.com/HOLYPOST or use code HOLYPOST at checkout.   50:08 - Sponsor - Glorify - Sign up for the #1 Christian Daily Devotional App to help you stay focused on God. Go to https://glorify-app.com/en/HOLYPOST to download the app today!   51:11 - Interview   52:30 - A Case for Religion?   56:26 - Why Not Just Argue for Jesus?   1:02:23 - Are Secular Circles Falling Apart?   1:11:00 - Fine Tuning Argument   1:23:04 - Why Not Pursue Spirituality on Your Own?   1:28:05 - End Credits   Links Mentioned in News Segment: Editorial: SIlence in the Face of Trump's Cruelty is Complicity: https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/editorial/editorial-silence-face-trumps-cruelty-complicity   Contact Bishops and Diocese by State: https://www.usccb.org/about/bishops-and-dioceses/all-dioceses   USAID Trump Fact Checker: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/07/usaid-trump-fact-checker/   Blue Like Jazz: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/01/blue-like-jazz-donald-miller-church-optional/   Other resources: Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious: https://a.co/d/3oVuOKR   Holy Post website: https://www.holypost.com/   Holy Post Plus: www.holypost.com/plus   Holy Post Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/holypost   Holy Post Merch Store: https://www.holypost.com/shop   The Holy Post is supported by our listeners. We may earn affiliate commissions through links listed here. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.  

Public perception of Christianity has soured in the past decade -- and so has most of the famous "Christian" nonfiction -- titles such as The Shack, Love Wins, Blue Like Jazz, Love Does, Wild at Heart have aged like milk. In contrast, Brian asks Nate why his own nonfiction seems so well suited for the negative world. Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl is now a barrel-aged 15-year whiskey, the gospel of story. Death by Living is a bold declaration of your mortality in a time when "normal" dreams are shattering. The guys discuss why storytelling is kingdom work, and why the Gospel of Story is a key skill for every Christian living now to develop. Nate also addresses readers who don't like his writing, and that one secular reviewer who, days after publishing a positive review, accosted Nate with this realization of how Christianity had tiptoed into his books: "You pulled that C.S. Lewis s***." Find the matching hardcover sets of each book at ndwilson.com.

Do you ever feel alone while trying to live out your purpose and calling? You are not alone. We were never meant to go through life alone, especially when it comes to our journey of faith. We are joined today by Allison Markwood, Communications and Marketing Specialist for WMU North Carolina. In this episode, Allison provides wisdom and practical advice on how to find community and ways to explore how to nurture those community connections and be an active contributor yourself. We also dive into some biblical examples of community, the challenges to finding community and finding your people, and how different types of communities are valuable in your calling. Things we mention in today's episode:Blue Like Jazz by Donald MillerBeyond the Moment is a ministry of WMU North Carolina.

What is Fluff? Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10, NIV). Harry Frankfurt in On BS: The BS-er…is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.[1] Fluff is whatever is extraneous, superfluous, or unseemly. Fluff is the opposite of the substantial or the fundamental. Physical fluff is never desired and easily floats away. No one wants it, unless it is in a pillow, perhaps. Some students pad their papers in order to meet word requirements. Such padding is always fluff and may involve going down rabbit trails unrelated to the thesis of the writing. Much fluff today is autobiographical, and there are far too many memoirs.[2] Entire books may be autobiographical fluff, such as the egregious Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and myriad others.[3] Contemporary writers often cannot resist talking about themselves even when it is irrelevant to the point they should be making. One of the great principles of the classic writing guide, Elements of Style, is to keep yourself in the background. This is what Strunk and White write: Write in a way that draws the reader's attention to the sense and substance of the writing, rather than to the mood and temper of the author. If the writing is solid and good, the mood and temper of the writer will eventually be revealed and not at the expense of the work. Therefore, the first piece of advice is this: to achieve style, begin by affecting none—that is, place yourself in the background.[4] Exhibitionism is one of the great sins and blind spots of our age. Consider Victor Frankl's comments about why he reluctantly decided not to anonymously publish his classic book, Man's Search for Meaning: "I had intended to write this book anonymously, using my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I saw that as an anonymous publication, it would lose half its value and that I must have the courage to state my convictions openly. I therefore refrained from deleting any of the passages, in spite of an intense dislike of exhibitionism."[5] Fluff may also be unseemly, which may or may not include gratuitous personal references. The unseemly is what is inappropriate—the lude, crude, or rude. What Paul applies to speech should be applied to writing. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). To tighten it up: Fluff is what is unnecessary in a piece of writing, either due to BS, redundancy, exhibitionism, or literary boorishness. Fluff can be avoided by removing unnecessary content, by keeping yourself in the background, and by being polite. To avoid fluff, ask yourself these questions: Am I aiming at objective truth? Have I written more than is needed? Have I said too much about myself? Have I been off-putting or offensive to my reader? [1] Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit (p. 56). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. [2] I wrote a memoir, which I attempted to justify in the first chapter. Douglas Groothuis, “Introduction,” Walking Through Twilight: A Wife's Illness—A Philosopher's Lament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2017). [3] Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz (New York: Harper Horizon, 2003). The first paragraph of page 103 is the most absurd and egregious collection of falsehoods I have encountered. [4] Strunk JR., William; White, E.B. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. Pandora's Box. Kindle Edition. [5] Frankl, Viktor E. Man's Search for Meaning (pp. 6-7). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition. Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Join Sis and Big Pops for a fun, fun talk about one of the things we love most—Nerd Stuff. We discuss our fav bits of nerd news: a couple of new Star Wars movies in the works, Jack Black joining the Minecraft movie, Tom Cruise teasing Top Gun 3, Fox making an Elf Quest Animated series, and Gretta Gerwig making the Chronicles of Narnia. Oh! And Paul Giamatti went to eat a burger at In and Out after winning a Golden Globe, which was so cool! For bingeing, Big Pops has been watching Reacher, and the Jack Reacher Movies, Echo, Center Seat, Monarch, and Hoosiers, as well as listening to the book on CD “As You Wish.” Sis watched Ted Lasso, Invasion, Rebel Moon, West Wing, and started Silo. She has enjoyed listening to the audiobook “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. Then, Pops shared his pull list! This week he introduces us to Action Comics 1061 by DC; Fantastic Four Issue 5, Legacy 708 by Marvel; as well as Swan Songs: Poems About The Ending Issue 6 by Image. His new number 1 is Dark Horse: Masterpiece by DC. His Book of the Week is Ultimate Spiderman Issue 1 by Marvel. This week we reviewed the TV show Invasion on Apple TV+. This episode was originally recorded on 01/16/24. Check us out on twitter @sisandbpops

Welcome back to another inspiring episode of The Unconventionalists podcast! Today, I'm thrilled to bring you an exclusive interview with the incredible Donald Miller, CEO of Business Made Simple and StoryBrand, and the author of 13 transformative books. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Don on the eve of Thanks Giving and dive into the myriad of questions I had about his various books. From asking about his memoirs such as Blue Like Jazz (that stayed a New York Times Bestseller for 40 weeks) to some of my favourite business books he wrote like "Hero on a Mission", "Building a StoryBrand" or "Marketing Made Simple", we talked about what it takes to build a successful business and create a meaningful life. If you've never heard about Don before today, you're going to love his story: A fatherless boy from southern Texas raised by a struggling single mother, who grew up poor standing in line for government cheese and who through a series of events and guidance ends up writing books and manages to go from being an author with a virtual assistant to running a $15m company with 40 employees impacting hundreds of thousands of lives.   You wouldn't know by looking at him but Don also used to weigh 387lbs (175.5kgs) and lost 200lbs (90.7kgs)! Which is an incredible feat.   When screenwriters wanted to turn his breakout book Blue Like Jazz into a film they realised they needed to edit his life to make it more interesting. That's when Don realised that we can all have a more meaningful and fulfilling life by being intentional to treat our lives like a compelling story.    Don's super power is to take complex concepts or ideas and to explain them in a really simple way, be it religion, life or business.   Alex Hormozi is a fan and so am I. From Don's backstory to his thoughts on what it takes to build a successful business and create a life of meaning to what is desperately missing in the narative to resolve the Israel - Palestine conflict, this episode is going to blow your mind. I genuinely can't wait for you to listen to this episode!

The kind of week you have might depend on whether you ask yourself what you're dreading, or what you're looking forward to. This edition of Doing What Works is an invitation to change your mind(set). Here are your show notes… Dr. Daniel Amen suggests you challenge ants. No, not those. These! Automatic negative thoughts. The Untethered Soul's Michael Singer says the voice inside your head is like an obnoxious roommate who will not shut up. Lollipop moments create ripples forever. Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, a book I read on Katie's recommendation, is a winner. Promise!

Become a Friend of the Show! – join our Patreon communityWe're inviting you to an honest, deep conversation about our experiences and beliefs around faith and not having faith.Mentioned on the show:Life Below ZeroA Beautiful Mess podcast: Elsie's Evangelical Upbringing Story and Emma's Evangelical Upbringing StoryThe Most Good You Can DoJen HatmakerGlennon DoyleCarlos WhittakerLamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood PalThe Book of LongingsBlue Like JazzTraveling MerciesShauna NiequistSarah BesseyErin MoonMeredith MillerYou Have Permission podcastWiser Than Me podcastSmitten Kitchen Keepers cookbook Become a Friend of the Show! – join our Patreon communityConnect with us on Instagram: @higirlsnextdoorSee show notes on our website: girlnextdoorpodcast.comWe love to get your emails: higirlsnextdoor@gmail.comYour reviews on Apple Podcasts really help the show - thank you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Miller is the CEO of Business Made Simple. He is the host of the Business Made Simple podcast and is the author of several books including Hero on a Mission and the bestsellers Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and Building a StoryBrand. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, Elizabeth and their daughter, Emmeline. You can connect with Donald via Instagram @donaldmiller, Facebook, Twitter, or his website, businessmadesimple.com and heroonamission.com Related Episodes: Ep 101 - Building a Champion Mindset with Dr. Joe Janez Ep 262 - Upgrade Your Language with Mark England If you like this episode, please subscribe to Pursuing Health on iTunes and give it a rating or share your feedback on social media using the hashtag #PursuingHealth. I look forward to bringing you future episodes with inspiring individuals and ideas about health every week. Disclaimer: This podcast is for general information only, and does not provide medical advice.  I recommend that you seek assistance from your personal physician for any health conditions or concerns.

This episode is sponsored by the incredible book Divine Echoes by Dr. Mark Gregory Harris. If you haven't already read this book you're missing out!In today's episode, Jason speaks with Brent Schebler of Ink Drinker Editing and Literary Services about his spiritual journey and some of his favorite reads of 2022.Books mentioned in this episode:The Shack by William Paul YoungParenting Deconstructed: Navigating Your Spiritual Evolution Without Leaving Your Family BehindThe Hidden Lives of TreesKissing With Eyes Wide OpenSolo MysteriumBlue Like JazzI'm Glad My Mom DiedGreen LightsNightThe Black KlansmanThe Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon11-22-63Under the DomeNeverVerityNight MonstersThe WishJoin the conversation on our Messy Conversations Facebook group.Want to be a producer of the show and get exclusive access to videos, blog posts, and merch from the hosts of the show? Check out our Patreon page!Thanks for listening! Please leave us a rating or review on your platform of choice! Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a crossover episode! Brandon Knight joins us to combine our shows, The Whole Church Podcast, and https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/my-seminary-life/id1558302469 (My Seminary Life) for a special one time event! After Joshua went to https://trippfuller.com/ (Tripp Fuller)'s recent https://homebrewedchristianity.lpages.co/theologybeercamp22/ (conference), he wanted to discuss some of the more liberal theologies that he encountered. We discuss what is the limit between beliefs people can hold and we still consider ourselves in Christian unity with them. We discuss the difference of Christian Unity, Unity and being at peace with others - all things the Bible calls us to do! What is process theology? What is penal substitution? When did Christ atone for our sins? What other atonement theories are out there? What can we disagree on, concerning God, the Bible, and atonement? . Books to read to better understand more liberal theology: https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Like-Jazz-Nonreligious-Spirituality/dp/0785263705 (Blue Like Jazz), by Donald Miller https://www.amazon.com/Open-Relational-Theology-Introduction-Life-Changing-ebook/dp/B095QL8BSJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23Z9XE3CYEVKW&keywords=open+and+relational+theology&qid=1666277067&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjE5IiwicXNhIjoiMS45MiIsInFzcCI6IjEuNzUifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=open+relational+theolo%2Cstripbooks%2C85&sr=1-1 (Open and Relational Theology), by Thomas Jay Oord https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Self-Investment-Relational-Constructive-Christology-ebook/dp/B08G1T7F8H/ref=sr_1_2?crid=20O96SRGU9U5P&keywords=tripp+fuller&qid=1666277121&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjg3IiwicXNhIjoiMi43NSIsInFzcCI6IjIuMzYifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=tripp+fuller%2Cstripbooks%2C88&sr=1-2 (Divine Self-Investment), by Tripp Fuller . Books to better understand more thoughtful conservative theological perspectives: https://www.amazon.com/Holiness-God-R-C-Sproul-ebook/dp/B007V698MW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1EAZ15WP66YB1&keywords=r+c+sproul+in+books&qid=1666277227&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjYwIiwicXNhIjoiMy4wOCIsInFzcCI6IjIuMTcifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=r+c+%2Cstripbooks%2C90&sr=1-1 (The Holiness of God), by R.C. Sproul https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Stand-Facing-without-Losing-ebook/dp/B08GHGP5TF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=37GAPJ0UT4FUL&keywords=russell+moore&qid=1666277275&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI0LjA4IiwicXNhIjoiMy41MiIsInFzcCI6IjMuNTIifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=russell+moore%2Cstripbooks%2C93&sr=1-1 (The Courage to Stand), by Russell Moore https://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Old-Testament-Controversies-Questions/dp/0801019117/ref=sr_1_2?crid=YTQBZPLTUXJ7&keywords=tremper+longman+old+testament&qid=1666277369&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjAzIiwicXNhIjoiMS45MiIsInFzcCI6IjEuNTIifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=tremper+longman+old%2Cstripbooks%2C89&sr=1-2 (Confronting Old Testament Controversies), by Tremper Longman III . Everyone should read: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Theology-Liberation-50th-Anniversary-ebook/dp/B08BG7JC81/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1AH23QPUWWIC8&keywords=black+liberation+theology&qid=1666277434&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjEwIiwicXNhIjoiMi40NiIsInFzcCI6IjIuNDAifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=black+liberat%2Cstripbooks%2C94&sr=1-1 (A Black Theology of Liberation), by James H. Cone . Buy a 1 Corinthians 6 T-Shirt to help our campaign for a new website: https://thewholechurch.creator-spring.com/listing/1-corinthians-6-shirt (https://thewholechurch.creator-spring.com/listing/1-corinthians-6-shirt) . Please consider sponsoring our show on Patreon, https://www.patreon.com/thewholechurchpodcast (here), for access to our extra content like our "Too Long; Didn't Listen" series, our "Pet Peeves" series, and our "Whole Church News" episodes! . Make a one-time donation, https://cash.app/$wholechurch (here). . Subscribe to our show, https://the-whole-church-podcast.captivate.fm/listen (here). . Rate us & leave a review,...

We talk Jerry Clower, Give the Podcast listeners Homework, the BLM, TVA Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, Indigenous Peoples Day, Alien History, Horseshoe Theory, Malbec Wine, Dandelion and Co, We Gotta build it here Utah Is better, Mormons are nice, MormonOrigins, South Park, FDR, Rushmore, CrazyHorse, Teddy Rosevelt, and FDR, Athens Ale House, the Cosby show, the Boys, One Piece, Favorite Books, Ricky Gervais, and Movies, and more!

Every creative has a dream project: something they'd love to do if they had infinite time and resources. But what if you got the chance to pull off that dream project, and it didn't succeed?  That's what happened to Steve Taylor, who poured himself into directing Blue Like Jazz, only to see a middling response at the theater. To him, that result felt like humiliation. This week, we hear about how his experience creating art for a living has changed his approach to success, risk-taking, and his own personal worth.  Filmmaker/writer/producer/recording artist/entrepreneur Steve Taylor earned his “Renaissance Man” stripes (Prism Magazine) from a body of work that's garnered him multiple Grammy, Billboard, Telly, Addy, and Dove awards and nominations. As a recording artist, he's sold over one million albums worldwide, garnered two Grammy nominations for Meltdown (1984) and Squint (1993), and made history as the only artist to twice win Billboard Music Video Awards for self-directed music videos. He also fronted the MCA-signed rock band Chagall Guevara.

The sales process in business is a critical aspect that may be overlooked. In this episode, my guest, Dale Dupree, stresses the importance of maintaining a consistent persona throughout the entire sales process, never deviating from the reason for the call or changing tactics abruptly.  Listen closely as Dale shares advice on how to achieve success not just today, but in the long term.[00:01 - 09:27] Changing the Paradigm for Sales SuccessDale is known for his rebel attitude and his refusal to follow conventional sales techniques.Dale discusses how to be successful in sales by changing your paradigm, creating a mission and vision for yourself, and being different.The goal is to stand out from the competition and create a better relationship with your customers.[09:28 - 19:31] Breaking Free from the BarriersWe may be bought and tied down by their jobs and we need to find ways to break free and become our own people.It is important for people to take pride in what they do and believe in themselves, even if it is just selling coffee machines.If you can influence someone in a positive way, clients will likely buy from you.[19:32 - 28:12] Rebel Against the TraditionIn Sales Rebellion, they believe that doing sales is founded on helping and serving and that coaching is the best way to teach this skill.The company's philosophy is based on the idea that life is sales, and that success comes from both intrinsic and extrinsic success.[28:13 - 35:29] THE FINAL FOURWhat's the worst job that you ever had?Needing to side hustle as a landscaperWhat's a book you've read that has given you a paradigm shift?Blue Like Jazz by Donald MillerWhat is a skill or talent that you would like to learn?Playing saxWhat does success mean to you?The story people will tell about you when you're goneConnect with DaleWebsite: https://www.thesalesrebellion.com/ Instagram: @salesrebellionLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/copierwarrior/ LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW by clicking this link. WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?Be sure to follow me on the below platforms:Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or Stitcher.LinkedInYoutubeExclusive Facebook Groupwww.yonahweiss.comNone of this could be possible without the awesome team at Buzzsprout. They make it easy to get your show listed on every major podcast platform. Tweetable Quote:“If we try to control ultimate success for ourselves, we're just asking for it. But if we understand that success is about reputation, about legacy building, it's about more than what you do today.” - Dale DupreeSupport the show

When we know people in our life are struggling, “what do I say to them?” is often the wrong question we ask ourselves. There's a better question we can ask that will comfort and encourage people. Listen in to learn more. Episode 148 left us hanging Episode 148 from last week talked about five things NOT to say to people close to us who are going through a rough patch in their life. I'll have a link to it in the show notes. So if we know what not to say, then what are helpful things we could say? We'll tackle this question in today's episode. Words matter I love words. I love people who write them well. I like how Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and other best-selling memoirs uses words. He incorporated as a company simply called “Donald Miller's Words.” Our daughter has a friend who does free-lance copywriting. She calls her business "Words for Sale." I like Anne Lamont and how she uses words. Of the many books she's written, one of my favorites is her book about 3 types of prayer. It's called Help. Thanks. Wow. Three simple words. Three powerful prayers. In talking about the wow of God, she frequently uses the phrase, “It's God showing off.” It's the best description of sunsets, the Grand Canyon, and childbirth I can think of - God showing off. In William P. Young's book, The Shack, he repeats the phrase “God is especially fond of you” in addressing, Mack, the main character of the book. What a beautiful phrase and powerful theological truth. “God is especially fond of you” These are all beautiful words. Words have their limits But words have their limits when it comes to knowing what to say to people going through a rough patch in their life. I find myself saying things like, “I am so sorry you're having to deal with this.” It's truly how I feel, but it seems hollow sometimes. When it comes to our friends dealing with a death, we often say “I'm sorry for your loss”, or if it's a sudden, tragic death, “I have no words.” And that's the problem, we often don't have words to express how we feel inside for the pain someone close to us is experiencing. So few of us are like Donald Miller, Anne Lamont, or William Young with our words. I so wish we had a larger menu, like they have at Chinese restaurants, of comforting words and phrases to choose from. Beyond Words But then I think, are better words really the answer? It seems to me words are just a means to an end, not the end itself. We use words to connect us with people, to show how our emotions align with theirs. To let them know we want to be part of the journey they are on in dealing with a loss or difficulty in their life. Words are the dots to connect our heart with the heart of another. Maybe there are other ways beyond words that connect us with each other. In last week's episode, I mentioned our friend whose 40-something daughter became very ill, and how our friend was filling in for her daughter by managing the household, helping her son-in-law, and caring for her grandkids. The weight of all that had to be done was overwhelming for our friend. Preparing meals, dealing with the ever-growing pile of laundry. All at the time she was caring for her very-sick daughter. What do I say to a friend who's feeling overwhelmed like this? My first thoughts went to one of the things mentioned in episode 148, God Never gives us more than we can handle. Thankfully I resisted that thought. Then several Bible verses came to mind. Verses I know our friend was well schooled in. Verses about how God is always there for us, how God cares for us when we are struggling. She may have even memorized them. When our friend shared the bad news about her daughter I don't remember saying anything, I just listened. And gave her my handkerchief she used to dab the tears from the corner of her eyes. It was the best I could do at the moment. A helpful quote Days later I came across a quote that I sent in a text to our friend. I wrote: “Here's a quote from Seth Godin I came across the other day that reminded me of you when you feel overwhelmed with doing all that your daughter does to manage the household. Godin said, ‘I'm pretty confident that when the Titanic went down, the deck chairs were cleaned and well-ordered. It's a shame no one talked about the icebergs.'” And then I added, “Keep up the good work in keeping your priorities straight! I'm continuing to pray for your daughter.” In my thinking, the housework that was crying out for attention was her deck chairs on the Titanic. The physical and emotional needs of her daughter were the icebergs - the most important things to attend to. All analogies break down at some point, but in using the words from this quote I was trying to affirm her wisdom in caring for her daughter at the expense of the piles of laundry. It was the best I could do at the moment. Sometimes the best we can do to connect with people is to show we are thinking about them and remembering their struggles, even when we're not together. Our words are not as important as what we do. So what does all this mean for YOU? I wonder if there are people in your life going through a difficult time who would appreciate you connecting with them. And maybe doing so without words. Connect with them by showing you haven't forgotten their struggles and that you are paying for them. Here's the main takeaway I hope you remember from today's episode When people in our life are struggling, “What do I say to them?” isn't as important a question to ask as “What can I do?” I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about today's episode. Closing In closing, I hope your thinking was stimulated by today's show, to reflect and to act by letting someone you know who's struggling that you haven't forgotten them. That you are praying for them, and that they are not alone in whatever difficulty they are going through. It will bring out the best in you and go a long way in helping you experience the joy of relationships God intends for you. Because as you know by now, You Were Made for This. That's it for today. In the meantime, spread a little joy in your relationships this week. Until we meet up again next week, goodbye for now. Related episodes you may want to listen to 148: What Not to Say When Bad Things Happen to Good People 139: Why Should I Listen to This Podcast? Our Sponsor You Were Made for This is sponsored by Caring for Others, a missionary care ministry. We depend upon the generosity of people like you to pay our bills.  If you'd like to support what we do with a secure tax-deductible donation, please click here. Thank you.

Donald Miller's books—such as “Blue Like Jazz,” “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,” and “Scary Close”—have spent more than a year on the New York Times Bestsellers list. Don has since gone from writing bestselling books to tapping into the power of story for businesses and individuals. Every year he helps more than 3,000 business leaders clarify their brand message. Listen in as he challenges entrepreneurs to lean into their own story, creatively develop and execute the story of their team, and understand the story of their customers so they can serve them with passion.

Andrea Holtman serves as the Director of Weightless Anchor, a hospitality home for women on the streets, often victims of sex trafficking and struggling with substance abuse. Adopted at birth in Liberty Township, Ohio, Andrea graduated college, got married, and had three children all in a 14-month span. Now in her 40's, she is figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up. In this episode, Andrea shares how a friend talking about Jesus like He was her brother and the book, Blue Like Jazz were pivotal moments in her story and why surrender is how she gets through every day. Hear how she answers when people ask her what she does for a living, how Weightless Anchor got its name, and why a woman snoring on the couch is the greatest gift. Links to learn more: Learn more about Weightless Anchor Follow Weightless Anchor on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook Learn more about Back2Back Ministries Special thanks to COhatch Mason for providing podcast studio space. Follow Back2Back Ministries on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bethedifference/message

This month we welcome Chris Williams back tot he movies to discuss the film Blue Like Jazz, We talk about how it differs from other Christian movies, how it differs from the book, and how it asks questions the usual Christian movies don't tend to ask. Find Chris Online:https://chrisicisms.substack.com/Facebook.com/We'reWatchingHereFind Us Online:RavenCreekSC.com/TheCommentariansFacebook.com/TheCommentariansTwitter.com/CommentariansInstagram.com/Commentarians

There's big-time laughs and big-time lessons this week in Dadville. Our guest, Donald Miller, is a New York Times Bestselling author and the CEO of StoryBrand. His latest book, Hero on a Mission, is about recognizing the four characters in every story and using them to live a deeper life. Dave and Jon talk to Miller about how his book Blue Like Jazz influenced them in their youth, the real secret to dealing with success at a young age, and why the difference between victim and villain is closer than you might think. Thanks to our sponsors! Athletic Greens - Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase when you visit athleticgreens.com/dadville today! Methodical Coffee - Use the discount code DADVILLE at methodicalcoffee.com for 10% off your first order. The Matthew West Podcast - Matthew takes listeners behind-the-scenes in each episode to experience some of the powerful stories behind his music. For more info, check out matthewwest.com/podcast.

Today's guest is Donald Miller. He's the CEO of Business Made Simple, his company that focuses on taking the mystery out of growing a business. He is the host of the Business Made Simple podcast and is the author of several books including the bestsellers Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and Building a StoryBrand. He's written a new book called Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life. This episode was incredibly moving and powerful and I know you're going to get a lot of value from it!In this episode we discuss why it's important to constantly think about your life as a story, the key elements to your story and living a meaningful life, why Donald believes everyone should write their own eulogy, and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1215Read Donald's new book: Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful LifeListen to his podcast: Business Made SimpleCheck out his website: www.businessmadesimple.comDaymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-podSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

New York Times Bestselling author Donald Miller discusses the surprising (and at times confusing) journey from being the well-known, well loved author of Blue Like Jazz to becoming the founder of...Read the whole entry... »

In this episode, I discuss the deconstructionism in the church, where it comes from, and what I see it doing. Efforts to reform the church come and go but I offer some general principles and warnings on how to do it well. What does reform look like today? What does it mean to deconstruct? Why are some churches preaching deconstruction sermons?

Abbey opens her bible to a random page and starts a conversation about what we can get from the bible.Shannon's watched Blue Like Jazz (again apparently) and doesn't hate it. Music is Guitalele's Happy Place by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/56194 Ft: Kara Square (mindmapthat)

Steve Taylor joined us for Happy Hour this week. Steve is a singer, songwriter, record producer, music executive, film maker, actor, and one of my favorite teachers from grad school. We talked about the apps we wish existed, making and funding the Blue Like Jazz film, his current projects, the Cold War, and of course, good news. Welcome to the Happiest Hour!Fact Check for the week brought to you by us being human and wrong sometimes: India is the world's largest vaccine-producing nation, not Taiwan.If someone undergoes a transplant, it usually means both kidneys are shit but they are just trying to get one working one in there. End-stage renal disease is really the one reason why they transplant.Support the show

Welcome to the Grow. Love. Live. Podcast! Weekly content and conversations aimed to inspire and equip you to GROW in the GOSPEL, LOVE like FAMILY, and LIVE on MISSION in the everyday stuff of life. In this episode, we dive into the topic of STORY. Why are stories powerful and how can we use our story in the process of discipleship (and evangelism!)? Listen in as Matt & Dom discuss all that and more! Enjoy! Shoutouts: Thanks to the team over at Saturate for their helpful story-telling framework. Thanks to Donald Miller for Storybrand (and for writing Blue Like Jazz, of course.) Huge thanks to the peeps at Trueface.org for this great resource! Wanna go deeper in your relationships? Invite a friend to go through "Beyond the Mask: A Relational Journey" together. Dom & Matt highly recommend! Got feedback, questions, or ENCOURAGEMENT? Let us know! Twitter: @GrowLoveLivePod Email: growlovelive@gmail.com

In this episode, we welcome our FIRST GUESTS. Now, we didn't want to start small. We wanted to go big... so our guests today are Mike Nawrocki and Steve Taylor. Both are legends in the entertainment world - Mike is a co-creator of VeggieTales and the voice of Larry The Cucumber. Steve is a musician and producer who's worked with The Newsboys and Sixpence None The Richer. If you loved VeggieTales LIKE WE DID (and our kids do), you're going to love what these guys are working on. The next great Biblically-based series for kids... The Dead Sea Squirrels. We discuss what that is, how they'll make it happen (how you can help!), and Leeann does an impromptu audition for a voiceover character on the series. DOES SHE SINK OR SAIL? Listen to find out! LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEAD SEA SQUIRRELS GUEST BIOS: ABOUT MIKE NAWROCKI: As co-creator of VeggieTales and the voice of the beloved Larry The Cucumber, Mike Nawrocki has been making entertaining and wholesome content for kids since 1993. He created, wrote and directed most of the extremely popular “Silly Songs with Larry” segments, and lent his screenwriting and directing talents to VeggieTales episodes as well as their movies Jonah and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Mike also developed and wrote for 3-2-1 Penguins! and authored a number of VeggieTales Books and CD projects. Mike serves as Assistant Professor of Film and Animation at Lipscomb University and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “The Bible for Kids.” ABOUT STEVE TAYLOR: Steve Taylor earned his “Renaissance Man” stripes (Prism Magazine) from a unique body of work as an artist and entrepreneur. As a recording artist he's sold over one million albums and received two Grammy nominations. His resume as a music producer includes three gold-certified albums for the Newsboys and the platinum-certified Sixpence None The Richer, including their smash hit “Kiss Me.” Steve's career as a filmmaker includes The Second Chance and Blue Like Jazz. He serves as Director of the School of Theater and Cinematic Arts at Lipscomb University. Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube or audio wherever you listen to podcasts!

The staff goes deep and gets vulnerable about this week's discipline: service. Kate knows everything, Adam hates blimps, and Derek eats a pickle. Mentioned in this episode: “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster"Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller"Scary Close" by Donald Miller

Singer-Songwriter/Record Producer Steve Taylor joins the Tim DeMoss Show today. Tim grew up loving Steve's brand of alternative/punk rock--full of energy & witty lyrics, packed with meaning and way ahead of their time. His songs often tackle difficult subjects head-on, challenging people (often the within the church) without making himself the center of attention, if such a thing is possible. Examples include "I Want To Be A Clone," "Meltdown", "(We Don't Need No) Color Code," "Lifeboat," "I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good," "What Is The Measure of Your Success?," and "Bannerman," among a trove of others. Taylor also directed many music videos for his songs (and other artists) and wrote/collaborated with a number of artists including newsboys (official) As a record label executive, Taylor was very involved with Chevelle, Leigh Bingham Nash & Sixpence None The Richer, Burlap to Cashmere & L.A. Symphony. He has also performed in other bands including Chagall Guevara, and invested years of his life as a filmmaker too including "The Second Chance" (with Rev jeff obafemi carr & Michael W. Smith) and with "Blue Like Jazz," an adaption of Donald Miller's book. Steve is one of the artists (and people) Tim most respects both professionally and personally, and we're grateful to have him on today Make sure to tune in live weekdays 4-5pm ET on AM 560 WFIL!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Miller has helped thousands of businesses clarify their marketing messages so their companies grow. He's the CEO of StoryBrand, the cohost of the Building a StoryBrand Podcast, and the author of several books, including the bestsellers Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Betsy, and their dogs, Lucy and June Carter.------------------- Are you ready to start dreaming big? Click HERE to receive your free Dream Big Workbook. It's a user-friendly guide to defining your core values and fundamental beliefs- the essential building blocks to discovering in which dreams you should invest.  On the episode: Producers : Tatave Abeshyan and Haley King Engineer : Jackson Carpenter Producer & Co-host : Scott Schimmel

There's a lot of value in helping people more clearly explain what they do. This is because it enables them to find the other people out there who truly need to hear what they have to say. Clarifying people's message is Donald Miller's life's mission and it was an absolute honor to have him on the show. Donald is the CEO of Story Brand and the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including Blue Like Jazz, and he also recently wrote a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller called Building a Story Brand. Interestingly, Donald made a complete career pivot from writing Christian memoirs to guidebooks in the non-fiction brand-building space.

Donald Miller of ‘Blue Like Jazz' fame recently declared “I Have Graduated From The Church.”  I love his writings but I disagree with him on this issue.  The Bible I read does not ever describe God giving out diplomas to church dropouts.  If we seek a perfect Church we always end up in a church of one.  But if we seek the kingdom we always live in the “weeds and flowers” church.  The issue is simply this:  Does Jesus live in the “weeds and flowers” church?  Come and explore these questions with us.

Donald Miller discusses the success of Blue Like Jazz, his newest project on emotional intelligence and how leaders can create space for spiritual growth.

Text not yet available.

Last week in worship the sense of victory over winter was palpable. You were here in droves. There were smiles on your faces. I saw many of you gamboling like spring lambs when you thought nobody was looking.

The other day, I was walking Carmen and her friend to school, when I noticed a guy spinning his wheels, trying to get his parked car out of the ice and snow.

I remember when I first picked up Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz, in a Barnes and Noble more than 10 years ago. It changed my life and he's since become one of my favorite authors of all time.  I was thrilled to be able to sit down with him at his office in Nashville and talk about writing, business, life and how to figure out what really matters in all of it. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I can't even pick my favorite parts of this conversation because the whole thing was so good. But I'll do my best. Here are some of my favorite bits from the show: On Writing and Work “If there's one thing I do it's that I just try to communicate everything in a clear and compelling way.” “Being a writer is very very difficult and I was just naive enough to *not* know I couldn't do it.” “Writing is a craft, as romantic as it is, it's also the same kind of work that a plumber does. Just have to show up every day and do it well.” “I was convinced the first book was gonna be a huge best-seller and it sold, like, 27 copies.” “I emulated what I loved. Anne Lamott gave me courage and J.D. Salinger gave me a voice. “You just have to do the work to write a really great book.” “The year after the NYT best seller's list was not an easy year. It was a hard year and somewhat depressing. Because I really thought that it would be Mecca, that it would be amazing. But when that happened it wasn't as meaningful of an experience as I had hoped it would be. So I began to think about what am I looking for if it's not success? What will feed me? what will validate me?” “It took me another 10 years to get back to enjoying writing. I wrote books during that time, but they were labors. How are you going to produce your best work with the burden on your shoulders of your best work?” On Goals “I know now, it's very dangerous to have a goal that you're trying to reach. I like having a goal that I'm trying to pass through on the way to another goal. And that to me is much more helpful because you can celebrate passing through this goal and yet you still have something to do. We were designed in my opinion to stay in motion, to keep moving.” “One of the most healing things you can do is have [work to do]. “I can't remember the last time I was depressed because I wake up and have something to do and people who depend on me to do it. Who has to time to sit and reflect on the sadness of life? I've got stuff to do.” “I'm not a big fan of ‘what now?'” “If you don't know what you're doing with your life, then just try a bunch of stuff and see what lights you up.” As always, I had a great time talking to Donald. Enjoy the show! Bits & Bytes Mentioned in the Show Don Miller's talk from WDS Pete Carroll Anne Lamott J.D. Salinger Philip Yancey Justin Cronin Victor Frankl Wonder Boys - by Michael Chabon More About Donald @donaldmillerCreatingY

We aired this episode with interview guest (and CCM legend) Steve Taylor in Spring 2012 on the national release weekend for his latest movie Blue Like Jazz.

Donald Miller and Bob Goff join us backstage at Catalyst West. Don is the best-selling author of Blue Like Jazz and recent film by the same name, and Bob Goff is founder of Restore International and author of the recent release Love Does. Plus Ken and Brad review Catalyst West and unveil a few clips from other speakers at the event.

In this episode, Cliff and Stephanie talk about the following: -Blue Like Jazz Movie Review -McKenna's Birthday -Moving Non Stop -Take a Leek? -World According To Meagan -Always There for the Kids Special thanks to the folks at Mardel.com! Please shop with them when looking for Christian books, music, dvds, and more. PLEASE BE SURE […]

Steve Taylor, singer-songwriter of the past and movie producer of the present, joins us to talk about his music and newest movie release, Blue Like Jazz.

We sat down with director (and music legend) Steve Taylor for a roundtable about his newest project Blue Like Jazz the movie.  Joining us is one of the script's writers Jordan Green of the Burnside Writers, the Whiskey Preacher, Rev. Amy Piatt, & her preacher's spouse Christian.  The conversation took place at Soularize just following a screening of the movie.  As you will hear, this collection of podcasters were surprised by the movie!  We hope this gets you excited about the movie and prepped to sound like the behind the scenes nerd when this legend of a book hits the big screen.  Check out the movie preview here. FYI...Tripp was giggling with glee that Steve Taylor was in the room.  I am pretty sure he just stared at him for an hour and a half, hoping he could start singing Meltdown At Madame Tussade's. Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices