Aaron Niequist helps launch Season 2 of the Betwixt Podcast! In this episode, Aaron and I share a really beautiful conversation about how practice-based faith draws us into spaces that are ripe for transformation.Aaron is a liturgist, writer, and pastor. After leading worship at two of America’s largest mega churches, Aaron began to re-imagine what a discipleship-focused, contemplative, practice-based community might look like, and so he began The Practice - an experimental gathering in the Will...
Feb 05, 2019•56 min
Update on the Betwixt Podcast: Listen to the behind the scenes of the Betwixt podcast and hear what's changing as we gear up for Season 2!
Aug 14, 2018•9 min
In part two of the Betwixt Podcast conversation with Suzanne Stabile, we continue a discussion on how the enneagram as a spiritual formation tool that can help us to shape the path between humans in relationship to one another and the path in our relationship with God.“The church is in liminal space. It is not what it used to be and it’s not what it’s going be. And very few of us have the patience to wait for the Holy Spirit to lead us and to allow it to be what it can become."Suzanne shares her...
Jul 31, 2018•38 min
The enneagram is a model of nine interconnected personality types that is growing in popularity among evangelicals. Each type is represented by a number on a nine-point geometric diagram. In recent years, the enneagram has become wildly popular among leadership trainers in both business and religious circles. It’s used as a tool for strengthening interpersonal relationships and personal growth.But the enneagram stands apart from other personality typing systems because of its unique focus on spi...
Jul 18, 2018•42 min
Confession: This episode was difficult to produce. My desire for justice far outweighs my willingness to extend compassion toward men who solicit prostitutes and contribute to the horrific world of human trafficking. Yet, Chris Stollar presents us with a compelling challenge to hold both justice and mercy in tandem in the fight against sex trafficking. “We will never end trafficking unless we reach the men who are fueling the demand in the first place.” Chris Stollar is the Demand Reduction Coor...
Jul 03, 2018•36 min
How do you treat women who sell sex?Hannah Estabrook, Coordinator of CATCH Court, is convinced that kindness helps prostitutes transform their lives from ones of dependency to freedom.During the two-year probationary program, CATCH women cultivate healthy new habits within the accountability of a small Ohio court community and walk the path toward healing from sexual trauma. "This is how you do church," says one pastor who brings parishioners to CATCH Court.How we treat women who experience sexu...
Jun 19, 2018•43 min
Jared Boyd discovered that children's spiritual formation is rooted in the imagination. Imaginative Prayer helps children connect with God and helps parents to connect with their kids. Jared noticed that while most parents desire for their kids to learn to love God, it’s hard to have meaningful conversation with our kids about spiritual things and to facilitate real spiritual experiences.“When we lead our children through guided times of imaginative prayer, they can experience a connection with ...
Jun 05, 2018•43 min
It’s often said “forgive and forget.” But what happens when two parties, offender and offended, come together and build a relationship in a space that never forgets?In this episode of the Betwixt Podcast, Joel Kime shares his story of great tragedy and how the practice of forgiveness transformed that tragedy into something no one expected. Through building relationship in the face of adversity, two communities–Amish and English– bonded in a normally forbidden way. Together, they accepted pain, e...
May 21, 2018•38 min
"What does it mean to be an embodied question mark wherever you are on your journey?" This was the question Dr. Larycia Hawkins presented to her students at Wheaton College. "Our bodies do work for us." As a professor of political science, Dr. Hawkins wanted to teach her students that it's not enough to empathize with the hurting. True solidarity requires the use of our bodies to walk with those who are suffering. "Where Jesus went, societies and politics were changed–they were at least upset be...
May 08, 2018•29 min
Spiritual Director and Author Alice Fryling shares her joys, fears, and struggles with prayer. "I love living in liminal space because to me it’s such a hopeful place. It means that I am changing. I’m not who I was yesterday. I love that I can change. I would despair if I though I couldn’t change. Prayer is very much liminal space."Alice Fryling is a trained spiritual director and the author of nine books, including her most recent book Mirror for the Soul: A Christian Guide to the Enneagram and...
Apr 24, 2018•30 min
Near the end of the twentieth century, the Functional View of the image of God emerged with virtual consensus among Old Testament scholars. The discovery of ancient texts which used “image of God” language in reference to kings and cult images led scholars to recast the imago Dei in terms of how a king or priest functions as a royal representation of God.The Functional View asserts that man was created to be God’s physical representation on earth and to function as his agent and vice-regent in e...
Apr 10, 2018•50 min
Theologian Megan DeFranza is a bridge-builder in a war zone. As culture battles rage around issues of gender and sexuality, Megan assists Christian communities through controversial conversations related to sex, gender, and sexuality. Listen as Megan unpacks the Relational View of the imago Dei in Part 4 of the Betwixt Podcast series, "The Image of God & the Feminine Experience." Emerging from and in response to existential thought, modern Christianity recast the imago Dei as primarily relat...
Feb 27, 2018•43 min
Has the erosion of rites of passage adversly impacted men in Western culture? Craig Glass thinks so. “The boys in the village must be initiatedor they will burn down the villagejust to feel the heat.” - Kenyan ProverbOur culture is desperate for men who leave a legacy of blessing rather than a wake of destruction. Looking back on his own life, Craig began to ask the questions: “Am I a man? What is a man anyway?” Recognizing the lack of initiation into adulthood in his own life and the men with w...
Feb 13, 2018•37 min
In Part 3 of The Image of God & the Feminine Experience, Philosopher Dr. Rachel Douchant leads us from Thomas Aquinas to the "Google Memo," teasing out how Enlightenment rationalism continues to impact women today.Rachel Douchant is Professor of Philosophy at Lindenwood University, Co-chair of the Lindenwood Honors College, and Director of the Liberty & Ethics Center. Her research interests include Hume’s classical liberalism, the Philosophy of Economics, and Aristotelian Virtue Theory.'...
Jan 30, 2018•31 min
"Edgeman" Walter Brueggemann helps kick off this introductory Betwixt Podcast episode. We explore themes of prophetic imagination, sacrament, liminality, wilderness and the failed world of white domination. As a special treat, he reads some of his poetic prayers.“The old world of white domination has failed . . . we are seeing the anger and the fear and the hate about how uneasy we are of having to live in that moment.” - Walter Brueggemann*Special thanks to Ryvoli and Tudor Consort for sharing ...
Jan 16, 2018•49 min
In conversation with Church Historian Dr. Hannah Hunt, we explore the Substantive view of the imago Dei with an eye to Hellenistic influences on early Christian thought. These cultural and theological views led many virtuous women to reject their feminine bodies, forsake marriage and perform spirituality through masculinization.Dr. Hannah Hunt is a Church History scholar and former Senior Lecturer in Theology at Leeds Trinity University. She is the author of the books “Clothed in the Body: Ascet...
Jan 11, 2018•36 min
“When our understanding of the imago Dei is refracted through a warped philosophical glass and skewed Biblical understanding, the result is that our image, and especially the images of women and minorities along the margins, is tarnished and distorted.”Introducing our series "The Image of God & the Feminine Experience." Episode 1 probes how women think of themselves as image-bearers of God, the dominant historic Christian interpretations of the imago Dei, and what the Bible specifically says...
Jan 06, 2018•16 min
