How does transformation happen? Is there more to therapy-speak online? What do we do with the toxic fruit of American Christian discipleship? Is there an answer to expressive individualism? In this wide-ranging conversation, Bryce Hales and Ashley Hales, a pastor and PhD, sit down with Curt Thompson, MD, who deftly combines interpersonal neurobiology and Christian faith. We talk about institutions, the lack of fruitfulness amongst Christians, and developing a Christian imagination. A must-listen...
Apr 26, 2023•57 min
Mapping the Cultural Landscape for 21st Century Christian Leaders. Everything Just Changed host, Bryce Hales, starts a new podcast: The Cartographers. The Cartographers charts a way forward for 21st century Christian leaders in a changing cultural landscape. Join Bryce Hales and Ashley Hales, pastor and PhD, as they talk with guests about charting a path through culture wars to create vibrant, resilient and fruitful Christian communities. Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get yo...
Apr 19, 2023•2 min
SUBSCRIBE to PostEverything via APPLE or SPOTIFY We all know what it feels like to live in a "liminal age," but describing it is surprisingly difficult. Why? Because it is both an acceleration of something familiar AND it is even more dehumanizing than we thought. In what we hope is an incredibly validating conversation, Brad and John outline the 3 Primary Symptoms of Life in a Liminal Age (Loneliness, Loss of Capacity, and Disorientation) and lay a foundation for a 3-Part mini-series on "remapp...
Apr 12, 2023•26 min
It's one thing to experience a change in circumstances, but something wholly different when we experience such a fundamental change in values and assumptions that we no longer HAVE a social consensus to fall back on. It's as if the rules of the game changed at half-time, and now we're playing a sport we don't even recognize. Welcome to our "PostEverything" world, where what came before is no longer, but what's next is still very unclear... but not without hope. Was this episode helpful or encour...
Apr 05, 2023•12 min
Mark Sayers is the Senior Leader of Red Church and a writer focusing on the intersection between faith and culture. In this episode of Bait & Switch: The State of Pastors and How Ministry Just Changed, Mark joins Bryce and Brad to discuss the direction of the church post-pandemic. Poetically, Mark explains the disconnect most of us experience while living through a pandemic and shares his perspective on the future shift within the church. Mark also shares what it was like being diagnosed wit...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 73
Glenn Packiam is a Pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and the author of several books. In his most recent, The Resilient Pastor, Glenn outlines four current challenges for pastors and four challenges for the church. Today, we learn what led Glenn to write The Resilient Pastor. He and Bryce dive into the eight challenges presented in the book and look at where we can start reacquainting ourselves with God and what we can do to support pastors (hint: praying for others is a great place ...
Jun 28, 2022•49 min•Ep. 71
Will Willimon is a Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School and joins us for our series, Bait & Switch: The State of Pastors and How Ministry Just Changed. Will discusses pastoral ministry and what our roles as pastors genuinely are. We discuss the need for our churches to recover a biblical understanding of pastoral ministry and the dangers of not doing so. In these talks, we can find and work on solutions to better the well-being of our churches and our pasto...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 70
Jon Medlock is a pastor who now focuses on researching the health of pastors, making him a perfect guest in our series, Bait & Switch: The State of Pastors and How Ministry Just Changed. Today, Jon joins us in continuing our conversation on pastoral burnout. He helps us navigate why this is happening to pastors, discusses tensions most commonly seen in the field, and what we can do to better the well-being of pastors. Listen now for a deep dive into the research on the health of pastors toda...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 69
Ministry is challenging. Pastors are present for any challenging circumstances that can come up in our lives. In this episode of Everything Just Changed in our series Bait & Switch: The State of Pastors and How Ministry Just Changed, we look at five ideas that could play a role in pastoral burnout. Our goal with these ideas is to bring people together and start the conversation to prepare us for upcoming storms instead of waiting for them to come to us. To learn more, visit our website and f...
May 17, 2022•47 min•Ep. 68
The pandemic has significantly impacted the church, with pastors reaching their breaking point and considering leaving. Why? What exactly is happening to pastors? This week on Everything Just Changed we launch the first episode in our new series, Bait & Switch: The State of Pastors and How Ministry Just Changed. We hope to reflect on what's changed and how we can move forward, with guests such as Mark Sayers and John Medlock helping us along the way. To learn more, visit our website and foll...
May 03, 2022•30 min•Ep. 67
Thanks for joining us as we've explored the topic of power over the last several months. We hope it’s been helpful for you, we’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, further questions, let us know at our Facebook group! We'll be back soon with a new series...It’s no secret that the church in north America has taken some serious blows over the past couple of years, and we want to try to understand why that is, what’s going on, and especially ask the question of what’s happening to and with pasto...
Mar 30, 2022•42 min•Ep. 66
How does power relate to our sexuality? How does our sexuality relate to our identity? In many ways, those questions are fundamental to how we think about and engage in the culture war in our time. As conscientious objectors to the culture wars, here at Everything Just Changed, we are trying to find an alternative to navigate and discuss these important and yet very contentious issues—a way that is generous, grounded in grace, and doesn’t involved condemning those we disagree with. Today we’re t...
Mar 14, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 65
Today we continue our series on power, talking with Abby Hutto about gender and the role of women in the church. Abby is the author of God for Us: Discovering the Heart of the Father through the Life of the Son and the director of spiritual formation at Story Presbyterian Church in Westerville, Ohio. Connect with Abby at her website. What changed for you after listening to this conversation? Let us know on our Facebook group!
Mar 07, 2022•58 min•Ep. 64
We thought we were wrapping up this series, but as Russia invaded Ukraine last week, we wanted to explore the power dynamics playing out in real time. So we’re talking again with our friend and former Department of Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neuman, about the way disinformation has been used as a weapon of power in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Join the conversation on our Facebook group and let us know what changed for you after listening to this episode.
Feb 28, 2022•55 min•Ep. 63
We’ve been exploring the issue of power over our last several episodes, and we’re doing this because we want to help Christians and those interested in Christianity learn to steward power wisely, and that means learning to understand and distinguish between what is biblical and theologically driven, on the one hand, and what is merely a cultural assertion. One area where the church has struggled the most to understand and navigate that distinction, is when it comes to the topic of race. Today we...
Feb 07, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 62
With millions of downloads you’ve likely heard of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, a podcast about the abuse of power. But now that it’s over what does its creator, Mike Cosper, think about power? And how did he steward his own cultural power in the midst of telling the story about power’s abuse? This week we're talking with Mike Cosper about the podcast, some of the questions we've wondered about while listening to this story, and about what Mike learned from diving in to the power dynamics at M...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 61
We’re living in a time where, for some people the concept of truth is merely a power play, while others seek to use truth to advance their own ends. We’re having a series of conversations about power as we seek to understand why power has become such an explosive topic in our time, and we’re hoping to understand what it would look like to recover a Christian approach to power. Today we’re talking with former Department of Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neumann about information and misinfo...
Jan 18, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 60
Often when we think about power, we think of it only in it’s negative connotations, we think about the misuse of power, and the ways that power is used to hurt others. But what does it looks like, not just to use power in good and life-giving ways, but to redeem power, to correct its misuse? Today Bryce and Brad talk with Dr. Diane Langberg about her new book, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church. We talk with Dr. Langberg about her work in counseling those who have b...
Jan 10, 2022•58 min•Ep. 59
This week David French joins us again to help us understand power in a rapidly changing cultural context. And we really want to hear from you.... What changed for you after listening to our conversation with David French? Did you love it, or hate it? Let us know why at our new Facebook group. This will be our last episode for the year, so make sure to subscribe if you haven't already. We'll be back on January 3rd, talking with author and psychologist Dr. Diane Langberg about power and abuse as w...
Dec 13, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 58
Today we’re talking with Dr. Russell Moore about power in the Christian church, and about the way the church wields power at a time when it seems to be loosing cultural influence. Russell Moore, is Public Theologian at Christianity Today and Director of Christianity Today’s Public Theology Project. The Wall Street Journal has called Moore “vigorous, cheerful, and fiercely articulate.” He was named in 2017 to Politico Magazine’s list of top fifty influence-makers in Washington, and has been profi...
Dec 06, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 57
Have you witnessed abuse of power in the church? Maybe you haven’t witnessed abuse of power, but you’ve seen everyone talking about it online recently and you’re wondering why it’s getting so much attention. Maybe you’re a pastor and you’re working hard to love and lead your church but you’re wondering if the outrage machine will turn its sights on you next. Today on Everything Just Changed, Bryce talks with professor and author Kyle Strobel about this use and abuse of power, and what it might l...
Nov 30, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 56
This week Bryce and Brad continue their series on power. What is power and why has it become some a contentious topic? How did we go so long ignoring the questions that power raises? In this episode we're asking the questions that power raises for us, questions that we'll explore in the rest of this series as we talk with authors and experts. We'd love to hear your questions around the topic of power as well, we've created a new Facebook group to connect with other listeners, join us!
Nov 15, 2021•35 min•Ep. 55
Maybe you’ve listened to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast and at every turn, power seems to be abused in service to celebrity. Maybe you’ve even seen this dynamic up close. With leaders both in the church and outside it misusing power for improper ends, what are we to do as the church in the West? Today we’re starting a new series on power because we believe that power by itself isn’t evil. Rather, the question for us is how to use power well, in life-giving and gospel-centered ways. In th...
Nov 09, 2021•30 min•Ep. 54
On our last episode, Bryce and Brad talked about The Six Way Fracturing of Evangelicalism, an article by Michael Graham and Skyler Flowers, and posited that sociology, not theology, is driving the current tumult in the church. Many of you reached out to let us know you appreciated the episode (thanks!), one of whom was author Michael Graham himself. So as we launch a new series of episode of Everything Just Changed, Brad and Bryce talked with Michael about what lead him to write his article, and...
Oct 25, 2021•59 min•Ep. 53
This week Bryce and Brad wrap up season 3 of the podcast, talking about the fracturing of evangelicalism, whether this fracturing is being driven by theological or sociological concerns, and Michael Graham's excellent article on the subject. We also also reflect on a year and a half of recording the podcast and some changes as we move forward. We'd love to hear from you, please leave us a comment at kingandkingdom.community.
Sep 01, 2021•50 min•Ep. 51
If you feel like you are politically homeless in this time of polarization, and you’re hopeful that faith in Jesus might be a stabilizing force in a tumultuous cultural moment, our interview today is gonna be a breath of fresh air. Brad and I are talking with Michael Wear about politics and faith, and how Michael remains hopeful when politics has taken on the weight of identity for so many Christians. We’d love to know what changed for you after listening to this conversation? Let us know at kin...
Aug 26, 2021•54 min•Ep. 50
As we continue to explore issues related to identity formation in the modern world, today we're moving beyond simply diagnosing the problem. We're talking with Kyle Strobel, professor of systematic theology at Talbot School of Theology, and the author of many books, including most recently When Prayer Becomes Real. We talk with Kyle about what spiritual formation is, and the way the Spirit works through his church to give and shape the identities of Christians.
Jul 06, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 48
Our search for a solution to the problem of radical individualism has brought us to a surprising place: the need for healthy institutions. Today we're talking with Dr. Barry Corey, President of Biola University, about the role institutions of Christian higher education play in identity formation, and the way their work has been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jun 30, 2021•34 min•Ep. 47
As we continue to explore issues of identity formation, today we're talking about sexuality and same sex attraction. Our guest is Stephen Moss, a same-sex attracted celibate Christian. In 2018 Stephen was one of the founders of the Revoice conference, which sought to provide a gathering place for "Side B" christians, and also ended up embroiled in controversy in some circles within the evangelical church. Stephen talks with us about his own story, the way the church shepherded him in his journey...
Jun 23, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 46
As western culture is struggling through issues of polarization and the weaponization of politics, we've been highlighting the ways the individualism—this idea that you can be anything you want to be as long as you remain true to yourself—is eroding western society from both the right and left. In a recent article, Dr. Alan Noble writes that "The default evangelical response to cultural decay has been to redouble our culture war efforts: elect people who will better pursue our agenda, boycott an...
May 25, 2021•57 min•Ep. 45
