In this episode, Todd Hunter talks about the aims of Jesus and how getting back to His purposes can help us through bad religion. We talk about living in the Kingdom of God, how we receive it and how we are sent to be His witnesses, and many other facets of the Kingdom. We talk about spiritual practices, so that we can do good works when moments present themselves. We talk about the gospel – what it is, what Jesus said it is and how we can live into it. Bishop Todd Hunter’s life-long passion is to help others heed the call of Jesus to “come follow me” and thus to live their life in the kingdom of God as Jesus embodied, taught and demonstrated it. Bishop Hunter’s vision for such a life entails being the cooperative friend of Jesus, seeking to live a life of constant creative goodness, for the sake of others, through the power of the Holy Spirit.This overarching vision has led Bishop Hunter to engage deeply with a few core themes:The Gospel of the Kingdom The person and work of the Holy Spirit The nature and purpose of the church at the intersection of gospel and culture (missional ecclesiology) Spiritual formation as core to discipleship to Jesus Servant-hearted, kingdom-minded, Spirit-empowered leadershipBishop Hunter has expressed his kingdom-Spirit-formation-church-culture focus in various settings. He is the founding bishop of The Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others, a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America. He writes a weekly newsletter: “The Gospel of the Kingdom.” Bishop Hunter is past President of Alpha USA, former National Director for the Association of Vineyard Churches, and retired founding pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Costa Mesa, California. He is the author of Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others, Giving Church Another Chance, The Outsider Interviews, The Accidental Anglican, Our Favorite Sins and Our Character at Work. His latest book  is What Jesus Intended: Finding Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion.Bishop Hunter is also the founder of the Center for Formation, Justice and Peace.  Alongside trauma-informed spiritual director Vanessa Sadler, Bishop Todd hosts Peace Talks, a podcast that spotlights women and men who are working to undo oppression, leading to lives of deeper peace for all.Bishop Hunter holds a Doctor of Ministry degree and has served as an adjunct professor of evangelism, leadership in contemporary culture and spiritual formation at George Fox University, Fuller Seminary, Western Seminary, Vanguard University, Azusa Pacific University, Northern Seminary, and Wheaton College. Bishop Hunter and his wife Debbie live in Franklin, Tennessee. They have two adult children.Todd's Book:What Jesus Intended: Finding True Faith in the Rubble of Bad ReligionConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! Support the show

In this episode, Mark Baker talks about Paul’s letter to the Galatians. We talk about non-judgmentalism, bounded, fuzzy, and centered sets, our orientation to God and to each other in the body of Christ, spiritual powers that have influenced us and the freedom that we have from them, and more. Mark Baker is Professor of Mission and Theology at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. He previously was a missionary in Honduras for ten years and a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Syracuse University for three years. He continues ministry involvement in Latin America through regular visits. Since 2008 he has led a weekly Bible study at the Fresno County Jail. He has written a number of books in English and Spanish, including Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures: Biblical Foundations and Practical Essentials, and Centered-Set Church: Discipleship and Community Without Judgmentalism.Mark's Website:www.centeredsetchurch.comMark's Books:Centered-Set ChurchFreedom from Religiosity and JudgmentalismConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! The Bible is Alive! - Read the Bible in a Year - NIVWelcome to the "The Bible is Alive!" where we read through the entire Bible and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

In this episode, Jamaal Williams and Timothy Paul Jones talk about how to create a multi-ethnic Kingdom community in our churches like it will be in heaven. We talk through the unity and diversity in the identity of God, how our unity and diversity flows out of that identity, and how lament is important to establish ties between ethnic groups. We ground our conversation in the story of Jamaal, Timothy, and their church Sojourn Midtown in Louisville as an example of the work we can step into to see the body of Christ start to reflect the vision laid out in Revelation 7:9 where people from every tribe tongue and nation surround the throne of Jesus.Jamaal Williams (DEdMin) serves as lead pastor of Sojourn Church Midtown in Louisville, Kentucky, and as president of the Harbor Network. In addition, he regularly consults churches on leadership matters and issues related to building healthy multi-ethnic churches.Timothy Paul Jones (PhD) teaches apologetics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and serves as a preaching pastor at Sojourn Church Midtown. In addition, he has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including Finding God in a Galaxy Far, Far Away; Christian History Made Easy; and, with James Garlow and April Williams, the bestselling The Da Vinci Codebreaker. Jamaal and Timothy's book:In Church as it is in HeavenTimothy's Recommendations:The MandalorianAugustine's SermonsJamaal's Recommendations:The Spirit, Ethics, and Eternal Life by Jarvis WilliamsGod's Empowering Presence by Gordon FeeConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the showEmail jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! The Bible is Alive! - Read the Bible in a Year - NIVWelcome to the "The Bible is Alive!" where we read through the entire Bible and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

In this episode, Jessica Hooten Wilson talks about her latest book Reading for the Love of God, reading as a spiritual practice, how to use the four senses and the four stages to read well, how Jesus teaches us how to read well, what it means to read poorly, and how art, literature, and beauty can help transform our lives and move us closer to God. Jessica Hooten Wilson is the inaugural Seaver College Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University and a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum. She is the author of several books, most recently Reading for the Love of God: How To Read as a Spiritual Practice. Jessica's Book:Reading for the Love of GodJessica's Website:www.jessicahootenwilson.comJessica's Recommendations:Engaging the Old Testament by Dominick HernandezThe Voice of Anna Julia CooperEnheduana: The Complete Poems of the World's First AuthorConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! Support the show

In this episode, Josh White and I have a conversation about the foolishness of the cross. About our need to be confronted with the end of ourselves, so we can be dependent on Christ. We talk about how confession can drive our communities, being a witness to Jesus in the world, and radical grace and vulnerability. Josh White is a speaker, recording artist, writer and founding pastor of Door of Hope, a family of church’s in the urban core of Portland Oregon. Josh lives with his wife Darcy, son Henry, daughter Hattie. Portland is the city where he and his wife Darcy met 23 years ago while Josh was playing a show with his then Seattle glam rock band, Man Ray, at the now defunct Satyricon night club. Little did they know that their lives within a few years would be turned upside down and revolutionized by the gospel of Jesus. When not traveling, preaching and leading Door of Hope, Josh is enjoying his family, obsessively reading — he actually is just obsessive — writing, producing and designing spaces. He just released his first book ‘Stumbling Toward Eternity’ for Penguin imprint, Multnomah press. Josh often refers to himself as the amateur pastor — for in the words of Robert Farrar Capon, ‘The amateur—the lover, the man who thinks heedlessness a sin and boredom a heresy—is just the man you need. More than that, whether you think you need him or not, he is a man who is bound, by his love, to speak. The role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace.’Josh's book:Stumbling Toward EternityJosh's Recommendations:The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl TruemanI Saw Satan Fall Like Lightening by Rene GirardPresence in the Modern World by Jacques EllulThe Passenger by Cormac McCarthyWhen We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin LabatutConnect with Joshua:Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! The Bible is Alive! - Read the Bible in a Year - NIVWelcome to the "The Bible is Alive!" where we read through the entire Bible and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

In this episode, Eun K. Strawser talks about centering discipleship in community. She answers the question, how do we imitate Jesus together, so that we can look like Him, and move toward our neighbor in mission? We talk through the elements of formation, rhythms, and examples that move our community towards one that centers Jesus and discipleship to Him. Eun K. Strawser is the co-vocational lead pastor of Ma Ke Alo o (which means "Presence" in Hawaiian), non-denominational missional communities multiplying in Honolulu, HI, a community physician at Ke Ola Pono, and an executive leader at the V3 Movement, the church planting arm of the BGAV. Prior to transitioning to Hawaii, she served as adjunct professor of medicine at the Philadelphia College of Medicine and of African Studies at her alma mater the University of Pennsylvania (where she and her husband served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) after finishing her Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Dar es Salaam. She and Steve have three, seriously, amazing childrenRev. Dr. Strawser has nearly two decades of experience in centering discipleship and making mature missional disciples.  She has developed lay counseling curriculum, discipleship pathways for children's ministries, and discipleship pathways utilized both in established church and church-planting contexts.  While her heart is in locally-rooted kingdom work, she also consults and coaches pastors, planters and market-place/community leaders world-wide in developing discipleship pathways and structuring their context to center discipleship.Eun's Book: Centering DiscipleshipEun's Recommendation:The Scandal of Leadership by JR WoodwardConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! The Bible is Alive! - Read the Bible in a Year - NIVWelcome to the "The Bible is Alive!" where we read through the entire Bible and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

In this episode, Benjamin Windle talks about the themes of his latest book Good Catastrophe. He talks about finding hope in the midst of despair, darkness, and catastrophe. Is it possible to find? Well, Ben takes the story of Job and illuminates it for our time.Benjamin Windle is an innovative and empathic author, speaker, and Millennial/Gen Z specialist. As a pastor for over 20 years, he has walked with many through the dark shadows and valleys of the human experience. He has dedicated his life to helping people overcome life's challenges by growing deeper in their faith. Windle is a new-generation content creator for some of the most respected Christian brands in the world. He has a Bachelor of Theology, an MBA from Deakin University, and Executive Education at Stanford University and the MIT Sloan School of Management. He and his wife, Cindi, have three sons. Windle’s academic expertise and grassroots experience in discipleship have shaped him into an influential writer and public speaker. He is passionate about helping churches reach the Millennial and Gen Z groups, offering them wise counsel and practical resources. Windle and his family are based in both the U.S. and Australia. His work has been featured by the Barna Group, YouVersion, RightNow Media, and the Glorify App. For more about the author, go to benjaminwindle.com. Benjamin's book:www.goodcatastrophe.comConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! Support the show

Andrew Root, a Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary and author of 'When Church Stops Working,' explores the church's challenges in today's world. He argues that innovation isn't the answer, urging a focus on spiritual guidance and community storytelling. Root emphasizes the power of waiting and reflection, advocating for deeper connections during times of sorrow. He suggests shifting from static mission statements to engaging 'watchwords' that prioritize genuine faith. Overall, he calls for a communal approach to embrace life's crises.

In this episode, Nijay and I have a great conversation about how women led and ministered in the Bible and in the early church. He digs in to the stories of Deborah, Junia, Mary, Priscilla, Phoebe, and more. He also talks through the context and culture of the time and place of the early church, so we can start to see with new eyes what women were doing and how they were treated. We also talk about the different leadership categories in the early church. Nijay also shares about how growing up as a son of immigrant parents in Ohio has shaped the way he sees Jesus and the gospel.Nijay Gupta is a professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. Previously, he was a professor of New Testament at Portland Seminary, where he also oversaw the Master's thesis program, and advises doctoral students. He is the author of the book Worship That Makes Sense to Paul and Prepare, Succeed, Advance. His latest book is Tell Her Story. Nijay also co-hosts the podcast Slow Theology with A.J. Swoboda .Nijay's Book:Tell Her StoryNijay's Recommendation:Women and the Gender of God by Amy PeelerNijay and A.J.'s podcast:Slow TheologyConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! The Bible is Alive! - Read the Bible in a Year - NIVWelcome to the "The Bible is Alive!" where we read through the entire Bible and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the show

In this episode, Ashley Hales talks about a more spacious life, helping us see that our limits are good and point us to God. She shares spiritual practices to help notice God in everyday life, to remind ourselves that we are His beloved children, and to move from the cerebral to the rest of the body. She also talks about how to have hope in suffering, and helps us navigate the cultural landscape we find ourselves in.Ashley Hales holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. With her husband, she is the co-founder of The Willowbrae Institute, a new think tank researching the intersection of Christianity and the common good in America . She is a Kirby Laing Centre Academic Fellow and advisor to the Board of Covenant College. Ashley hosts the The Cartographers Podcast and is the author of Finding Holy in the Suburbs and A Spacious Life. Connect on substack, Instagram or Twitter.Ashley's Book:A Spacious LifeAshley's Recommendations:New AmsterdamOn Getting Out of Bed by Alan NobleEleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail HoneymanThe Thursday Murder Club by Richard OsmanConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook or Instagram at www.facebook.com/shiftingculturepodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/shiftingculturepodcast/Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below.Email jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! Support the show