This Is Not Church Podcast

In this episode we chat with Sandhya Jah. Sandhya Jha (she/they) is an anti-oppression consultant who particularly loves helping organizations get Diversity/Equity/Inclusion teams off the ground. Sandhya is the founder and former executive director of the Oakland Peace Center, a collective of 40 organizations working to create equity, access, and dignity as the means of creating peace in Oakland and the Bay Area. An ordained pastor with a master’s in public policy, Sandhya is comfortable in the pulpit, on the picket line, or hanging out with friends and friends-to-be over a good cup of tea and a good story. They are currently working on their fifth book for Chalice Press. You can follow Sandhya on: Facebook     Twitter     Instagram Find all things Sandhya including their blog on their website You can purchase Sandhya's book on Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In this episode we chat with...no one but each other. Nat & I thought it would be good to start the new year off with a look back at the last year of the podcast. Chat about the things that caught us off guard. We chat about the guests we had on. We chat about what we were and were not prepared for. We chat about how humbling this experience has been. But mostly, it was just another excuse for us to chat with each other, make fun of each other, and have a few laughs. He is to all that happened for our podcast in 2021, and all the hopes and dreams for 2022. You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In this episode we chat with Hemant Mehta (AKA The Friendly Atheist) Hemant Mehta is the editor of Friendly Atheist, appears on the Atheist Voice channel on YouTube, and co-hosts the uniquely-named Friendly Atheist Podcast. He is a former National Board Certified high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago, where he taught for for seven years. He continues to coach their Speech/forensics team. Hemant has appeared on CNN and FOX News Channel, served on the boards for Foundation Beyond Belief (a charity organization targeting non-theistic donors) and the Secular Student Alliance (which creates and supports college atheist groups nationwide). On April 1, 2020, Mehta won his first appearance on the television game show Jeopardy You can follow Hemant on: Facebook     Twitter     Instagram Follow his blog on Patheos Find his podcast HERE You can purchase Hemant's books on Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In this episode we chat with Jonathan Foster. Jonathan Foster is the award-winning author of the following books… • Where Was God on the Worst Day of My Life • Death, Hope, and the Laughter of God: An Unlikely Title About the Unlikely Path Where God Finds Us • Questions about Sexuality that Got Me Uninvited from My Denomination • The Hope and Melvin of Humanity and Other Surprising Short Stories There was something of a breakthrough with The Reconstructionist as it was his first book with less than ten words in the title. He's incredibly proud of what's happening at LQVE.org. When he's not with his family, he's reading Rene Girard or Open and Relational Theology. Or both. To find out more about what he's up to, make sure to sign up for the e-newsletter at his website, and when you do, you'll receive some more of his writing (a classic win-win). You can follow Jonathan Foster on: Facebook     Twitter      Connect with Jonathan on his Website You can purchase all of Jonathan's book on Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In This episode we chat with Eric Howell & Jason Elam. Eric is a husband a father of two, and audio wizard. He is the man behind the curtain of deconstruction podcast.  Producing shows such as Heretic Happy Hour, The Messy Spirituality Podcast, The Reconstruction Podcast, and this very show - This Is Not Church. He hails from Arab, Alabama. He dislikes Brussel sprouts and legalism. This is Jason’s second time on our show. You can read his bio on episode #2. You can follow Eric on: Facebook     Twitter     LinkedIn Check him out on Podchasers You can connect with Jason on: Facebook     Twitter      Instagram Side note...when I find the link to Jason's wresting match on Youtube, I will add the link here. You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!  

In This episode we chat with Bayo Akomolafe. Bayo Akomolafe is the grateful life-partner to ‘EJ’, father to Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden Abayomi, son of Olufunmilayo Ibidapo Akomolafe and Ignatius Abayomi Akomolafe, and descendant of Yoruba fields of archetypal becomings and mythopoeic landscapes. He is an author, celebrated speaker, teacher, and self-styled trans-public intellectual (a concept imagined together with and inspired by the shamanic priesthood of the Yoruba healer-trickster)- whose vocation goes beyond justice and speaking truth to power to opening up other spaces of power-with, and queering fond formulations and configurations of hope. Dr. Bayo Akomolafe considers his most sacred work to be learning how to be with his daughter and son, Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden – and their mother, his wife and “life-nectar”, Ijeoma. “To learn the importance of insignificance” is the way he frames a desire to reacquaint himself with a world that is irretrievably entangled, preposterously alive and completely partial. You can follow Bayo on: Facebook     Twitter     Check out Bayo's  You can purchase Bayo's book on Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In This episode we chat with Josh Lawson. Josh Lawson lives with his family in Wheelersburg Ohio, where he serves his community in a variety of roles as recovery program coordinator for the Shawnee State University Kricker Innovation Hub. He works to connect people in recovery with entrepreneurial skills and services that will help them succeed in life. He also chairs the faith-based sub community of Scioto Connect the counties local opioid consortium where he consults with faith communities on how to support people who use drugs and those in recovery. As an author he recently published his first book The Face of Addiction which tells the story of 12 people in Southern Ohio who have been impacted by the opioid overdose crisis. In his follow up book Drugs and Jesus which is set to release in 2022 will be the first of its kind to present a call to action for people of faith to engage in the work of harm reduction. You can connect with Josh Lawson on: Facebook     Twitter     Instagram You can purchase Josh's book at Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!  

In this Episode we chat with Jeff Chu. Here is Jeff's bio in his own words. I wear several different hats to cover my coarse Chinese hair, which requires too much product to tame: Writer, reporter, editor. Co-curator and co-host, with Sarah Bessey, Of Evolving Faith. Editor-at-large at Travel & Leisure. Occasional preacher. Teacher in residence at Crosspointe Church. Ordinand in the Reformed Church in America (RCA). Cook, gardener, and dog walker to Fozzie in Michigan, where my husband and I moved last year. (First time living in the Midwest. Snow tires are a revelation!) Before that, I was a seminarian at Princeton Theological Seminary, where I worked as a farmhand at PTS’s Farminary. Don’t be deceived… When I got to the Farminary, a 21-acre experiment in sustainable agriculture that doubles as the world’s best classroom, I didn’t know anything about farming, and I had more experience killing plants than nurturing them. But my work on the farm changed me. More than anything else in my life, that land taught me about the story of life, death, and new life that God has written into creation. You can connect with Jeff on: Facebook     Twitter     Instagram Check out Jeff's website You can purchase Jeff's book at Amazon.com You can purchase Rachel Held Evan's book that Jeff helped finish at Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In this Episode we chat with David Gungor. David is a musician, a pastor at Trinity Grace Tribeca, the Director of Partnerships for a peacemaking organization called Telos, and the CEO of Higher Love.  David is also a producer and songwriter, and is in a band called The Brilliance. David is involved with Narrative $, a global organization headed up by some of the world's most renowned and influential authors, artists, and community leaders who have come together to promote empathy through the exchange of stories.  You can follow Davids Band The Brilliance on: Facebook     Twitter     Instagram Check out all things David Gungor at his website Check out all things connected to The Brilliance at their website Check out Trinity Grace Tribeca at their website Check out Telos at their website Check out Narrative 4 at their website You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

In this Episode we chat with Peri Zahnd. Peri Zahn is the co-pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph MO. Along with her husband Brian. They have committed their entire adult life to this calling and Word of life just celebrated 40 years. She was trained in spiritual direction by Benedictine Sisters and is completing a master’s in ministry now through St. Stephens University in New Brunswick Canada. Her passions are helping others to grow into Christ Likeness leading small groups and meeting individuals for pastoral care and spiritual direction. She is passionate about her kids and grandkids and the enneagram and about Christian pilgrimage. She and Brian have walked the Camino De Santiago in Spain three times and Peri Authored a memoir about their first experience called Every Scene By Heart. You can follow Peri on: Facebook     Twitter     Instagram Check out Word of Life Church website You can purchase Peri's book on Amazon.com You can connect with us on    Facebook     Instagram      Twitter Want to help us with our future episodes of This Is Not Church Podcast? Join us on Patreon where you will get access to exclusive patron content such as early access to episode, videos of upcoming episodes, and live Q&A sessions. Also check out our website for upcoming interviews and blog posts Each episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!