Re-integrate Podcast

Our work situations, family and friendships, and everything around us always change. How do we navigate through the fog of not knowing what will happen next and where we are ultimately going?

This episode features two guests who can help us navigate a life that is always in flux. Leadership, career, and vocation experts Michaela O’Donnell and Lisa Pratt Slayton teach the practical skills needed to navigate constant change. Their new book is Life in Flux: Navigational Skills to Guide and Ground You in an Ever-Changing World (Baker Books, 2024).

Michaela O’Donnell, PhD, is the Executive Director of Fuller Seminary’s Max De Pree Center for Leadership. Lisa Pratt Slayton is the Founding Partner and CEO of Tamim Partners, providing coaching and consulting to executives, businesses, nonprofits, and churches.

We have a wealth of information at our fingertips, but information is not the same as wisdom. Whether in business, spiritual life, or everyday decisions, we need wisdom’s guidance to lead with purpose and meaning. With decades of leadership experience in business, nonprofits, and Christian higher education, Uli Chi is just such a person.

Uli Chi is an award-winning technological entrepreneur who founded Chi-LLC, a software company that develops 3-D virtual reality space planning and visualization software. He teaches for Regent College’s Master of Arts in Leadership, Theology, and Society and Fuller Seminary’s Doctorate of Global Leadership. He also serves as a senior fellow and the vice chair at the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary. 

In his new book, The Wise Leader (Eerdmans, 2024), Uli shares what he has discovered in Scripture, through personal experience, as well as from art and literature: That the nature of wisdom is fundamentally relational and other-centered and that wise leadership is a righteous blend of power and humility. 

The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians is filled with excellent teachings to guide us theologically and practically. We work through many of the key passages found here, including Christ’s work to unite humanity and the passage about wives submitting to their husbands.

We have invited Lynn H. Cohick, PhD, to discuss Ephesians based on her new commentary in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2020). Dr. Cohick is Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Director of Houston Theological Seminary at Houston Christian University.

To help us, as Christians, have a clear understanding of modern-day Israel and how it relates to the Bible, we have asked one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the subject onto the podcast.

Dr. Gary Burge (Ph.D., from King’s College at the University of Aberdeen, and M.Div., from Fuller Theological Seminary) is a New Testament scholar, professor, author, and ordained minister. After 25 years teaching at Wheaton College and Graduate School, he is now Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Dr. Burge has written biblical commentaries and scholarly books on the New Testament. He has also tackled the theological and practical issues surrounding the people and the land of Israel and Palestine, including Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to “Holy Land” Theology (Baker Academic, 2010), and Whose Land? Whose Promise?: What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians (Pilgrim Press, 2003, Revised 2013).

There was a time, back in the 70s and early 80s, when the study of Revelation, with speculations about the end times and being “left behind,” was in vogue. But today, most Christians stay away from Revelation. Preachers either ignore it or choose to teach from the safer passages. The reason is that so many of us have become frustrated by how people have portrayed it, enamored with the violence, speculation, and false predictions.

Our guest on this episode is Scot McKnight, who, along with Cody Matchett, has written the book Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple (Zondervan, 2023). They say that all the future foretelling that speculative dispensationalists have been doing over the past century has distracted us from the real message of Revelation. Scot McKnight is a New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, and author.

Women now have professional opportunities beyond those of previous generations. But sadly, as women have seen their roles grow at work, the church’s vision for women’s work and calling has not grown along with it. This has left women feeling isolated and under-resourced.

Joanna Meyer has written Women, Work, and Calling: Step into Your Place in God’s World (InterVarsity Press, 2023). She is the Director of Public Engagement and the Executive Director of Women, Work, and Calling at the Denver Institute for Faith & Work. In our discussion, we talk about the multiple tensions that Christian women face – between home and work, and between the great gifts that they have and the limiting beliefs that hold them back from providing their workplaces with the fullness of those gifts. All the while having to navigate the complex and sometimes difficult gender dynamics in the workplace.

What if the Bible and science are meant not only to coexist but actually to inform one another? John Van Sloten is a pastor, theologian, and writer who seeks to discern God’s voice revealing himself in all things, both in the “book of the Bible” and the “book of God’s creation.” John has written God Speaks Science: What Neurons, Giant Squid, and Supernovae Reveal about Our Creator (Moody, 2023), where he dives into what God reveals about life and himself in the created order, which is explored and studied through scientific vocations.

“The Great Commission” (Matthew 28:16-20) is the central driving mission for God’s people. But here is a question to consider: How does this commission that churches have for people relate to the mission that God has for every aspect of life? Before we know what our mission is, we must first know what God’s mission is.

Christopher J. H. Wright (PhD, Cambridge) is the Global Ambassador of the Langham Partnership, strengthening leaders in churches around the world. He was chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group and the chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment from the Third Lausanne Congress of 2010. He has written many books including commentaries on Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Two incredibly influential books have been The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (IVP Academic) and The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Zondervan Academic).

His latest book is The Great Story and the Great Commission: Participating in the Biblical Drama of Mission (Baker Academic, 2023).

We love to talk movies on the Re-integrate Podcast. Why? Because we want to reintegrate our enjoyment of pop culture with our Christian faith. Our guest on this episode is film critic Josh Larsen. He is co-host of WBEZ (Chicago’s NPR station) radio show Filmspotting, which is also one of the top movie podcasts. Josh is also the editor and producer for Think Christian, a website and podcast exploring faith and pop culture. He’s been writing and speaking about movies professionally since 1994.

We discuss with Josh his two books: Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings (InterVarsity Press, 2017), and Fear Not!: A Christian Appreciation of Horror Movies (Cascade Books, 2023, a part of Fuller Seminary’s Reel Spirituality Monograph series).

Author of “On Getting Out of Bed.”

Many Christians must deal with some sort of mental or emotional suffering. While life is a good creation from a loving God, in a fallen and broken world, normal human life can be really difficult. While we have made tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living still comes down to the mundane choices that we each must make each moment, starting with the daily choice to get out of bed.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. O. Alan Noble, the author of On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living (InterVarsity Press, 2023). This is a book in which Alan sits with us and puts words to our experiences of mental or emotional suffering.

What does it mean to be human? We live in an age of many voices trying to shape our understanding of who we are and what we are supposed to do.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Carmen Joy Imes (PhD, Wheaton). She is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University and the author of Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters (InterVarsity Press, 2023).

Our identity is rooted in Genesis 1, where humanity is created in God’s image. Imago Dei is our human identity, made to represent God in his very good creation. And what we do in our vocations flows directly from who we are as the Imago Dei.

For many American Christians, the presumptive next big event in redemptive history will be the Rapture. Many believers have been influenced by the fictional stories of the Left Behind novels and movies which depict military conflict in Israel, the Rapture in which all true believers are taken to Heaven, and the great tribulation in which those who are left behind must endure seven years of war and suffering.

In this episode of the podcast, we explore the key theological ideas of a theological system called Dispensationalism, which was the predominant default theology of American Christianity for most of the 20th Century.

Our guest is Daniel G. Hummel, Ph.D., (American History, University of Wisconsin-Madison), the author of the new book, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation (Eerdmans Press, 2023). 

There have been Christians throughout history who God has called to societal activism on behalf of the poor and oppressed. And the power in which they did so was found in their inner faith practices that connected them intimately with God through Christ and His Spirit.

Mae Elise Cannon is the author of Just Spirituality: How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action (IVPress, 2013). As both a historian and a Christian advocate for peace and justice in the Middle East, she explores the direct connection between Christians’ personal relationship with God and their outward actions of kindness, mercy, compassion and advocacy. She looks at how several notable Christian historical figures were able to engage in their societal challenges because of their spiritual practices. Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). Here is our interview with Mae Cannon.

What would you say if you were completely honest with yourself and with God?

Jennifer Dukes Lee leads David and Bob (and you!) on a journey of telling truths, some fun and some painful, through her new book, Stuff I’d Only Tell God: A Guided Journal of Courageous Honesty, Obsessive Truth-Telling, and Beautifully Ruthless Self-Discovery (Bethany House, 2023). With daring questions, provocative lists, and quirky charts and illustrations, this journal is a place to record all the stuff you’d only tell God: ideas, beliefs, secrets, memories, wonderings, and wishes–things that might seem outlandish or outrageous to anyone else but are what make you, you. You’ll find the space and the help you need to unearth the real you, the you that is sometimes buried deep beneath a layer of self-protection.

This episode of the Reintegrate Podcast is a little different in that we live-streamed it in conjunction with the Logos Daily Circle. Our guest is Jason Stone, the founder of the Logos Daily Circle.

This is the first of what we are hoping will be a new joint venture between Reintegrate and Logos Daily to feature our guests to the huge community in the Logos Daily Circle.

TIME STAMPS
What we discuss in this episode:
0:00 Getting to know Bob, David, and Jason
8:30 What is Logos Daily Circle?
13:42 What is Reintegrate?
18:52 How should “online community” (like Logos Daily) be different than “social media?”
25:22 What is “calling,” and how can we reintegrate our vocations with God’s mission?
35:30 What is the connection between callings and the kingdom of God?
41:09 Does what we do in our work in a fallen and temporary world really matter?
52:40 How can pastors better equip people to be missional in and through their vocations?

Michaela O’Donnell, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary, which helps leaders respond faithfully to God in all seasons of their life, work, and leadership. Her book, Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World (Baker, 2021) is based on her deep research and is filled with stories and insights from faithful entrepreneurs. She offers a step-by-step paradigm for discovering what God is calling each of us to do in a changing world and practical habits suited for the new world of work.

Dr. O’Donnell is a business entrepreneur, a teacher, and a sought-after speaker and consultant who regularly presents on the topics of vocation, career, and leadership. She has fifteen years of experience in business marketing, founding and running, with her husband Dan, Long Winter Media, which helps brands through creating multi-media content. At the Depree Center, she created a six-week remote cohort experience rooted in her PhD research, called Road Ahead, designed to help people in transition to discern next steps and gain clarity about what God is calling them to do.

Have you ever had a profound experience while watching a movie? When you were so overwhelmed by emotion that you could call it spiritual? In his book Seeing Is Believing: The Revelation of God Through Film (IVP, 2022), theologian Richard Vance Goodwin argues that such experiences may sometimes be encounters with God. He explores how certain films use various visual strategies to invite viewers to feel emotions that may open them up to God’s presence.

Dr. Richard Goodwin is adjunct assistant professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is also Academic Director of Teaching and Learning at Pathways College of Bible and Mission in New Zealand.

How are you at managing your time? Perhaps the problem is that you are trying to “manage” your time when you are called to “redeem” your time. In this episode, we discuss with Jordan Raynor some principles to reintegrate our faith with our work (and all of life) so that we become more like Jesus Christ in his time on earth: purposeful, productive, and present.

Jordan Raynor is a leading voice in the faith and work movement. Raynor is the author of several books, including Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive (Waterbrook, 2021). These 7 principles are based on how Jesus managed his time on earth and how he responded to human constraints much like the ones we face today.

We all are fascinated with the End Times. What is our final destiny? This is eschatology. If we were to take a random survey of Christians in North America, we would hear something like this: Our destiny is heaven. When we die, we go off to our home with Jesus, worshiping God for all eternity in an otherworldly existence. We will finally shed this earthly life and live as God wants us to live, with Jesus and away from this earthly life. Most pastors preach that the earth is not our home, that what God has for us is to live forever in another place, Heaven, and that Earth will be no more.

Our guest on this episode is J. Richard Middleton. In his book, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), he makes the case that the Bible teaches that the ultimate hope for the believer is not an otherworldly heaven. Instead, it is full-bodied participation in a new heaven and a new earth, brought into fullness through the coming of God’s kingdom. Dr. J. Richard Middleton (Ph.D. (Free University of Amsterdam) is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary.

Our guest is Christian philosopher and apologist Paul Copan, author of Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments (Baker, 2022), winner of the Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit in the category of Apologetics and Evangelism.

Dr. Copan takes on some of the most difficult Old Testament challenges and places them in their larger historical and theological contexts. He explores the kindness, patience, and compassion of God in the Old Testament and shows how Jesus in the New Testament reveals both God’s divine kindness and also God’s divine severity. The God of the Old Testament is definitely fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, but it turns out to be the same God.

Does the American evangelical church need a wake-up call? Have we become unaware of our blind spots?

In their book, Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church (InterVarsity Press, 2022), Matthew Soerens and his co-authors suggest that we must listen to the voices of global Christians and the poor who offer significant insights and hope from the margins, and to the ancient church which survived through the ages amid temptations of power and corruption. By learning from the global church and marginalized voices, we can return to our roots of being kingdom-focused – loving our neighbor and giving of ourselves in missional service to the world.

Our guest is Matthew Soerens, the U.S. Director of Church Mobilization for World Relief, where he helps evangelical churches understand the realities of refugees and immigration and to respond in ways guided by biblical values.

For Christians who work in engineering and developing technology, it’s not always clear how their faith and work integrate. How can designing and using technology actually be a way of loving God and our neighbors?

On this episode, we will interview three veteran engineers to understand how that particular vocation can be reintegrated with the mission of God. They are the co-authors of A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers (IVP Academic, 2022).

There is a crisis of knowledge that we are all experiencing. It seems that nobody trusts what anybody else is saying. In politics and in the media, on social networks, there has been an increasing inability to discern truth. 

• What causes us to explore conspiracy theories?
• How can we know when someone is telling a half-truth for political ends?
• What is the way forward for Christians as we try to navigate a world full of information but not much wisdom? 

Our guest is Bonnie Kristian, who writes about these issues in her book, Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (Brazos Press, 2022), which has won the “Award of Merit” in Christianity Today’s 2023 Book Awards.

You’re not supposed to “let God take control” of your life and work. You’re not supposed to “hear God’s voice in your heart.” And, you’re not supposed to be guided by God’s Holy Spirit by inner feelings of peace, intuitions, or impressions.

These are three things believers have recently come to believe as being essential to being Christian. But according to our guest Phillip Cary, they are not found in the Bible and actually will cause harm – psychologically, morally, and spiritually. Phillip Cary is a Professor of Philosophy and the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Eastern University. Brazos Press has just released the expanded second edition of his best-selling book, Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do.

How do I navigate the work world as a Christian? My work matters but should I get my identity from what I do? How can I live with integrity, doing good work while also being authentic in who I am?

Denise Lee Yohn is a keynote speaker, consultant, and writer on brand leadership. She has led seminars at such places as Facebook, Lexus, the NFL, and more. When she started her professional career, Denise also became a Christ-follower — and ever since then, she’s been passionate about reintegrating faith and work. She is the director of the Faith & Work Journey, a spiritual formation and professional development experience. She is a popular speaker at Christian organizations and conferences, has contributed to The Gospel Coalition and De Pree Center, and has served as an advisor to the Theology of Work Project.

Evangelical Christians often look to Christian celebrities and cultural strongmen for leadership and validation. And we have seen many celebrity pastors, ministry leaders, and cultural icons fall from their lofty celebrity platforms because they didn’t have the needed spiritual maturity or accountability. 

Award-winning journalist Katelyn Beaty‘s new book from Brazos Press, Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits are Hurting the Church. explores the ramifications of this phenomenon.

Dr. Michael F. Bird is an Australian biblical scholar and Anglican priest who writes about the history of early Christianity, theology, and contemporary issues. He is Academic Dean and a lecturer at Ridley College in Melbourne.

He is the author of 30 books, including The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Eerdmans, 2014), Evangelical Theology,(2nd edition published by Zondervan in 2020), The New Testament in its World (with N.T. Wright) (Zondervan, 2019), and his latest, Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew about the Bible (Zondervan, 2021).

How is art an inroad to our experience of God? How does making things give us a more tangible knowledge of the love of God and the joy of being a human in God’s image? What role do imagination and creativity have in a full-orbed theology? Our guest has some profound thoughts on these things. We are deeply honored to have renowned artist Makoto Fujimura on this episode of the Reintegrate Podcast. 

Mako Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist in what is called the “slow art” movement. As a Japanese-American, he studied art at Bucknell University and then studied traditional Japanese painting in the doctorate program at the Tokyo University of the Arts. His art is a fusion of fine art and abstract expressionism utilizing the techniques of ancient traditional Japanese art. His art has been featured widely in galleries and museums around the world including collections in The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The Huntington Library, and the Tikotin Museum in Israel. 

His latest book is Art and Faith: A Theology of Making (Yale University Press, with a foreword by N.T. Wright, 2021).

The Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper famously said these words in a speech he gave when he opened a new university:

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Jessica Joustra and Robert Joustra are the editors of a new book titled Calvinism for a Secular Age: A Twenty-First-Century Reading of Abraham Kuyper’s Stone Lectures (IVP, 2022). It’s a book that features contemporary Christian theologians, historians, scientists, and artists applying to today the concepts Kuyper introduced to America in 1898 in his famous Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary. These lectures, reflecting on the role of the Christian faith in a variety of social spheres, emphasized that our Christian faith addresses every aspect of life. This book seeks to bring those concepts into the 21st Century.

According to recent research, our brains go to the path of least resistance when we engage people who are unlike us. We perceive anyone different from us as a threat. In other words, we all have preferences and even prejudices. The Bible says that in our fallenness, we sinfully show partiality toward people who resemble us; we play favorites. According to Rodger Woodworth, overcoming our prejudices and bridging the cultural divide is the result of living out the gospel.

Dr. Rodger Woodworth was the founding pastor of two interracial churches, an adjunct seminary professor, and was the Director of Cross-Cultural Ministries for CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach). He has a Doctorate of Ministry in Complex Urban Settings, served on the Board of Directors for several Pittsburgh ministries, and is the author of the new book, Playing Favorites: Overcoming Our Prejudices to Bridge the Cultural Divide (Wipf & Stock, 2021). 

Truth be told, most Christians, even many pastors, don’t really have a firm understanding of what heaven is. 

• Where is the final destiny of the believer?
• What will we be there and what will we do there? 

In this episode of the Reintegrate Podcast, we invite an expert to share his insights. Dr. Michael Wittmer is Professor of Systematic & Historical Theology and the Director of the Center for Christian Worldview at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary at Cornerstone University. He is the author of lots of articles and several books, including books that deal with the topic on this episode of the podcast: Anticipating Heaven (Our Daily Bread Publishing, 2019). Heaven Is a Place on Earth: Why Everything You Do Matters to God (Zondervan, 2009), and he just served as the editor of Four Views on Heaven (in the Counterpoints series, Zondervan, 2022).

As we read the news, we are being not just being informed but we are being formed. Our news consumption easily shapes our sense of belonging and it can grind our minds into little bits as we are engulfed by so much information. We certainly should know what’s going on around us and so we should seek to know and understand the news. But how should a Christian do so? In a media world filled with pundits left and right, how can a Christian’s consumption of news be different? 

On this episode, our guest is Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro, the author of Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News (IVP, 2021), a book that won a 2022 Christianity Today Book Award of Merit. Jeff is Associate Professor of English at Grove City College.

What is God actually redeeming in us? What does it mean to be human? What is our mission in the world? Christians should seek the answers to these big questions. But we may lack the theological tools to answer. Our vision of the purpose of God and of us humans can be myopic because we haven’t steeped our minds in the truths about humanity found in the first chapter of Genesis, where it is revealed that we are created in the image of God. 

Dr. J. Richard Middleton (Ph.D. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) is the author of The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (from Brazos Press, 2005).

He is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary. His most recent book is titled Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021). Previous books include A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014). He is also the co-author (with Brian Walsh) of The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 1984) and Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (IVP Academic/SPCK, 1995).

Whether we know it or not, our lives are formed by invisible habits, habits that create in us anxiety, frustration, depression, and exasperation. How do we lean into the promise of the gospel when we remain addicted to our technology, scrolling through our social media feeds, streaming tv and movies at any time and in any place, all the while hurrying to get our work done with increasing demands and deadlines?

Justin Whitmel Earley is the author of two books on creating healthy habits to yoke ourselves to Jesus, The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction (InterVarsity Press, 2019) and Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms (Zondervan, 2021).

Everything in Western society teaches us that we belong to nobody but ourselves. This sounds great! We can create our own identities, map out our own lives, and find significance in ourselves. This means that we are entirely responsible for ourselves. But Alan Noble says this overwhelmingly burdens us to try to justify our existence and to create and express our own identities. And society is more than happy to manipulate us as we do so. There is a lot of money to be had in people who are burdened with creating, sustaining, and projecting who they are.

Alan Noble (Ph.D., Baylor University) is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University. He is the editor-in-chief of Christ and Pop Culture, and the author of articles and books, including his latest, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (InterVarsity Press, 2021).

Honest doubt about what we’ve been taught is a good thing. In fact, healthy deconstruction can create great spiritual growth. But doubt can also lead someone to lose their faith. Our guest says that we can question our faith without losing it.

A. J. Swoboda (PhD, University of Birmingham) is assistant professor of Bible, theology, and world Christianity at Bushnell University. His latest book is After Doubt: How to Question Your Faith without Losing It (Brazos Press, 2021). This book is a much-needed assist to doubters and those of us who are seeking to help them. 

What is a Christian’s role in making cultural change? What is a Christian’s role in a polarized political society? Does the gospel of Jesus Christ inform us on any of this?

Dr. Bruce Ashford (Ph.D. in Theological Studies, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is an author, speaker, and columnist. He wrote or co-wrote nine books, including Every Square Inch: An Introduction to Cultural Engagement for Christians, The Gospel of Our King: Bible, Worldview, and the Mission of Every Christian, The Doctrine of Creation: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach, and Letters to an American Christian. 

He is a Senior Research Fellow at The Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge, England.

Yes, we can deepen our Christian discipleship by reintegrating faith, work, and economics. Our guest, Charlie Self, says that Christians have the means to bless their local economies in unique ways that can transform coworkers and neighbors as Christ is glorified. We discuss wholehearted discipleship that extends beyond our Sundays at church and into our workplaces the rest of the week. 

Dr. Charlie Self is a Christian leader whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects and is well known for drawing on vast bodies of knowledge to address the problems Christians face. He has over four decades of experience reintegrating church, academy, marketplace, and the public square, helping people see that all domains of service can serve the kingdom of God. 

In a society fixated on anxiety, competition, and comparison Jesus Christ offers another path. He has told his followers that instead of living in constant striving and competition that each of us has equal dignity and worth. It’s often assumed that the good life is only for the most wealthy, attractive, and powerful. Poor, sad, and suffering people are left out. But Jesus offers a ninefold path in the Beatitudes that is for everyone. Whatever your story, whatever your struggle, wherever you find yourself, Jesus says that you are blessed in Him.

Mark Scandrette’s latest book is The Ninefold Path of Jesus: Hidden Wisdom of the Beatitudes (IVP, 2021). In this book, Mark explores the nine sayings in the opening verses of Matthew chapter five, helping readers move beyond their first instincts to instead embrace the deeper reality of the kingdom of God. He invites us into nine new postures for life. Instead of living in fear, we can choose radical love.

The significance of the Bible’s extensive teaching about the natural world is easily overlooked by Christians accustomed to focusing only on what the Bible says about God’s interaction with human beings. Who cares about the creation? Well, God told us humans that we are supposed to care for the creation. 

Jonathan A. Moo is associate professor of New Testament and environmental studies at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. He has a unique education, having graduate degrees (including a PhD from Cambridge) in both biblical studies and wildlife ecology. He collaborated with his father, Douglas Moo, on the book, Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World (Zondervan, 2018). Douglas Moo is one of the most respected New Testament scholars of this generation.

How does our faith inform our public life? We know it addresses our personal lives, our personal holiness, our families, our churches. But does our faith inform our work? Our enjoyment of art? Of fashion? Of architecture? Instead of simply relying on the political pundits on the cable news channels, do we have access to theologically shaped ideas to issues like political ideologies, immigration, race relations, and economics? 

Our guest on this episode of the Reintegrate Podcast is Dr. Matthew Kaemingk. He is the Richard John Mouw Assistant Professor of Faith and Public Life at Fuller Theological Seminary where he also serves as the Director of the Richard John Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life. His research and teaching focus on marketplace theology, Islam and political ethics, and public theology.

His latest publication is a book he edited as a festschrift to honor the life and work of Richard Mouw, Reformed Public Theology (Baker Academic, 2021).

Too many of us have experienced abuse of power from pastors in our churches. This happens in churches that have allowed for a culture of toxicity. To resist toxicity, we need to restore goodness in our churches. The Hebrew word translated “good” is tov. Scot McKnight and his daughter Laura Barringer have written A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing (Tyndale, 2020). 

In this episode, we interview Scot McKnight. Dr. McKnight is Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL. He is a New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and theologian. He has a very popular blog called “Jesus Creed” that is housed at ChristianityToday.com. 

How do we invite God into our everyday work lives? We spend most of our time not at church or in a quiet place, but at work! How do we find God there? In a new book, Working in the Presence of God: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Work (Hendrickson Publishers in partnership with the Theology of Work Project, 2019), co-authors Denise Daniels and Shannon Vandewarker help us to create practices within our work-a-day lives to see where God is already present in our work environment. If we want to be transformed into Christ’s likeness, the great place for that to happen is where we spend so much of our time and energy: Our work.

In this episode, we interview one of the authors of this book. Denise Daniels, Ph.D., was recently appointed the Hudson T. Harrison Professor of Entrepreneurship at Wheaton College.

Are you a recent college graduate, or an upper-classman in college, or have a loved one in that stage of life? It is an anxious time, transitioning out of college. New careers, new places to live, new relationships. A lot is changing. Today’s guest has lots of practical wisdom and tools to help with the transition.

Erica Young Reitz is the principal and founder of After College Transition. She has several years of college ministry experience working for the CCO and directing a program at Penn State University called Senior EXIT, which prepares students for life after college. She is the author of After College: Navigating Transitions, Relationships and Faith (InterVarsity Press) and you can find articles by her in Christianity Today, Relevant Magazine, The Gospel Coalition, and Collegiate Collective. 

What does it take for Christians to pursue “shalom” in every corner of society? How can churches be a blessing to their communities in practical ways to actually make life better for those who live there?

Our guest is Dr. Amy Sherman, the author of several books, manuals, and over 80 articles and essays. Her last book, Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good from InterVarsity Press, won Christianity Today’s 2013 Book of the Year in the Christian Living category.

We discuss how churches can make positive impacts in six areas: (1) The True, (2) The Good, (3) The Beautiful, (4) The Prosperous, (5) The Just and Well-Ordered, and (6) The Sustainable.

Matthew Kaemingk (co-author, with Calvin Seminary professor Cory Willson, of Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy) tells us that faith and work are best reintegrated through gathered worship. Sunday worship that is “vocationally conversant” purposefully invites Christians to bring our work into the church gathering where we can engage God with it. The rituals of Sunday worship should strengthen our spiritual muscles so that we can do good work for God’s glory. Sunday worship is meant to gather us in order to disperse us, called to serve others in our work and proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Matthew Kaemingk serves as associate dean and assistant professor of Christian Ethics at the Texas campus of Fuller Theological Seminary.

What does it look like to be a Christian at work? How can we be healthy and whole people who are better able to contribute? What is our mission in the workplace? How can we be agents of justice in and through our work?

Our guest on this episode of the Reintegrate Podcast is Lisa Slayton. Lisa is the founder of Tamim Partners where she comes alongside leaders and their teams to grow in wholeness and cohesion as they seek to serve their organizations for the common good and for the flourishing of their city and the world. She is also the Director of CityGate, a new initiative of the Denver Institute for Faith and Work, which is creating a community of workers, leaders, thinkers, and makers committed to both personal transformation and bringing healing change to their cities through holistic expressions of the gospel.

What is the greatest need for Christians who have leadership roles in their companies or institutions? Our guest today is Suzi Lantz, a senior consultant with GiANT Worldwide, training leaders to increase their leadership skills, communicate effectively, and excel at work (and life). Suzi believes that the greatest need is for leaders to become healthy themselves, to know themselves to lead themselves, for the sake of loving those they lead to become all God wants them to be. 

Are you experiencing loneliness? We drive to work. We drive back home from work. We watch some TV. When we have some free time, we are scrolling through something on our smartphones. No wonder we’re so lonely! We’ve been set up to not be connected to our neighbors. 

This episode features Dr. Eric O. Jacobsen. Eric is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington, and received his Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary. His latest book is Three Pieces of Glass: Why We Feel Lonely in a World Mediated by Screens (Brazos Press, 2020). As the subtitle suggests, we are experiencing loneliness because we spend so much time not walking among people so that we can have authentic relationships. Rather, our world is mediated through our windshields, our televisions, and our smartphones. 

How and why should we read the Bible? Why is evil a bad reason to not believe in God? Why is evil the best reason to believe in Jesus? What does the Bible teach about slavery?

These are the questions we ask Dr. Michael Wittmer, Professor of Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and the Director of the Christian Worldview Center at Cornerstone University. His latest book is The Bible Explainer: Questions and Answers on Origins, the Old Testament, Jesus, the End Times, and More (Barbour Books, 2020). We ask only a handful of the 251 questions asked and explained in this book.

Insurrectionists storming the Capitol and Senator Josh Hawley, who supported those who stormed the Capitol, invoking the name of Abraham Kuyper. How can white evangelicals learn from this ugly chapter on America’s history? What can we do, as we seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, to move forward? As a Black man and an evangelical theological scholar, Dr. Vincent Bacote is able to help white Christians better navigate the nexus of evangelical culture, politics, theology, and race. Vincent Bacote, PhD, is Associate Professor of Theology and the Director of Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College. He is the author of Reckoning with Race and Performing the Good News: In Search of a Better Evangelical Theology.

Our guest on this episode of the Reintegrate Podcast is Sam Van Eman, author of Disruptive Discipleship: The Power of Breaking Routine to Kickstart Your Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2017). As a specialist with the CCO’s Experiential Designs team, Sam creates disruptive and transformational experiences that are designed to jolt us and reorient people so that they can grow in discipleship to Jesus Christ. In this episode, Sam provides insights into how we can get our faith unstuck by intentionally creating space for spiritual growth.

We are blessed to have Sam Van Eman, author of Disruptive Discipleship: The Power of Breaking Routine to Kickstart Your Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2017) on for two episodes. Here, right before Christmas, Sam shares with Bob and Brendan ways we can ignite Christmas hope in the midst of hardship. How can hope be defined by adaptability so that our days are full of Christmas wonder? Sam sparks our imaginations as to how we can do things out of the ordinary for those around us.

What are we saved for?

God’s inviting us to join his mission to reconcile all things back to himself. JR Rozko helps Bob and Brendan understand the connections between salvation, discipleship, and mission. Salvation is the embodied experience of participating in what God is now doing in the world. “Discipleship is less about me trying to be like Jesus, and more about me trying to live my life as though Jesus were me.” JR is the Executive Director of The Telos Collective, a national church leadership training organization of the Anglican Church in North America.

Stephanie Summers is the CEO of The Center for Public Justice in Washington DC, an organization that equips citizens, develops leaders, and shapes public policy. She discusses with Bob and Brendan ideas for civic engagement that faithfully seeks to further public justice in both our nation but also our local contexts. They discuss how to actively discuss public policy and candidates with others without the trappings of political punditry, which seems to end with everyone hating each other.

How have the various political ideologies become idolatries? We have David Koyzis on to guide us through the strengths and weaknesses of each of them – Liberalism, Conservatism, Nationalism, Democracy, and Socialism. This is a crash-course in political science during the election season from one of our generation’s best thinkers on the subject.

David T. Koyzis earned his Ph.D. in government and international studies from the University of Notre Dame. He has taught undergraduate political science for thirty years. The new second edition of his highly acclaimed book, Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies came out last year, published by InterVarsity Press. Timothy Keller recently cited David’s book writing, “The gospel critiques all ideologies, and all the main political platforms since the Enlightenment have been dominated by reductionism and idols. (See David Koyzis, Political Visions and Illusions).”

2020 has been an incredible year of turmoil. It is the first year of a decade that promises to have lots of challenges.  Tom Sine and Dwight Friesen are the authors of a fresh new book, 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerated Change. Brendan and Bob discuss with them how these three vital practices can prepare young people, ministry leaders, and marketplace Christians for a decade that promises to be incredibly challenging.

We are experiencing disunity in ever-increasing ways. We are feeling it especially in 2020. What is God’s grand plan? “To unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth!” (Eph 1:10). Dr. Mark Roberts, the Executive Director for the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, wrote a new commentary on Ephesians. He shares with us what Ephesians says the gospel accomplishes: The gospel reintegrates all things, which includes the reintegration of the human race.

We can go to the movies to just be entertained or escape for a couple of hours, or we can look closer and dig deeper. What do the stories and characters in today’s movies tell us about the human condition? How can art teach us things that God wants us to grasp that we may not understand in any other way? Dr. Craig Detweiler (MFA, University of Southern California’s School of Cinema/TV and Ph.D. in Theology and Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary) has thought and wrote about these things for years and helps Bob and Brendan to wrestle with the messages of many of today’s best movies. Craig is the author of several books on Christian theology as it relates to pop culture, including his latest, Deep Focus: Film and Theology in Dialogue, co-written with Robert K. Johnston and Kutter Callaway.

In this podcast, we continue our discussion with Dr. John Fea. Professor of American History at Messiah University. He provides a historical framework for understanding the rise of the Religious Right and the political environment that led to evangelicals embracing Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Issues he addresses in his book, Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.

The idea that America was founded to be a Christian nation is a presumption that many evangelical Christians have, thanks to conservative preachers and teachers like Robert Jeffress, Eric Metaxas, and David Barton. History professor Dr. John Fea wrote a detailed history on the subject and provides insight and analysis, based on his book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction.

Now that I know what I know (about myself, this world, and God), what am I going to do with my life? According to Dr. Steven Garber, this is the essence of the word, “Vocation.” Steve discusses with Bob and Brendan the deep things of vocation, on finding a vision for life, responding to the call of God, and how to live wisely so that our ordinary lives are filled with meaning and purpose. His book, Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, is essential reading.

Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw, authors of the excellent book, Does God Really Like Me? (IVP), explain that God is not angry with us or disappointed in us. These are severely warped understandings of who God is, what God has been doing and continues to do in our lives, and how we are meant to relate to God. God not only loves us, but actually wants to be with us, and he wants us to work with him in the “family business.”

Politics, Social Media, and Polarization

We can’t even agree during a pandemic! Brendan and Bob discuss how we can begin to overcome the venom in our discourse that we’ve learned from our contentious culture. Instead of mimicking what pundits on cable news do, dehumanizing their opponents, and giving in to fear and rage, we are to be what Jesus called the “peacemakers.”

Can we be dedicated Christians and still indulge in the pleasures of this earthly life? Can we go to the beach, eat at a great restaurant, watch an exciting movie, play our favorite video game or sport, and still be pleasing to God? Or as today’s guest phrases it, “Can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life?” That’s the subtitle of Mike Wittmer’s book, Becoming Worldly Saints: Can You Serve Jesus and Still Enjoy Your Life? (Zondervan, 2015).

Dr. Vince Bacote has a lively conversation with Brendan Romigh and Dr. Bob Robinson on the multifaceted issue of racism, and how a biblical understanding of the gospel and of shalom (flourishing) can help white evangelicals think clearly about this issue. He is the author of The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life.