20 Minute Takes

This week on 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with Kat Armas. She's a Cuban American writer, speaker, and theologian, and the author of the recently released book "Liturgies for Resisting Empire Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World" (Baker 2025). In this conversation, they discuss how empire has embedded itself in the most intimate and personal of communities and systems, and how practices of slowness and embracing friction help to disentangle our lives from the dehumanizing forces that rob us of our humanity.

Learn more about Kat Armas
Subscribe for Kat Armas's Substack
Follow Kat Armas on Instagram
Follow Kat Armas on Threads

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto
Produced, and Edited by David de Leon
Music by Andre Henry

Welcome to Season 9 of 20 Minute Takes! 

We kick off this new season with a conversation with public scholar, author, and community activist, Dr. Terence Lester. He's the executive director and founder of Love Beyond Walls, an organization that seeks to change the narrative on homelessness through education and storytelling. He's also the author of "From Dropout to Doctorate
Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice" (IVP 2025). In this conversation, Nikki Toyama-Szeto and Dr. Lester explore how racism and poverty persist through generational trauma, and talk through stories of how people are working to disrupt these cycles of destructive formation.

Learn more about Dr. Terence Lester
Learn more about Love Beyond Walls
Follow Dr. Terence Lester on Instagram
Follow Dr. Terence Lester on Threads

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto
Produced, and Edited by David de Leon
Music by Andre Henry

This week on 20 Minute Takes, we talk with author Scott Bessenecker. His book, Bad Religion, Good News: An Honest Guide for the Spiritually Disappointed was released this past May. Scott talks with us about why engaging with disappointment is often a challenge for Western Christian spirituality, and shares stories of people who have found good news through their earnest engagement with disappointment.

This is the final episode of season 8 of 20 Minute Takes—check back in the fall for our new season!

Scott Bessenecker has worked in college ministry for the past 40 years, facilitating global justice immersion programs inviting young adults to discern voactional ministry alongside the urban poor. He's also the author of the New Friars.

You can find his Substack here.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted, Produced, and Edited by David de Leon
Music by Andre Henry

This week on 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with Sandra Maria Van Opstal. She's the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Chasing Justice, an organization that mobilizes a young BIPOC-led communities toward living a lifestyle of faith and justice. In this episode, they talk about about a spirituality rooted in the idea of "We got us." Sandra unpacks how she's seen her local community in Chicago care for one another amidst increased ICE activity, how she sees faith communities continuing to be a crucial space of mobilization and connection, and how a spirituality rooted in movement and action from the margins is not only through the witness of scripture, but is what's most needed in the world today.

You can learn more about Sandra's work here.
Listen to the whole song "We Got Us" + the rest of the Storytellers Collective Storybook Vol. 1 here.
Finally, check out Chasing Justice's podcast, "We Got Us" here.

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20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto 
Produced by David de Leon
Editing and Mixing by Wiloza Media
Music by Andre Henry

What does it mean for Christians to be accountable to their tradition's entanglement with racism, white supremacy and anti-Blackness? On this episode of 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with musician and writer, Andre Henry. Andre serves as the program director for CSA's Racial Justice Institute. In this episode, they discuss the current backlash that against  racial justice efforts in the United States, and the long history of how Christians have both contributed to the upholding of racial hierarchy, as well as the prophetic actions Christians have undertaken to dismantle it.

Check out this four-part series that Andre recently published on "Understanding Racism."

You can listen to Andre's music here and learn more about his work here.
Additionally, you can follow him on Instagram and Threads.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto 
Produced by David de Leon
Editing and Mixing by Wiloza Media
Music by Andre Henry

This week, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with Zakiya Jackson of the Expectations Project. They talk about the spiritual practice of being a good neighbor, and how good neighboring goes beyond individual relationships to considering how systems and policy affect our communities as a whole.

You can follow Zakiya on Instagram and Threads.
You can learn more about the Expectations Project here.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto 
Produced by David de Leon
Editing and Mixing by Wiloza Media
Music by Andre Henry

Faith communities have the power to help give shape to people's lives, for better, and sometimes for worse. On this episode of 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with Erina Kim-Eubanks. She's the co-pastor of Bethel Community Presbyterian Church in San Leandro, CA, a multigenerational church community that she and her husband have helped to replant since the Covid-19 pandemic. In this conversation, Erina reflects on what spiritual formation looks like at their church, how the their community is intentional in their imagination and praxis, and how communal practices around liturgy and scripture nourish their congregation.

You can find Erina's writing here.
Follow her on Instagram.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto 
Produced by David de Leon
Editing and Mixing by Wiloza Media
Music by Andre Henry

Eschatology refers to the area of theological reflection that makes meaning of "the last things;" it often conjures up notions of apocalypticism, heaven, judgment, or even the book of Revelation. On this episode of 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with Sara Améstegui Deik about how eschatologies help to form our broader theological imaginations. Sara is a scholar based in Bolivia, and her expertise is in Christian Zionism—an ideology that has had an outsized influence on Christian thinking and Christian ethics, particularly among Evangelicals in the West. What possibilities exist beyond this, in theologizing the future, and living justly in the present? Listen in.

You can follow Sara on Instagram.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto 
Produced by David de Leon
Editing and Mixing by Wiloza Media
Music by Andre Henry

This week on 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto talks with Jemar Tisby. He's a bestselling author, historian, and producer of the recently released documentary: Jesus Was A Migrant, directed by Lauren Vernea. They discuss today's political landscape surrounding immigration, the consequences of politics leading theology instead of the other way around, and the various stands of Christian thought and spirituality which have sought to seek the flourishing of migrant communities.

You can learn more about Jemar's work here.
Follow him on Instagram and Threads.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto 
Produced by David de Leon
Editing and Mixing by Wiloza Media
Music by Andre Henry