Anita Lustrea

Makoto Fujimura is an internationally renowned artist, writer, and speaker. He serves as the director of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. Above all, Fujimura is recognized worldwide as a cultural shaper. He is a fascinating person with a deep heart of compassion and one of the most down to earth people I’ve met.

His latest book, Silence and Beauty, is really a memoir focusing on hidden faith born of suffering. Makoto talks much about Shusaku Endo’s novel, Silence, and the impact the reading of Endo’s book had on him while in graduate school in Japan. Eventually Fujimura connected with Martin Scorsese, who was in the process of producing a movie version of Endo’s classic, Silence. As a result of conversations with Scorsese, Fujimura knew it was time to write his own story, Silence and Beauty. Scorsese also engaged Fujimura as a consultant on the upcoming film to release in late December. Fujimura says Scorsese’s film remains true to Endo’s book. While you don’t have to read Silence by Endo before reading Silence and Beauty by Fujimura, it is recommended.

Follow Makoto Fujimura on Twitter @IAMFUJIMURA.

Check out his website here.

My son John came home from South Carolina for a week. He gets married this coming June, so my opportunities to have him join me on the podcast won’t come along as often, and I am always interested to hear thoughts from younger voices. My husband Mike Murphy also joins me as we discuss the place of sports in society as well as how we respond when unexpected circumstances or unexpected expenses present themselves.

Find Mike here. Follow him on Twitter @murphsplace.

Email comments or questions to [email protected].

Brian McLaren joins me this week on the podcast. His latest book, The Great Spiritual Migration, grabbed my attention from the first words. As I read the subtitle, How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to be Christian, I thought about the current election cycle and all that I’m reading on social media, and I want a better way to be Christian. There is, however, much more to the book than what I intimate the subtitle means. In fact, my desire in this season would just be a spillover of a larger conversation that is beginning to take hold, one where Brian McLaren is at the forefront. McLaren talks about the biblical story as one that is fundamentally about people who are on the move and outgrowing old broken religious systems. People who are embracing a new more redemptive way of life.

I want that. How about you? Will you join the work of the Spirit in the deep transformation beginning to happen in the Church? I hope you’ll listen to this week’s podcast and ponder what Brian McLaren has to say. Email me with questions or comments at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.

Father James Martin makes a return visit to Faith Conversations this week. The focus of our conversation, which includes my husband Mike Murphy as co-host, is Father Martin’s book My Life With the Saints.

It is the 10th anniversary of the book’s publication and Father James wrote a new epilogue for the book. It’s a fascinating conversation about these mentors through history and how they have influenced many of us. We also talk about the difference between Catholic and Protestant Saints and learn, after 10 years, who James Martin might have included in the book if he was writing it today.

Follow Father Martin on Twitter @JamesMartinSJ

Find him on Facebook here.

Jenny Rae Armstrong is a woman on a mission. She has walked into the fullness of who God created her to be and encourages all of us to do the same. As a wife and mom of four boys, she finished her degree and headed to Seminary where she is in the process of completing her MDiv. Today, in her words, she splits her time between studying, pastoring, writing, and mommy-ing.

This week’s podcast might look like it’s for moms only, but Jenny Rae challenges all of us to be world changers focusing on what that might look like during the changing seasons of our lives. I encourage you to check out her book, Don’t Hide Your Light Under a Laundry Basket: 150 Bright Ideas for Wannabe World Changers.

Follow her on Twitter @jennyrarmstrong and check out her website here.

I’m excited about this week’s podcast for several reasons. First and foremost, I’ve been producing Faith Conversations for a whole year! This episode marks the beginning of year 2 for the podcast. I’ve heard from so many of you throughout the last year and I’m grateful for your interest in and support of Faith Conversations. If you are interested in supporting the podcast financially, I’m hoping to get a number of you who would give $15 or $20 a month. You can do that monthly or give it in a single amount as some of you have done. It’s only a suggestion. I’m grateful for each gift that comes in!

I’m also excited because on this week’s podcast we talk about a favorite topic of mine, the Enneagram. I have two guests well-versed in the Enneagram, which is a personality profile system unlike any other. Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile are co authors of The Road Back to You, subtitled, An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery. It is a wonderful introduction to the Enneagram, as is the podcast this week. I’m giving away a copy of The Road Back to You and the way to be eligible for the drawing is to email your name and mailing address to [email protected]. I’ll draw a name next Monday from the emails that come in and get the book out the door to the fortunate winner right away!

I’m not sure I mentioned this on the podcast, but Ian and Suzanne do a podcast of their own on the Enneagram that you might want to check out here. Toward the end of the podcast I also mention a study guide that goes along with the book. I’m really impressed with it as well. Here is a link.

Happy listening!

Katherine Willis Pershey joins me on the podcast this week. Her book, Very Married: Field Notes on Love & Fidelity, is the focus of our conversation. With a foreword by Eugene Peterson, and endorsements from Glennon Doyle Melton, Sarah Bessey, and Seth Haines, you know you have a winner!

It is beautifully written and I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Katherine. She is an author and an associate minister of the First Congregational Church in Western Springs, Illinois. She is the mother of two daughters and wife of Benjamin.

If you know of someone getting married, this is the perfect engagement gift. Katherine is vulnerable about her struggles and the growth that marriage has helped produce. If you are married it just might strengthen your own relationship as you read about how she and her husband walked the road of fidelity.

Michelle Van Loon is an author and speaker. You can find her writings a variety of places. She is a regular contributor to Christianity Today‘s popular Her.meneutics blog for women, and she blogs for the Patheos.com Evangelical channel.

Her recent release, Moments and Days, is the focus of this week’s Faith Conversations. We’ll look at the gift of time and how the Jewish and Christian calendars speak into our lives.

Happy Listening!

Brenda Garrison is someone I met years ago at a Hearts at Home conference. She and I were both workshop presenters. I immediately liked her. Her energy and enthusiasm were contagious! You’ll hear her energy on the podcast. Fast forward a few years. Brenda is now a grandma and also an empty nester. Life looks different. God has walked with she and her family through some hard times. Read that story here. On the other side of her book Love No Matter What, God is doing a new thing and speaking in new ways.

Brenda sent me an email telling me what God was up to. Not some huge expanding ministry, but God speaking specifically to Brenda with thoughts that might be transcendent, as God often speaks. Brenda is still out speaking, especially to women, and you can find out more about having Brenda come speak to your group here.

I hope after listening to the podcast you will download Brenda’s resource and sit with some of the great stories of scripture she highlighted for us and see how God speaks to you through them.

Happy listening!

When your life has revolved around bigger and better and faster, it’s hard to slow down. That pretty much describes most of us born and raised in the west, especially in the United States. Shauna Niequist is no different. Growing up in a mega church and then joining the staff of that church, there were plenty of expectations on her. She walked into those expectations and lived up to them even to the point of exhaustion and not enjoying the life she had created for herself.

If you can identify with racing and running and making everything perfect, but never being present to the most important people in your life, then you’ll appreciate the direction Faith Conversations takes this week. And if you are looking for the answer to that way of life, you’ll find some answers in the middle of the podcast.

Shauna Niequist has written what might be called her most vulnerable book yet. Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living takes us into a four-year journey Shauna embarked on to make substantial changes to her life. Spiritual practices are at the center of this shift and you might appreciate the ones Shauna used and find them helpful in your own journey toward a more sane way of life. I recommend Present Over Perfect, and I hope you enjoy this week’s episode of Faith Conversations.