It’s the beginning of the new academic year across North America, and we know that many of you listeners have already launched in, and some are very soon going to. We started classes this week too—lots of newness around! And…we are hoping to try a few new things this semester on the podcast as well. One new thing: we are hoping to regularly start sprinkling in interviews with people we would love for you to get to know. This episode is our first “interview” show. We started with our good friend and colleague, Dr. Justin Bailey.

Justin teaches in the Theology department at Dordt University, and he is one of the most popular professors on this campus—students love him! He recently wrote a new book entitled Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture. While it isn’t a “teaching” book…it has plenty of wisdom for Christian educators, and lots of encouraging ideas for thinking about how to help children and young people make sense of the complexity of the culture we find ourselves living in.

We enjoyed visiting with Justin so much, it was a long conversation! So we decided to split it into two episodes. The first half of the conversation is here for you, and we’ll have the second half coming out next week. We hope you’ll find Justin’s wisdom on discerning issues of faith and culture both challenging and encouraging.

Interpreting Your World will be available soon, and we highly recommend it to you! You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Your-World-Engaging-Theology/dp/1540965066/