What do you do when the church that's supposed to welcome you turns you away for how you look? Magdalene Rose is a Christian rock and metalcore artist who has spent her whole career answering that question — with dark lipstick, heavy breakdowns, and a testimony she refuses to keep quiet.

In this conversation, Magdalene shares the long road that got her here: growing up in a band with her sisters, marrying into the Seventh Day Slumber family, and turning her hardest season — a years-long fight with anorexia and depression — into the song "Teeth Eater" and a movement of people getting matching tooth tattoos to mark their own recovery.

We talk about the prayer that changed everything, the one she prayed when she couldn't even want to get better: "God, help me want to want this." We talk about why seeking help from doctors and therapists isn't weak faith. And we talk about the spring several churches canceled her shows — not over her music, but over her appearance — and the pastor's apology that came afterward, the part of the story nobody usually gets to hear.

This is a conversation about belonging, about the people Jesus actually sat with, and about what God does with the wreckage.

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"I don't love you because you can sing. I love you because you're My child." That's the moment Dr. Cliff Lambert says his relationship with Jesus actually began — not while leading worship, but while he'd lost his voice completely.

Cliff is a classically trained vocalist, Associate Professor of Voice at Liberty University, and Worship Pastor at Liberty Baptist Church in Appomattox, VA. He's spent decades leading worship in churches from Detroit to Chesapeake to Lynchburg, and now trains the next generation of worship leaders in the theology behind what they do on a Sunday morning.

Apollo and Cliff trace Cliff's winding, faith-led path from adjunct voice teacher to full-time faculty at Liberty — including a year-long job process that ended in a single dinner conversation. Then they dig into the theology of worship itself: what got lost in the "seeker sensitive" era, why some songs belong in private prayer and others belong in the room together, and how a worship leader's own walk with God shapes everything they lead.

Key themes from this conversation:

• Surrender over striving — God doesn't want performance, He wants a surrendered heart.
• Every step of faith has a purpose, even when the "why" doesn't show up for years.
• The words we sing together matter, and so does how we introduce them.

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What happens when the gospel finds you in a skate shop instead of a sanctuary? Lydio Banana is the Next Gen Pastor at The Lamb's Chapel in Burlington, NC, where he leads ministry to the next generation alongside his wife, Jessie, who directs the church's Children's Ministry. In this conversation, Lydio takes Apollo back through the skate scene of '90s Modesto and Turlock — the friendships, the injuries, and the unlikely encounter with a missionary kid in a skate shop that planted the first seed of faith. From there, the story winds through a season of drifting, a Bible study that grew too big for a living room, and a calling into vocational ministry that's lasted three decades.

Lydio and Apollo dig into what they call "default faith" — the danger of mistaking a Christian upbringing for a real relationship with Jesus — and why the gratitude of someone radically saved and someone raised in the church should look exactly the same. It's a conversation about authenticity, calling, and what it actually looks like to give the next generation something real to hold onto.

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What if your testimony doesn't need a dramatic rock-bottom to be miraculous? Brandon Savage is a worship and creative arts pastor at Lee's Summit Community Church near Kansas City — and he's spent years learning to look back and see God's hand all over a story he once thought was ordinary.

In this conversation, Brandon walks Apollo through his whole journey: the youth pastor who gave him the gospel over Taco Bell across from Arrowhead Stadium, the sinner's prayer he said in the driveway of a white Ford F-150, and the season he walked away after a church experience left him confused. He shares how a David Crowder song broke him open in a worship service, how one family's quiet peace through financial hardship showed him what real faith looks like, and how losing his dad to cancer a year and a half ago has tested — and deepened — his belief that God is sovereign and good.

Along the way, Brandon and Apollo dig into the difference between faithfulness you cultivate and faithfulness as a gift of the Spirit, why looking back is the key to trusting God forward, and what it means to shift from a worship leader to a worship pastor who shepherds people, not just sets.

This is Episode 002 — an honest conversation about seeing God in the whole story, not just the highlight reel.

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What does it look like to bring the gospel to people who would never walk into a church? Anthony Goodwin is a corporate and Army Reserve chaplain based in Austin, Texas — and his job is to go to people instead of waiting for them to come to him.

In this conversation, Anthony shares how he came to faith after a breakup in junior college, how a quiet pull from God led his family to leave everything familiar and move to Texas, and what it actually looks like to do ministry one cubicle at a time.

We talk about his three kids all getting baptized in January — and the moment each one described exactly where they were when they gave their life to Jesus. The bed. The dinner table. The communion room. And Anthony closes with one of the best lines of the episode: "Just share your cape."

This is Episode 001 — the first conversation — and it's everything this show is about.

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What if the gospel isn't just something you agree with, but something you're still living out — right now, in whatever you're walking through?

Welcome to Jesus Wants The Rose, a long-form, conversational podcast about how the gospel actually lands in real life. Each episode, host Apollo Tull sits down with a different Christian — pastors, artists, everyday believers — for an honest, unpolished conversation about how they first encountered Jesus, how they've come to understand the gospel, and how it keeps reshaping their story.

This isn't a polished sermon or a performance. It's more like pulling up a chair and hitting record while the conversation goes wherever it goes — doubt, church, grace, failure, and the moments faith actually showed up.

Across the episodes ahead, expect real stories of ordinary joy and deep struggle, honest conversations about what it actually looks like to follow Jesus day to day, and a consistent thread of hope — that the good news isn't abstract, it's alive and at work in real lives, including yours.

Episode 001 drops soon. Subscribe now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, so you don't miss it.

Jesus Wants The Rose — real conversations, rooted in the gospel.