Levvy Podcast launches its "Not So Stranger" guest episode with filmmaker and storyteller Wesley Foster, a longtime friend of Leroy's. The conversation traces Wes's journey from feeling alienated by "clean Hollywood arc" testimony culture, through a season of self-authored meaning-making rooted in Jungian psychology and artistic identity, to a pivotal encounter on a film set that led him into the Catholic Church. From there, the group unpacks why stories endure — landing on craft, truth, and above all sacrifice as the through-line — and what's lost when content is cheap, fast, and costless. The episode closes by tying Wes's personal story back to the season's opening theme: that the Christ story, and the stories we're meant to live, aren't things we invent, but things we're faithful to.

00:21 Introduction to Curious Conversations
00:58 Introduction to Storytelling and Friendship
05:52 Wesley's Journey into Storytelling
14:08 The Nature of Stories and Their Staying Power
16:35 Cultural Influences on Storytelling
19:24 Encountering Tradition and Givenness in Story
23:58 The Shift from Self-Authorship to Faithfulness
30:31 Elements of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in Stories
32:50 The Power of Truth in Storytelling
35:58 The Impact of Modern Technology on Storytelling
42:24 Stories That Resonate: Personal Favorites
48:58 Escapism vs. Engagement in Storytelling
53:11 The Sacrifice Behind Meaningful Stories

Mentions:

• Jungian Archetypes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes
• Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces: https://link.amazon/B0iQwliys
• Thorton Wider, Our Town: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Town
• John Cassavetes, A Woman Under the Influence: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072417/

Next Step: Live the great story that God's telling through your life.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

The panel opens E2 with childhood stories of exclusion and rejection, then widens the lens to ask whether belonging requires being felt to be true. A personal aside about feeling a sense of belonging to the city of Chicago becomes a live case study: can belonging be one-sided? From there the conversation turns theological — using "I never knew you" and the story of Jacob and Esau to ask what actual criteria, if any, determine belonging with God — landing on the idea that belonging with the Father can't be earned, is never in question from His side, and yet requires the vulnerability of being fully known and fully seen.

00:19 Exploring the Question of Belonging
02:27 Childhood Experiences of Belonging
05:20 The Impact of Adults on Belonging
12:37 Belonging in Family Dynamics
16:03 The Role of External Validation in Belonging
20:25 Cities as Places of Belonging
25:52 The Complexity of Belonging in Community
28:18 Exploring Belonging in the Body of Christ
31:19 The Complexity of Belonging and Faith
33:19 The Utility of Belonging Beyond Feelings
36:46 The Biblical Narrative of Belonging
40:42 Understanding the Measure of Belonging
44:51 The Paradox of Belonging and Acceptance

Mentions:

• Netflix: Lord of the Flies
• Disney: The Lion King
• Matthew 7:21-23 - “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Next Step: Belonging is not something we can earn. But, have you accepted the invitation?

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Lindsay and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

Season 2 opens with the panel's foundational question: what's the Christ story? Starting from Colossians' claim that "in him all things hold together," the conversation moves through authorial intent versus reader interpretation, the built-in diversity of how people experience Christ, the tension between Old and New Testament pictures of God, and how personal grievances with the Father get folded into a much larger story. It closes by asking directly how the Christ story functions as an agent of integration — and admits that agreement on the story isn't guaranteed, even among believers.

00:00 Introduction to the Christ Story
04:34 The Importance of Storytelling in Faith
06:01 Exploring the Master Storyteller
08:40 The Incarnation: A Nexus Event
11:35 Personal Reflections on the Christ Story
14:07 The Christ Story as a Collective Narrative
17:13 Diversity in Understanding the Christ Story
19:55 The Role of Parables in Communication
22:48 Authorial Intent and Interpretation
26:28 The Integration of Perspectives
29:08 Restoring Intimacy with the Father
32:51 The Complexity of the Christ Story
36:15 Understanding the Old and New Testament
41:31 The Role of the Christ Story in Integration
51:20 Life in the Name of Jesus
55:15 New chapter

Mentions: C.S. Lewis Trilemma

Next Step: What is the Christ story in your life?

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

A special crossover episode ahead of Season 2: Leroy sits down with Lindsay to talk through her newly released book, Seven Strands That Block or Build Identity — a "field guide," not a self-help book, built around three movements (being, beholding, becoming) and seven diagnostic strands measuring honesty, dependence, and resilience. The conversation moves from gaps in modern discipleship culture into a vulnerable walkthrough of the "discernment" strand, including Lindsay's own testimony of despair and healing through infertility, and closes on the book's reframing of "apocalypse" as unveiling rather than doom.

00:00 Introduction and Overview of Discipleship
02:51 The Discipleship Landscape
15:29 This is NOT a Self-Help Book
18:36 Spiderman: Brand New Day & Integration
21:10 A Discipleship Diagnostic Tool
26:03 Discernment, Despair, & Hope
33:34 The Threefold Human
34:42 Key Highlights of Seven Strands
35:16 Unmake Your Mind
37:41 Examples From Griefshare & The DaVinci Code
40:22 Hiding to Avoid Punishment
44:50 God's Not Afraid of Who We Really Are
46:37 Applied Apocalypse
51:36 Get The Book

Mentions:

• The Critical Journey by Hagberg & Guelich
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day
• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
• Griefshare

Next Step: Get The Seven Strands that Block or Build Identity

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

Haven't we been here before? Yes — and that's exactly how you know God is in it.

Season 1 of Levvy Podcast closes with a question that turns out to be a theological frame: wait, haven't we been here before? The answer is kairos. The appointed moment. Divine timing meeting opportunity and inviting action. In this finale each host names how they're living inside one right now — Ralph returning to a Christian school in a humbled role, delivering an on-camera apology to his ex-wife that stops the episode cold. Lindsay sitting in a depth she knows not to swim up from too fast. Adam recognizing the spiral pattern of his own growth — each time around the mountain arriving more formed than before. And Leroy connecting it all back to episode one — the wicked problem, the disintegrated church, the kairos invitation that this season has been. Haven't we been here before? Yes. But never like this.

00:00 Intro highlights, welcome & episode question

05:33 Defining kairos — the now word, the appointed moment

08:46 Divine timing meets opportunity and invites action

10:40 The Hebrew cyclical view of time — patterns that come back around

13:11 A kairos moment in a season of humility and return

19:30 An on-camera apology — kairos as a moment of restitution

21:51 What that story exemplifies about how kairos works

24:38 Radical honesty and the depth you can't swim up from too soon

26:56 The values collision underneath a kairos experience

31:36 Sitting with what was shared before stepping into your own

34:02 The mega kairos — catalyzing growth across every circle

39:21 Kairos moments are corporate — pay attention to who's alongside you

43:15 Kairos reveals integration accomplished and work yet to be done

50:31 New wine, crushed grapes, sonship now — kairos and transformation

57:05 Full circle to episode one — the wicked problem and kairos as the answer

Mentions: Kairos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos

Next Step: In a Kairos moment, stay connected even when isolation is tempting.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

After weeks of exploring what desire is, the Levvy hosts bring it home with four questions. When does desire go wrong? How do I deal with disappointment with God? Have I given myself permission to want? And what does it look like to give my desire to the Lord? The answers are as different as the four people in the room. The season that began with a wicked problem ends with a doxology — desire, rightly held, speaks glory.

00:00 Intro highlights, welcome & episode question

00:42 What is doxology — and why desire is doxology

02:20 Round robin format — four questions, ten minutes each

03:40 Question 1: When does desire go wrong?

05:23 How do we know if our desires are in alignment?

07:09 Gluttony, lust, greed — motivation is the key distinction

09:01 Does it harm myself, others, or the environment?

10:23 Desire goes wrong when coming from lack rather than abundance

12:06 Paul — content in abasement and abundance

12:41 Question 2: How do I deal with disappointment with God?

13:32 Deal with it with him — God is not afraid of your ugly

15:17 What if it's a dark night moment?

16:26 The dark night of the soul and what lives on the other side

19:33 Bitterness as the poison of disappointment

21:00 Be the rabbit — hold space and let God do the heavy lifting

22:49 Question 3: Have I given myself permission to want?

24:24 God would rather steer a moving ship than wait for perfect alignment

28:14 Leroy names his acting desire — and the open door

31:00 Even in the trenches knowing what you want still matters

33:13 Question 4: What does it look like to give my desire to the Lord?

37:24 Check desire against values as a plumb line

39:09 For me giving desire to the Lord is about embracing it not letting go

41:22 The closed fist and the open hand — two postures toward desire

43:23 Takeaway and close

Mentions:

• The Seven Deadly Sins
• The Dark Night of the Soul
• The Rabbit Listened

Next Step: Think about questions you still have about desire.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

What if heaven isn't the end of desire — but the beginning of it? In this episode the Levvy hosts take the most speculative and most personal question in the desire arc — is there desire after death — and refuse to answer it safely. Lindsay argues that a heaven without desire is theologically incoherent. Ralph names what passes away and what doesn't — the flesh, not the wanting. Adam wonders whether eternity might actually feature an exponential increase in desire. And Leroy connects it all to a simple and radical claim: desire is eternal.

00:00 Intro highlights, welcome & episode question

02:36 A biblical framework — not proof texts but handles to pull on

04:17 Will we want, dream, and aspire in eternity?

07:53 There is forever to see all our seedling desires realized

08:54 This is an exploratory conversation — we get to dream

11:54 The flesh and the spirit — what passes away and what continues

14:51 The sin nature passes away — but the physical body doesn't

16:07 Eternity as the full realization of all of God's promises

18:04 If desire is good from the beginning it must be eternal

19:12 All that lives forever is love

19:21 What brings God the most glory in the eternal state?

20:17 Getting to the finish line — the glorious day

22:36 You can't remove desire from the equation of bringing him glory

25:48 When we see him we will be like him — and still us

28:51 Why is it important to think about these things?

29:18 A near-death experience and a child seen in eternity

30:48 The desires we have now are part of our eternal desire

33:48 Legacy comes with you — what people will say when you're gone

35:10 Faith and reward — there is something to look forward to

38:10 Abraham owned only a grave — but his legacy shaped generations

41:57 The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want

44:11 Eden as the prototype — work and desire existed in perfection

45:15 Beholding his beauty may actually increase desire exponentially

46:45 Takeaway: desire is eternal and what we do with it now matters

Mentions:

• Steffany Gretzinger - All That Lives Forever Is Love
• Josh Garrels - Heaven’s Knife

Next Step: Direct your desires toward the Lord now as the eternal now-but-not-yet takes shape.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

What is beauty, really? In this episode the Levvy hosts take one of the most provocative questions in Western thought and refuse to answer it quickly. The conversation moves through athletic beauty, artistic beauty, the beauty of kindness, the cost of pursuing physical beauty across cultures, Ralph's raw account of growing up Black in an Italian neighborhood and the moment someone finally saw him differently, and Lindsay's naming of the most personal dimension of the whole conversation — the power of being desired. The episode closes where the show began — the wicked problem, the many parts, the one body — and lands on an answer that's both ancient and completely unexpected.

00:00 Intro highlights, welcome & episode question
01:54 Opening definition — beauty as wholeness and entanglement
03:42 Beauty can only truly be seen in comparison and juxtaposition
06:11 Beauty as recognition of something set apart — a reflection of holiness
09:44 The recognition of beauty might be what saves the world
12:34 Where do you most easily recognize beauty?
15:30 Jesus is the beautiful thing — the cross as ultimate beauty
18:14 Crying at a perfect Olympic vault — beauty as involuntary response
19:34 Physical beauty globally and the pursuit at what cost
22:14 We live in a fallen world — instilling values vs. worldly beauty standards
29:26 Isaiah 53 — Jesus came without physical appeal and yet is ultimate beauty
32:05 Growing up Black in an Italian neighborhood — being beheld differently
37:08 All attempts at physical beauty are really about being seen and wanted
41:09 The ethics of beauty — you don't have to demean one thing to raise another
47:06 Full circle to the wicked problem — beauty, wholeness, entanglement and close

Mentions:

• Beauty is Oxygen by Wesley Vander Lugt: https://a.co/d/0bzSjAF4
• Oddkin Unite: https://www.kinshipplot.org/arts-and-community
• Michael Jackson & Appearance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_appearance_of_Michael_Jackson

Next Step: Recognize the beauty in someone this week who may not have been told they are beautiful.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

Every desire carries a timestamp. You know what you want. What you don't know is when. In this episode the Levvy hosts sit inside one of the most universally human experiences — the gap between longing and receiving. Lindsay shares for the first time the story of praying for her mother's healing through childhood, watching her die anyway, and the long prodigal journey back to a God she felt had failed her. Leroy shares a twenty-year wait for a person he believed God had promised him — and the stunning, unexpected way it resolved. Ralph names the temptation to get creative when God says wait. And Adam names the question underneath it all: why does waiting matter? The answer the episode arrives at is both simple and costly. What makes waiting bearable isn't answers. It's surrender.

00:00 Intro highlights, welcome & episode question

01:36 Veruca Salt and the desire for it now

03:27 Wanting and waiting — the universal tension

04:50 The practical side of waiting is the hardest side

07:18 What kinds of things do we desire categorically

08:37 God allows the wait to build faith and appreciation

13:05 Why is waiting difficult — and what we learn from Abraham and Sarah

17:42 Praying for a mother's healing that never came

22:45 The long road back to God after walking away

32:25 Does waiting produce maturity?

37:26 Desire is the gravity that gives our souls density

38:19 When God gives a desire we didn't ask for — David's story

41:23 What makes waiting bearable is surrender

45:10 Tamar — taking matters into your own hands when wronged

48:41 Takeaway: trust grows in the waiting

Mentions:

• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: https://amzn.to/4oZjjJY
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
• The Declaration of Independence: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
• Anti-Gravity Physiological Impact: https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/living-zero-gravity-causes-many-changes-body

Next Step: Entrust your desires to God.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music

What do you actually want? It sounds simple, but for many followers of Christ it's one of the hardest questions to answer honestly. In this transitional episode the Levvy hosts open a brand new season arc around desire — exploring where it comes from, what it costs, and why knowing your desires isn't selfish, it's foundational. Ralph shares how unchecked desire cost him his marriage, his job, and his health. Lindsay tells the story of a desire so deep it fractured her body before it was finally fulfilled. Adam names the opposite problem — a Christianity so focused on denial that desire itself got buried. And Leroy offers a framework: know thyself, control thyself, deny thyself — in that order. Desire, it turns out, is where integration begins.

00:00 Intro highlights, welcome & episode question

02:32 Desire as the first topic the team ever discussed

03:45 Desire as the foundation underneath all three pillars

04:47 Motivation, belief, and desire — where do they overlap?

08:17 Desire, hope, and the dream that drives you

09:18 Desire as both disintegrator and integrator

11:08 Two sides of the spectrum — overindulgence vs. total denial

12:19 Know thyself, control thyself, deny thyself

15:07 The outside pressures that inform our desires

17:23 It is about you — it's just not all about you

18:02 The heart is deceitful — and the 18-inch journey

19:29 Psalm 37:4 — delight and the desires of your heart

21:17 Delight as the doorway to true desire surfacing

23:36 Corporate and kingdom desire — thy kingdom come

25:15 Alignment — what happens when desire and Christ separate

26:45 Lindsay's story — the desire for children and the long wait

31:33 Three things desire taught us — transformative, costly, discerning

32:30 What do you want now vs. when you first came to Christ?

37:00 Even God's desire cost him his son

37:35 Takeaway and close

Mentions: The 18 Inch Journey by Cageless Birds

Next Step: Continue the conversation about what desire looks like for you personally, relationally, and culturally.

Connect:

Patreon: https://patreon.com/LevvyPodcast

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levvypodcast/

Website: https://www.levvypodcast.com/

Email: [email protected]

Listen on: SPOTIFY | APPLE | AMAZON

About: Join Leroy Case, and co-hosts Ralph, Lindsay, and Adam for curious conversations about Christ-centered integration individually, relationally, and culturally.

Credits: Andrew Springman - Music