Monday To Sunday

Most of us imagine God before creation as solitary. But Genesis 1 tells a different story — right before he makes humanity, the language shifts. "Let us make humankind in our image." Us. Our. This week we sit with those two words and what they reveal about the relational nature of the Trinity — and why your need for connection isn't neediness. It's the image of God in you doing exactly what it was designed to do.

It's Thursday, May 28th — deep in the week following Pentecost. The Spirit has already arrived. The question now is what it looks like when it actually moves through people.

In this episode, Joe explores three stories that answer that question from completely different angles — two men named Eldad and Medad prophesying from the wrong place at the wrong time, a group of elementary school kids who raised ten million dollars to save a bald eagle habitat, and a teabag-sized water filter that could give millions of people access to clean drinking water.

Through Numbers 11, John 7, Acts 2, and Psalm 104, Joe asks: are you Moses or Joshua? And are you letting the living water flow through you — or are you keeping it stored and private?

Scriptures this week: Numbers 11:24-30 · John 7:37-39 · Acts 2:1-21 · Psalm 104:25-35

The Spirit doesn't wait for an official invitation. Keep flowing, friends.

Pope Leo XIV just released his first encyclical — entirely focused on artificial intelligence. In this episode, I'm breaking format to talk about what it actually says, and why it surprised me.

It's Tuesday, May 26th — the day after Pentecost Sunday. The celebration is over. The emails are back. And that spiritual fire that felt so alive on Sunday? It can start to feel like gray embers by Tuesday morning.

But here's what the Pentecost story keeps telling us: the wind didn't stop blowing just because the celebration ended. The Spirit was never a one-day event. It was a catalyst.

In this episode, Joe explores what it looks like when the Spirit actually goes loose in the world — through the streets of ancient Jerusalem, through 50 car-free blocks in New York City, through a jaguar named Ombu who walked out of the shadows in Argentina after 70 years of silence, and through the surprising prayer of Moses in Numbers 11.

Scriptures this week: Acts 2:1-21 · Numbers 11:24-30 · Psalm 104:25-35 · 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

The wind is still blowing. Keep your sails up.

What if the string that's gone most out of tune isn't faith, family, or ambition — but your understanding of who God actually is? This week Joe Stein weaves Psalm 68 and John 17 together to answer the question: who is this God, really? The thundering God who scatters enemies is the same God who gives the solitary a home. And Jesus defines eternal life not as a destination — but as knowing. Readings: Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36 and John 17:1-11. Part two of a two-episode series — listen to Episode 11 first.

What does it feel like when something you have been neglecting has drifted too far? This week on Monday to Sunday, Joe Stein explores that question through the lens of Eric Church's Six Strings commencement speech at UNC Chapel Hill, the Seventh Sunday of Easter readings, and the quiet wisdom of waiting in the in-between. Readings: Acts 1:6-14, 1 Peter 4:12-14 and 5:6-11, John 17:1-11.

What if the most optimistic moment in the entire Christian story is one we almost always get wrong?

This week, we sit with Ascension Day — the moment Jesus was lifted into the clouds and the disciples were left standing on a hillside, staring upward. It sounds like an ending. But the angels beside them had a different take: stop looking up and get moving. The story is down here.

From that ancient hillside, we make our way to 2025 — and a remarkable roundup of good news that most people completely missed. CBS News correspondent David Pogue spent the year quietly documenting the breakthroughs happening alongside the headlines: plastic made from sugar cane that leaves nothing harmful behind, a university program teaching people to truly listen across disagreement, farmers flooding their fields so migratory birds have somewhere to land, and four old dams coming down on the Klamath River.

Within days of those dams being removed, the salmon returned to spawning grounds they hadn't reached in over a century.

They remembered.

This episode is about learning to see what's actually happening in the world — not just the chaos, but the quiet, steady good news building underneath it. It's about having, as the letter to the Ephesians puts it, the eyes of your heart enlightened.

Bad news breaks suddenly. Good news builds quietly. And it is absolutely everywhere.

Scripture references: Acts 1:1–11, Ephesians 1:15–23, Psalm 47, Psalm 93, Luke 24:44–53

Where does human strength come from when everything falls apart? In this episode, Joe explores some of the most remarkable stories from 2025 — a terminal cancer patient who turned her diagnosis into a license to live, a college athlete who was clinically dead for 35 minutes and rebuilt his life from scratch, two ER doctors who ran back into a burning building despite being shot, and a grieving mother who channeled unimaginable loss into art and athletic achievement. Woven through each story are the lectionary readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter — Acts 17, 1 Peter 3, and John 14 — and the ancient promise that we are never left without a source of strength. This is an episode about alchemy: what happens when suffering doesn't just break you, but transforms you into something new.

In April 2026, four humans returned from the farthest journey our species has ever taken, and at the press conference that followed, something unusual happened: the script broke. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen tried to describe what they had seen on the far side of the moon — and the language available to them wasn't engineering language. It was the language of awe.

Joe Stein opens this episode by deleting the one he'd planned. Instead, he sits with the moment Wiseman, a Navy test pilot and a self-described non-religious man, broke down on the recovery ship and asked for the chaplain. From there, the episode moves through 1 Peter 2's "marvelous light," John 14's "dwelling place," a clogged space toilet at 200,000 miles from Earth, and the question that opens up when a test pilot's nervous system runs out of room: what frameworks do humans actually have for the immense?

This is an episode about the limits of comprehension, the muscle that faith and trust share, and the news those four astronauts brought back for the eight billion of us who weren't there.

Key moments / timestamps (rough estimates — adjust after listening):

• 0:00 — Why I deleted the episode I had planned
• 1:30 — What a NASA press conference is supposed to sound like
• 2:45 — Every radio wave. Every signal. Every voice. Gone.
• 4:00 — The test pilot and the chaplain
• 5:30 — "I'm not trying to smuggle in a sermon"
• 6:45 — 1 Peter 2 and four decades of the same testimony
• 8:00 — Transcendence and plumbing, side by side
• 9:30 — The vehicle is different. The moment is the same.

Scripture referenced:

• 1 Peter 2 — "out of darkness into marvelous light"
• John 14 — the "dwelling place"

People referenced:

• Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen (Artemis 2 crew)

In this episode, Joe explores the radical psychology of resilience. By examining ancient case studies of extreme confinement and modern "waiting room" seasons, we deconstruct the mechanics of cognitive reframing. How do you maintain internal sovereignty when your external world is falling apart? It all comes down to a single shift in perspective.

• The Roman Guard Paradigm: We look at the historical account of Paul, who transformed a literal prison cell into a platform by viewing his captors as a captive audience.
• Toxic Positivity vs. Cognitive Reframing: Why "everything is fine" is a lie to your nervous system, and how "brutal acceptance" is the actual starting line for agency.
• The Stoning of Stephen: An analysis of the "amygdala hijack" and how to override evolutionary biology to maintain moral integrity under fire.
• The Waiting Room Season: Translating ancient trauma into modern endurance—dealing with soul-crushing jobs, medical diagnoses, and family friction.
• The Preposition Shift: Moving from "Why is this happening TO me?" to "How can this work THROUGH me?"

• Agency over Perspective: You may not control your chains, but you always control the arena in which you exercise your agency.
• Utility over Rumination: The brain calms down when it stops seeking impossible explanations and starts seeking practical utility.
• The "Guard" Inversion: A humbling look at the moments when we are the chaos in someone else’s life.

1. Identify the one circumstance causing you the most daily frustration.
2. Go cold turkey on complaining about it for one week (no venting, no passive-aggression).
3. Every time the frustration spikes, intercept it with this question: "How can I show grace, patience, or love right in the middle of this exact mess?"

• Ancient Texts: The Book of Acts (Chapters 7 & 28), The Book of Psalms (Psalm 31).
• The Collect: From The Way of Truth and Eternal Life.