What does it mean to steward creation and culture as a follower of Jesus?

In this episode, Brian Fisher concludes the exploration of habits by examining our relationship with creation and culture through the lens of the Kingdom of God. Connecting the Great Commission with the Cultural Commission of Genesis, he argues that disciples are called not only to make disciples but also to participate with God in cultivating, organizing, healing, and restoring the world around them.

The conversation explores what it means to multiply, subdue, and rule alongside God rather than apart from Him. From families and businesses to education, government, media, and the arts, every sphere of human activity becomes an opportunity to advance God's Kingdom through beauty, goodness, truth, and service.

As Season 3 continues, listeners are challenged to rethink their daily work, relationships, and responsibilities as part of God's ongoing mission to redeem and restore creation.

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Can Christians pay attention to their own hearts without becoming self-centered?

In this episode, Brian Fisher explores the spiritual habit of listening to our own hearts. Building on previous conversations about hearing God and listening to others, he introduces Heartview as a practical framework for understanding the hidden ideas and desires shaping our lives. Through our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationships, words, health, time, and money, our hearts reveal what is happening beneath the surface.

The conversation examines four biblical characteristics of the heart and addresses common reasons many Christians resist self-examination. Is paying attention to our inner life selfish? Does it distract us from serving others? What happens when looking honestly at our hearts reveals wounds, fears, sin, or patterns we would rather ignore?

As Season 3 continues, listeners are invited into the practice of courageous curiosity—learning to understand themselves more deeply so they can know God more fully and become more like Jesus.

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Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What if one of the most overlooked spiritual disciplines is learning to listen?

In this episode, Brian Fisher explores the habit of listening to others' hearts—not merely hearing their words, but paying attention to the deeper ideas, desires, wounds, and motivations that shape their lives. Building on the Five Key Elements of Formation and the habit of hearing God, he argues that discipleship requires more than speaking truth. It requires the ability to listen with curiosity, compassion, and genuine concern.

Drawing from Scripture, the life of Jesus, the apostles, and even lessons learned in professional sales training, Brian demonstrates how meaningful questions often reveal what lies beneath the surface. Along the way, he explores why many modern Christians are better at monologue than dialogue and why true spiritual formation often begins with learning to ask better questions.

As Season 3 continues, listeners are invited to develop a habit that can deepen relationships, foster healing, and help them love others the way Jesus did.

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Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Does God still speak today? And if He does, how can we learn to recognize His voice?

In this episode, Brian Fisher explores one of the most important habits in spiritual formation: hearing God. Drawing on Scripture and the insights of Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and others, he examines common assumptions Christians hold about divine communication and why many believers struggle to experience a personal, conversational relationship with God.

The discussion explores four common approaches to hearing God—from denial to demand—and offers a practical vision for cultivating a deeper friendship with Him. Along the way, Brian explains why hearing God is a habit developed over time through prayer, Scripture, community, experience, and attentiveness to God's presence.

As Season 3 continues, listeners are invited to move beyond merely knowing about God and into a deeper, ongoing conversation with Him.

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Web: ⁠⁠soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What role do habits play in becoming more like Jesus?

In this episode, Brian Fisher introduces the second Key Element of Formation: habits. Moving beyond simple behavior modification, he explores habits as recurring patterns that reveal the deeper ideas and desires shaping the human heart. Through the framework of Heartview, listeners are invited to examine how their thoughts, emotions, relationships, behaviors, health, words, and use of time and money reveal what they truly love.

The conversation also tackles an important question: Do changed habits transform the heart, or does a transformed heart create new habits? Drawing on examples from discipleship, addiction recovery, virtue formation, and everyday life, Brian argues that lasting change often requires more than willpower. It requires community, intentional relationships, honest self-examination, and the ongoing work of God's grace.

As Season 3 continues, this episode lays the foundation for understanding how habits shape spiritual formation and why discipleship involves much more than simply trying harder.

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Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it actually look like to reorder our lives around becoming more like Jesus?

In this episode, Brian Fisher concludes the Season 3 exploration of time as a key element of spiritual formation. Drawing together themes from discipleship, neuroscience, community, and Heartview, he argues that transformation happens through intentional relationships, meaningful presence, honest self-examination, and active participation in God's work of renewal.

The conversation explores how disciples relate to God, others, themselves, and creation, showing how each relationship contributes to the formation of the heart. Along the way, Brian challenges modern assumptions about church, discipleship, and the sacred-secular divide, inviting listeners to embrace a more integrated vision of life with God.

As the discussion wraps up the first Key Element of Formation, listeners are encouraged to consider how they spend their time and whether their lives are truly ordered around the pursuit of becoming like Jesus.

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What if one of the greatest obstacles to spiritual formation is our inability to be fully present?

Continuing the exploration of time as a key element of formation, Brian Fisher examines how modern assumptions about productivity, efficiency, technology, and busyness shape our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation. Drawing on insights from Dallas Willard, Curt Thompson, and Kelly Kapic, he argues that discipleship is not merely about acquiring information but becoming the kind of person who thinks, loves, and relates like Jesus.

The episode explores the relationship between evangelism and discipleship, challenges the modern church's emphasis on information transfer, and asks whether sermons, programs, and events can substitute for intentional communities of formation. Along the way, Brian invites listeners to consider a difficult question: Are we present enough to be transformed?

As the conversation unfolds, we discover that meaningful relationships, authentic dialogue, and intentional presence may be far more important to spiritual growth than we realize.

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Web: ⁠⁠soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

In this bonus episode, Brian Fisher responds to one of the most common questions listeners have asked during Season 3: If spiritual formation requires immersive communities built around time, habit, community, intimacy, and instruction, how can ordinary people possibly make room for that in modern life?

Revisiting the Three Primary Problems—the Forgotten Kingdom, the Discipleship Dilemma, and the Formation Gap—Brian argues that the challenge is not primarily about finding more time but about reordering our lives around what we love most. Drawing on examples from marriage, parenting, and spiritual formation, he explores why discipleship often feels difficult, why self-directed Christianity falls short, and how intentional communities can help us become more like Jesus.

Ultimately, the question is not simply how to make time for discipleship, but who we are becoming and what—or whom—we love enough to reorganize our lives around.

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Why does lasting spiritual transformation take so much time?

In this episode, Brian Fisher explores the first of the Five Key Elements of Formation: Time. While Jesus often performed instant physical miracles, He never seemed to offer instant healing for broken relationships, wounded hearts, or spiritual maturity. Instead, the deepest forms of transformation appear to unfold through long-term relationships, suffering, healing, and intentional discipleship.

Drawing from neuroscience, trauma research, and Christian spiritual formation, Brian examines why the human heart is shaped primarily through attachment, community, and experience rather than information alone. The conversation explores the impact of trauma on discipleship, the importance of understanding our own stories, and why many churches struggle to cultivate environments where genuine heart transformation can occur.

As the Season 3 journey into the Formation Gap continues, this episode lays the foundation for understanding why time is not an obstacle to spiritual formation—it is one of God's primary tools for it.

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Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Season 3 begins with a provocative question: What if the greatest obstacle to deep discipleship is not a lack of information, but a misunderstanding of how people are actually formed?

In this episode, Brian Fisher explores the connection between the Discipleship Dilemma and what Soil & Roots calls the Formation Gap—the distance between the environments that truly shape the human heart and what many Christians experience today. Along the way, he reflects on the surprising character of Jesus, the importance of “double knowledge” (knowing God and knowing ourselves), and why story, relationships, and community play such a central role in spiritual transformation.

The conversation also examines modern assumptions about discipleship, trauma, addiction, and heart formation, arguing that information alone rarely changes people. Instead, lasting transformation happens through immersive communities shaped by five key elements: time, habit, community, intimacy, and instruction.

As Season 3 begins, we explore why these elements matter, how they appear throughout Scripture, and why recovering them may be essential if we hope to become people who genuinely reflect the life and character of Jesus.

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Web: ⁠⁠soilandroots.org⁠⁠ 

Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/