Some Assembly Required

What if changing a diaper, helping a stranger, or simply showing up for someone could have more influence on the world than we realize?

In Episode 19 of Some Assembly Required, Bryan and Braxton welcome special guest Leehen for a conversation about finding Jesus, navigating politics, and discovering what it actually means to live as a citizen of heaven.

Leehen opens up about growing up without a father, struggling to find purpose, and chasing the things the world promised would make him happy. From parties and relationships to an unexpected encounter with Jesus, his story reveals how faith can transform someone's understanding of freedom, identity, and purpose.

The conversation then moves into the final installment of the podcast's faith and politics series.

Together, Bryan, Braxton, and Leehen explore what Paul meant when he told the Philippians that their citizenship was in heaven, why Christians can become consumed by political identity, and how the kingdom of God is demonstrated through ordinary acts of love and service.

What if changing the world has less to do with gaining power and more to do with changing the way we love the people directly in front of us?

In this episode, we discuss:

• Leehen's journey from feeling lost to finding Jesus.
• Why following Christ requires surrendering parts of ourselves.
• The difference between worldly freedom and freedom through faith.
• What it means to be a citizen of heaven while living in a political world.
• Why demonstrating the love of Christ matters as much as talking about Him.
• Finding God's presence in ordinary responsibilities.
• How small acts of service can create lasting change in our families and communities.

Whether you're questioning your faith, frustrated with politics, or trying to understand how to live more like Jesus, this conversation is an invitation to reconsider where real freedom and influence begin.

Sometimes changing the world starts with changing a diaper.

What happens when Jesus is forced to pick a political side?

In Mark 12, the Pharisees and Herodians approach Jesus with what appears to be a simple question: should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?

But it isn't really a question. It's a trap.

In Episode 18, Bryan and Braxton are joined by special guest Matt to unpack Jesus' famous response—“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God”—and what it means for Christians living inside today's political climate.

They discuss why politics becomes so deeply tied to our identity, why disagreement feels increasingly personal, how fear keeps people trapped inside political and media systems, and why the Kingdom of God can't simply be squeezed into a Republican or Democratic platform.

Matt also shares what it was like growing up in a highly political family and how that eventually shaped his own relationship with politics and faith.

The conversation ultimately comes back to something much more personal: you may not be able to change the entire political system, but you can change the way you see your neighbor, pray for your enemy, serve your community, and allow Jesus to shape your own heart.

In this episode:

• Why Jesus refuses the political either/or trap

• What “give to Caesar what is Caesar's” actually reveals

• Why your political identity cannot become your ultimate identity

• How fear, media, algorithms, and outrage keep us engaged

• The difference between God's Kingdom and political ideology

• Why Christians should be able to disagree without becoming enemies

• What praying for your political opponents actually does to you

• Why changing hearts may matter more than changing who's in power

• How to practically live this out Monday morning

If our first allegiance is to Jesus, everything else—including our politics—has to come second.

Politics might be the loudest thing in the room. But is it actually the most important?

Braxton and Bryan are back together for another conversation about Jesus, politics, power, and what it actually looks like to follow Christ in a culture built around outrage.

This episode challenges one of our most common instincts: trying to change the world from the top down.

Instead of pouring all of our energy into politicians, political parties, social media arguments, and national controversies, what if Jesus is calling us to start much closer to home?

Love your neighbor.

Serve the person in front of you.

Work with your hands.

Mind your business.

And stop expecting government, political movements, or social media to do the work of compassion for you.

Braxton and Bryan talk about abortion, protest movements, political tribalism, social media algorithms, victim mentality, the temptation to “win” arguments, Jesus' relationship with political power, and why Christians should be recognizable by the way they serve—not the political team they belong to.

They also unpack Jesus' radically different model of leadership: while the world fights for the seat at the table, Jesus chooses to become the waiter.

Maybe changing the world looks less like winning the argument and more like mowing your neighbor's lawn.

This is a conversation about politics—but even more, it's a conversation about power, identity, responsibility, and learning to live like Jesus in a deeply divided world.

For the first time, Braxton and Bryan hand over the microphones.

In this special edition of Some Assembly Required, Kayla and Carmel take over the podcast to continue Assembly’s “Citizens” conversation and explore one of Jesus’ most familiar—and most politically challenging—stories: the Good Samaritan.

When Jesus is asked, “Who is my neighbor?” He doesn’t give a clean definition or draw a convenient boundary. Instead, He tells a story where the religious people walk past someone in need and the person everyone expected to be the enemy becomes the hero.

Kayla and Carmel unpack the historical context behind that story, why the relationship between Jews and Samaritans matters, how hurry can quietly destroy compassion, and why we may be reading ourselves into the wrong character.

Because maybe the real question isn’t, “Who am I required to love?”

Maybe it’s, “Why am I looking for permission to stop loving people?”

In this episode:
• Why “Who is my neighbor?” is an inherently political question
• The hidden question behind the expert’s conversation with Jesus
• Why the priest and Levite had defensible reasons to keep walking
• What a famous Princeton experiment revealed about hurry and compassion
• Why making a Samaritan the hero would have shocked Jesus’ audience
• How easily we justify who is “in” and who is “out”
• Why we automatically assume we’re the Good Samaritan
• The uncomfortable possibility that we might actually be the

person in the ditch

Whether you’ve followed Jesus your entire life or you’re still figuring out what you believe, this conversation asks a simple question with enormous consequences:

Who is your neighbor?

Submit your questions here

This week, Bryan sits down with Brian Tinner to continue the Jesus & Politics conversation by going all the way back to 1 Samuel 8 and Israel’s demand for a king.

Their request sounds reasonable: give us a leader who can protect us, represent us, fight our battles, and make us like the nations around us.

But God warns them exactly what that king will cost.

And thousands of years later, the temptation hasn’t changed much.

We still look for political leaders, parties, and movements to give us security, identity, victory, and someone to blame when things go wrong. The danger isn’t caring about politics. The danger is asking politics to do something it was never designed to do.

Bryan and Brian talk about why human beings continually reach for a “king,” how political identity can quietly compete with our identity in Christ, why Christians shouldn’t disengage from a broken world, and what it could look like to disagree without destroying relationships.

Because politics can accomplish a lot.

But it has never resurrected anything.

In this episode:

• Why Israel demanded a king in 1 Samuel 8
• The difference between political engagement and political identity
• Why we naturally want one person to fight our battles
• What happens when Jesus becomes a mascot for our politics
• Why Christians shouldn’t completely withdraw from politics either
• How fear and unresolved wounds shape political behavior
• What the twelve disciples teach us about unity without uniformity
• Why healing has to begin inside us before it moves into the world
• The one thing politics will never be able to give us

The question isn’t whether Christians should care about politics.

It’s whether Jesus is actually Lord when we do.

Submit your questions here!

What if one of the biggest problems with Christian politics is our need for Jesus to agree with us?

In this episode of Some Assembly Required, Bryan and Braxton begin a new conversation about Jesus, politics, power, and what it actually means to love your neighbor when the person across from you sees the world completely differently.

This isn't a conversation about telling you how to vote.

It's about asking a harder question: Has your political identity become bigger than your identity as a follower of Jesus?

Bryan and Braxton talk about why politics and civic engagement matter without allowing them to become ultimate, why Christians should be able to disagree without becoming enemies, and what Jesus' command to love your neighbor looks like when that neighbor votes differently than you.

They also explore:

• Why Jesus cannot simply become the mascot for our political side
• The difference between politics and policies
• Why curiosity may be more Christlike than constantly trying to convince people
• What the Good Samaritan teaches us about loving people across deeply divided lines
• Why our citizenship being “in heaven” changes how we engage politically
• The temptation to believe more political power automatically produces more Kingdom impact
• Why listening may be one of the most important skills Christians can recover
• How to tell the difference between the Holy Spirit's leading and our own biases

And they introduce a new part of the podcast: Bring your questions.

Have something about faith, Jesus, church, doubt, culture, or life that you've been afraid to ask? Submit it through the link above. You can include your name or remain completely anonymous.

No gotcha questions. No judgment. Just real people trying to follow Jesus and wrestle honestly with difficult things.

Have Questions? Submit them HERE

What if the church was never supposed to separate itself from broken people?

In this episode of Some Assembly Required, Bryan and Braxton unpack what Jesus’ ministry reveals about insiders, outsiders, and the people the church is actually called to reach.

Using Jesus’ conversation with Peter at Caesarea Philippi, they explore why Jesus intentionally brought his disciples into places they would have normally avoided, then challenged them to rethink what the church was supposed to become.

This conversation gets into the uncomfortable reality that Christians can become so focused on protecting themselves from the world that they forget they were called to step into it.

Bryan and Braxton discuss:

• Why walking into a church can make someone immediately feel like an outsider
• Why Christians often create unnecessary lines between “believers” and “unbelievers”
• The difference between engaging the curious and challenging the committed
• Why following Jesus should actually hold you to a higher standard
• What Peter’s transformation teaches us about leadership and faith
• Why Jesus consistently moved toward people others avoided
• How Christians can acknowledge real evil without losing compassion for people
• Why relationships and actions can be more powerful than arguments
• The danger of treating people like projects
• Why repentance should be an ongoing part of following Jesus

One of the biggest ideas from the conversation is simple:

The church was not built for perfect people. It was built from broken people to go help other broken people.

The question is whether we are willing to leave the safety of our own circles and actually go where people are hurting.

What if following Jesus was less about convincing people you’re right and more about how you treat the person standing in front of you?

Bryan and Braxton continue their conversation about the early church and explore what made the first Christian communities so radically different: shared meals, generosity, care for outsiders, humility, and a willingness to love people who disagreed with them.

From mowing your neighbor’s lawn to loving someone on the opposite side of the political aisle, this conversation asks a harder question: What would Christianity look like if we actually lived it?

They also unpack an important distinction for reading Scripture and church history: descriptive vs. prescriptive. What should Christians carry forward, and what simply describes what God was doing in a specific place and time?

The early church didn’t have massive buildings, celebrity pastors or multimillion-dollar organizations.

So how did we get here?

In this episode of Some Assembly Required, Bryan and Braxton go back to the first 300 years of Christianity to wrestle with a much bigger question:

Can the church grow without eventually becoming the institution it originally challenged?

Bryan walks Braxton through the world of the early church, from the communities described in Acts to persecution, radical hospitality, caring for the sick, gathering around meals and sending leaders into new communities.

Then the conversation turns toward Constantine and what happened when Christianity moved from the margins of Roman society toward institutional acceptance and influence.

But this isn’t simply a history lesson.

Bryan and Braxton use the early church to wrestle with questions that still matter today:

How should a church measure growth?

Can relationships actually scale?

What happens when a movement becomes an institution?

How do you build something that survives you without becoming obsessed with protecting what you built?

And what would happen if churches focused less on gathering increasingly large crowds and more on developing people who could go out and lead communities themselves?

Bryan and Braxton also explore the tension between business thinking and church leadership, why chasing numbers can leave leaders hollow, and why serving people often creates more influence than chasing influence itself.

The early church wasn’t perfect.

It was messy, human and constantly changing.

But there may be something about the way those first Christians lived that the modern church desperately needs to rediscover.

What happens when you stop asking safe questions about Christianity?

In this episode of Some Assembly Required, Braxton puts Bryan on the spot with some of the questions he has wrestled with personally since finding Jesus.

What is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled?

Can you follow Jesus and still build a highly profitable business?

If someone turns their life toward God, why can everything still fall apart?

Does suffering mean God has abandoned you—or could suffering actually be doing something to you?

And when someone genuinely finds Jesus, what changes first?

This isn't an episode about pretending we have perfect answers.

It's a conversation about learning how to think through difficult questions without being afraid of where they might lead.

Braxton and Bryan talk about:

• Why becoming your own god may be one of humanity's oldest temptations
• The difference between peace and comfort
• Why our understanding of God should probably never feel “finished”
• Whether Christians should build massive, profitable businesses
• How money can become a tool instead of a master
• Why bad things still happen after someone turns toward God
• The Christian view of suffering, perseverance, and transformation
• Why trying to manufacture suffering completely misses the point
• What Braxton experienced after finding Jesus
• Why one of the first changes may simply be realizing: I'm not alone anymore

Some questions don't weaken faith.

Sometimes they're exactly what strengthens it.