When Charlie Brown famously asks, "Doesn't anybody know what Christmas is all about?!" Linus responds by reciting the King James Version of Luke 2. As it turns out, Philippians 2 is also a good answer, leading us to pray about the wonder of God becoming flesh. Merry Christmas!

Episode 41: The Play within the Play - What Christmas is All About

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life. I would love to hear from you! Please reach out to me at [email protected] with your feedback.

Do you like Teach Us To Pray? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Now available on iTunes and Spotify.

RESOURCES

• Charlie Brown Christmas Special, written by Charles Schulz with music by Vince Guaraldi

For the fortieth episode of Teach Us To Pray I discuss the first few verses of Psalm 40, one of my favorites, and also one of the best U2 songs ever. Prayer is about waiting, and about God stooping to hear us, and about God putting a new song in us that we can sing.

Episode 40: Sing a New Song (Beauty and Brokenness Pt 3)

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life. I would love to hear from you! Please reach out to me at [email protected] with your feedback.

Do you like Teach Us To Pray? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Now available on iTunes and Spotify.

In part 2 of this series, I return to the Jesus and Peter conversation on the beach scene, and raise the question of how God might want to talk about painful memories, the idolatry of work, and using our wounds to heal others - but don't worry, this episode is merrier than you might think.

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life.

Episode 39: Beauty and Brokenness # 2: Because the Night (John 21:15-19) 

RESOURCES: 

• Penultimate

• Titular

• Accoutrement

• Bruce Springsteen and Pattie Smith, "Because the Night"

• Mormon Tabernacle Choir, "Joy to the World"

• Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

I would love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

This is the first of three episodes on the convergence of beauty, and brokenness as found in Scripture, and how we might learn to pray about God's redemptive activity in our lives. In this episode, I explore the famous conversation between Jesus and Peter on the shore of lake Galilee, examining how Jesus might want to address our own brokenness through conversation.

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life.

Episode 38: Beauty and Brokenness # 1: Questions and Charcoal (John 21:15-17)

RESOURCES: 

• Kintsugi: How to Pray about Our Work

• Art and Faith by Makoto Fujimura

• Tincture Definition

• Gungor: Beautiful Things

I would love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

Are you ever frustrated by not having enough information, foresight, and understanding, particularly in your work? Do you ever wish that things were just more clear? What if this lack, this scarcity, is by design? What if it could fuel your imagination for how God wishes to use you in your work? In this episode, I explore one of my favorite New Testament stories, Jesus' healing of Bartimaeus.

RESOURCES

• Download the 4-Day God Loves Work Devotional

• "The Maker" by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

• Vocab words!

  • Lexicon

  • Superfluity

  • Paucity

  • Rococo

  • Hegemony

I would love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

How surprising that the very first human mentioned in the Bible as being indwelled by God's Spirit is a craftsman! In this episode I address what this might mean for our work, inviting a prayerful focus on human flourishing.

RESOURCES

• Download the 4-Day God Loves Work Devotional

• "The Maker" by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

• Vocab words!

  • Inane

  • Pedantry

  • Plebeian

I would love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life.

Episode 35: God Loves Work #2: How Work Goes Wrong (Genesis 11)

The Tower of Babel is a story about how our work can go wrong, including using technology thoughtlessly, and working so as to "make a name for ourselves." The only antidote for these work mistakes (and others) is prayer.

• Download the 4-Day God Loves Work Devotional

• Faith & Work Podcast Episode - AI Series: Artificial Intelligence and Redemptive Work

• A Love Supreme - Pt II - Resolution by John Coltrane

• I would love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life.

Episode 34: God Loves Work #1 (Genesis 1 - Seeing Pennies)

This is the first of a four part series called God Loves Work, tied to a four day devotional you can do alone or with someone you trust. In this first episode, I look at the first book of the Bible, and invite you to consider how you can prayerfully see God's wonder in your work, as well as discussing liturgies for work.

• Download the 4-Day God Loves Work Devotional

• Burning Heart Moments (Episode 26 of Teach Us To Pray)

• Pilgrim on Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

I'd love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life.

Episode 33: All Boldness and Without Hindrance (Acts 28:30-31) Part II

The book of Acts ends with Paul under arrest, living out his vocation "with all boldness and without hindrance." In the second episode exploring this verse, Jeff examines how we can enjoy obscurity in our lives and how kingdom impact can often happen in unseen moments.

• Hopeless Wanderer, by Mumford & Sons

I'd love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]

Hosted by Jeff Hoffmeyer, Denver Institute’s Vice President of Advancement, this podcast seeks to focus on the practice of prayer through scripture as a primary way to know, trust, and rest in God in our daily work and life.

Episode 32: All Boldness and Without Hindrance (Acts 28:30-31) Part I

The book of Acts ends with Paul under arrest, living out his vocation "with all boldness and without hindrance." In part one of two episodes on these verses, I examine how we can pray toward the vocational freedom offered in this passage by coming to understand the relationship between freedom and constraint.

• Braveheart, starring Mel Gibson. Musical score by James Horner, performed by London Philharmonic Orchestra

• "Dithyrambic Yalp"? Sorry, got a little carried away there. A dithyramb is a type of poem marked by "an inspired wild irregular strain." A yalp is, well, a yalp.

I'd love to hear from you! Email: [email protected]