I’ve had the privilege of knowing Dr. Sandra Richter not just as a respected Old Testament scholar, but as a thoughtful mentor and deeply generous human being. Sandy has an extraordinary gift for bringing the ancient world of Scripture into sharp, living color. Whether in the classroom or in conversation, she has a way of making the Hebrew Bible feel cohesive, compelling, and profoundly relevant. Her work—especially in The Epic of Eden—reflects what I so appreciate about her: intellectual rigor paired with a pastoral heart. She cares just as much about forming people as she does about informing them. Having taught at places like Westmont College and Asbury Theological Seminary, she’s shaped countless students, but what stands out to me is her humility and authenticity. Sandy doesn’t just teach the story of Scripture—she lives it with integrity, curiosity, and deep faith. 

Darin Stephens has worked with youth for over twenty-five years. The mission of Start to Stir flows from his experience of sharing faith with youth who are several generations removed from the Church. Darin is married to Joy and together they lead a team dedicated to teaching a new generation how to share the gospel in organic and winsome ways. Their teaching comes out of their own experience of leading students at their home church in Whitney (that’s in the UK)  and their website is full -- I mean full! -- of resources and ideas for taking the gospel to places where people live and think. Its good stuff, and worth learning about. Find them at starttostir.com.

Dan Jennings attends a Global Methodist church, works as a creative designer, and writes books and loves Jesus. He is the author of The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley. He wrote that book twenty years ago and has just re-released it for its twentieth anniversary. I say Dan wrote the book, but actually he just compiled what John Wesley wrote in his journal about the plethora of miraculous events that occurred while he was ministering at the birth of Methodism. So Dan searched Wesley’s journals and found all the stories of visions and dreams, miraculous healings, exorcisms and spiritual warfare (even stories of how God miraculously healed Wesley’s horse, not once or twice but three times)! So today, we’re just going to have fun wallowing in the stories that led John Wesley down the path of supernatural ministry. 

Kim Maas is an international speaker, author, revivalist, and prophetic voice, She is the leader of Kim Maas ministries (look it up at KimMaas.com) which has a mission to train and equip the body of Christ, its leaders, emerging leaders and prophets. She is the author of Prophetic Community: God’s Call for All to Minister in His Gifts and The Way of the Kingdom: Seizing the Moment for a Great Move of God, and also Finding Our Muchness: Inheriting Audacious Boldness From Women in the Bible. She has Bible studies and other resources out there, so go find them! Kim is passionate about helping you hear the voice of God and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and thats exactly what we’re talking about today. 

Mike Voigts is a great man of God, and he loves a lot of the same things I love – spiritual formation, the life of prayer, Asbury Seminary. He also loves HEB … more on that later. His focus is on personal and community spiritual direction … drawing connections between spiritual traditions in the global church. He served as a professor at Asbury SEminary for nine years, and now serves as the lead pastor of Waco First Global Methodist Church. He has written The Fourth Degree of Prayer (Cascade, 2022) and Letters of Ascent: Spiritual Direction in the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux (Wipf & Stock, 2013). A great contemplative life … enjoy this conversation. 

David Chotka strikes me as a well educated mystic, which is a delightful combination. He has degrees from Regent College in Vancouver and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he studied under Gordon Fee. He served for three decades as a pastor and for all those years plus some he has traveled as an evangelist and teacher especially of prayer – healing prayer, spiritual discernment, the Lord’s prayer, and using our spiritual gifts. To learn more about him, go to spiritequip.com. He has written a book together with Maxie Dunnam on the art of healing prayer, and another on hearing the voice of God, entitled, Hey, Are You There? Its Me – God! That’s our topic today. This is all about what it means to hear the voice of God so we can more confidently do the will of God. 

This one is good, people ... really dense. Lisa Allen has served on staff and on the teaching team with with Proverbs 31 Ministries, on staff with a large church, and as a coach and mentor to women leaders around the country. She is the author of Your Confidence Compass: From Self-Doubt to Self-Leadership, which is all about  peeling back the parts of our ministry stories that are not true so we can confidently live in and tell the story we actually have. Today we’ll talk about how to get thick skin without getting a hard heart and how to reject the lies so we can live in the truth. So … yep! This is really good. It was like counseling and spiritual direction and revelation ... all rolled into one podcast. I hope you listen. 

Dr. Lynn H. Cohick is a for-real Bible scholar – which is the way you say that when you’re not a for-real Bible scholar. Dr. Cohick is Professor of New Testament and also Director of Houston Theological Seminary at Houston Christian University.She served as President of the Institute of Biblical Research, as a senior translator on the New Living Bible Translation team. She serves on the Board of Trustees at Biola University and as the founder and President of Center for Women in Leadership. She has a great podcast – The Alabaster Jar -- and she’s just a delightful human being. It is a joy today to talk with her about women in the Bible and in the 21st century, and about a passage in Ephesians that I think you’ll find illuminating.

You will love this conversation with Dr. Jonathan Powers, a Levite all the way through. He has a great take on what it means to worship in Spirit and in truth. Dr. Powers serves as Associate Professor of Worship Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He has (I’m quoting from the seminary website here) "a passion for the intersection of liturgy and spiritual formation in the life of the church." Look up his books on Seedbed: Echo: A Catechism for Discipleship in the Ancient Christian Tradition, The 12 Days of Christmas Sermons, and Watchnight: John Wesley’s Covenant Renewal Service. He had done good work with grief and lament, and he has participated in the formation of a hymnal (Our Great Redeemer’s Praise). His most recent book is New Life in the Risen Christ: A Wesleyan Theology of Baptism.

Today, we kick off a new year on The Art of Holiness with a conversation amongst ourselves* about evangelism. These seminary students did a FABULOUS job thinking through what it means to evangelize in the 21st century, and their conversation will be the first of several this semester on the topic. Glad to be back, and glad you're back with us. 

* This semester, "us" includes Brandy Lee and Katherine Reiley. Our good friend, Taylor Williams, has concluded her time on AoH. We will miss having her solid voice among us, but thank God for all the good he is generating in her life.