The Calling

If you’ve ever spent much time over at First Things, you’ve probably come across the blog of writer, pastor, and theologian Peter Leithart, the journal’s resident Renaissance man. With an omnivorous mind and an eye for the unusual, Leithart seems to have written about almost everything, from Shakespeare’s plays and Jane Austen’s novels to the meaning of baptism and the legacy of Athanasius. Whatever he’s working on, though, he always aims to connect the mind to the soul—especially when it means helping ministers to minister better. Before his present successes, however, Leithart encountered his fair share of ministerial tribulation. Coming out of seminary, he intended to move straight into a career writing and teaching theology. Instead, he found himself stepping into a head pastor position with little experience and a host of demands, including helping a couple whose failing marriage was tearing his church apart. The experience taught him a lot about failure—especially how God redeems it. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t the end of the story. On this week’s episode of The Calling, Leithart chats with CT managing editor Richard Clark about his calling past and present, from his early desire to be a professional comedian to the theology that drives his current voracious intellectual appetite.

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Jonathan Brooks is a man of diverse talents—a school teacher, writer, speaker, artist, musician, and community activist, he also serves as the Senior Pastor at Canaan Community Church in the south side of Chicago. But whether he’s encouraging young people to serve as leaders in their neighborhoods or finding ways to engage the church in community revitalization, “Pastah J” is guided by a singular God-given calling: transformation. While most see West Englewood as a neighborhood traditionally known for violence and poverty, Brooks sees potential. His ministry is built around the idea that the church can become “intimately involved in the lives of people to the point where they trust it again and see the church as something that’s there for them, not for its own benefit”. On this week’s episode of The Calling, CT’s managing editor Richard Clark chats with Brooks about his .

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Russell Moore is known as the mouthpiece of the Southern Baptist Convention, but increasingly these days he’s seen by the outside world as a representative of conservative evangelicalism. He speaks regularly on television, the radio, and in a flurry of pointed tweets about the state of the evangelical church, the spectre of a Trump presidency, and the implications of society’s increasing pluralism. But Moore’s focus hasn’t always been so broad. He’s also spent time in local church ministry, in particular dealing with a series of real-life challenges that have prepared him for where he is today. Moore’s thought a lot about how churches can better influence the world by worrying less about proving our bona fides to one another. On this latest episode of The Calling, CT’s managing editor Richard Clark talked with Moore about his call to bring the Kingdom of God to local churches, his traumatic first ministry experience, and how local churches ought to approach the outside world. 

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Our new podcast, The Calling, will feature long-form, highly personal interviews with church leaders. These no-holds-barred interviews will focus on the nature of our calling, the inherent struggles that come with that calling, and the many different ways God has shaped us to work within his church.

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