The Discerning Leader Podcast

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"Rhythms of rest and prayer and play and presence take you to a deeper place and form and shape you into the truest you that God would have for you."

— Steve Macchia

In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the practice of healthy self-care as an essential expression of stewardship. Together, they consider the difference between life-giving rhythms of restoration and coping mechanisms that leave us numbed, depleted, or disconnected from God and others.

From rest, nutrition, and meaningful relationships to our habits around technology, achievement, and adrenaline, Steve and Matt invite us to examine where we turn for comfort and what truly restores our souls. They challenge us to move beyond the relentless pursuit of productivity and approval and rediscover the gifts of prayer, play, beauty, Sabbath, and presence.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"God loves to take broken things and bring them to greater wholeness." — Steve Macchia

What does it look like to come home to the person God created us to be?

In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the journey of returning to our truest identity in Christ. Drawing from Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, they consider how our pursuit of significance, accomplishment, and counterfeit sources of identity can leave us exhausted and far from the life our souls truly desire.

Through humility, confession, repentance, and the generous gift of grace, we can begin to release the false selves we've constructed and rediscover our belonging, dignity, and communion with God. This conversation reminds us that coming home isn't about earning our way back. It's about recognizing our need, turning toward the Father, and receiving the love that has been waiting for us all along. Is it time for you to return home?

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"All of these self-centered preoccupations keep us from a healthy self-awareness." — Steve Macchia

How often do we make ourselves the center of the conversation—sharing our stories, offering our opinions, displaying our accomplishments, or subtly managing how others perceive us?

In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the spiritual dynamics beneath self-referencing and the insecurity, attachment, and desire for recognition that often fuel it. Together, they consider how power, persona, and possessions can become ways we construct and protect a false self. More importantly, they invite us toward a different way of being: surrendering our agendas, listening more deeply, holding our identities and accomplishments more loosely, and becoming more genuinely present to others. As we learn to rest more securely in God's love and delight, we become increasingly free to step out of the center of every story to make room for others.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"What are we holding on to that God may be asking us to release?" — Steve Macchia

When does self care become selfish care? In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the "mirror of the soul"—the invitation to develop a deeper, more honest awareness of who we are, what is happening within us, and how our inner lives shape our relationships with God and others.

Together, they explore the difference between self-awareness and self-absorption, the role of trusted community in helping us see our blind spots, and the importance of slowing down before reacting. They also consider the difference between healthy self-care and selfish care, and how humility, listening, and honest reflection can lead us toward reconciliation and deeper spiritual maturity.

The journey toward discernment begins with awareness: noticing, naming, and bringing what is beneath the surface into the presence of God.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"The lie that we've bought into [is] that we need to be pushing and shoving ourselves into a being-seen place." — Steve Macchia

What happens when our desire to be seen, known, and significant quietly becomes the thing that drives us?

In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the seduction of significance—the subtle ways we compete, self-promote, measure our worth, and seek validation through achievement, visibility, and recognition. From social media and the "me monster" to the contrast between the stage and the cave, they invite us to examine whether our ambition is rooted in self-promotion or in a deeper desire to contribute, influence, and serve.

Rather than striving to make a name for ourselves, what might it look like to find our significance in being fully seen and known by God? This conversation is an invitation toward a holy ambition that is God-honoring, deeply rooted, and focusing on the flourishing of others.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"The truth of Jesus will set you free. But also, the truth of your story will set you free." — Steve Macchia

In this episode, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the false self and the layers of identity we develop through our stories, wounds, choices, shame, and expectations of others. Together, they consider how these patterns can become so familiar that we barely recognize them.

Receive God's invitation through this conversation--to slow down, tell the truth, give attention to your emotions, and live in honest community. In doing so, we return to our truest identity as God's beloved children.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"We have to keep coming home and pursuing God and godliness rather than self and selfishness." — Steve Macchia

In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore the difference between our true self and our false self—and the ways we can quietly lose ourselves when we begin to derive our identity from what we do rather than who we are.

In a world saturated with messages of self-improvement, self-promotion, and self-actualization, it can be easy to forget our heart's true home: our belovedness as children of God. Steve and Matt consider what happens when our roles and accomplishments become our identity, and they invite us back to the deeper reality that our truest identity is not something we earn, but something we receive.

This is an invitation to let go of the striving, return to God's embrace, and rediscover the freedom of living from the identity God has already given us.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Mark Buchanan

"All of my books begin as self-therapy. They begin as sort of addressing an ache in me, a wonderment, a puzzle, a hurt, whatever it happens to be, where I have to figure something out." - Mark Buchanan

In this episode of The Discerning Leader Podcast, Steve Macchia welcomes author and longtime friend Mark Buchanan for a rich conversation about the spiritual dimensions of reading and writing. Mark shares how a fifth-grade teacher first awakened his love for language and story, how his books have emerged from his own questions and struggles, and why the discipline of simply showing up may be one of the most important practices for any writer.

Steve and Mark explore the journey of finding your own voice, the freedom of beginning before everything is perfectly planned, the importance of good editing, and the temptation to pursue publication rather than the deeper work of simply having something to say.

The conversation then turns toward reading as a spiritual practice. Mark describes reading as an act of submission—an invitation to enter another person's world, listen deeply, and allow ourselves to be changed. Together, Steve and Mark consider how reading broadly and deeply can cultivate humility, nuance, compassion, and discernment.

Whether you are an aspiring writer, an avid reader, or simply someone seeking to become more attentive to God and the world around you, this conversation invites you to slow down, listen well, and discover what God might want to say to you—and through you.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Matt Scott

"Our life would be so different—and our churches and marriages and families and communities would be so different—if we remembered our Creator and delighted in everything that he has created." – Steve Macchia

What if the truest version of ourselves isn't something we have to create, perfect, or promote—but something we learn to receive?

In the opening episode of Season 41, Discerning the Self, Steve Macchia and Matt Scott explore what it means to understand ourselves in light of the God who created us. Drawing from Augustine, Calvin, Genesis, and the biblical language of being made in God's image, they consider the profound connection between knowing God and knowing ourselves.

In a world that constantly invites us to self-promote, self-improve, achieve, and prove our worth, Steve and Matt invite us to a different way of living: slowing down, receiving our identity as God's beloved creation, and learning to delight in the unique gift of who we are—and who others are.

Before there was correction, there was delight. Before striving, there was belovedness.

This conversation invites us to move from treating ourselves as perpetual self-improvement projects toward receiving ourselves as the unique, fearfully and wonderfully made people God delights in. And from that place of being, we can become more fruitful in doing what God has called us to do.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.

Host: Steve Macchia, Guest: Abigail Carroll

This episode originally aired on May 4, 2023 as Episode 4 of Season 26.

"Poetry is the premise and the tool for submitting myself to beauty." - Abigail Carroll

In this concluding conversation of our Summer 2026: Rewind series, Steve Macchia welcomes poet and pastor Abigail Carroll to explore the spiritual significance of beauty, creativity, poetry, and wonder. She shares how God met her through beauty as a child, how she rediscovered her poetic identity after years of silence, and how poetry has become a way of praying, grieving, noticing, and naming God.

Together, Steve and Abigail consider what it means to slow down and "submit ourselves to beauty," to allow metaphors to deepen our prayers, and to recognize the creative capacity God has placed within each of us. Whether or not you consider yourself an artist, this conversation invites you to pay attention, receive the beauty around you, and release the creativity God has given you as an offering to him.

Join the conversation about spiritual discernment as a way of life at www.LeadershipTransformations.org and consider participation in our online and in-person program offerings. Additional LTI spiritual formation resources can be found at www.SpiritualFormationStore.com and www.ruleoflife.com and www.healthychurch.net.