The District Life Podcast

Using John Powell's 5 levels of Communication as a jumping off point, Travis and Eli discuss more particularly what it looks like to connect with people on a deeper level conversationally. The fruit of being known and knowing another person is powerful and beautiful!

The message of Revelation in all of its impressionist complexity & symbolism can easily leave us with misunderstandings about the afterlife for those who don't delve into understand it! Travis and Eli discuss some of those misunderstandings and the reality that the truth of heaven is so much sweeter than our imaginations!

Scot McKnight coined the term "Dissident Disciples" in his book "Revelation for the Rest of Us". In this episode, Travis & Eli sit down to discuss the term and its implications for us. Within the natural dissidence that Christ-followers live in, since we are eternal residents of a different kingdom, we are not meant to be people who simply shout out warnings of impending judgment or cataclysm! Instead, we should be people of hope, eager to warn anyone who would hear!

We broke the Podcast Guest record and I sat down with 8 middle school students while I was at Hidden Haven Christian Camp to ask them some simple questions about what it is like to follow Jesus as a Middle Schooler today!

Hear from Gabriel, Acelyn, Jaggar, Thomas, Kennedy, Emery, Kennedy (a different one), and Ralee, and hopefully gain some encouragement and/or perspective about how we can support the students in our circles of influence in their walk with Jesus!

Eli sits down with Dakota Shurts, who is the Youth Pastor at Crestview Christian Church in Manhattan Kansas while they were together at Hidden Haven Christian Camp and discusses what it's like to do Youth Ministry in 2026. We talk about what Discipleship looks like inside student ministry, how to build ministries with depth, and how to partner with families to see fruit produced in the lives of young people. We also have it on record now that Eli Bayless either DOES NOT snore, or Dakota is an incredibly sound sleeper...

There are so many characters who play a unique part in John's Vision of Jesus in Revelation, and so we start off by discussing some of the characters who make up "Team Dragon" and how they are drawing us into the divine imagination of Revelation and what Jesus is revealing about himself!

The Book of Revelation can feel so strange and intimidating to people. Is it a code that needs to be cracked? A secret insight into the return of Jesus? A mystical delusion? Or is it simply a vision of hope chock-full of powerful symbols meant to inspire our imagination about the kingdom of God!

Travis and Eli sit down to discuss several practical tips for reading the apocalyptic literature of the Book of Revelation.

Travis and I sit down to discuss the concept of Fruit To Root, pioneered by Jeff Vanderstelt in his book Saturate! We discuss the importance of tracing the fruit we see in our lives back to it's root beliefs so that we might meet with the Holy Spirit to find the truth that would lead us to seeing the Fruit of The Spirit produced instead.

Saturate Book - Amazon

Fruit To Root - Saturate Website

It tends to feel a lot more comfortable to think about and experience the Holy Spirit when we're gathered as the church. In our weekend Worship Services and Prayer Meetings, but the reality is there is a special kind of reward that the Holy Spirit has for us while the church is scattered. He strengthens and clarifies our identity, he convicts us of sin and leads us to repentance, and he sends us out into the world with renewed purpose!

The advent and rapid development of modern technology have created a unique context in which we must listen to God! In that context, we need a strategy to be primarily shaped by the Holy Spirit rather than our devices! In this episode, we offer a simple challenge: to develop a theology of technology and to commit to principles that help ensure we are first and foremost formed by Jesus.