Have you ever been the victim of religious trespassing, where someone is trying to force something on you for your own good?  Have you ever done it to someone else?  Most of us have. It is the nature of religion to trespass on people's lives thinking it will create an opportunity for God to make himself known. More times than not it backfires. The life of Jesus is always an invitation, never an imposition. In this episode, Wayne and Kyle respond to a listener's email about what protocols they use to navigate varying expressions of the body of Christ to avoid being manipulated. They talk about trusting their yuck meters and learning to live inside the freedom God has brought to them. Forcing ourselves on people is the opposite spirit of the life of his kingdom.

Podcast Notes:

Facebook Page for planning a gathering of twenty and thirty-somethings

What Does Kindness Look Like? by Rebekah Taussig

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

How much of our gender confusion today results from warped stereotypes of masculinity and femininity? Tessa Van Wade, the author of Out of The Shadows, joins Wayne and Kyle for a discussion about what young men and women need to hear to help them claim their own God journey. How different is that for young men and young women?  They soon find themselves in a conversation about expectations for both genders, especially in a religious construct, and how confining they can be on an individual level. Stereotypes are often used to foment fear and to conform people to the expectations of others, making them less authentic in their own relationship with God. They talk about moving away from the culture of fear so that we can truly see someone for who they are and discover what it is to love them.

Podcast Notes:

Facebook Page for planning a gathering of twenty and thirty-somethings

Book Trailer for Out of the Shadows  •  Order Out of the Shadows at Amazon.com or Blue Sheep Media

Tessa Van Wade's website

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

Burn-out may be the result of turning something lovely God gives us to bless others and turning it into a vocation so that it primarily serves me. After a brief conversation about Hebrews 10 and Christianity's focus on sin, Kyle's provocative question invites Wayne into a conversation about exploiting our passion in a way that causes us to lose the freedom and joy of that which we love. It happens in all kinds of professions and creative endeavors. What are the pitfalls of losing our passion or compromising our hearts, especially when we think we're doing something God put on our hearts?  They contemplate the dangers of monetizing God's gifts or using vulnerability as a tool to exploit the concern and compassion of others.

Podcast Notes:

Facebook Page for planning a gathering of twenty and thirty-somethings

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

Wayne and Kyle begin where they left off last week, if our models of "planting churches" continue to have a build-up a body count of passionate men and women shipwrecked on their own insecurities and disappointed expectations, how can the church Jesus is building find expression in the world? They begin with the fact that Jesus never encouraged anything with his disciples that looks like the "churches" we've ended up with today.  What does it look like to facilitate environments in which the kingdom of God finds expression and lives are transformed to actually get to know God and then have the trust and freedom to follow him as he invites them into his reality.

Podcast Notes:

Facebook Page for planning a gathering of twenty and thirty-somethings

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

"Their ability rose them to prominence before their character was ready for it." A new podcast by Christianity today called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a forensic study on how a church in Seattle founded by Mark Driscoll could rise to such prominence, even as people were being battered and bullied by leadership, and how did it cease to exist. Their podcast asks some critical questions in how we view the "church" of our day and why we exalt leaders with such little character and why the body count of failed leaders continues to grow.  After a brief conversation about the difference between how married couples fight and how they can explore a journey to "us". Wayne and Kyle offer their takes on this new podcast. Why are the qualities necessary to run a religious machine diametrically opposed to the priorities of Jesus' kingdom? And, in a surprising article about business leadership, they explore four important characteristics of good leaders.

Podcast Notes:

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast

How Can You Be Sure Someone Has What it Takes to Lead People? 

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

Can the commitment of marriage actually destroy the spontaneity and thrill of romance? That's a question Kyle gets from some of his younger clients and he poses the question to Wayne. That leads them to a wide-ranging discussion about marriage and why knowing someone well enough to commit yourself to them for life is a key ingredient to a life-long fulfilling relationship with another person. In a world, that treats sex so casually, however, how do we help people recapture the wonder of the most precious relationship God offers us in this world. They also discuss extracting yourself from an abusive relationship, making sure you marry well by finding someone with the emotional integrity to grow with you, and finding a way to live together that never makes your spouse a victim of your desires or never asks him or her to be untrue to themselves.

Podcast Notes:

Wayne's article: Divorce Can Be a Triumph

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

How do people learn to live inside of God's reality, sensitive to what the Spirit is doing around them instead of being left to their own wisdom or a set of ineffective religious platitudes? A letter from a struggling listener opens up a wide-ranging conversation about how we grow in our sensitivity to the nudges of the Spirit in the real circumstances we confront every day. Kyle and Wayne explore themes of discipleship, sensitivity to the Spirit, and of those who use, "God told me to...", as an excuse for their own selfishness and to end any further conversation.

Podcast Notes:

How Could All the Prophets Be Wrong about Trump?

Recent podcasts with Stephan Vosloo: Being One with Love and Free from the Prison of Self

Email Kyle

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

As the wind of the Spirit shifts in these days, it should not be a surprise to see some of the beloved castles we have built out of our own insecurity, crumble as he invites us deeper into a life of trust in his love and direction. Kyle and Wayne talk about how this is happening in their own lives and our immediate responses to put the crumbling pieces back together instead of discovering what Father has for us beyond them. They talk about being invited into the wild with God instead of sticking to the trails that may have served us well in the past and how to negotiate the dilemma of toxic people in our lives that seek to distract us from the path God has called us to follow.

Podcast Notes:

Order Tessa Van Wade's book:  Out of the Shadows 

Email Kyle

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

How do ordinary people—going about their everyday lives—become complicit actors in systems that perpetuate evil? Wayne's been reflecting on the news coverage about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and how so many so-called normal people got caught up in the violence and the cover-up so that no one was charged and no restitution was offered for those who suffered. We see it often in human history, even in churches and families where people perpetuate lies without regard for the people or relationships they are destroying. They discuss two fruits of God's transformation in us that battle against the normalizing of evil in our journey—empathy and humility.

Podcast Notes:

The Banality of Evil by Jack Maden

Email Kyle

Past Podcasts with Kyle

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full

What happens when you discover the world is bigger than you thought it was and you are not the person you've been told you are?  Everyone on a transformational journey has those moments when they come face-to-face with a reality bigger than themselves and must decide whether to embrace that revelation or retreat into the false comfort of their illusions. Tessa Van Wade, the author of a new book called Out of the Shadows, joins Wayne on a special podcast about her new book and her spiritual journey. Raised inside the guilt of religion, she is discovering increased freedom in the reality of God's love and embracing the wider world of his wisdom and her identity in him. Her book is a reflection of that journey, as well as a compelling mystery/thriller that makes a great summer read.

Podcast Notes:

Book Trailer for Out of the Shadows

Pre-order Out of the Shadows at Amazon.com or Blue Sheep Media

Tessa Van Wade's website

Wayne's Blog about Arek

View the video version of this podcast

My Friend Luis, the podcast

Order Wayne's new book Live Loved Free Full