The Pivot

FRIENDS!! It has been a long time!! I did not intend to take this long between episodes, but between the election and a little Christmas covid (all recovered now, thankfully) it’s felt like a good time to take a little break. But we’re back now with a GREAT one!!

Professor Paul C. H. Lim (PhD, Cambridge) is associate professor of the history of Christianity (Divinity School) and affiliate professor of history (College of Arts & Science) at Vanderbilt University, and is an award-winning historian of Reformation - and post-Reformation Europe. One of his books, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England, won the 2013 Roland H. Bainton Prize as the best book in history/theology by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference.

I’ve been a part of a nine-month fellows program with the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work and Dr. Lim has been teaching us through some of the great works of historical Chrstianity (Luther, Calvin, Augustine) as well as current authors like Tim Keller, N.T. Wright and Latasha Morrison. It is, to put it politely, kicking my butt and is one of the highlights of my week right now.

Paul studied at Yale, Princeton and Cambridge before teaching at Gordon Conwell and now Vanderbilt. I’ve been a rising sophomore since 1998.

Getting to know Dr. Lim and learn from his wisdom in a small group setting this past number of months has been incredible and I can’t wait for you to get to know him over this next hour as the Pivot returns from hiatus!!

Hear more from Paul in this interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ9TfkdgeFc&ab_channel=DigAndDelve

You can find Paul’s books at:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=paul+c.h.+lim&dc&ref=a9_asc_1

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Santosh John is from India and now lives in Atlanta, where he recently founded the3CG.com - a ministry for people of a Third Culture, who don’t live in their birth or heritage country but also don’t quite fit into the culture in which they live in now.

This was the first ever LIVE episode of The Pivot. Santosh John and I got to have this conversation as a part of the Rabbit Room’s virtual 2020 Hutchmoot Homebound conference.

We got to talk about exile, family, science, 90’s radio jams, Rich Mullins and Caedmon’s Call, all in front of a small, kind and socially distant audience of the Rabbit Room community.

This was a powerful and moving interview that first aired during the conference a few weeks ago and I’m so thrilled to share it with you today.

You can find Santosh and his wife Shiny, at The3cg.com

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It’s safe to say that not many kids grew up more deeply in the bubble of evangelicalism than Barnabas Piper. It’s led to some amazing books: about being a pastor’s kid, about doubt, and about having the ability to ask hard questions of God.

Now Barnabas is an author, a father, and a new pastor after two decades in the book publishing business. He wrote a new book called “Hoping For Happiness” as he was making that career change.

I love that he calls himself a “recovering cynic”, as that’s a phrase I’ve attached to myself, and it was great to get to talk to him about it. Barnabas is one smart dude and I’m so thankful he’s taken his experience and wisdom and shared it with us.

You can find Barnabas at his website BarnabasPiper.com

You can order his new book “Hoping For Happiness” here.

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Every single person who knows Tim Timmons seems to have this same response when his name comes up: “Dude! Timmons! I LOVE that guy!” It just seems like he has poured his heart and life into every third person I’ve met in the past few years.

He’s a musician, a pastor by default, a writer and a family man. The crazy thing? Twenty years ago he was told he had five years to live. Talk about a pivot, right? For Tim this has led to a conscious decision to rejoice that, as he says, “I woke up today!”

Tim’s new single “You Never Let Go” just released a couple weeks ago, and it is so good it has genuinely brought tears to my eyes.

I have wholeheartedly joined the club of people who say “Timmons! I love that guy!” Listen in and I think you’ll feel the same.

Click here to listen to “You Never Let Go”

Here’s 10,000 Minutes and here’s Tim’s instagram.

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Ben Young is an author, a speaker, and a pastor at Second Baptist Church in Houston (one of the largest churches in Texas), But what’s super fun about this for me is that he is the brother of one of my former bandmates, Cliff Young, of Caedmon’s Call. I used to see Ben ALL the time, as the band really used Second Baptist as our headquarters. It’s where we rehearsed, borrowed musical gear (with at least the intent to eventually return it), and ate, as Cliff would always say, all the Nutter Butters a Baptist Church could give us.

Ben just released a book LAST WEEK called "Survive the Day: Thriving in the Midst of LIfe's Storms". It’s a good book for the Pivot Podcast if ever there was one. And most definitely a good book for whatever you want to call this hot mess of a year we’re all living through.

What I love about this book is that it’s relational and easy to read, but also really USEFUL. He takes his years of experience not only as a pastor, but also as a person who has lived through a lot of pain, to give practical tools and insight to actually help you navigate those metaphorical “storms” we all go through.

It was so fun to “virtually” see him again and to catch up, and to finally thank him for causing the emotional pain that went on to provide for my family in my 20’s.

CLICK HERE to get Ben’s book and HERE for his website

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Davy Basinger was the lead singer of a band called Bleach. If you were in a youth group in an American church in 1998 then you know EXACTLY who I’m talking about. Bleach and my first band, The Normals, were on the same label and had the same manager, and so we found ourselves getting to play a bunch of shows with them when we were getting started. They were a few years ahead of us and they became like super cool older cousins to us.

Davy and I actually reconnected while working on the CHICKEN OF THE MONTH CLUB with Food For The Hungry, where he works now. He designed the amazing coffee mug I’m posting here with my adorable parents. It’s been so fun to catch up and this was really special to me.

We got to cover a lot of ground, from songwriting to his work with Food for the Hungry to living in an RV and starting over after divorce. This was a wild one and so fun.

Bleach / Normals reunion show after we get out of quarantine, Davy? I’ve got a super good feeling about it…

To catch up with Davy on your own, you can find his instagram HERE.

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CLICK HERE to see Eric Brown’s beautiful garden prints.

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Christine Dente is best known as one half of the duo Out of the Grey, but of course, she’s much more than that, particularly to their three kids and now two grandkids.

I don’t know her terribly well, but I saw she had just written her first novel and that fascinated me, so I was thrilled when she was into coming over and chatting about it.

I won’t lie, I jumped in way too deep too fast for any trained interviewer. But I’m not a trained interviewer, and Christine was right there with me, and it was SO GOOD.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, and you’ll hear us even talk about it in a bit, but the biggest thing I can tell when I do these interviews is who has done the work and who hasn’t. Christine Dente has done the work. And it shows. And I am thankful for what she is putting out into the world because we all get to learn from that work. It’s inspiring.

Also, a fun little detail, Out of the Grey made most of their records here in this studio, too, back when it was Charlie Peacock’s place, so it was especially fun to get to invite her back here to talk about that time but also what she’s doing now.

You can find Christine and her writing at ChristineDenteOutOfTheGrey.com

And you can order her novel, The Woman In The Willow here.

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Chris Llewellyn was excited to come over and NOT talk about music. I met him years ago when I worked closely for a season with his band, Rend Collective. That crew is easily the hardest working bunch of musicians I’ve ever met, and quarantine, while not great for business, has given Chris some time to breathe deep and take a little break for a bit.

It was fun to catch up and talk about Chris’s journey from the coast of Northern Ireland to a vagabond life across America to being (somewhat) settled here in Nashville with his wife and young son. He’s also in super freaking good shape and we got to talk about how that happens, which seems to remain a mystery to me.

Chris is both a deep well and a hilarious dude and it was wonderful to have this chat.

Rend Collective’s new EP “Socially Distant Worship Club Pt 1” is out now.

Click here for Chris’s instagram page.

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I’m a big fan of Savannah Locke. She is an incredibly gifted writer and communicator, and as always, my conversation with her went places I did not expect. We talk about hiring your replacement, starting a business, John Mayer’s middle name… We call a number of grown men “angel babies”.

Most powerfully for me, we got to unpack the season of life where we met: When she was trying to see if the musician career path was for her, and I was a really green record label guy who wished he could be a better guide for her than he was.

This one was so fun, so challenging, and so wide-ranging. You’ll just have to listen for yourself.

You can find Savannah and her writing at SavannahLocke.com

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You might know Janice Gaines as an award-winning Gospel singer, which she is. But there are so many other incredible things about Janice you have to know: She is brilliant. She got her Masters of Divinity because learning Greek and Hebrew sounded FUN. She’s a mother of two young boys, a wife, a nationally recognized speaker, and she’s on staff at her local predominately white church, as directory of diversity. In 2020. She’s got a lot going on.

She also teaches an online course on diversity, racial reconciliation, and the Gospel. It starts next week, Aug 4, and it’s called Braving the Deep and you need to sign up for it. You can go to janicegaines.com to sign up.

I loved talking with Janice. It is always a gift to spend time with people who radiate kindness and wisdom and joy, so you won’t want to miss this one!

CLICK HERE for Janice’s music or HERE to sign up for Braving the Deep!

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