The Pivot

You probably know Mark Stuart as the lead singer of the massively successful band Audio Adrenaline. But he’s also a husband, a father, a new author, a divorcee, and a man deeply in love with the nation of Haiti. And, he lives in an RV….

Ben Shive is a genius record producer, piano player, string arranger, and poet. He's also a husband, a father, a church elder, and a dear friend of mine, and to many in our community.

A couple years ago Jeremy Cowart was named the “Most Influential Photographer on the Internet” by Huffington Post, Forbes and Yahoo. He’s also an artist, an entrepreneur, a public speaker and a husband and father of four kids. Before all that, he was probably the first “web designer” I had ever met, way back in the early 2000s.

Don Donahue is back! Together, he and I spend this hour discussing questions sent in by listeners after our interview last month. We get to tell some great stories and talk about community, intentionality, and what it can look like to be open to God's leading in our lives.

Nate Larkin was a pastor, the son of a pastor, a young husband, and also a sex addict. His story is one of incredible sadness and also incredible hope. He has gone on to found an organization called the Samson Society, a fellowship of Christian men who are serious about authenticity, community, humility & recovery. It’s been a place of much healing for thousands of men walking through addiction.

David Hampton finally told a friend that he was an alcoholic. Years later, he’s now an addiction recovery specialist helping people out of the situation he had once been in himself.

Garett and Carrie Buell met and married when Garett and I were in the band Caedmon’s Call together, and Carrie was in a band called Alathea. Since leaving music full-time, they have started an incredibly successful real estate and architectural photography business, Studio Buell, with a staff of eleven photographers, also mostly former musicians.

Don Donahue might not be a familiar name to most of you, and that’s how he likes it. But as a kid reading liner notes in his bedroom in Illinois, there were three or four names that always seemed to pop up on album after album and Don Donahue was one of them. Turns out he was A&R on some of the most important albums of my youth, Michael W Smith’s “Change Your World”, Rich Mullins “The World As Best As I Remember It” and “Liturgy, Legacy”. I do that exact job now, A&R, but I didn’t know then what it was. Turns out Don might not have either.

My guest today is from the nation of Eritrea, in Northeast Africa. He has been granted legal and permanent asylum here in the US. To get here, he was smuggled through 18 countries on a terribly dangerous journey.

Diana Beach Batarseh is, and has been, a number of things. An educator, a school founder, a wife, a mother, a widow, a wife again, a gifted songwriter and a brilliant worship leader. She is one of the most thoughtful, wise, and kind people I know.