Transformed & Transformational

For this special summer episode we are re-releasing a past episode from Season 2. 

Keane talks to Liz Steggall-Lewis, Director of Beyond Borders, about World Refugee Week and God’s heart for the refugee. We also hear about the work Beyond Borders is doing to serve the most vulnerable.

• "The character of God shines in these stories of displacement."
• "In Malachi it talks about the way that you treat foreigners, orphans, and widows is a sign of your righteousness."
• "The whole Biblical command is to care for those who are vulnerable and to welcome and love the foreigners among us."
• Resources:
• World Refugee Sunday - Exodus World Service
• World Relief
• Refugee by Alan Gratz
• Beyond Borders Sponsorship
• Life Jacket Documentary

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Summer Traveling
• Liz: Pizza

We’d love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

TeachBeyond President, David Durance, joins Heather and Keane for the final episode of the season! Keane reveals the season-long mystery message, David shares about the TeachBeyond Way, and, of course, all three share what is changing their lives. Keep listening to hear clips from past episodes in this Season 4 Finale!

"For us to be on mission together, it's not just enough to know what we're doing and where we're going, but how we're going to get there. And the TeachBeyond Way gives us this wonderful starting point, so that as we go and live out the mission around the world, we know this is the common thing that makes us TeachBeyond."

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Becoming a foster parent
• Heather: Rabbits in the yard
• David: Reading through the Bible at a slower pace this year

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

As followers of Jesus, our leadership flows out of His transformational work in our lives. Heather and Keane talk with Brian Delamont about five things that leaders do: advance the mission, build teams, communicate, develop self and others, and evaluate. Also, don't miss the final mystery word of the season!

• Download the Core Competencies Cube here!
• "Everything rises and falls on leadership." -John Maxwell
• "As a leader, when understood in a Biblical worldview, I'm actually first a follower, I'm a disciple, I'm an apprentice of Jesus. That's the foundation of leadership." -Brian
• "It all flows out of who we are as followers of Jesus. If we are being transformed by Him, if we're choosing to intentionally follow Jesus and allow Him to transform our hearts, then these behaviors flow out of that. They're not behaviors to learn, but they're happening as fruit when we are living and leading as God intends because good leadership always reflects God's good leadership and God's good design." -Brian
• TeachBeyond Core Competencies of a Leader:
  • Advance the Mission
  • Build Teams
  • Communicate
  • Develop Self and Others
  • Evaluate
• "Mission and vision will always take you into the unknown." -Brian
• "When new people join the team, you make sure they catch the vision, they can understand where you're trying to go, and then you're able to release them." -Keane
• Episode 146: Doing Life Together
• "As followers of Jesus, we want to never stop growing; we never arrive. We're never fully complete because God always has more to do in us." -Brian
• Episode 15: Growth Mindset
• "We can participate in developing ourselves and others by being open to what the Holy Spirit's doing and modeling that we're all on this journey together." -Heather
• "Leadership is the outcome of discipleship." -Brian

May Reflection: Which Core Competency will you start with, and when will you do it?

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Eating fresh vegetables and making salsa
• Heather: Growing a cut flower patch
• Brian: Being in a season of waiting

Weekly Spotlight: Belize Christian Academy

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

Katherine Haschig shares about student teaching abroad, choosing to stay at that school as a classroom teacher, and seeing the Lord at work through Gospel-centered transformational education all across Africa.

• "I've definitely always wanted to be a teacher. That's been in my heart for forever, but living overseas was not really something I envisioned or planned on doing."
• "I was at this pivotal time where I could really do anything."
• "I'm not a super adventurous person; I kind of really like my comfort zone. This was really shocking for everyone - including myself."
• "That's really my favorite part - getting to be with the teachers, getting to take school visits, see their schools, see what they're like, and train the teachers with this curriculum we have."
• "I have had the privilege to take what I just learned sort of recently [in university] and add that into part of our curriculum."
• "We have no idea the ways God is going to lead us and guide us and direct us."
• "God, here I am. I'm here to serve You in whatever capacity that looks like."

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Geocaching
• Heather: Playing the board game Wingspan
• Katherine: Reading books on a Kindle

Weekly Spotlight: Student Teaching with TeachBeyond

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

Our guest this week shares from his personal experience with and research about the Indian church specifically, as well as the global Church as a whole.

• To learn more about the International Day for the Unreached, listen to Episode 109: The Alliance for the Unreached.
• "The Church is influenced by society [...] and yet, we are also different because of the human-Divine meeting in the church. It is not just another human plane of belonging, but there is this coming together with the Divine in the church, which gives us another dimension of being."
• "Ultimately, we are united through one Lord Jesus Christ [...] but we are also enlivened by the Holy Spirit, who is present everywhere, and He speaks to us all in our languages in our own spaces, and we are all adopted as sons and daughters of one Father."
• "There is no other way for the Church to be but connected in the local and the global; if it's not connected, then it's not the Church because then there's no one Jesus Christ, there's no one Father, there's no one Holy Spirit. And yet, we are also diverse and different also because of where we are."
• "An ideal vision is that all would be equal - all would have equal opportunities, equal passports - but that is not the reality that we experience."
• "If we are one Church, one people, one body of Christ, [we are called] to share and participate deeply in the needs, the pain, the joy of the other also."
• "How does the Church reach out in mission? To be very simplistic, by being Church."
• "If I were to point out one thing [that the global church could learn from the Indian church], it's maybe the capacity to be okay with the knowledge that you will be persecuted. [...] Being okay with that does not mean that I am saying there is no pain, there is no suffering."
• "Life has been difficult from a human perspective, but in the midst of all of this, I have experienced God in a new way."

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: A network of children's museums
• Heather: Hard-boiled eggs
• Sonam: Watching his son grow and learning to be more flexible

Weekly Spotlight: TeachBeyond Opportunity Board

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

As the end of the school year approaches, listen in for tips from some of our Season 4 guests!

• Linda Kardamis: Step back and consider what you want to accomplish before the end of the year.
• Christy Biscocho: End the year with a dance party!
• Jessica Moulding: Pay attention to student needs, stay focused on year-end goals, and give yourself grace.
• Savana Duke: Create space for all students to process upcoming transitions.
• Tami: Take time to enjoy your students, and write down everything you need to accomplish.
• Jacob Cavett: Plan well for the summer.
• Cesar Valdez: Spend time in the Word of God.
• Kelly Crandall: Take opportunities to identify feelings and encourage kindness.
• Clarence Yau: Enjoy each day, and say yes to being intentional with people.
• Lindsay Nimmon: Emphasize relationships with students.
• Bastiaen Norel: Make a check-list for final tasks. Then, enjoy your holiday!
• Tosca Nathan: Look back and celebrate where you saw the Lord at work.
• David Platt: Make the most of every moment, knowing that your impact is far more than you can see now!
• Sonam: Take time to slow down with God.
• Brian Delamont: Ask yourself: What will you celebrate and how? What do you need to leave behind? What conversations do you want or need to have before the end of the year?
• Keane Fine: Savor the moment and appreciate the time you have.
• Heather Brown: Plan special activities to conclude the school year together.

Weekly Spotlight: HopeSeed School

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

What are the potential benefits and dangers of Artificial Intelligence? How can we approach AI through a Biblical worldview? Perhaps you've been asking these questions, too. Thorsten Marbach shares helpful insight in navigating the world of AI as humans created in the image of God.

• "The further into the future we look, the more divergent the possible scenarios and predictions are."
• "What does it actually understand? There's a very clear answer to that, and the answer is nothing."
• "We need to catch a wake-up; we can't just let this thing slide. This stuff is developing very fast, and we need to be on top of our game to make sure that it's going to a good place."
• "Previous technologies were very good at disseminating existing ideas, whether that was the printing press or the radio or the Internet, but now here we have something that's creating - or at least seems to create - new ideas. That's new."
• "Engaging with AI has everything to do with what it means for us to be human."
• "If one just were to look at those three things in which we can understand our humanness - identity, dominion, relationship - or if you want, it's basically just saying being, doing, relating [...] those are exacting the three areas we need to think through and work through when it comes to what we do with AI at an individual level and at a societal level."
• Dominion questions: Is this pulling me to a place where I'm doing better at dominion, or is it actually pulling me into a space of domination or a space of abdication? Is this AI thing going to increase or mitigate inequality?
• "Don't abdicate your creativity to AI."
• "AI might simulate moral agency, but it doesn't have true moral agency."
• Relationship questions: Is it helping me relate in a better, deeper, wider way, or is it actually shutting down my relational capacities? Is this helping me love God and neighbor more or less?
• "It's not an AI world; it's still God's world."
• Identity questions: What does it mean to be a human being, and what is consciousness?
• "We have a very valuable identity, but it's a derived identity; it's not a self-made identity."
• "One of our key roles as Christians would be to challenge and perhaps give an alternative to some of the more reductionistic understandings of what it means to be a human being."
• "We can know who we are. We can know whose we are. We can know that nothing is going to derail God's big story of creation, fall, redemption, eternity. No matter what AI does, no matter what happens, it's still God's story."

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Using the arc browser
• Heather: Getting a new duster
• Thorsten: Learning from others in a weekly gathering that he coordinates called TGIF

Weekly Spotlight: International Christian School of Togo

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

What does it look like to honor God and others while living in community? Brian Delamont returns to the podcast to share about the foundation of prayer, the path through problems, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

• "Doing life together will connect you with prayer, with problems, and with power."
• Philippians 1:3-7, 9-11
• "When we do life together, that's when God gives us this wonderful, awkward, uncomfortable opportunity to grow, to take what I see is lacking in someone else's life and to pray about it, to thank God every time I remember them, to pray that their love for God will abound more and more."
• Philippians 1:27, 29
• "God grants, in His sovereignty, these problems so that on behalf of Christ we see the work of God moving forward towards the completion He intends for us."
• Philippians 4:2
• "Resolving conflict, forgiving, giving up our rights for the sake of another - that's hard. And this is where God, by His Spirit, forms genuine community."
• "The only way that we can live this out is when we connect our lives with the life and power of Christ."
• Philippians 2:1-5
• "Being united with Christ will lead us to be like-minded, to have the same love, to be one in spirit and one in mind."
• Philippians 1:6
• "He who began a good work in you, the One who has intentions for you, for those you are doing life together with, He will carry it on. He himself is the 'how' to lead you to transformation."

April Reflection:

• How will you strengthen your connection to doing life together?
• How will the problems you're facing strengthen your connection as you do life together?
• How will you live confidently in the power of the One who began a good work in you and is still moving that work forward until the day when everything and everyone becomes all that God intends?

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Sons beginning extracurricular activities
• Heather: Sensible Shoes book series
• Brian: Getting a new coffee maker

Weekly Spotlight: ENLACE LinGo Centre

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

How has God gifted you to serve? Hear from a TeachBeyond member about his experience leaving Canada to teach English in Asia.

• "[Teaching] a wide range of things means a lot of really great opportunities to hang out with the kids and give them the best of what I know, best of what I have and share with them as best I can what it means to know God and be a part of what He's doing in the world."
• "The stakes are really high. We can't really afford to not care about this. We've got to go! If there are people who haven't heard, then people need to go."
• "It's not me that really made the impact [...] it's God's Holy Spirit in them."
• "My answer is pretty simple: I'm here for you."
• "There's real purpose in all the weird puzzle pieces that don't seem to make sense at first."

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Losing his wallet
• Heather: The new default Microsoft font, Aptos
• Jonathan: Road trip to visit former students

Weekly Spotlight: English Teacher positions

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

What's your story, and why does that matter? Long-time educator Tosca Nathan shares about the significance of knowing your story and connecting to God's bigger story, especially as teachers.

• "Like any story, our life stories have a path, they have a trajectory, and it's full of meaningful events, defining moments, key relationships, trials and disappointments, dreams and aspirations, passions and discoveries."
• "How coherent your life story is and how coherently you can talk about your life story has been seen as a factor in well-being."
• Coherence of time, thematic coherence, and contextual coherence
• "Your life story never exists in a vacuum. It is always part and parcel of a bigger story."
• "In the telling itself, every time you tell it, there's more meaning making that happens, so it's important to tell your story."
• "If teachers are not fully aware of who they are and have exercised all of the areas of coherence, they will not be as effective in their teaching."
• "The teacher, with what they do or how they relate, helps the student understand how their story connects to bigger things."
• "You can't give what you don't have."
• "To realize that scholarship is part of that grand story completely changes why I even engage in research or why I engage in teaching and learning, and then on top of that, it elevates it to the level of worship."

What's changing our lives:

• Keane: Playing the board game, Sorry
• Heather: Reaction buttons on emails
• Tosca: Reading the Bible through the lens of the grand story and watercolor painting

Weekly Spotlight: Lingo

We'd love to hear from you! [email protected] Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/