Vision For Life

Every church has an origin story, and Fellowship Denver’s is marked by affection for Jesus, a willingness to take risks, and a heart for the next generation in Denver. As we look back on our first twenty years, Hunter and Autumn talk about what shaped Fellowship from the beginning and why Jesus warned the church in Ephesus not to abandon its first love. Looking back isn’t just about nostalgia. It’s about tending the seeds of affection that will carry us into the next twenty years.

How should Christians participate in politics without compromising their public witness or the unity of the church? Rick Langer joins Hunter and Autumn on the podcast to consider how Christians can hold strong political convictions while being characterized by the fruit of the Spirit, speaking truth with grace, and seeking to understand those with whom they disagree. They explore how political engagement can either strengthen or undermine Christian witness, and how believers can disagree over politics without turning political differences into divisions within the body of Christ.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World by Muehlhoff and Langer

WInsome Conviction: Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church by Muehlhoff and Langer

Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry Hurtado

The Winsome Conviction Project by Biola University

How should Christians participate in politics without compromising their public witness or the unity of the church? Rick Langer joins Hunter and Autumn on the podcast to consider how Christians can hold strong political convictions while being characterized by the fruit of the Spirit, speaking truth with grace, and seeking to understand those with whom they disagree. They explore how political engagement can either strengthen or undermine Christian witness, and how believers can disagree over politics without turning political differences into divisions within the body of Christ.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World by Muehlhoff and Langer

WInsome Conviction: Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church by Muehlhoff and Langer

Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World by Larry Hurtado

The Winsome Conviction Project by Biola University

Family estrangement has become a common topic of conversation on social media and in media coverage, with many adult children choosing to distance themselves from their parents. In response to a listener’s question, Hunter and Autumn discuss what has changed about our expectations of family and how Christians should think about honor, forgiveness, reconciliation, boundaries, and safety when family relationships become complicated. How does the biblical category of covenantal relationship offer a different vision of family?

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Unpacking Family Estrangement by Code Switch on NPR

Autumn and Hunter discuss six realities that make your 20s and 30s both challenging and consequential. These years are often portrayed as a time to have fun, figure things out, and eventually settle into the life you want. Yet, the decisions you make in these decades can have an outsized influence on the trajectory of the rest of your life. At the same time, our culture offers no agreed-upon definition of the “good life” or a clear script for getting there. Because culture lacks a clear vision for a fulfilling life and offers, at best, convoluted messages about how to pursue it, young adults need peers and guides headed in the same direction who share a vision for what matters most.

(Apologies for the lower-than-expected quality of Hunter's microphone this week)

Wendell Berry was a poet, novelist, farmer, essayist, and cultural critic whose work challenged the modern West’s assumptions about progress, productivity, technology, consumption, and our relationship to the places and people around us. In today’s in memoriam episode, Hunter and Autumn consider Berry’s vision of place, community, meaningful work, limits, and the affection that motivates faithful care, asking what his work might help us see more clearly about our own lives. They discuss the personal impact of Berry’s writing, the relationship between his fiction and nonfiction, and how Christians might receive the wisdom of his work with an awareness of his continual wrestling with God over aspects of the gospel. May Berry’s undying belief that humans are given the physical world as a sacred space to steward continue to challenge and inspire readers for generations to come.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92, New York Times obituary, by Robert D. McFadden

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry

The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry

The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings by Wendell Berry

The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry

The Mad Farmer Poems by Wendell Berry

Sabbath Poems (Published in various volumes) by Wendell Berry

What is a sabbatical, and why is it valuable for pastors and for the church? Drawing on the biblical pattern of allowing the land to rest and be replenished, Autumn talks with pastors Adam Anglin and Dave Morlan about their recent sabbaticals—what they hoped God would do, what they discovered when they stepped away from the ordinary demands of ministry, and what practices and relationships replenished them. Seasons of rest promote longevity in pastoral ministry, making sabbatical not simply a gift to pastors but an investment in the long-term health and fruitfulness of the church.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin

Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis

The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan

In his recent book The Desecration of Man, Carl Trueman asks what it means to be human and argues that modern Western culture has increasingly rejected the God-given nature, limits, and purposes of humanity. Hunter and Autumn discuss Trueman’s account of the social imaginary, technology, expressive individualism, and the rise of the Transgressor Hero, considering how these ideas have reshaped our understanding of our world, our bodies, and human nature. Trueman ultimately concludes that consecration, recovering the sacredness and purpose inherent in the Imago Dei and devoting ourselves to God, is the answer to desecration.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity by Carl Trueman

The question of gambling, and sports betting in particular, encompasses more than simply whether placing a bet is explicitly sinful. It raises deeper questions about vice, desire, stewardship, and the effects our repeated habits can have on our hearts and formation. Autumn and Hunter consider the rise of ubiquitous sports betting and how it has changed our relationship to risk, money, and sports, as well as the broader effects of addiction, the degradation of sport itself, and the predatory nature of gambling. Finally, we ask how Christians can guard their hearts and pursue wisdom in a culture increasingly willing to accommodate and normalize vice.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Sports-Betting Boom Is a Moral Disaster by Matthew Walther

What Gambling Has Done to Sports—and to Us by Danny Funt

‘Everybody Loses’ tallies the steep costs of sports gambling by Alex Shephard

Sports Betting Has Become Too Prevalent for Christians to Ignore by Kyle Worley

Should Christians Bet on Sports? by Joshua Bremerman

Combating Vice by R. R. Reno

Philip Moore, a church planter in Paris, joins Autumn and Hunter on the podcast to share the story of Église de la Montagne (Church of the Mountain), which launched in September 2025. Philip shares how God led his family to the 5th District of Paris, what church planting near Sorbonne University looks like, and how ordinary practices like hospitality and simply becoming known in a neighborhood can open doors for the gospel.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality by Glen Scrivener

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by McChrystal, et al.