Welcome to the Table

Most Christians who feel stuck in their faith have one thing in common: they are trying to obey a God they do not know well enough. They are faithful — they show up, they try to pray, they want to change — but something is missing. Richard Foster put it plainly: many believers remain in bondage to fears and anxieties simply because they have never taken up the discipline of study. Not because they lack desire. Because they lack a framework.

The spiritual discipline of study is not academic — it is not about becoming a theologian. It is the intentional practice of giving careful attention to what your mind focuses on so that your heart moves in a specific direction: toward God and his truth, rather than toward whatever the culture constantly feeds you. Khalil and Sean show you why your mind will always conform to whatever it concentrates on, why study is the discipline that makes every other discipline work, and how to begin with nothing more than a place, a posture of praise, a pace you can sustain, and a practice you will keep. This episode teaches the spiritual discipline of study — how to train your mind to think like Jesus, why your beliefs follow your attention, and the simple method that makes Bible study genuinely transformative, hosted by two pastors.

You will learn why “if you can worry, you can meditate” — and what it means to turn that same focused mental energy toward God’s truth instead of your anxiety. You will hear Khalil walk through a practical inductive Bible study method — observation, interpretation, application — and how the “place, praise, pace, practice” framework gives anyone a starting point for consistent study beginning this week. And you will walk away with one clear takeaway: the issue is almost never whether you are capable enough. It is whether you are willing to be intentional. Start with five minutes and let it grow.

If you have been in the faith for years and still feel like something is missing — like you know the information but it has not become transformation — this episode is pointing directly at that gap. The truth will set you free. But first you have to learn it.

Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Journaling | The Spiritual Discipline of Reflection | The Spiritual Discipline of Biblical Meditation

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You are leading people. You have a vision, a team, and a calendar full of commitments. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, you stopped leading yourself. The ministry is moving. You might not be. The people you lead are getting your output, but the people at home are getting what is left — and you have told yourself that is the cost of calling.

Pastor Stan Russell has built a life that looks like what most ministry leaders say they want but rarely practice: a thriving ministry, a family that actually knows him, and a sustainable rhythm that has lasted decades without burning him down. He has also mobilized 2.4 million dollars to build twelve churches in Cambodia. The key, he says, is not time management or a better system. It is the conviction that intimacy with Jesus is the height of success — not the reward at the end of it. He joins Khalil and Sean to share the practical disciplines that have kept him rooted through forty-plus years of pastoral ministry. This episode teaches how to lead yourself well as a pastor or ministry leader, including family-ministry balance, sustainable work rhythms, and how to avoid the disconnect that slowly destroys the relationships you are trying to build, hosted by two pastors and a veteran pastor.

You will learn why Stan's non-negotiable of one protected day off per week is not a luxury — leaders who call themselves too busy for it are telling on themselves more than they realize — and why that discipline is the floor beneath every other leadership practice. You will hear the warning to not groove the disconnect — the reminder that habits of absence calcify over time, and the leader who is always elsewhere eventually loses the relationships they thought they were building. And you will walk away with the one question that has guided Stan's leadership for decades: did I love them today — a simpler and more convicting benchmark than any output metric you have been using.

If the people closest to you would say ministry is getting the best of you and they are getting what is left, this episode is for you. Leading well is not about doing more. It is about being present to the right things in the right order. You do not have to choose between a thriving ministry and a thriving family — but it does require choices most leaders are not yet making.

Related episodes: Are My Relationships for a Reason or Season? | The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and Solitude | How Sabbath, Margin, and Stillness Prepare You for the Life God Has Ahead

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

Most Christians believe in the Trinity. Far fewer could tell you why it matters for how they live on a Tuesday. The Trinity can feel like a theological technicality — something to affirm in a statement of faith and then file away. But what you believe about the Trinity is not a minor detail. It is the foundation of everything you believe about God, about yourself, and about how prayer works.

Who God is determines who you believe you are. If your view of God is shaped more by your circumstances than by Scripture, you will live with a distorted picture of his character and yours. Khalil and Sean walk through what it means that God is triune — one God in three persons — how the Trinity is revealed across all of Scripture from Genesis through Revelation, and why this doctrine that so thoroughly resists our comprehension is actually one of the strongest reasons to trust that the God of the Bible is real. This episode explores what the Trinity means and why it changes how you pray, how you experience God, and how you understand your own identity as someone indwelt by the Holy Spirit, hosted by two pastors.

You will learn how all three persons of the Godhead are actively involved in your daily life — how the Father orchestrates, the Son redeems, and the Holy Spirit empowers — and why neglecting any one of them in your walk leaves you spiritually flattened. You will hear the biblical evidence for the Trinity laid out clearly, from the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 to the Trinitarian blessing of 2 Corinthians 13 to the stunning moment of Jesus’s baptism, and how the Trinity shows up even at the incarnation itself. And you will walk away with a new practice: a Trinitarian approach to prayer that addresses the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — and could change how you experience God’s presence entirely.

If the Trinity has always felt like a confusing doctrine you nod at rather than something you actually relate to and depend on, this episode makes it personal. A God you cannot fully comprehend is a God worth trusting. His triune nature is not a mystery to endure — it is an invitation to go deeper.

Related episodes: What Does It Mean to Be Made in the Image of God? | Reclaiming Pentecostalism: What the Holy Spirit Actually Does

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You have said something online that you would never say to someone's face. Or you have read something about someone — a leader, a church, a person you do not know — and passed it along before you knew whether it was true. Most Christians know this is a problem. Almost nobody has a framework for why it is so easy, why it matters this much, or how to stop.

Slander is not a new sin — it is one of the oldest. But digital culture has given it infrastructure it has never had before. The same impulse that once required proximity now requires only a screen and a few seconds. What was once an embodied, relational act — tearing someone's reputation — has been reduced to a frictionless click. And the church is not immune. Matthew 18 lays out a clear order for how to address conflict with a brother or sister. Online culture has built a world where everyone skips it. Khalil and Sean walk through the biblical theology of slander — Ephesians 4:29, Matthew 18, and the honor-shame cultural context that makes reputation-damage so serious in the ancient world — and land on one reorienting practice. This episode teaches what the Bible says about slander and digital dishonor, why Christians must recover a Matthew 18 ethic for online conflict, and how to use your words to build rather than tear down, hosted by two pastors.

You will learn why the phrase "saving face" is literally accurate in honor-shame cultures — reputation was a person's face, and slander was an act of violence against it — and why that framing changes how seriously you should take what you say or share online. You will hear the insight that behavior on devices always produces embodied consequences, because digital and embodied life are not two separate lives — they are one life, and the disconnect between them is costing you. And you will walk away with one discipline: before you post, share, or say something about someone, ask whether you would say it to their face — and whether Matthew 18 has been honored first.

If your digital life looks different from your real one, this episode names that gap for what it is. The same Gospel that reconciles you to God also obligates you to a different way of relating to people — including the ones you disagree with, the ones who disappointed you, and the ones whose reputation you could damage with a few keystrokes. This conversation is overdue.

Related episodes: Are My Relationships for a Reason or Season? | How a Table Changes Everything

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You have probably heard that you should journal. You may have started and stopped more than once. Most people dismiss it as something for a certain personality type — the reflective, the artistic, the person with extra margin. But Khalil started journaling with none of those qualities and now calls it one of the most essential parts of his daily formation. What he had was not natural inclination. He had a framework and a time.

The spiritual discipline of journaling is not about keeping a diary. It is about creating a space where your inner life can slow down long enough to be shaped by truth. It is the discipline that ties confession, meditation, prayer, and reflection together in one place — the practice that forces you to process your experiences, fears, and prayers in light of what God says rather than how you feel. Khalil and Sean walk through the biblical precedent for journaling, from David’s Psalms to Nehemiah’s records to Daniel’s visions, and show how writing things down is one of the most ancient practices for remaining close to God. This episode teaches the spiritual discipline of journaling — why writing is one of the most underused formation habits, how to begin no matter what type of learner you are, and why Christian journaling transforms how you see God’s faithfulness over a lifetime, hosted by two pastors.

You will learn why journaling is not about how much you write but about attending to your inner life — and how five to ten minutes at the end of your day can produce spiritual fruit you could not manufacture any other way. You will hear about five types of journals — prayer journals, gratitude journals, the five-year journal, the SOAP Bible study journal, and journals of remembrance — so you can find the one that will actually work for you. And you will walk away with a specific plan: a time, a method, and a starting point you can begin tonight.

If your spiritual life is moving but not deepening — if you are busy in your faith but not being formed by it — journaling is very likely the missing piece. It is not the most glamorous discipline. It is one of the most reliable ones.

Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Reflection | The Spiritual Discipline of Biblical Meditation | The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and Solitude

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

The word deconstruction is everywhere. What it almost never comes with is a framework that helps people question well rather than just question faster. Khalil and Sean welcome Dr. AJ Swoboda, Bible and theology professor at Bushnell University and author of "After Doubt: How to Question Your Faith Without Losing It," for one of the most substantive conversations on deconstruction in the Christian podcast space.

AJ draws a sharp distinction between healthy deconstruction, undoing bad theology in order to follow Jesus more faithfully, and dangerous deconstruction, dismantling faith to justify what you already want to believe. "The goal," he says, "isn't to run away from deconstruction nor to run toward it. The goal is Jesus Christ and nothing less." The episode also unpacks chronological snobbery (C.S. Lewis), the danger of replacing embodied community with social media theology, and why slow theology consistently produces better disciples than reaction-driven theology. This episode features AJ Swoboda discussing faith deconstruction, doubt, and how Christians can question their faith without losing it.

If you or someone you love is questioning their faith and you want a framework that takes the questions seriously without abandoning Jesus, this is the conversation for that.

Recommended Resources:
After Doubt: How to Question Your Faith Without Losing It by AJ Swoboda
Jesus Asked by Conrad Gempf

Related episodes: Confronting the Deconstruction Movement: What Is Actually Happening and How Faithful Communities Respond | 5 Reasons Young People Are Deconstructing Their Faith (And What the Church Can Do About It)

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

Are you looking to learn how to share your faith and evangelize like Jesus would? This is part two of a conversation about the heart and how of practicing the spiritual discipline of evangelism. Evangelism is a spiritual discipline because of the work and discipline it takes to do it diligently.

Show Notes:

The Essential Elements:

• Present the Gospel

- God Loves Us

- We are estranged from God

- Jesus' is God's Provision for Sin

- We are summoned to put our trust in Jesus

- Resource: What is the Gospel?

• Use Scripture

- What scripture verses capture the Gospel?

• Share Your Testimony and point to Christ

- God's love

- Your separation

- Christ's death

- Your trust

• Provide the Invitation

- Remember: this is not a sales pitch

• The Choice

- there's a decision to be made - but don't give up!

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Your faith feels solid in certain seasons and shaky in others. It holds under normal conditions and wobbles when life gets hard enough. And somewhere in the back of your mind is the uncomfortable question: what would it actually take to break it?

Sticky faith is not blind faith — it is faith that has been tested enough to become durable. The believers throughout Scripture whose faith held under pressure were not the ones who avoided doubt or hardship. They were the ones who engaged honestly with both.

This episode explores what makes faith stick — the roots, practices, and honest engagements with doubt and difficulty that produce a faith that holds under pressure rather than a faith that only works when things are going well. This episode teaches how to build a resilient, rooted faith that holds through hardship, doubt, and the ordinary erosion of everyday life, hosted by two pastors.

You will learn why shallow faith fails and what roots actually look like in practical terms. You will hear how to engage doubt productively rather than letting it quietly destabilize your belief. You will walk away with a framework for building a faith that is genuinely durable — not because nothing shakes you, but because what grounds you goes deep enough.

Faith that does not get tested does not get proven. If yours has been tested lately, this episode will give it somewhere to stand.

Related episodes:
What Is Faith Deconstruction? — EP 44
Feeling Like an Outcast? What the Bible's Story of Exile Says to Modern Believers — EP 75
Confronting the Deconstruction Movement — EP 58

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

Christmas comes and goes, and "Immanuel, God with us" gets attached to a song and a season. But what would it mean to actually live in the reality of that phrase every day — not as a theological doctrine but as a present, lived experience?

The incarnation of Jesus is the most radical statement in all of religious history: the Creator became a creature. The One who holds the universe together took on a body, walked on a road, got tired, and sat down with people who had no idea who he was. And the point was not just to die for sin. It was to be with us.

This episode explores the doctrine of Immanuel — God with us — and what it means not just as a statement about Christmas but as the defining reality of the believer's life: the God who became flesh is the God who still dwells. This episode teaches what the Incarnation of Jesus reveals about God's posture toward humanity, why "God with us" is not a seasonal thought but a daily truth, and how to live in the reality of God's presence, hosted by two pastors.

You will learn what Immanuel means theologically and why it is the hinge on which the entire Gospel turns. You will hear how to practice the presence of a God who has already drawn near. You will walk away with a richer sense of what it means that you are never actually alone.

God did not become flesh to visit and leave. He came to be with you — permanently, presently, indwellingly. This episode will make that more than a Sunday school answer.

Related episodes:
God Is Triune — EP 47
Imago Dei: What Does It Mean to Be Made in God's Image? — EP 50
Incarnational Living — EP 77

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

There are over three billion people on earth who have no meaningful access to the Gospel — not because they rejected it, but because no one has gone. They have not heard a bad presentation and walked away. They live in places where the church does not exist, where missionaries have not gone, where the name of Jesus has never been spoken. Most Western Christians will spend their entire lives without that fact ever becoming personal to them.

Micah MacDonald has made it personal. As a global missions mobilizer and author of "Everyone Everywhere," he lives and breathes the reality that 42% of the world remains unreached — and he is convinced the church has both the mandate and the means to change that. He joins Khalil, Sean, and Jeff to make the case that the Great Commission is not a specialty track for career missionaries. It is the defining commission of every follower of Jesus, and the question is not whether you are called to it but how. This episode teaches what it means to fight the good fight of global mission, why the Great Commission is every believer's calling, and how Christians can engage unreached peoples from wherever they are, hosted by two pastors and missions mobilizer Micah MacDonald.

You will learn why Romans 10:14-15 is one of the most logical and convicting passages in the New Testament — how can they believe if they have not heard, and how can they hear if no one is sent — and what your answer to that chain of questions actually reveals about your theology of mission. You will hear Micah explain the difference between unreached and unengaged peoples, and why the former is a crisis the church is aware of while the latter is one most Christians have never encountered. And you will walk away with one concrete next step: find out what percentage of your church's mission budget and prayer energy is going to places where the church does not yet exist — and let that number challenge you.

If mission has felt like something that happens somewhere else, this episode is an invitation to reconsider what somewhere else actually means. The 3.4 billion are not a statistic. They are people. And the faith that has already reached you was carried by someone who decided to go. This conversation may be the one that starts that decision for you.

Related episodes: Living Life on Mission: What Everyday Evangelism Actually Looks Like | Incarnational Living: How to Share Your Faith Without Being Pushy | How to Share Your Faith: The Practical Skills Most Christians Never Learn

Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.