Welcome to the Table

Few topics in the church divide as sharply as speaking in tongues. Most conversations about it produce one of two reactions: uncritical enthusiasm or nervous dismissal. This episode offers a third option: careful biblical theology applied with pastoral warmth.Khalil, Sean, and Jeff trace the gift of tongues through Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, and the arc of church history, addressing the most common misconceptions while giving listeners a framework for seeking more of the Holy Spirit without either manufacturing an experience or shutting down the genuine one. This is not a denominational argument. It is a biblical investigation conducted by three pastors who take Scripture seriously and have enough pastoral experience to know that this topic requires both doctrinal precision and relational gentleness. This episode explains the gift of tongues biblically, addressing cessationism, continuationism, and how Christians can seek the Holy Spirit without hype or dismissal.Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

The incarnation is not just a doctrine about Christmas. It is a pattern for mission. Jesus did not commute to earth. He moved in. He shared meals, touched lepers, showed up at weddings. The theological term for this pattern is incarnational living, and it is exactly what most Christians are not doing.Guest Lee Rogers, Director of Student Evangelism for the Assemblies of God, joins Khalil and the team to unpack what Spirit-empowered witness actually looks like in everyday life. The episode is grounded in a simple but radical conviction: small acts of obedience in the right direction produce real transformation over time. You do not have to engineer a gospel conversation. You have to be the kind of person who shows up consistently in love, trusts the Holy Spirit with the openings, and stays present long enough for the relationship to go somewhere. This is how you share your faith without being pushy: you stop trying to be a witness and start being a neighbor. This episode explains incarnational living and how Christians can share their faith naturally without being pushy or preachy.Related episodes: How to Be a Good Neighbor: The Forgotten Mission Field Right Outside Your Door | How to Share Your Faith: The Practical Skills Most Christians Never LearnTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

There is a growing number of Christians who feel like they do not belong anywhere. The culture does not want what they believe. And their church often does not know how to form them in the direction their faith is pointing. That feeling has a name in Scripture. It is exile.Khalil and the team explore the biblical theme of exile, from Israel's captivity in Babylon to Peter's description of believers as sojourners and exiles, and apply it as a framework for understanding the contemporary Christian experience. God is not surprised that his people feel like outsiders in the culture they are living in. That has always been the shape of the covenant community. The question is not how to make belonging in the surrounding culture more comfortable. The question is how to live faithfully and hopefully as a people whose belonging is rooted in God's eternal family. This episode gives believers a story they can actually live inside. This episode explores biblical exile, spiritual loneliness, and what the Bible's story of the Israelite exile teaches Christians who feel like outsiders in modern culture.Take the Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com

You are anxious — not just occasionally but as a default operating mode. You move fast, stay busy, scroll to decompress, and still feel unsettled underneath it all. And part of you knows the fix is not more information, a better evening routine, or one more productivity system. But you are not sure what it actually is.Forty percent of adults identify as anxious, and that number has not moved in years. Matt Harder has written a book and built a life around one question: what does it actually look like to settle your soul? Not to manage the anxiety, not to suppress it, but to address the root of it with something that holds. He joins Khalil, Sean, and Jeff to bring the framework from his book “A Settled Soul” to the table — five practices that anyone can build, and a posture toward Jesus that has nothing to do with having your life figured out. This episode teaches how to settle your soul using five biblical practices, addressing anxiety, digital consumption, and the patterns that keep believers perpetually unsettled, hosted by two pastors and author Matt Harder.You will learn why Jesus went from his baptism directly into the wilderness — and what Matthew 4 is actually teaching about the pattern of high moments followed by acute testing that most believers are never prepared for. You will hear Matt name social media as a feed — the same word as hunger — and why that framing exposes why scrolling never satisfies, because you were never hungry for what a screen can give you. And you will walk away with a clear picture: none of what the world offers is going to satisfy the kind of hunger that only living water can address, and the settled soul is the one who has stopped going to empty wells.If you have been managing your anxiety instead of addressing it, this episode will show you the difference. A settled soul is not a life without pressure. It is a life rooted in something the pressure cannot reach. This conversation starts that process.Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and Solitude | How Sabbath, Margin, and Stillness Prepare You for the Life God Has Ahead | The Spiritual Discipline of ReflectionTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

Your calendar is full. You know it. And somewhere in the back of your mind is the thought that God has more for you — but getting to it requires getting through everything already on the list. The problem is that list never gets shorter. And the question quietly forming underneath it is whether you are too busy for the future God actually has in mind.Sabbath is the only commandment most Christians brag about breaking. That is not a small thing. The same God who said do not murder also said remember the Sabbath and keep it holy — and somehow one became non-negotiable while the other became a personality trait. Cheree Dale joins Khalil, Sean, and Jeff to ask a question most believers never sit with long enough to answer: what am I doing right now to prepare for what God has for me in the future? The answer almost always involves margin — and margin is something you will not stumble into. It has to be chosen, protected, and defended. This episode explores how Sabbath, margin, and stillness prepare you for the life God has ahead — and why busyness is not just a scheduling problem but a spiritual one, hosted by two pastors and a ministry leader.You will learn why Kevin DeYoung’s picture of Sabbath as an island of get to in a sea of have to may be the most clarifying reframe of rest you have encountered — and why the busyness you have normalized is almost always a symptom of pride and control rather than necessity. You will hear Cheree unpack the Mary and Martha story not as a lesson about sitting still but as a diagnosis of what happens when the urgent crowds out the necessary — and why Jesus names it directly. And you will walk away with a practical exercise: map your calendar as a story and ask honestly whether it reflects a person who trusts God with their future or one who is trying to manufacture it on their own.If you have been waiting for the right moment to slow down and seek God before taking the next step, this episode is telling you that the waiting is the step. Margin is not laziness. Stillness is not wasted time. It is where God does the preparing work that your activity keeps interrupting. This conversation is worth clearing your schedule for.Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and Solitude | How to Practice Sabbath the Right Way (It Is Not Just a Day Off) | The Spiritual Discipline of ReflectionTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

At some point you made a decision. You said yes to Jesus. What you may not have been told is that discipleship is not the moment of yes — it is a lifetime of it. And the deeper question is not whether you are willing to follow Jesus, but whether you are willing to keep following when following gets costly and the destination is still unclear.Lori Warning has spent decades in full-time ministry, most recently as the National Director of AG Girls Ministries, and she is stepping into the next chapter: moving to Cameroon as a full-time missionary. She has seen what it looks like when discipleship produces the real thing — including watching a child she poured into as a kids pastor grow up to become a kids pastor himself. She joins Khalil, Sean, and Jeff to talk about what lifelong discipleship actually requires, why dependency on God is the key word nobody teaches, and what open-handed ministry has cost her and given her over a lifetime. This episode explores what lifelong discipleship looks like, how to give God an open-handed yes, and why abiding in Christ through John 15 is the only foundation for fruitful, sustainable ministry, hosted by two pastors and a missionary.You will learn why dependency is not weakness — it is the entire operating principle of discipleship, because a branch that tries to produce fruit without the vine is not noble, it is dead — and why the church keeps producing striving disciples instead of abiding ones. You will hear Lori describe what it looked like to meet people who had literally never heard the name of Jesus, and what that moment does to any comfortable understanding of calling and comfort. And you will walk away with one challenge: give God your yes before you know what you are saying yes to — and then watch what he does with it.If discipleship has felt like a program you attend rather than a life you inhabit, this episode will reframe the whole thing. It is not about how much Bible you have read or how many services you have attended. It is about how completely you are willing to depend on Jesus and how open your hands are to wherever that takes you. Lori’s story is proof that open-handed faithfulness produces fruit you could not have manufactured on your own.Related episodes: Living Life on Mission: What Everyday Evangelism Actually Looks Like | Incarnational Living: How to Share Your Faith Without Being Pushy | The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and SolitudeTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You know you are supposed to have joy. The New Testament commands it more than almost any other emotional state. But most of us treat joy the same way we treat the weather — something that happens to us, not something we have any say over. When it is present, we are grateful. When it is not, we wait for it to come back. Nobody told us we are supposed to choose it.Philippians 4:8 is not a suggestion for feeling better — it is an instruction for where to direct your attention. And Psalm 37:4's command to delight yourself in the Lord is not a passive invitation to sit back and enjoy God — it is an active discipline that requires practice, intention, and a willingness to fight for it. Jeff Gowing joins Khalil and Sean to make the case that joy is a responsibility, not a reward — something a believer can take ownership of beginning today, with a set of practices that interrupt the drift toward anxiety and reorient the attention toward what is actually true. This episode teaches how to choose joy as a spiritual practice, why joy is a Christian's responsibility, and how morning praise, biblical meditation, and awe reorient the heart toward God, hosted by two pastors and a ministry leader.You will learn why awe and worry cannot coexist — and what it practically looks like to cultivate awe in a season where you feel far from it and the circumstances are not cooperating. You will hear Jeff's practice of beginning each day by lying on the floor before God — not as a spiritual performance, but as a posture that names who is actually in charge before the demands of the day make you forget. And you will walk away with a daily rhythm you can begin tomorrow: five minutes before the noise starts, directing your attention toward who God is rather than what your day requires.If joy has felt like a distant option instead of a daily reality, this episode will reframe the whole thing. Joy is not a feeling you wait for. It is a direction you choose. And the believer who learns to choose it — morning after morning, season after season — is the one who ends up with a life that looks remarkably different from the anxious default most people are living.Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Reflection | The Spiritual Discipline of Biblical Meditation | The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and SolitudeTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

If you have watched someone you love walk away from the faith, you have probably asked why. Not the easy answer — doubt, or a bad experience — but the deeper one. Something about the version of Christianity they encountered did not hold. This episode is willing to name what that something often is, even when the church would rather look the other way.This is Part 2 of Khalil and Sean's breakdown of Carey Nieuwhof's landmark article on why young people are deconstructing — and Reasons 3 through 5 are the ones most churches are least willing to examine. Reason 3: the church has accidentally produced high-performing Christians whose spiritual identity is built on output, visibility, and approval — and when they burn out, there is nothing underneath. Reason 4: many Christian communities have confused conformity with unity, building tight theological tribes where questions feel like threats. Reason 5: political idolatry in the church has turned Jesus into a mascot for a party rather than the Lord of every nation. This episode explores how burnout, conformity culture, and political idolatry drive young Christians away from the faith — and what a biblical, pastoral response to deconstruction actually looks like, hosted by two pastors.You will learn why there is no such thing as a high-performing Christian — because performance was accomplished by Jesus Christ — and why a faith built on performance is a faith that cannot survive a season where you cannot perform. You will hear the critical distinction between uniformity and unity, and why a church that expects everyone to think alike is not a community, it is a tribe — and tribes are fragile in exactly the moments community is most needed. And you will walk away with nine practical steps for anyone in the deconstruction process — not as a formula, but as a map for someone who needs to know there is a path forward through the hard questions.If you or someone you love is in the middle of deconstruction right now, this episode will not tell you the questions do not matter. It will take them seriously — and then point toward a God who is not threatened by them. The faith that survives hard questions is stronger, not weaker. This episode helps build that kind of faith.Related episodes: What Is Faith Deconstruction? | Confronting the Deconstruction Movement | 5 Reasons Young People Are Deconstructing Their Faith, Part 1Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You have ended friendships and felt guilty about it for years. You have stayed in relationships that slowly drained you because you did not know how to let them wind down without feeling like a bad person. Nobody told you that not every relationship is meant to go the same depth — and that protecting that boundary is not selfish. It is discernment.Will Caesar is back at the table, and this time the conversation is about one of the most practically important subjects any believer faces: how to navigate community well. The hinge point is John 15:15 — Jesus made a distinction between servants and friends, and the difference was not affection. It was access. The same principle holds for every relationship in your life: intimacy is earned, access is graduated, and the person who gives everyone the same level of entry into their life has no real inner circle. This episode explains how to build healthy Christian relationships, discern whether your relationships are for a reason or a season, and why setting relational limits is biblical and not selfish, hosted by two pastors and a ministry leader.You will learn why conflict is not the end of a relationship — it is either where a relationship deepens into something real or where it reveals it was never meant to go further — and why avoiding conflict is often just delayed relational death. You will hear Will and Khalil unpack how Jesus modeled graduated intimacy, how to identify which relationships in your life are forming you and which ones are pulling you away from who God is making you, and why pride is the number one barrier keeping most Christians from building community that actually works. And you will walk away with a practical filter: not everyone gets total access to your life — and the question is not whether to have an inner circle, but whether you are building one with intentionality.If your community has felt more draining than forming lately, this episode names what is likely happening. Not every relationship is a mistake to release. Some are gifts for a season. Some are gifts for a reason. Knowing the difference is one of the most underrated formation skills a believer can develop.Related episodes: Reclaiming Pentecostalism: What the Holy Spirit Actually Does — with Will CaesarTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You are moving so fast through life that you rarely stop to learn from it. The week ends, a new one begins, and whatever God was trying to do in the middle of it gets buried under the next task and the next commitment. The truth is, you are not too busy to reflect. You might be afraid of what will surface when you do.Reflection is one of the most under-taught spiritual disciplines in the church — and one of the most transformative. It is a deliberate, intentional pause to look backward, to learn from your experiences, and to create the space where God can bring healing to what you have been too busy to face. Khalil and Sean show you why avoiding stillness is actually an act of distrust in God, and why the person who cannot reflect is the person who is missing God's deepest formative work. This episode teaches the spiritual discipline of reflection — what it is, why reflection is remembrance, and five questions that will change how you end every day, hosted by two pastors.You will learn why God often wants to bring things to the surface not to condemn you but to heal you — and why staying busy is one of the most effective ways to resist his work in your life. You will hear Khalil walk through five reflection questions every Christian should be asking, from "What good has God done for me this week?" to "What is God trying to teach me in my current situation?" — each one designed to move you toward gratitude, confession, and Christlikeness. And you will walk away with a simple rhythm you can start this week: when to do it, how long it takes, and how to move from fear of stillness to freedom in it.If you have felt distant from God lately and cannot explain why, this episode may be pointing directly at the reason. Reflection is the discipline that ties every other practice together — it is how you learn, how you grow, and how you keep your heart open to the renewing work God is always doing. Start here.Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Biblical Meditation | The Spiritual Discipline of Journaling | The Spiritual Discipline of Silence and SolitudeTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

Something shifted when ChatGPT arrived. Not just in the tech industry — in the church, in discipleship, and in the quiet assumptions about what a pastor, mentor, or teacher is actually for. If an AI can answer every theological question, summarize every book, and generate a sermon in thirty seconds, what exactly is the human still needed for?The question is not whether AI is useful — it clearly is. The question is what it cannot do, and whether the church understands what that means. Khalil, Sean, and Jeff Gowing explore what AI can deliver — information, pattern recognition, content synthesis — and what it cannot deliver, which is wisdom, relationship, and the formation that only happens in community. The distinction between information, knowledge, and wisdom is not a philosophical nicety. It is the load-bearing beam of any discipleship strategy, and AI changes where that weight can actually be supported. This episode explores what AI and ChatGPT mean for the church, discipleship, and Christian formation — and why human mentorship, community, and character development cannot be replaced by technology, hosted by two pastors.You will learn why critical thinking is not a skill AI can teach you — it is a practice you develop by wrestling with ideas in relationship, and that wrestling cannot be outsourced to a chatbot no matter how good the output is. You will hear the case for why discipleship has always been and will always be a relational and communal project — and why any strategy that replaces embodied mentorship with information delivery, whether a book, a course, or an AI, is missing the thing that actually changes people. And you will walk away with a clear posture: use the tools, but never confuse the tools for the thing they cannot be.If AI has started to feel like a shortcut to spiritual growth — if you have used it to answer questions you should have sat with longer, or replaced slow formation with fast information — this episode names that drift for what it is. The church's advantage in a world flooded with AI is not better information. It is embodied community, lived mentorship, and the kind of transformation that only happens when people do life together. That is still irreplaceable.Related episodes: The Spiritual Discipline of Study | The Spiritual Discipline of JournalingTake the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.

You have been trying to change your behavior. You know what you should do and you keep not doing it. What you do not always see is that your behavior is the output of your loves — what you desire at the deepest level — and until those are addressed, behavioral change stays temporary.James K. A. Smith's insight, drawn from Augustine, is simple and devastating: you are not primarily a thinking thing or a believing thing. You are a loving thing. Your daily habits and routines are forming what you love, and what you love is forming who you are. The question is whether you are being formed intentionally or by default.This episode draws on the framework of "you are what you love" to diagnose why discipleship focused only on information and behavior fails — and what a formation approach looks like that actually aims at the loves, desires, and deep structure of the heart. This episode explains why your loves are the most important thing about your spiritual life, how cultural liturgies are forming your desires without your consent, and what to do about it, hosted by two pastors.You will learn why behavior change without heart change never sticks. You will hear how to identify the cultural liturgies that are quietly forming your loves away from God. You will walk away with a formation framework that aims at what actually needs to change: the desire beneath the decision.You will become what you repeatedly do, think, and love. This episode will help you diagnose what you are actually becoming — and decide if it is who you want to be.Related episodes:Imago Dei: What Does It Mean to Be Made in God's Image? — EP 50How to Live a Holy Life When Culture Makes Holiness Countercultural — EP 76Idols, Abiding, and Contentment — EP 58Take the free Spiritual Health Assessment at growgodly.com/health-check.