In our country, the undeniable truth is that a mental health crisis is profoundly affecting youth and families. What if there was a more robust connection between youth ministry leaders and mental health professionals? Could this create a supportive environment for young people and those caring for them? Today, we welcome Reverend Amanda Rigby, the
We’re pleased to welcome Charlie Conder, Lead Coach for the Youth Cartel, an organization dedicated to encouraging and challenging adults who minister to youth through holistic professional coaching. Charlie led a large youth ministry; in fact, her middle school participants grew to be half the size of the entire church. She discusses the challenges she
Welcome to a brand new season of Transforming Engagement, the Podcast! This time, we’re diving deep into a topic that’s been a long time coming – Youth and Campus Ministry Burnout. We open this season with a special guest, Matt Wiggins, who sparked our journey into the world of youth and campus ministry burnout. It
Catch the final episode in this season of Transforming Engagement, the Podcast, where we’ve been considering Church After Mars Hill and using The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill as a case study. We’ve considered a number of aspects of that story: Patriarchy and mutuality. Whiteness and diversity. Violent imagery and peace making.
We’re joined this week by father-daughter team, Dr. Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer, co-authors of A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing. Their book was inspired by the events at Willow Creek Church, prompting them to explore toxic church cultures and the need for change. They
In this episode of “Church After Mars Hill,” host Joel Kiekintveld is joined by Dr. Chelle Stearns to focus on the intersection of art, expression, and theology within the modern Western church. Many churches invest heavily in elements like worship teams, video production, and visual presentations. However, this often lends itself to one-way communication,
In this episode, we explore a new perspective on church with Dr. Dwight Friesen, who asks us: “How do I start where I am? Wherever I am, how do I discover being church here?” Instead of viewing church as a megachurch attracting distant members, we shift our focus to being church in our own
As we continue to examine the case study that is Mars Hill Church, we’re asking a couple of questions in this conversation: First, how do we create faith communities that know what abuses of power look like and call those behaviors out? And second, how do we build environments that seek to be psychologically healthy for everyone?
Mars Hill Church pastor Mark Driscoll was known to portray Jesus as a warrior or an “ultimate fighter” in his teachings. He wasn’t the only one. In the Western church, our society’s obsession with violence and militarism has found its way into our theology in subtle – and not so subtle – ways. But
As we continue our conversation about “Church After Mars Hill,” host Joel Kiekintveld is joined by guest Dr. Ron Ruthruff, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at The Seattle School of Psychology and Theology. When examining the story of Mars Hill, there exists an underexplored theme of race and Whiteness. In his book “After Whiteness,”