Fifteen&: A Podcast Experience

S13 E8 [Heaven Now] Part 8: Gentleness

In this episode of the Heaven Now series, Chris walks through one of the most uncomfortable leadership case studies in Scripture — King David’s silence after Tamar’s violation, and the hidden-agenda coup that silence produced in Absalom. Drawing on 2 Samuel 13–15 and Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the well (John 4), Chris unpacks the identity fear of vulnerability — how it shows up as proving or hiding — and how the fruit of the Spirit of gentleness (and its Beatitude counterpart, “Blessed are the meek” from Matthew 5:5) is not weakness but power under direction. A practical teaching for any leader who knows they’ve been avoiding a conversation they can no longer afford to skip. WEEKLY REFLECTION: 1. Who in your life has never actually met the real you because the version they know is the one you let them see? 2. Is your energy in relationships really a way to avoid being known? 3. Who is the person in your life right now who needs the direct conversation you have been avoiding? Thank you for listening. You can support 15& by visiting fifteenand.org [https://fifteenand.org/].

S13 E7 [Heaven Now] Part 7: Faithfulness

In Part 7 of Heaven Now, Chris traces the arc of Nicodemus — from a nighttime visit driven by fear, to a public act of burial loyalty before the resurrection. The fear of a bad outcome leads leaders to control every variable or avoid real commitment. The answer is faithfulness — the same Greek word (pistis) Paul uses for faith — a covenant loyalty that holds across time, especially when things go wrong. Grounded in Habakkuk 2:4 and 3:17–18, John 3 and 19, Galatians 5:22, and Matthew 5:10, this teaching calls leaders to move with the Spirit rather than manage the outcome. WEEKLY REFLECTION: 1. Where in your life right now are you trying to control the outcome? Where are you trying to disappear from it? 2. What is the next faithful thing in front of you that you keep putting off until you can see how it ends? 3. Who or what are you not willing to be publicly associated with right now because the outcome looks uncertain or is going badly? Thank you for listening. You can support 15& by visiting fifteenand.org [https://fifteenand.org/].

S13 E6 [Heaven Now] Part 6: Goodness

In this teaching from the Heaven Now series, the fear of being a bad person gets traced back to its root: trying to get your goodness from moral categories instead of from God. Using Paul's story — from Saul the coat-holder at Stephen's stoning to the apostle who writes Romans 14 — this episode explores how identity shifts when you stop earning your goodness and start receiving it. Anchored in Romans 14, Acts 9, and Genesis 1, it asks: what becomes possible in your leadership and relationships when you're no longer policing yourself or others? WEEKLY REFLECTION: 1. Where are you currently running Fear 6's proving play (High-Horse Critic, verdict-rendering, KEEP OFF THE GRASS!)? Where are you running the hiding play (paralysis, cannot move because any move might be the wrong one)? 2. What is the category you are currently weaponizing against a brother or sister? What would it look like, concretely, to keep the conviction in your own conscience while letting the relationship stay of primary importance? (Romans 14) 3. Where in your life this week are you trying to manufacture goodness you have not received? "I cannot give the mercy I have not received."  Thank you for listening. You can support 15& by visiting fifteenand.org [https://fifteenand.org/].

S13 E5 [Heaven Now] Part 5: Kindness

In this episode of the Heaven Now series, Chris walks through the fruit of the Spirit of kindness and the identity fear that makes it hardest to access: the fear of poor performance. Using Solomon — the builder of the temple, the writer of Proverbs, and the author of Ecclesiastes — as the central biblical anchor, Chris traces how a divided heart turns a gift for achievement into a burden no scoreboard can satisfy. The prodigal son’s father provides the counterimage: the kindness that runs before the speech is finished, the yoke that fits rather than chafes. Rooted in the Beatitude “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” this teaching calls leaders out of split motives and into the undivided life that actually transforms people. WEEKLY REFLECTION: 1. Where are you currently running Fear 5's Achievement Addict play (identity equals output, people as variables) convincing yourself more accomplishment means more worth? 2. Where in your life are you split — two motives running in parallel, one named and one hidden?  * Pick one area this week — one meeting, one relationship, one hour — where you will cut the second motive and show up undivided.  * What are you afraid will happen if you do? 3. Where in your life this week are you trying to produce kindness you have not received? What would it look like, concretely, to let the Father run the field toward you tomorrow morning before the scoreboard does? Thank you for listening. You can support 15& by visiting fifteenand.org [https://fifteenand.org/].

S13 E4 [Heaven Now] Part 4: Patience

Heaven isn’t a future promise we’re waiting on, it’s something we can experience now. In this episode, we look at Moses and the fear of inadequacy: the wiring that drives us to either prove ourselves through competency or hide from anything we might not be great at. Trained in Pharaoh’s house, Moses tried to be the deliverer on his own terms and spent forty years in the wilderness being unmade. Years later, told by God to speak to the rock (Numbers 20), his impatience drove him to strike it instead. Through the lens of the Fruit of the Spirit (patience — makrothymia) and the Beatitudes (“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”), this teaching invites you to let it hurt before you solve it, receive before you give, and speak to the rock instead of striking it. Because patience isn’t produced by trying harder — it’s the fruit of a life first filled by God. 1. Where are you currently running the impatience proving play (all competence, all analysis), and where are you running the hiding play (avoiding the new thing because you might not be good at it)? 2. What is the "past-proven method" you are currently reaching for when the present moment is actually asking for something different? What would "speaking to the rock" look like instead? (Numbers 20) 3. "I can't give patience I haven't received." Where in your life this week are you trying to produce patience you have not received?  Thank you for listening. You can support 15& by visiting fifteenand.org [https://fifteenand.org/].