Episode #6: Life Update, A Book Recommendation, and Textual Criticism

Episode #6: Life Update, A Book Recommendation, and Textual Criticism

In this episode, I talk about a season of major transition in my life, losing my job unexpectedly and looking for new work. I share some of the small but meaningful changes I’ve been making, like cutting back on caffeine, baking bread for my kids, and trying to model a life of responsibility and compassion by serving people in our local homeless community. I also reflect on the importance of emotional growth and the role counseling has played in helping me face challenges with honesty and resilience. Along the way, I briefly unpack how the Bible came to us through real people, scribes, eyewitnesses, and communities who faithfully preserved these stories, and how understanding that process can actually deepen our trust in Scripture. Ultimately, this episode is about learning to see hardship as a kind of wilderness journey, a place where gratitude, faith, and a clearer sense of identity can begin to take root.

Episode #5: Pt. 2 Holding Space - The Real Questions Teens Are Carrying

In this second part, I explore the hidden weight teens carry every day—questions about God, family fracture, the future, identity, stress, media, and substances. Drawing from pediatric and mental-health research alongside lived pastoral experience, the episode names doubts without shaming them and acknowledges brokenness without idealizing quick fixes. Rather than trying to “solve” teenagers, this conversation focuses on presence, honesty, and trust—how faith, family, and community can become places of safety instead of pressure. At its heart, this episode is about learning to listen well, so teens know they are seen, valued, and not alone.

Episode #4: Holding Space - The Real Questions Teens Are Carrying

In this episode, I walk through some of the most common, and most misunderstood, issues teenagers are navigating today. My goal isn’t to shame. It’s to foster curiosity, compassion, and hospitality. So often faith leaders present themselves as bouncers keeping people at a distance with their postured position of hostility…instead I want to be a good table guest with good table manners recognizing we all have a seat at the table of the Lord.  What follows is not a list of abstract talking points. These are real pressures, real fears, real questions, carried quietly by teens in classrooms, hallways, youth groups, churches and homes. I never want to get better at posturing myself with the following mindset of, “you’re wrong and you need to change,” rather, I want to get better at listening to what others are going through. This is an honest look at what teens are facing, and how adults, parents, educators, and faith communities can respond with wisdom, humility, and care.

Episode #3: Paradise Is Pulling: Desire and the Shape of Scripture

In this episode of Reticent Theology, I begin by sharing a song called “Paradise,” which I wrote for a student while on a mission trip. The song wrestles with a tension I think all of us feel, the deep longing for paradise and the quieter truth that so often the thing standing in the way is our own desires. Drawing from the book of James, I reflect on how those desires pull us in different directions, yet how God’s desire for us is unwavering. Even in the push and pull, God still has my back. From there, I read Emily Dickinson’s poem, “This is my letter to the world that never wrote to me,” and reflect on how art, nature, and Scripture speak forward in time, offering truth, beauty, and meaning to people they may never meet. They wait patiently for someone to notice, to listen, and to receive what’s been given. The episode then turns toward my early years of teaching the Gospel, years that were far more chaotic and unstructured than I’d like to admit. I reflect on how difficult those early lesson plans were before I learned how to teach with intention. One formative exercise involved having students compare the birth narratives in Matthew 1–2 and Luke 2 using a Venn diagram. The goal wasn’t to smooth over differences, but to help students see how the accounts are complementary rather than contradictory. Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses and King of Israel, written for a Jewish audience, while Luke tells the story of Jesus as Savior of the whole world, with particular attention to the marginalized. At the heart of it all, this episode is about learning how to read Scripture patiently, paying attention to context, audience, and purpose, before rushing to conclusions. It’s about slowing down long enough to let the text speak, and then having an honest conversation with God about what we’ve heard.

Episode #2: The Three Beginnings: Kindness and Words, Presence and Perception, and Bias and Bible Study

In this episode I focus on how to build a positive class culture through relationship. The first day, "Kindness and Words," emphasized the power of words (Proverbs 16:24; 18:21) to either bless others, who are made in the likeness of God, or to tear them down. This lesson was vividly illustrated by asking students if they are "barfing up" curses or "sweet things" (like honey/insect barf) onto others. Day two, "Presence and Perception," addressed the public health crisis of the epidemic of loneliness and isolation, arguing that intentional relationships are a "source of healing and well-being". I share a story about two travelers to illustrate that a person's expectations and perceptions dictate their experience of community. The final theme, "Bias and Bible Study," urged students to shed personal bias when reading scripture, noting through the "brainstorm or green needle" exercise that "you hear what you already think," so they could allow the Bible's ancient worldview to build its own understanding. Ultimately, the goal was to establish these three pillars, kind words, the experience of community, and setting aside bias, as the foundational expectations for the year.