IF:Gathering 2016 just ended and I thought I’d compile a list of those who spoke at the gather and have also been interviewed on Seminary Dropout. Click a name to be directed to the interview.
Seminary Dropout 110: Lauren Chandler, talking Cancer, Life’s Anchor, and Steadfast Love
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Lauren Chandler is a wife and mother of three. Her husband, Matt Chandler, serves as the lead teaching pastor at The Village Church in Dallas, Texas. Lauren is passionate about writing, music and leading worship, not only at The Village Church, but also for groups across the country. The Lord has taken Matt and Lauren on a challenging journey, beginning with the November 2009 discovery of a malignant brain tumor in Matt. The Lord has been infinitely merciful to provide peace and comfort in uncertainty, and joy in times of victory and healing. Lauren and her family have been given a deeper trust in clinging to the Lord and his cross during this appointed season of valleys and storms.
There are times when worship overflows easily and effortlessly from a heart full of gratitude and praise. Yet, there are other times when God seems far and we feel we have nothing left to offer. We are tired, or thirsty, or imprisoned in our own chains through our own devices, or caught in the waves of a tumultuous sea. This is when God shows us His steadfast love.
He wraps His eternally powerful, ultimately creative, nail-scarred hands around our hearts and squeezes with appropriate might—yielding an honest plea for Him to save us and deliver us from our circumstances, fears, and self control. And He does. He initiates with His steadfast love, and responds with the same.
Walk with Lauren as she shares what she has learned of the steadfast love of the Lord. -From the Publisher
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Seminary Dropout 93: Jennie Allen of the IF:Gathering
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Seminary Dropout 109: Alli Worthington Gives Practical Steps to Break Busy
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Alli Worthington is an author, speaker, blogger, and the Executive Director of Propel Women. Her goal is to help women live the life they were created to live. Alli co-founded BlissDom Events and has helped individuals, small business owners and Fortune 500 companies be more successful. Alli’s no-nonsense, guilt-free take on motherhood, parenting and balance has led to appearances on The Today Show and Good Morning America. She lives outside Nashville with her husband, Mark, their five sons, rescued dog and cat who moved onto their doorstep. You can connect with Alli at AlliWorthington.com
Have you ever felt like a fraud or failure as you struggle to find balance in life? Do you find yourself juggling everything in mediocrity and feeling like you’re succeeding at very little? In her no-nonsense way, Alli Worthington tackles the big questions about finding happiness and one’s God-given purpose.
Breaking Busy marries popular secular research with solid biblical principles, instilling confidence that you, too, can move from crazy busy to confident calm. With refreshing candor, uproarious true stories, and a Christian worldview, Alli delivers truths that dismantle common happiness myths. Then she empowers you to get unstuck, to let go of the good to make way for the great, to know yourself and your Creator, and ultimately to find peace and purpose in this world of crazy.
You will:
- Learn how to stop chasing what leaves you empty and start doing what you were created to do.
- Identify the common lies you believe and how to strip their power from your life.
- Recognize how what you say no to determines what you can say yes to.
With relatable anecdotes, Alli models real-life guidance on boundaries, relationships, and self-care, humbly examining her own mistakes and walking through how she learned from her missteps and found peace in a world of busyness.
If you long to find real connection with both your loved ones and your Creator, Alli Worthington deftly balances intelligent humility and heartwarming humor to help you rediscover your path. -From the Publisher
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Seminary Dropout 107: Deidra Riggs on Women of Color Writers, The Church, and More!
...Guest Hosted by Grace Sandra
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Deidra Riggs is an influential blogger at her own blog, JumpingTandem, as well as DaySpring’s (in)courage and TheHighCalling.org, for which she is managing editor. She has been a speaker for TEDx and has organized her own women’s retreat, hosting speakers like Lisa-Jo Baker, Holley Gerth, and many more. She and her husband have two adult children and live in Lincoln, Nebraska. Learn more at deidrariggs.com
Everyone has had that moment–we see a need in our church, our school, our neighborhood, our family, or our world and we think, Someone really should get to work on that, never imagining that we might be the answer to that need. We don’t have the time, the expertise, the money. We’ve got careers to manage, bills to pay, meals to prepare, and families to attend to. Besides, who are we to think we can change the world?
In this encouraging and empowering book, Deidra Riggs calls readers to accept God’s invitation to join him in making a difference right where they are, regardless of their current life stage. She shows readers that they were created with a purpose and with the capacities to fulfill that purpose. And she reminds them that it’s not up to us to fix the world, but it is up to us to join God–and the rest of his people–in his redemptive work. For when God calls and we look over our shoulder and answer, “Who, me?” God always emphatically answers, “Yes, you.” – From the Publisher
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Seminary Dropout 106: Patricia Raybon & Alana Raybon
...Guest Hosted by Grace Sandra
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This is the second episode guest hosted by Grace Sandra. 
Patricia Raybon is the award-winning author of I Told the Mountain to Move, a 2006 Book of the Year finalist in Christianity Today magazine’s annual book awards competition; and My First White Friend, her racial forgiveness memoir that won the Christopher Award. She is also author of the One Year® devotional, God’s Great Blessings. A journalist by training, Patricia has written essays on family and faith, which have been published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine,Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, USA Weekend, and In Touch of In Touch Ministries; and aired on National Public Radio. She is also a regular contributor to Today’s Christian Woman online magazine.
With degrees in journalism from Ohio State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, Patricia worked a dozen years as a newspaper journalist for the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. She later joined the journalism faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where for fifteen years she taught print journalism. Patricia now writes full-time on “mountain-moving faith.”
Patricia and her husband, Dan, are longtime residents of Colorado and have two grown daughters and five grandchildren. Founder of the Writing Ministry at her Denver church, Patricia coaches and encourages aspiring authors around the country and is a member of the Colorado Authors League and the Authors Guild.
Alana Raybon is a seasoned elementary- and middle-school educator. During the past ten years, she has served as a third-to-seventh-grade lead teacher to a diverse population in Texas and more recently in Tennessee. She has been a mentor to new and student teachers, an advisor to a school’s accreditation process, a tutor, and a member of various school-related committees. Alana and her husband parent their three young children and a teenage stepson. She was featured with her mother in a May 2011 Mother’s Day reflection in Glamour magazine.
“Mom, I have something I need to tell you…”
They didn’t talk. Not for ten years. Not about faith anyway. Instead, a mother and daughter tiptoed with pain around the deepest gulf in their lives – the daughter’s choice to leave the church, convert to Islam and become a practicing Muslim. Undivided is a real-time story of healing and understanding with alternating narratives from each as they struggle to learn how to love each other in a whole new way.
Written with rare honesty and striking transparency, Undivided opens a door on the lives of an American Islamic convert, Alana Raybon, a dedicated educator, and her devout Christian mother, Patricia Raybon, an award-winning author, as they struggle to reconcile and heal their family divided by faith.
An important work for parents whose adult children have left the family’s belief system, it will help those same children as they wrestle to better understand their parents.
For anyone troubled by the broader tensions between Islam and the West, this personal story distills this friction into the context of a family relationship–a journey all the more fascinating. While a conversation is desperately needed in America between Christians and Muslims, Undivided offers a real-time conversation to follow.
Undivided is a tremendously important book for our time. Will Patricia be able to fully trust in the Christ who “holds all things together?”
Will Alana’s love for God cause her to become an outcast to her family–or provide a path that leads her back home? And can they answer the question that both want desperately to experience: “Can we make our torn family whole again?” -From the Publisher
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Seminary Dropout 61: Carl Medearis on Israel, Isis and Tea with Hezbollah
Seminary Dropout 71: Natasha Sistrunk Robinson on Jesus, Leadership, and Race
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Best of Seminary Dropout: Grace Sandra
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Back in 2013 I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing writer, blogger, and speaker Grace Sandra.
In the interview we talk about the concept of privilege and racial reconciliation in light of the Gospel. Look to hear more from Grace on Seminary Dropout soon!
Mentioned on the podcast:
Grace’s Blog:
gracesandra.com
Books:
More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel
Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World
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Seminary Dropout 98: Efrem Smith of World Impact Talks About A Diverse Church and #BLACKLIVESMATTER
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Seminary Dropout 104: Sarah Bessey On Her New Book ‘Out of Sorts’
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Sarah Bessey is the author of Jesus Feminist, an award-winning blogger at SarahBessey.com, and a passionate advocate for global women’s issues. She partners with the Help One Now ministry in Haiti and lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, Brian, and their three four children.
In Out of Sorts, Sarah Bessey—award-winning blogger and author of Jesus Feminist, which was hailed as “lucid, compelling, and beautifully written” (Frank Viola, author of God’s Favorite Place on Earth)—helps us grapple with core Christian issues using a mixture of beautiful storytelling and biblical teaching, a style well described as “narrative theology.”
As she candidly shares her wrestlings with core issues—such as who Jesus is, what place the Church has in our lives, how to disagree yet remain within a community, and how to love the Bible for what it is rather than what we want it to be—she teaches us how to walk courageously through our own tough questions.
In the process of gently helping us sort things out, Bessey teaches us how to be as comfortable with uncertainty as we are with solid answers. And as we learn to hold questions in one hand and answers in the other, we discover new depths of faith that will remain secure even through the storms of life. -From the Publisher
Discussed in the interview…
… Sarah’s early faith.
…what Sarah learned about community from being out of sorts.
…how being out of sorts affects the way she’ll teach her kids about Jesus and Christianity.
…first naivete, the desert, and the second naivete.
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Best of Seminary Dropout: Shane Claiborne
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I was honored to talk to Shane Claiborne in 2013. We talked about the book he had just co-written with previous SD guest Tony Campolo, Red Letter Revolution.
Discussed in the interview:
- What if Jesus meant the stuff he said?
- Christians aren’t known for the fruits of the spirit.
- Bad theology gets people killed.
- Beginning with a posture of humility.
- Our obsession with safety.
- Selling what we have and giving it to the poor.
- War & violence.
Be sure to pick up Red Letter Revolution wherever books are sold. You can also find out more about Shane at thesimpleway.org.
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Seminary Dropout 98: Efrem Smith of World Impact Talks About A Diverse Church and #BLACKLIVESMATTER
Seminary Dropout 72: Scot McKnight, Author of Kingdom Conspiracy
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It’s Not Politics, It’s Jesus
I posted this on my personal facebook profile this morning and was surprised how many people connected with it so I thought I’d share it here.
I think some people believe that when I talk about racism, injustice, and the poor, that I’ve drank some liberal kool-aid. I assure you I’m not interested in progressive politics nor do I think hope is found there. Following the popcorn trail of Jesus is the only reason I’ve arrived at any convictions about those issues. It’s not a wandering from Jesus, it’s trying to take him seriously and believing that he meant the things he said. So if someone anti fungal disagrees then they should argue as a conservative or an American but if your arguing as a Christian, make sure you have a leg to stand on first. I’m certainly fallible and not above correction but in the past when I’m rebuked for speaking up it’s often with vague Republican talking points and long held American assumptions that don’t have much to do with Jesus, but are presented as somehow “Christian”.
Also, I assure you that when I speak on other subjects many believe I’ve drank the conservative kool-aid and the same thing happens from the other side. Jesus doesn’t fit inside our party lines.
Seminary Dropout 103: Jefferson Bethke of Youtube Fame & Author of ‘It’s Not What You Think’
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You probably know Jefferson Bethke from his internet-exploding Youtube video ‘Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus’.
You probably don’t know that Jefferson was born in Tacoma, WA, played baseball in college, and co-owns a company called Claro Candles that gives profits to different areas of injustice around the world. He’s also an author.
It’s Not What You Think: Why Christianity Is About So Much More Than Going to Heaven When You Die
Jesus was most upset at people for seeing but not seeing. For missing it. For succumbing to the danger and idolatry of forcing God into preconceived ideals. What if there were a better way? What if Jesus came not to help people escape the world but rather to restore it? Best-selling author and spoken word artist Jefferson Bethke says that “Christians have the greatest story ever told but we aren’t telling it.” So in this new book, Bethke tells that story anew, presenting God’s truths from the Old and the New Testaments as the challenging and compelling story that it is—a grand narrative with God at the center. And in doing so, Bethke reminds readers of the life-changing message of Jesus that turned the world upside-down, a world that God is putting back together. – From the Publisher
Some things discussed in the show…
…growing up with a single mother.
…getting into spoken word.
… Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus getting 1.6 million views in the first 24 hours and 16 million in 2 weeks.
…how the video was widely received as a positive thing, but anything something grabs the people’s attention on that level there will be a rush of very conservative and very progressive bloggers and personalities telling us all how they’re smart enough to see that there’s actually something wrong with that thing.
…the common thread in Jefferson’s work.
…one of the great quotes in the book:
“…at what point is a religion only wrong in a few areas but still the same belief system, and at what point is a religion so unrecognizable to it’s founders they’d call it a different religion entirely? Have we reached that point in western Christianity?”
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Seminary Dropout 97: Jon Foreman on His Solo work, Switchfoot, and Fatherhood
Seminary Dropout 81: Scott Sauls, Author of ‘Jesus Outside the Lines’
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