Vertebrae

I don’t need to set this up at all… you know — sometimes when you’re doing some sort of sales, and you want to make a point, or propose some sort of solution to people’s felt needs, you first must articulate the problem we’re all facing… So if you’re a door-to-door vacuum salesman, you have to talk about how dirty floors ruin your day. Or how heavy other vacuums are. You have to remind people of the problem so that your solution FEELS more revelatory. If you paint a compelling picture of how bad a problem is, and then pitch your product, you’ll likely make some sales.    Same thing with public speaking. If you have a point to make, you need to set it up with all the failed solutions we’ve tried thus far… You need to shine a spotlight on how ugly things are, so that you can propose a beautiful alternative and people will lean into it. It’s why old-school preachers used to talk about Hell so much. It’s psychology. Scare people into a vulnerable place, and then propose some sort of safety… and all you have to do

Guys, I’m trying not to be hyperbolic with how I describe this conversation, and the man I had it with… Stan Mitchell has been someone I’ve looked up to as a pastor for the last few years, someone that I’ve texted back and forth with countless times—trying to navigate frustrating situations at church and new ideas we’re dreaming about, and this episode today is the first actual conversation we've had over the phone. We talked for nearly 2 hours, and it’s here, unedited, unfiltered, for you to listen in on.    It’s unfortunately rare to come across progressive Christian leaders that have scripture memorized, and a deep love of the tradition—which he claims has always been progressive, from the moment the story began.    We talk about hell, universalism, the future of megachurches, social media’s beauty and downfalls, and he hits me with a half-dozen moments of personal conviction that I’ll likely listen back to a hundred times.   If you’re on Facebook, please find Stan Mitchell and follow his posts. I’m thrill

Andrew Morgan is an internationally recognized filmmaker focused on telling stories for a better tomorrow. His experience includes a broad range of work spanning narrative and documentary storytelling for multiple film and new media projects that have been filmed and released all over the world. His work is currently on HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. The New York Times described his unique style as “gentle, humane investigations,” and Vogue Magazine wrote that it is “evidence that each of us can act as a catalyst for change within our own lives and work together towards a greater good.” He lives in LA with his wife Emily, and their four children.

Larry Volk is an artist, educator, lecturer and author. He and holds an MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design has taught photography and visual art in nationally and regionally, for over 25 years. Currently, he is a Professor of Photography in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Endicott College. He has lectured nationally on, digital imaging, portfolio production and art practice and has served as portfolio reviewer nationally as well as a juror for regional art and photographic competitions. As a visual artist, Larry works with a range of photographic media in a variety of contexts. His work has been exhibited nationally and is held in both private and museum collections. He is a member-artist of the Bromfield Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. His most recent exhibitions include: a solo exhibition at the Bromfield Gallery (2019), a solo exhibition at the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum (2017) , two-person exhibitions at Endicott College (2013) and New England Bio-Labs (2012

B.T. Harman is a former executive turned creative strategist, writer, and speaker. He was previously Vice President of Client Experience for Booster, an innovative school fundraising company based out of Atlanta. Between 2005 - 2016, B.T. was a key player in helping Booster raise more than $150 million for American schools. Within Booster, B.T. led a team of creatives that developed high-end character and leadership content for more than 1.3 million students annually. B.T. is also the creator of the blog & podcast, Blue Babies Pink, "A Southern Coming Out Story in 44 Episodes." More than 1.3 mil episodes of the BBP podcast have been downloaded since it released in 2017. It was a top 40 podcast worldwide in March of that year. Today, B.T. is a freelance content-creator for millennials and the brands that serve them. His consulting work focuses on brand strategy, design, marketing, social media, leadership, and more. B.T. recently released his second narrative-style podcast. Catlick is a historical true cri

Vertebrae.  The essential elements in our lives that give us a backbone.  They’re what help us stand tall—to be strong in the face of adversity.  They define our posture, and how we approach the world.  They’re tested under pressure.  They relay information to and from our bodies. They’re center and central to everything. If you mess with them, things get off center, or worse things are severed and healthy function ceases.  The essential elements in our lives that give us a backbone.    And so it’s got me thinking lately… What are yours?    What are your vertebrae?    We’ve got 24 vertebrae from the base of our brains down to our tailbone… If you were to write down the immoveable essentials in your life, what would they be?    Some folks like distilling their lives down to one purpose, or 3 values, but I feel like that’s too intimidating, and it limits creativity, honestly. We get stuck on needing to have just ONE thing, and it freaks us out.    If you ask someone what their favorite movie (or food) is… you’l

As humans, we’ve evolved over thousands of years to primarily do one thing: survive. To pass on our genetics. To continue the human race, whatever that is. To hopefully find a respectable mate and reproduce another generation and another and another. And we’ve done a pretty good job so far… I mean, we’re here. We’ve somehow made it this far. For thousands of years, (many believe nearly 200,000 years), humans have been able to perceive threats, adapt to those threats, and train our children to do likewise. Sometimes those lessons taking root in our psyche, sometimes those lessons resulting in evolutions of our bodies and brains. Somewhere in the last 10,000 years, we got this “survival” thing down enough to begin focusing on not only surviving, but thriving. We began farming and trying to produce predictable food sources, developing medicine and care to keep our bodies in good health, extending the lifespan, and checking off the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, developing religions and ways of expa

Everyone wants better, brighter, simpler, more joyful, more satisfying, to feel more complete, more whole… Living closer to their truest selves; so that their interior lives and exterior lives are synced-up. To be known and affirmed for who we actually are, not just the face we put on to the world. Most people that I bump into don’t feel as if they’ve “arrived” just yet. That point of nirvana isn’t quite within reach, but they’re still aspiring to see “here on earth as it is in heaven.”    But we’re not there. Not always. And maybe not today. This might feel completely out of touch, like you’ve never felt further from having “arrived” at where you want to be, or maybe today’s a good day and you’re in that neighborhood.    Regardless of where you find yourself, we have to acknowledge that we would like to see some things change. Some big things, on a large scale, and some small things, maybe interior-life things… Like having more peace of mind, or forgiving yourself for that night, or releasing that person fro

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well. This is episode 40 of the vertebrae podcast; a podcast that was born out of an intention that I might live my life more in alignment, across every area of my life… that my work didn’t feel disconnected from my spirituality; that my friendships didn’t feel disconnected from my family; that our finances weren’t out of alignment with our dreams… We all have these vertebrae in our lives that are central to who we are. Parts of our personality, parts of our story, our ego – where we work, what we know, how we look, how well we perform, etc. And if we’re not careful, over time, we run the risk of these vertebrae slipping, like a bulging disc or something that starts small, maybe even indiscernible, but over time begins to affect your posture, and then how you sleep, and then how you carry yourself… and the rest of your body compensates and tries to work with it, but over time this tiny little piece that isn’t aligned begins to negatively affect all these different areas of your

This past week, we welcomed our 3rd child into the world. It was beautiful. It was a peaceful labor for the most part… from my perspective.   The second day, I don’t know if it was a result of being in the hospital for 24 hours, being surrounded by people in wheelchairs and stretchers every time I went to the cafeteria… whatever. But I was feeling restless. I was feeling anxious, as we were trying to manage my daughter’s Type 1 diabetes from afar… It was the kind of feeling where your mind is sort of racing, your body feels restless, like you could just stand up and run at a full sprint for no reason at all… and my stomach was bothering me. Felt like I needed to chew a handful of TUMS and PeptoBismol… I asked Elyse if she had any, she said yes, in the car, so I went out, venturing out into fresh air for the first time in 24 hours, but I had gotten turned around and ended up walking out the back of the hospital. I was in a t-shirt and jeans and it was probably 35 degrees, but I loved it. It felt so good to be

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.   This quote from Richard Rohr has been with me for the last 3-4 years, and it pops into my head at the most random of times. Anytime I bump into a critical thought in my head, or hear a friend frustrated with something.   The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.   Now, of course, the easiest thing to do is to distance yourself from something and shoot flaming arrows at it. It’s never been easier to be critiquing things from the bleachers. And the frustrating thing about social media is that these armchair experts get a lot of traction.    There’s no question that people are frustrated with what’s going on… And more specifically the young folks in this country with what we’re inheriting… I don’t know about you, but I was promised that if I just go to college, assume 6-figures of debt before I can even legally drink a beer, and then follow my dreams! Everything will be fine!    Deeply nested in my upper-middle-class, white America

This is a lesson I learned a decade ago, and it made sense then, but as my life has become increasingly complex, nuanced, added responsibilities, stresses, variables, etc. it’s become all the more relevant. I was in the my early 20s and I was at a church leadership conference with my pastor and some other staff members, and the conference theme that year was “The Tension is Good.”    The Tension is Good.    It was helpful, although I didn’t have much tension in my life to apply the lessons to, but that’s just the way God works sometimes. Sometimes teaching is for today, and sometimes it’s equipping you for the inevitable tomorrow. Tomorrows always come, and they’re very rarely predictable.    So here’s what I’ve come to understand about tension. There’s a dualistic way to think about tension—that all tension is bad and that you should work with everything inside of you to resolve any and all tension. Tension—bad, Release—good. And this seems to be what’s sort of baked in with our culture. It’s at least what I

We all have days when we wake up and feel disoriented. Maybe everything is the same, except for one or two small things and everything feels disorienting. The thing you were leaning on; the thing that had been supporting your weight for a while, all of a sudden shifted… buckled under your weight. And now you’re questioning everything.    Every once in a while, something disrupts the rhythm. Like the little old lady clapping off-beat in church… or any white person with a tambourine. It comes out of nowhere, and disrupts the flow of things. It immediately absorbs all of your attention, no matter how big or small it is. It’s new, it’s foreign, it’s disruptive, it’s disorienting.    I was talking with a friend at the gym about it. I was talking with a coworker about it. There are times when you can see a change coming from a long way off, so you can sort of brace yourself for it. You can see the storm on the horizon and you batten down the hatches, collect all your supplies and ready yourself for it. But there ar

Just had breakfast with a friend of mine… Fellow entrepreneur with a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Millions of dollars at stake, dozens of people’s careers, and needless to say—lots of opportunity, lots of risk. We were talking about the true cost of certain projects, not just financial, but time, stress, pre-occupying our minds… And how some just aren’t worth it.    There have been times when we’ve called off projects with certain clients that have become too difficult to work with… clients that wanted us to be something we weren’t, clients that thought they could boss us around… and the amount of damage control I had to do with my team, talking them off the ledge day after day, just quickly becomes “not worth it.” It’s not worth the revenue, it’s not worth the portfolio piece, it’s not worth the profit.   The lesson here, very simply is: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.    When you’re starting out, whether it’s a new industry, new business, new relationship… It’s time to be flexible. You ne

It’s been 4 months since I’ve shared on here. 4 months of family, of rest, of equal parts confusion and clarity; 4 months of traveling the country to spend time with different churches—helping them understand their reputations in their cities and doing the important work of coaching their leadership into a place of health for the season ahead.    I’ve spent time with Acts 29 churches in Texas, megachurches in the midwest, church plants in Long Beach California, and most recently a 150 year old congregation that had 1,000 people in their hay-day, now dwindled down to 47 faithful elderly folks with $2m in the bank, wanting to relaunch a progressive church to serve millennials in a downtown in Michigan.    As you can imagine, I’ve been exposed to all sorts of different flavors of God; different ministry philosophies; different “callings” these pastors feel like they’ve had; different hills people are willing to die on, different theologies they’re holding with an open hand… Some are working to “save their cities

Hey hey, hope you guys are doing well. It’s the week after Memorial Day and I’ve got something stirring that I want to explore with you today. This has been the product of a handful of really profound conversations, a few recent books, an “Awakening Session” with Michael Gungor, and a few what I guess you could call "mystical moments" during times of travel.    I’ve been a part of leadership in the Christian world for 17 years now… Starting back leading music for YoungLife when I was in high-school, then being involved in college ministries, then leading worship for two churches simultaneously, then joining full-time staff at Harbor 10 years ago (almost to the day). I saw on Facebook memories that May 27, 2009 I was posting about setting up my desk and stuff.    Again, I know I’ve said this on this podcast before, but not having been raised with a strict theology or doctrine or formal religion has actually been a blessing. I don’t carry as much baggage as some of my friends do, and it has allowed me to hold a

Hey friends, hope you’re doing well. The response to episode 30 “Coming out of the theological closet” has been extraordinary. I’ve actually already recorded a follow-up episode to that, specifically about our LGBT brothers and sisters, and clarifying some elements from Episode 30—but I have a meeting coming up next week with our elders about this topic, and I want to honor them and their pace. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about unity, and the primacy of it, which of course doesn’t mean to never speak up, but to do so in a way that brings as many people as possible along for the ride… not jerking the wheel and confusing people. SO > That episode will come out next week, and we’ll continue our conversation on LGBT inclusion in the church.    For today, I want to just share a word of encouragement. I’ve been learning a lot about leaders that have shared unpopular critiques to established cultures, and it’s been really, really inspiring. William Wilberforce speaking out against the European Slave trade, Abr

When you know, for certain, people are being mistreated, it’s a difficult tension to manage. When do you speak up? When do you work behind the scenes? Often you feel that you’re not doing enough, and sometimes it feels that you’re trying to do too much. It’s a tension that I’ve walked with for the past 10 years of being in formal ministry, on staff at a local non-denominational Christian Church.    Much like a marriage that you know is falling apart… How do you minister to both sides while not betraying the dignity and inherent worth of either party? How do you love people through a divorce? How do you love a parent that you know is mistreating their children? How do you “show up” for friends that you know are doing something wrong? How do you love people that have the right motives but the wrong facts?    Seeing Christ in both sides and articulating that, but also not being afraid to speak truth to the lies that both sides believe… And by God’s grace, eliminating the concept of “sides” altogether.    After C