“The Great Commission” (Matthew 28:16-20) is the central driving mission for God’s people. But here is a question to consider: How does this commission that churches have for people relate to the mission that God has for every aspect of life? Before we know what our mission is, we must first know what God’s mission is.

Christopher J. H. Wright (PhD, Cambridge) is the Global Ambassador of the Langham Partnership, strengthening leaders in churches around the world. He was chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group and the chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment from the Third Lausanne Congress of 2010. He has written many books including commentaries on Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Two incredibly influential books have been The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (IVP Academic) and The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Zondervan Academic).

His latest book is The Great Story and the Great Commission: Participating in the Biblical Drama of Mission (Baker Academic, 2023).

We love to talk movies on the Re-integrate Podcast. Why? Because we want to reintegrate our enjoyment of pop culture with our Christian faith. Our guest on this episode is film critic Josh Larsen. He is co-host of WBEZ (Chicago’s NPR station) radio show Filmspotting, which is also one of the top movie podcasts. Josh is also the editor and producer for Think Christian, a website and podcast exploring faith and pop culture. He’s been writing and speaking about movies professionally since 1994.

We discuss with Josh his two books: Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings (InterVarsity Press, 2017), and Fear Not!: A Christian Appreciation of Horror Movies (Cascade Books, 2023, a part of Fuller Seminary’s Reel Spirituality Monograph series).

Author of “On Getting Out of Bed.”

Many Christians must deal with some sort of mental or emotional suffering. While life is a good creation from a loving God, in a fallen and broken world, normal human life can be really difficult. While we have made tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living still comes down to the mundane choices that we each must make each moment, starting with the daily choice to get out of bed.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. O. Alan Noble, the author of On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living (InterVarsity Press, 2023). This is a book in which Alan sits with us and puts words to our experiences of mental or emotional suffering.

What does it mean to be human? We live in an age of many voices trying to shape our understanding of who we are and what we are supposed to do.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Carmen Joy Imes (PhD, Wheaton). She is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University and the author of Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters (InterVarsity Press, 2023).

Our identity is rooted in Genesis 1, where humanity is created in God’s image. Imago Dei is our human identity, made to represent God in his very good creation. And what we do in our vocations flows directly from who we are as the Imago Dei.

For many American Christians, the presumptive next big event in redemptive history will be the Rapture. Many believers have been influenced by the fictional stories of the Left Behind novels and movies which depict military conflict in Israel, the Rapture in which all true believers are taken to Heaven, and the great tribulation in which those who are left behind must endure seven years of war and suffering.

In this episode of the podcast, we explore the key theological ideas of a theological system called Dispensationalism, which was the predominant default theology of American Christianity for most of the 20th Century.

Our guest is Daniel G. Hummel, Ph.D., (American History, University of Wisconsin-Madison), the author of the new book, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation (Eerdmans Press, 2023). 

There have been Christians throughout history who God has called to societal activism on behalf of the poor and oppressed. And the power in which they did so was found in their inner faith practices that connected them intimately with God through Christ and His Spirit.

Mae Elise Cannon is the author of Just Spirituality: How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action (IVPress, 2013). As both a historian and a Christian advocate for peace and justice in the Middle East, she explores the direct connection between Christians’ personal relationship with God and their outward actions of kindness, mercy, compassion and advocacy. She looks at how several notable Christian historical figures were able to engage in their societal challenges because of their spiritual practices. Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). Here is our interview with Mae Cannon.

What would you say if you were completely honest with yourself and with God?

Jennifer Dukes Lee leads David and Bob (and you!) on a journey of telling truths, some fun and some painful, through her new book, Stuff I’d Only Tell God: A Guided Journal of Courageous Honesty, Obsessive Truth-Telling, and Beautifully Ruthless Self-Discovery (Bethany House, 2023). With daring questions, provocative lists, and quirky charts and illustrations, this journal is a place to record all the stuff you’d only tell God: ideas, beliefs, secrets, memories, wonderings, and wishes–things that might seem outlandish or outrageous to anyone else but are what make you, you. You’ll find the space and the help you need to unearth the real you, the you that is sometimes buried deep beneath a layer of self-protection.

This episode of the Reintegrate Podcast is a little different in that we live-streamed it in conjunction with the Logos Daily Circle. Our guest is Jason Stone, the founder of the Logos Daily Circle.

This is the first of what we are hoping will be a new joint venture between Reintegrate and Logos Daily to feature our guests to the huge community in the Logos Daily Circle.

TIME STAMPS
What we discuss in this episode:
0:00 Getting to know Bob, David, and Jason
8:30 What is Logos Daily Circle?
13:42 What is Reintegrate?
18:52 How should “online community” (like Logos Daily) be different than “social media?”
25:22 What is “calling,” and how can we reintegrate our vocations with God’s mission?
35:30 What is the connection between callings and the kingdom of God?
41:09 Does what we do in our work in a fallen and temporary world really matter?
52:40 How can pastors better equip people to be missional in and through their vocations?

Michaela O’Donnell, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary, which helps leaders respond faithfully to God in all seasons of their life, work, and leadership. Her book, Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World (Baker, 2021) is based on her deep research and is filled with stories and insights from faithful entrepreneurs. She offers a step-by-step paradigm for discovering what God is calling each of us to do in a changing world and practical habits suited for the new world of work.

Dr. O’Donnell is a business entrepreneur, a teacher, and a sought-after speaker and consultant who regularly presents on the topics of vocation, career, and leadership. She has fifteen years of experience in business marketing, founding and running, with her husband Dan, Long Winter Media, which helps brands through creating multi-media content. At the Depree Center, she created a six-week remote cohort experience rooted in her PhD research, called Road Ahead, designed to help people in transition to discern next steps and gain clarity about what God is calling them to do.

Have you ever had a profound experience while watching a movie? When you were so overwhelmed by emotion that you could call it spiritual? In his book Seeing Is Believing: The Revelation of God Through Film (IVP, 2022), theologian Richard Vance Goodwin argues that such experiences may sometimes be encounters with God. He explores how certain films use various visual strategies to invite viewers to feel emotions that may open them up to God’s presence.

Dr. Richard Goodwin is adjunct assistant professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is also Academic Director of Teaching and Learning at Pathways College of Bible and Mission in New Zealand.

How are you at managing your time? Perhaps the problem is that you are trying to “manage” your time when you are called to “redeem” your time. In this episode, we discuss with Jordan Raynor some principles to reintegrate our faith with our work (and all of life) so that we become more like Jesus Christ in his time on earth: purposeful, productive, and present.

Jordan Raynor is a leading voice in the faith and work movement. Raynor is the author of several books, including Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive (Waterbrook, 2021). These 7 principles are based on how Jesus managed his time on earth and how he responded to human constraints much like the ones we face today.

We all are fascinated with the End Times. What is our final destiny? This is eschatology. If we were to take a random survey of Christians in North America, we would hear something like this: Our destiny is heaven. When we die, we go off to our home with Jesus, worshiping God for all eternity in an otherworldly existence. We will finally shed this earthly life and live as God wants us to live, with Jesus and away from this earthly life. Most pastors preach that the earth is not our home, that what God has for us is to live forever in another place, Heaven, and that Earth will be no more.

Our guest on this episode is J. Richard Middleton. In his book, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), he makes the case that the Bible teaches that the ultimate hope for the believer is not an otherworldly heaven. Instead, it is full-bodied participation in a new heaven and a new earth, brought into fullness through the coming of God’s kingdom. Dr. J. Richard Middleton (Ph.D. (Free University of Amsterdam) is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary.