PODCAST · society
Looking Over Life
by James Goering and Shawn D. Schmidt
James and Shawn are two friends who like to talk about life. Science, grammar, parenting, spirituality--they're likely to discuss it.We now have a Patreon page: patreon.com/lookingoverlife
Episodes
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63: What Bible Translation Do Anabaptists Trust?
Shawn and James look over the Bible translations survey they sent out over a year ago. They look at what translations people use personally, what people’s “official” church translation is, and how open churches are to changing to a translation other than the KJV. The findings are interesting,...
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62: Building a Family Technology Plan
James and Shawn dive deep into some of the questions that many families are confronting today: What should I allow my children to look at? When should I give them a smartphone? How can I protect them from ungodly online content? Should I let my child use social media? Parents are now dealing with…
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61: Should Christians Be Conservatives or Liberals?
After Shawn accuses James of being a flaming liberal, they discuss the meaning and origin of the terms "conservative" or "liberal" and how they should or shouldn't apply to the Christian. Do some people naturally orient one way or another based on their personality or stage in life? How are...
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60: Is Handwriting Doomed?
James and Shawn talk about whether the rise of smartphones and computers will make handwriting unnecessary. But before attempting to answer that question, they make a diversion into Bible design and how it can affect your reading experience. They discuss fonts, typefaces, leading, and whitespace,...
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59: Ask (Questions) and Ye Shall Receive (Answers)
Shawn learns what it's like to watch an eclipse, or at least James tries to convey his experience. It's an event that is not to be missed! James and Shawn also answer some questions from you, our listeners. Are we becoming more casual and losing our sense of etiquette and manners? How important…
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58: Why do bad things happen?
Shawn and James talk about the bad things that happen in the world. We look at questions like, "How can a good God let bad things happen?" We discuss whether or not God is responsible for the bad things that happen in our lives. Did God cause your loved one to die? Did He direct in those events?...
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57: How will people remember you?
James and Shawn consider a recent loss and what it means to grieve. We also look at some tough questions, like, "How can a good God allow bad things to happen?" We're sure that your life has been touched by loss. We'd like to hear from you. How did you—or are you—dealing with that loss? How do…
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56: 2024 Yearly Themes
Shawn and James go over their yearly themes—together in a van! We reviewed the themes for 2023 (Year of Appetite and Year of Key Actions) and looked at our themes for 2024 (Year of Devotion and Year of Family). If you use a yearly theme, we'd like to hear about it. How do you make it work for…
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55: 10,000 Listens and Life Updates
Shawn and James talk about crossing the milestone of 10,000 listens on the podcast. They also talk about the future of the podcast and give a sneak peek at the topic of a future episode. Shawn is heading to the States with family in tow while James and his wife recently added another son to their...
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54: Is It Possible to Know Too Much?
Shawn and James talk about whether Christians should be willingly ignorant about some things in the news and how the tsunami of information from the Internet is affecting us. How much are we responsible to know about what is happening in the world? What global issues should Christians feel...
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51: Modern Idolatry
James and Shawn try to figure out what modern idolatry looks like. Do you have a temple in your town that holds the idol that all your neighbors worship? Who is the patron saint of your community? Of your culture? Or maybe there really aren't idols in our modern, enlightened world. We'd like to...
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50: Evidences of a Creator
Shawn and James are back to put to rest the debate for or against a Creator. Did you know that Cristians believe in the Big Bang Theory? What can you answer someone who tells you there is no way to prove God's existence through science? How can we talk about the Anthropic Principle in the Walmart...
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53: Difficult Questions About Creation
James and Shawn wrap up the series about evidences for Creation. In this episode, we look at some of the more difficult questions against creationism and offer some ways to think about them. We tried to give some answers that you can use in the check-out at the grocery store, but we're not sure…
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52: Which Came First: The Chicken or the Stylus?
Shawn was surprised by an idea James came with about the invention that had the most fundamental change to humanity. What do you think about topic? What would you describe as the most important invention or development in history? Is it ChatGPT? The wheel? We'd really enjoy hearing your thoughts,...
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49: The Conflict Between Science and Religion
James and Shawn finally get to this long-awaited topic! And Shawn learns just how dangerous it is to use the phrase "only a theory" with James! Is there truly a conflict between science and religion? Or is that just an idea that should be de-bunked? Well, we certainly try to show another point of...
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48: Elements of a Vibrant Devotional Life
Shawn and James enjoy recording a podcast in person in Peru! This time we talked about how we keep our devotional lives alive. What even is devotion? How do we cultivate a genuinely close relationship to God? What happens when we fall off the wagon? If you have any ways that you keep you private...
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47: FWIW/LOL Crossover: Sharpen the Saw from Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
James and Shawn share another FWIW episode with the LOL audience. We look at the seventh and final habit of the book and close out what was a rather long book review. In this habit, we discuss how important it is to take care of oneself before being able to do the important things in life. We...
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46: Peru, Indian Food, and Babies — Another Q&A
Shawn and James have another Q&A conversation. We talk about how James isn't really a science person after all and why Shawn decided to move to Peru. James also teaches us how to make and Indian dish. Please be sure to share this episode with a friend. It really helps us out. And if you have any...
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45: Looking Over Death — Thoughts on Separation
James and Shawn talk about death and separation and the feelings that go with it. James recently experienced a loss in his family and was pondering thoughts of death and life, so we decided to take some time to talk about it together. We hope this conversation can be meaningful to you, as well.…
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44: ChatGPT Takes Over the World!
Shawn and James talk about artificial intelligence. We spend a good bit of time focusing on ChatGPT and its potential effects on society and the church. Will we become even more lazy and dumb as a society now that we have yet another crutch to lean on? We also had a bit of fun having the bot…
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43: What Makes You Optimistic About the Future?
James and Shawn look on the bright side. We flip the coin and talk about what excites us for the future. Shawn again took a more narrow, personal view of the future and got choked up thinking about it. James was again more focused on the broad view of society and the church and where trends may...
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42: What Makes You Pessimistic About the Future?
Shawn and James pretend to be grumpy old men. We talk about some of the things we see in the future that give us concern. James focused mainly on big-picture societal issues that make him worried about the future of the church, the country, and the world. Shawn was more focused on his…
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41: Ten Fun Questions With James and Shawn
James and Shawn have a Q&A for themselves with questions intended to stump each other. This was a fun episode for us to do, and we may do it again, but we would like your help. Do you have a question or several that you would like to hear talked about? Please send us an email! And don't forget to...
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40: How Can You Read Your Bible Every Day in 2023?
Shawn and James talk about their plan for better Bible reading. We discuss what we've tried over the years and what we've found works for us. James brought a number of downloadable resources for easy Bible plans while Shawn tried to humblebrag without seeming to. What is your plan for Bible…
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39: 2023 Yearly Themes
James and Shawn go over their yearly themes. We do a quick review of our themes for 2022 before we dig into what we want 2023 to look like. If you have a yearly theme, please let us know what you'll be doing. We would love to hear from you and gain some inspiration from your story. Email:...
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38: Needs - Wants - Dreams - Excess
Shawn and James wrestle with the difference between needs and wants—Black Friday and Christmas aren't helping here. We ask for your input. How do you define these terms in practical ways? What are your applications or values? Did James make the right choice to buy that home wifi thingy? Send us…
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37: Are You Smarter Than an 11th-Century Peasant? (with guest Christopher Slabaugh)
James and Shawn welcome Christopher Slabaugh to the podcast. The subject was ostensibly to talk about history, which we did! But we may have taken a few different bunny trails along the way, such as discussing how best to prepare for the apocalypse. Do you like history? What is your favorite time...
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36: Is Your Church Alive?
Shawn and James discuss the idea of living churches, comparing to the church of Sardis found in the Book of Revelation. Of course, James had to make a science lesson out of it! So, we drew parallels between the definition of physical life that biologists use and the definition of spiritual life...
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35: FWIW/LOL Crossover: Think Win/Win from Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
James and Shawn do a bit of crossover work by bringing some of their FWIW content to the LOL podcast. We look at the fourth habit "Think Win/Win" from Stephen Covey's popular 7 Habits book, giving everyone a peek at what we talk about in the FWIW podcast for our Patrons. What is your relationship...
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34: Cal Newport's Four Life Buckets
Shawn and James talk about Cal Newport's method for organizing life using four buckets. You all know that James is a fan of Cal Newport's, so it is no surprise that James schools Shawn on this method for thinking about life and self-improvement. We discuss Cal's classic four of Craft, Community,...
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33: Raising Grateful Children in an Entitled World
James and Shawn talk about gratefulness and how to instill the value into our children. We talk some about the book by Kristen Welch, Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World, but we mostly just share our thoughts and experiences on what we've learned or are learning about gratefulness. We're...
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32: He Made the Stars Also
Shawn and James talk about the glorious James Webb telescope! Well, we mostly talk about the pictures that James Webb has been sending back. James—our James—has been very excited to talk about these photos. Shawn mostly stays quiet with his mouth hanging agape, but we do try describe our visual...
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31: Living the Single Life (with guest Naoma Lee)
James and Shawn welcome guest Naoma Lee to talk with them about life as a single. It was a fun conversation going over the difficulties and the perks of being a single person. Naoma gave us some tips for how married folks can related to their single friends, and she even gave some suggestions for...
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30: Why Don't We Change?
Shawn and James beg for listener support before talking about why we find it so difficult to change. We discuss the idea of whether or not we are naturally good or if there is actually need to change, and if so, how we go about changing ourselves. There's a good bit of philosophical talk, but we...
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29: Writing: Craft, Purpose, and Passion
James and Shawn talk about writing... on a podcast. Is that weird? James tried correcting Shawn about the butterfly effect, but Shawn rose to the challenge and proved he knows things! We both enjoy writing and writing-adjacent things, so it was fun to have a conversation about the topic. We...
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28: A Quiverfull — Thoughts on Family Size
James and Shawn are back again, this time to talk about having babies! As James mentions in the episode, we know this can be a tricky topic to navigate, but we hope you find the conversation interesting. We're sure that you may hold different views than we do, so we'd be glad to hear from you.…
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27: Fasting (with guest James Shank)
Shawn and James welcome another James to the podcast. James Shank joins us to talk about fasting—at last! We look at an old email from a listener and talk together about what fasting is or should be. We also discuss some of our own experiences with fasting and what we have learned along the way....
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26: Orders of Magnitude
James and Shawn go on a bit of a ramble. We talk about the scale of everything and what orders of magnitude are before giving an update of our yearly themes. Shawn "lost" his phone, but a chivalrous lady in a corn field gave it back to him—it's a wild story. We then give everyone a heads up on…
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25: Do Churches Kill the Gospel?
Shawn and James talk about how institutions can get in the way of the gospel of Jesus. We discuss how all the trappings of the church as an institution can actually hinder the gospel and keep people away from coming to Jesus. How different are modern church institutions from the Pharisees Jesus...
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24: 2022 Yearly Themes
James and Shawn go over their yearly themes. We first look back at how we did with our themes from 2021 before discussing our new themes and goals for the year ahead. If you have a yearly theme, please let us know what you'll be doing. We would love to hear from you and gain some more…
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23: Interrobangs and Octothorps and Emoji—Oh, My!
James and Shawn talk about feeling middle-aged. The conversation covers the excitement over a new stove range to grumpiness over the way Gen-Z disregards punctuation and the meanings of words. It's been a hot minute since we've been able to talk, and we literally knocked our heads against the…
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22: Productivity and Overwhelm
Shawn and James talk about why they have so many things to do. We discuss our thoughts on productivity and how that can lead to overwhelm. We also talk about feelings of overwhelm and how we deal with them. Stay for the end because we answer a listener's question on how older single people should...
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21: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories (with guest John R. Perfect)
James and Shawn talk with John R. Perfect about conspiracy theories. What are they anyway? What makes them so prevalent or easy to swallow? We talked about whether or not a particular person may be more susceptible to believing conspiracy theories and what we can do to avoid falling into that…
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20: Follow These 7 Easy Steps to Make a Best Friend—You Won't Believe What Happens! — An Episode Out of Time
Shawn and James talk about friendship. This is an Episode Out of Time, meaning that it was recorded out the flow of episodes you've been listening to. When was it pulled together? When was it recorded? When was it edited? No one knows.... We start off the episode reviewing our Digital Declutter...
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19: Through Mind and Mountains: A Journey on the Great Divide
Shawn and James talk about James's book and the trip it took to get there. We talk about long-distance biking and the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. James did that biking trail with a friend―all 2,500 miles of it from Canada to Mexico! We also answer a listener email about tithing with our…
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18: Are Leaders Really Necessary? (with guest Andrew Crider)
James and Shawn welcome Andrew Crider back to the podcast. We discuss leadership. What is it? Who does it? Is it even necessary? These and many other questions are contemplated. We also do a lightning round of leadership qualities we think every leader ought to have. Which ones did we miss, or do...
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17: FWIW: The Center of God's Will
Sneak peek For What It's Worth episode! Shawn and James are glad to have Andrew Crider back on the podcast. This is actually the episode we recorded for our Patron-only podcast For What It's Worth, but we decided to let you all have access to it this time. In this episode, we talk about what it...
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16: How to Improve Your Bible Reading
James and Shawn talk about their Bible reading. We look at the various methods we've used over the years for reading the Bible and talk about why we choose to read it in the first place. We also discuss our favorite translations and formats, including reading-format versus study-format Bibles.…
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15: Tithing—How Our Church Could Send a Rocket to the Moon
Shawn and James talk about money matters, specifically about giving. Why is it that churches often struggle to pay for the various programs of the church? What is tithing, and should we be giving a certain amount? We talk about giving in various seasons of life and how that could look. It is...
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14: Sending Up Trees
James and Shawn talk about technological developments from the beginning of time up through the near future. In this episode, we go all over the place, looking at amazing technologies that range from the humble garden hoe to flying cars! You may hear some background noise, but that's because we...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Looking Over Life have?
Looking Over Life currently has 63 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Looking Over Life about?
James and Shawn are two friends who like to talk about life. Science, grammar, parenting, spirituality--they're likely to discuss it.We now have a Patreon page: patreon.com/lookingoverlife
How often does Looking Over Life release new episodes?
Looking Over Life has 63 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Looking Over Life?
You can listen to Looking Over Life on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Looking Over Life?
Looking Over Life is created and hosted by James Goering and Shawn D. Schmidt.
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