Soil and Roots

Most Christians would say that God does not have favorites. But do our hearts actually experience Him that way?In this Greenhouse follow-up to Episode 146, Brian is joined by Handsome Kyle and Dr. Tim to explore why God can still feel partial even when our theology says otherwise.The conversation begins with transference—the unconscious tendency to carry patterns from past relationships into new ones. Experiences with parents, pastors, teachers, employers, and institutions can shape not only how we see God, but how we imagine God sees us.From there, the discussion moves into performance, usefulness, the “looking-glass self,” the masks we wear, suffering, and our tendency to assume that successful or influential Christians somehow enjoy greater access to God.Why do we sometimes prefer a transactional relationship with God? Why can His delight feel difficult to receive? And what happens when we stop trying to earn love and allow ourselves to be fully seen?Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Most of us would never say that God likes some people more than others. We know grace can’t be earned, and we believe God loves ordinary people.But do our hearts actually experience Him that way?In Episode 146, Brian explores another hidden idea of God: the idea that God is partial—that greater success, usefulness, discipline, or spiritual maturity earns us greater affection and access.We explore how this idea can show up in performance, suffering, comparison, spiritual celebrity, and even how we treat other people. And through the practice of Heartview, we consider what our resentment, striving, anxiety, and comparison might reveal about the God we actually experience.Deep discipleship invites us beyond simply believing the right things about God. It invites us to bring our hidden ideas into the light and allow Jesus to re-form them through relationship and experience.There is no spiritual first class. And with God, there is no back row.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why do many Christians find support for learning about God but little guidance when faith becomes difficult, disorienting, or deeply personal?Brian is joined by spiritual director Rhonda Jenkins and pastor and coach David Smith to discuss the previous episode (The Story Beneath), performance-based Christianity, the Wall, double knowledge, spiritual friendship, and the need for communities that can accompany people through the inward journey. They also share how Soil & Roots is developing the Greenhouse as a two-year guided pathway into deep discipleship.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: https://soilandroots.substack.com/

In this bonus episode, Brian steps away from the usual Season 7 format to share the personal story behind Soil & Roots.Episode 144 traces the last five years: betrayal, loss, the dark night of the soul, chronic Lyme disease, financial uncertainty, and the slow emergence of a deeper calling. Brian shares how Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, A.W. Tozer, C.S. Lewis, the Critical Journey, and the language of hidden ideas helped shape the Soil & Roots vision for him - and for you. This episode also explains what has been happening behind the scenes this summer, including the emerging two-year pathway through the inward journey for the next generation of Greenhouses. Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What do we do when we find ourselves doubting God’s goodness?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 142 by exploring one of the most difficult tensions in deep discipleship: how to affirm God’s goodness while honestly grieving the pain, injustice, and suffering of the world. Doc brings his own struggle into the conversation, naming the friction between experiencing God’s kindness in his own life and seeing deep suffering in the lives of others.This episode is not a philosophical defense of God’s goodness. It is a conversation about lament, authenticity, doubt, secure attachment, and the kind of community where people can bring their rawest questions without being rushed, corrected, or shamed. Brian and Doc explore why modern church culture often struggles with lament, why easy answers can fail the heart, and why the deeper question beneath “Is God good?” may be a cry for withness.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Is God good, and do our hearts actually experience Him that way?In Episode 142, Brian continues Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, by exploring one of the most powerful hidden ideas many followers of Jesus carry: the suspicion that God may not actually be good. We may consciously affirm God’s goodness, love, mercy, and faithfulness, yet our lived experience can tell another story.Drawing from the Soil & Roots distinction between beliefs and ideas, Brian explores how hidden assumptions about God are formed through suffering, disappointment, family systems, trauma, illness, and repeated experiences. The episode considers how distrust of God’s goodness often shows up through the Eight Indicators: control, anxiety, resentment toward reality, and difficulty receiving love.This is not an episode about forcing certainty or defending God with quick answers. It is an invitation into honesty. If somewhere deep down we do not really trust God’s goodness, healing begins by telling Him the truth. The Good Life is not built on pretending harder, but on bringing our hidden ideas into the presence of the God who is already with us.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What if your view of God shapes everything?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 140 on what God is really like and why our deepest ideas of God matter so much. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people who are increasingly attuned to God, others, themselves, and the world.The conversation begins with Richard Foster’s claim that the world does not need more talented or intelligent people as much as it needs deep people. But becoming deep is not always safe, comfortable, or tidy. The inward journey can involve pruning, tearing, fire, pain, and the slow process of being unmade and remade by God’s goodness.Brian and Doc then explore how our view of God becomes the root system beneath nearly every other view we hold. Our theology shapes our philosophy, our politics, our view of creation, our understanding of the sacred and secular, and even how we think about suffering, the church, and the Bible.This episode also wrestles with several common Christian phrases and ideas, including “Jesus is enough,” “just read your Bible,” and the assumption that God only works through explicitly religious spaces. Brian argues that Jesus is enough precisely because He is Lord over all things — not because God is limited to church services, Bible studies, or religious language.The Good Life is not about becoming more religious. It is about becoming more like Jesus from the inside out, learning to recognize His presence in all of life, and allowing our true view of God to be healed.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is God really like?In Episode 140, Brian returns to one of the founding questions of Soil & Roots: what do we actually believe God is like? Not merely what do we say in our creeds, statements of faith, or Bible studies — but what do our hearts assume about Him?Drawing from A.W. Tozer’s claim that our real idea of God may be buried beneath “conventional religious notions,” this episode explores why deep discipleship requires more than correct doctrine or Bible knowledge. It requires the uncovering of our hidden, often unconscious ideas about God.Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth. Brian argues that the journey into depth depends on four necessary conditions: self-awareness, story-sharing, suffering in community, and spiritual habits. The first condition, self-awareness, begins with the painful but essential work of uncovering our true ideas about God.This episode walks through several common distorted images of God: God as the Great Taskmaster, God as the direct cause of suffering, God as a performance-based Father, and God as an angry judge waiting to condemn. These ideas may not match our stated beliefs, but they can quietly shape our emotions, behaviors, relationships, health, words, and spiritual lives.Brian also challenges the common response, “Just read your Bible,” by reminding us that people bring their own assumptions to Scripture. The Bible is deeply formative, but discipleship is not about becoming more like the Bible. It is about being formed into the image of the One who authored it.The Good Life begins as Jesus uncovers and heals our distorted views of God, inviting us to experience Him as He truly is.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What if your hidden ideas about God shape your life more than your stated beliefs?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 138 on ideas, beliefs, and the unconscious forces that shape our discipleship. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people who naturally and unconsciously think, act, relate, and love more like Jesus.The conversation begins with Psalm 42 and the season’s theme: “Deep calls to deep.” Doc unpacks the water imagery of the psalm, reminding us that the journey into depth is not always gentle or peaceful. Sometimes God’s invitation into the Good Life comes through waves, breakers, chaos, suffering, and the painful process of being unmade and remade.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc then return to the Soil & Roots language of ideas: the assumptions, conclusions, and experienced realities in which our hearts are rooted. These hidden ideas often operate beneath our stated beliefs. We may say we trust God, believe in His goodness, and affirm His love, while our actual lives reveal a different operating system.The episode explores modern psychology, Dallas Willard, Daniel Kahneman, Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, the difference between head and heart, and the powerful idea that “this is not my home.” If our hearts assume the Christian life is mostly about escaping earth and going to heaven someday, we may have little reason to pursue the with-God life now.But Jesus invites us into the Good Life today — not merely knowing about God, but experiencing His love, presence, and beauty in the middle of real life.Deep discipleship begins when we allow Jesus to uncover and heal the hidden ideas that actually govern us.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com

What do you really believe about God?In Episode 138, Brian continues Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, by returning to one of Soil & Roots' central ideas: our lives are not shaped primarily by what we say we believe, but by the ideas our hearts actually assume.Ideas are the unconscious assumptions, conclusions, and experienced realities that our hearts are rooted in. They sit beneath our belief systems and quietly shape how we relate to God, ourselves, others, and the world. We may intellectually believe that God is good, loving, safe, and trustworthy — while our hearts live as if He is distant, disappointed, unsafe, or unreliable.This matters because Season 7 is exploring the journey into depth. If the first step toward the Good Life is receiving God’s love with vulnerability, then our true ideas about God become essential. How can we surrender to love if our hearts do not trust the One offering it?Drawing from A.W. Tozer, Dallas Willard, Jonathan Edwards, Heartview, the Great Omission, and the Soil & Roots framework of ideas, Brian explores how our bodies, emotions, relationships, words, thoughts, health, time, and money reveal what our hearts really believe about God.This episode asks a deeply practical question: if your anxiety, your relationships, your body, and your habits could speak, what would they reveal about your idea of God?The with-God life begins as we allow Jesus to uncover and heal the hidden ideas that keep us guardedJoin us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why do we resist the very love that could heal us?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 136 on receiving God’s love, vulnerability, and the Good Life. Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, is exploring how we become people of depth — people increasingly formed by the love of God from the inside out.The conversation begins by revisiting the Good Life, the with-God life, Christian mysticism, and the surprising reality that many people who identify as Christians do not experience deep, daily, relational intimacy with God. If Jesus invites us into abiding peace, secure attachment, love that surpasses knowledge, and a conversational life with the Father, why does that life feel so rare?Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc then move into four obstacles to receiving God’s love with vulnerability: our need for control, our avoidance of pain, our sense of shame and unworthiness, and our mistrust of God’s character. These are not merely intellectual disagreements. They are often unconscious ideas rooted in our stories, wounds, relationships, fears, and experiences.The episode also explores the phrase “I’m fine” as one of the great enemies of depth. Many of us have learned to hide pain, avoid need, manage appearances, and present ourselves as okay even when we are not. But the Good Life requires vulnerability. It requires surrender. It requires allowing ourselves to be loved where we are actually hurting.Using personal stories, the Prodigal Son, contemplative prayer, C.S. Lewis, David Benner, and the Soil & Roots framework of ideas, this episode invites us to ask a deeper question: what keeps me from receiving the prodigal love of the Father?Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why is receiving God’s love so hard?In Episode 136, Brian continues Season 7, Deep Calls to Deep, by exploring one of the central questions of the journey into depth: if God is constantly inviting us into the Good Life, why do so few of us actually experience it?This episode suggests that the doorway into the with-God life is not more striving, better behavior, or additional information. It is vulnerability. Drawing from David Benner, Dallas Willard, the six core ideas, and the Soil & Roots framework of unconscious formation, Brian argues that genuine transformation begins when we allow ourselves to be loved unconditionally by God.But receiving God’s love is not as easy as it sounds. Brian names four obstacles that often keep us guarded: our need for control, our avoidance of pain, our sense of unworthiness, and our mistrust of God’s character. These obstacles are not merely intellectual doubts. They are rooted in the deeper ideas of our hearts — our unconscious assumptions about power, anthropology, value, and identity.The Prodigal Son becomes the episode’s central case study. The younger son leaves home, seeks control, avoids pain, distorts his value, and rejects his identity as a son. But suffering awakens him. When he returns, the father runs to him, embraces him, interrupts his speech, restores him, and throws a party.The most astonishing part is that the son receives it.This is the beginning of the Good Life: not earning love, explaining ourselves, managing sin, or proving our worth, but vulnerably receiving the prodigal love of the Father.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is the Good Life with God?In this first Greenhouse episode of Season 7, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 134, Rediscovering the Good Life. Season 7 is called Deep Calls to Deep, and it asks the central Soil & Roots question: how do we actually become people of depth?This episode begins by clarifying what the Good Life is — and what it is not. The Good Life is not ease, prosperity, success, comfort, or a pain-free existence. It is not “your best life now” in the shallow sense. Instead, the Good Life is the with-God life: a daily, relational, embodied experience of God’s presence, love, delight, and nearness, even when life is difficult.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc wrestle with whether this kind of life is actually meant to be normal for people who follow Jesus, or whether it is only for “super-Christians” and famous mystics. They explore Dallas Willard, Christian mysticism, John 17:3, Ephesians 3, the love that surpasses knowledge, and what it means to know God in a deeply experiential way.The conversation also names why the Good Life often feels elusive. Many of us were formed to think the Christian life is mostly about being saved, going to heaven, knowing the right information, or avoiding sin. But the New Testament describes something deeper: a life grounded in receiving the love of the Father as a daily experience.The Good Life with God is not a circumstance. It is a withness. It is being rooted in love, held by God, and slowly formed into people who can love like Jesus.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What kind of life did Jesus actually invite us into?Episode 134 launches Season 7 of Soil & Roots, Deep Calls to Deep, by asking a simple but unsettling question: how do we become people of depth? Before exploring the path, Brian begins with the destination — the Good Life, or what Dallas Willard called the with-God life.The with-God life is not merely being saved, learning more theology, attending church, or trying harder to behave. It is a daily, embodied, relational reality with God. It is a life marked by deep security, inner freedom, conversational intimacy with God, and love that flows from the inside out.Brian explores why many followers of Jesus quietly assume this kind of life is unrealistic, reserved for spiritual elites, or simply not meant for them. Drawing from Scripture, Christian mysticism, Dallas Willard, David Benner, and everyday experience, he reframes discipleship not as more effort or better techniques, but as the risky and transformative work of receiving God’s love.This episode also introduces the three-part map for the Soil & Roots journey: the Good Life, the Great Omission, and the Journey into Depth. The Good Life is the life Jesus lived and invites us into. The Great Omission explains why many of us are not experiencing it. The Journey into Depth explores how we become people who are increasingly attuned to God, others, ourselves, and the world.Season 7 begins here: not with striving, but with receiving the love that makes us deep.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is deep discipleship?In the Season 6 finale of Soil & Roots, Brian takes a sweeping journey through the core themes we’ve explored over the past three years: The Great Omission, the tension between the head and the heart, the hidden power of ideas, and the invitation to become deep people shaped by divine love.If you are new to Soil & Roots, this may be one of the best episodes to start with. If you have been with us from the beginning, this episode connects and clarifies the major themes we’ve been wrestling with since Episode 1.Brian revisits Dallas Willard’s concern that modern Christianity often makes converts, educates people, builds institutions, and engages people in service, but struggles to help people become genuine disciples — people who are being transformed from the inside out to think, act, relate, and love more like Jesus.This episode also returns to the Soil & Roots framework of ideas: the hidden assumptions and experienced realities in our hearts that often govern us more deeply than our stated beliefs. True formation is not merely learning more information. The head learns through instruction, but the heart is formed through relationship and experience.Brian then revisits the three primary problems: the Discipleship Dilemma, the Formation Gap, and the Forgotten Kingdom — or story, community, and purpose. Deep discipleship requires self-knowledge, formative community, and a recovered vision of the Kingdom of God.The episode closes Season 6 by returning to the central question: if we are becoming like Jesus, what is He like? He is secure, beloved, mysterious, relationally shrewd, gentle, just, relaxed, and rooted in the love of the Father.Deep discipleship begins not with striving, performance, or religious busyness, but with receiving the love that surpasses knowledge.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

How do young adults become like Jesus in a distracted, anxious, hyperconnected world?In this bonus episode near the close of Season 6, Brian invites his two young adult sons, Caleb and Zach, into a conversation about spiritual formation across generations. Both grew up in church, but both describe a deeper awakening in young adulthood — through hardship, relationships, service, community, and the slow realization that following Jesus had to become their own journey.Caleb and Zach share honestly about growing up in a Christian home, wrestling with shallow faith, experiencing crisis and renewal, and learning what it means to follow Jesus as young men. They talk about Jesus as comforter, His mysterious and indirect ways, God’s delight, church involvement, worship, service, small groups, and the joy of discovering that God not only loves them, but likes them and wants them involved in His Kingdom.The conversation also explores what younger generations are facing: social media, identity confusion, institutional skepticism, shallow content, and the difference between information and real discipleship. Brian, Caleb, and Zach discuss why spiritual formation cannot happen through short videos, religious checklists, or church attendance alone. The heart is formed through time, habit, community, intimacy, instruction, experience, and relationship.This is a warm, personal, and hopeful conversation about fathers and sons, church and culture, young adults and discipleship, and what it means to become more like Jesus in our age.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What are you still clutching?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 130 on being rested and relaxed like Jesus. If Jesus is remarkably calm, present, unhurried, and at ease with the Father, then what does that reveal about the kind of people we are becoming?The conversation begins with a simple image: a raccoon trapped because it will not release the shiny object in its paw. At any moment, it could let go and be free. But it keeps clutching what it thinks it needs. Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc use that picture to explore surrender, control, performance, anxiety, and the things our hearts refuse to release.This episode asks why surrender to God is so difficult, especially in a culture built around productivity, achievement, rebellion, performance, and self-protection. In many church settings, surrender is treated as a one-time conversion moment rather than an ongoing way of life. But the relaxed life of Jesus is formed through daily, experiential surrender.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc discuss trust, rest, chronic illness, performance-driven faith, David Benner, Dallas Willard, Christian busyness, intimate community, and the difference between obedience as compliance and obedience as the natural fruit of experiencing Jesus’ love.Surrender is not giving up to a cruel power. It is relaxing into the love of the Father. It is loosening our grip, receiving Jesus’ delight, and learning to rest in the present with God.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to be relaxed like Jesus?In Episode 130, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring one of Jesus’ most surprising characteristics: He is deeply relaxed. Dallas Willard once described Jesus with one word: relaxed. He is not rushed, frantic, controlling, anxious, or hurried. Even in storms, conflict, pressure, confrontation, and suffering, Jesus remains remarkably present and at ease with the Father.This episode gathers the Season 6 portrait of Jesus so far. Jesus is emotionally secure. He lives as the Beloved. He is mysterious, relationally shrewd, discerning, just, and gentle. And beneath all of that is a settled inner life. Jesus is at home with Himself because He is at home with His Father.Brian explores what it means for deep disciples to become relaxed from the inside out. This is not emotional numbness, passivity, or pretending life is easy. Jesus feels grief, anger, distress, joy, and compassion. But He does not live in the past, trying to rewrite what happened. He does not live in the future, trying to control what has not yet come. He lives in the present with God.The episode explores surrender, presence, control, anxiety, the Critical Journey, the life of love, and the practice of presencing. A relaxed person loosens their grip. They stop trying to control the past and future and learn to receive the present as a gift.To become relaxed like Jesus is to become increasingly rested, present, surrendered, and at peace — even when life is not.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Would Jesus talk to you the way you talk to yourself?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 128 on the gentleness of Jesus by focusing on one often-neglected area: self-gentleness. Most of us would never speak to a friend, spouse, child, or fellow disciple the way we speak to ourselves. Yet our inner talk tracks run all day, quietly shaping how we relate to God, others, creation, culture, and our own souls.The conversation begins with the four relationships Soil & Roots often explores: God, self, others, and creation/culture. If gentleness is power restrained, then self-gentleness means restraining the power we have to curse, demean, shame, or tear down our own hearts.Brian and Doc discuss metacognition, the uniquely human ability to think about what we think about. What do you say to yourself when you fail? When you forget something? When you sin? When you disappoint someone? Do those words sound like Jesus?This episode also explores why many followers of Jesus struggle to be gentle with themselves. Brian and Doc discuss the reductionist gospel, sin management, shame, self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difference between seeing sin as a relational problem and treating it as a valuation problem. We are not worthless people God grudgingly tolerates. We are image-bearers, sons and daughters, beloved by God, and invited into transformation.Self-gentleness is not arrogance, denial, or self-worship. It is learning to treat your own heart in a way that reflects the gentleness, compassion, and delight of Jesus.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com

What does it really mean to be gentle?In Episode 128, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring the gentleness of Jesus. Gentleness is often misunderstood as weakness, passivity, softness, or simply being nice. But in Jesus, gentleness is something far stronger. It is power restrained, strength refined, and love expressed with precision.Drawing from Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride, Francis de Sales, The Hulk, Mr. Miyagi, Jesus on the cross, and Elijah hearing the gentle whisper of God, this episode reframes gentleness as one of the clearest marks of deep discipleship. True gentleness does not exist where there is no power. Gentleness is the ability to hold power in check and use it for love, protection, restoration, and goodness.Brian also explores how gentleness has been distorted in Western Christianity, especially in conversations around masculinity, strength, toughness, and success. Jesus was not weak. He was the ultimate warrior, protector, and King. Yet His strength was never frantic, insecure, cruel, or self-proving.The episode applies gentleness to the four core relationships: with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation and culture. What would it look like to be gentle with our own hearts, gentle with others, receptive to God’s gentleness, and gentle toward the world we are called to steward?The gentleness of Jesus is not weakness. It is holy strength submitted to love.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to judge others as a Christian?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 126 on Jesus as judge. Judgment is unavoidable. We judge situations, actions, ideas, motives, culture, and one another every day. The deeper question is whether our judgment reflects the heart of Jesus.The conversation begins by revisiting the larger Soil & Roots journey: the Great Omission, deep discipleship, the Discipleship Dilemma, the Formation Gap, the Forgotten Kingdom, and Season 6’s exploration of Jesus as the object of our formation. If we are becoming more like Jesus, then we must learn not only to love like Him, but also to judge like Him.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc wrestle with why the word “judgment” often feels negative, why some forms of modern Christianity come across like the sin police, and why judgment apart from relationship can become harmful. Jesus judges with perfect knowledge of the heart. We do not. That means humility, self-examination, patience, and relational attunement are essential.The episode explores judging in a polarized, soundbite-driven culture, parenting teenagers, Zacchaeus, moral relativism, church community, and the need to recover deeper, slower, more vulnerable Christian relationships. Judgment is not merely calling out wrong behavior. In the way of Jesus, judgment is meant to serve restoration, healing, human flourishing, and right relationship.To judge others as a Christian is not to prove we are right. It is to seek another person’s good with wisdom, love, and the Spirit of Jesus.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to judge like Jesus?In Episode 126, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring one of Jesus’ more uncomfortable traits: His role as judge. We all judge, and we all get judged. The question is not whether judgment exists, but whether our judgments are rooted in the ideas of the Kingdom or the hidden ideas and desires of our own hearts.This episode wrestles with the tension between “Do not judge” and “judge with righteous judgment.” Jesus does not forbid all evaluation, discernment, correction, or moral clarity. Instead, He warns against condemnation, superiority, hypocrisy, and contempt. Before we help someone else with the speck in their eye, we must first remove the log from our own.Brian explores judgment through the lens of Heartview, the Soil & Roots practice of paying attention to the signals our hearts give through thoughts, emotions, health, actions, relationships, words, time, and money. How we judge others — and how we react to being judged — often reveals the deeper ideas and wounds beneath the surface.Judging like Jesus requires self-examination, humility, compassion, discernment, and love. It means refusing both moral relativism and religious condemnation. It means seeing beneath appearances, listening to the heart, and asking whether our judgment is meant to protect, restore, heal, and build right relationship.The right kind of judgment is not contempt. It is a loving act of discernment rooted in the heart of Jesus.Join us online!Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does relational discernment look like in real life?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Doc, and Reverend Pastor Handsome Kyle continue the conversation from Episode 124 on Jesus’ relational shrewdness. Jesus did not relate to people as categories, problems, projects, or generic members of a crowd. He saw people. He listened beneath the surface. He discerned motives, wounds, hunger, resistance, and faith. Then He responded with wisdom, courage, tenderness, challenge, or silence — depending on the person and the moment.This episode explores why that kind of relational discernment is often missing in modern Christian culture. We may prioritize sermons, systems, formulas, correct answers, and superficial connection while neglecting the slower and riskier work of authentic relationship. But if discipleship is about becoming like Jesus, then we must learn to listen like Him, discern like Him, and respond like Him.Brian, Doc, and Handsome Kyle wrestle with Heart Listening, moral gray areas, the Hebrew midwives, the parable of the shrewd manager, legalism, honesty, biblical nuance, and the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. They also discuss why deep discipleship requires community, vulnerability, patience, and a willingness to treat each person as uniquely beloved by God.Relational discernment is not manipulation. It is Spirit-led wisdom submitted to love. It is learning to pay attention to God, ourselves, and the person in front of us so we can seek their goodness in the way of Jesus.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves?In Episode 124, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring the relational shrewdness of Jesus. Jesus did not relate to everyone the same way. Sometimes He was cryptic. Sometimes He was candid. Sometimes He withdrew. Sometimes He confronted. But He always saw beneath the surface.This episode explores Jesus’ remarkable ability to discern the heart of a person and respond with wisdom, nuance, courage, and love. If discipleship means becoming more like Jesus, then we should expect to grow not only in innocence, but also in perception. We are invited to become people who listen deeply, discern wisely, and respond uniquely to the person in front of us.Brian revisits the Soil & Roots practice of Heart Listening: attuning to the deeper signals beneath words, emotions, behaviors, tone, and body language. Drawing from Sherlock Holmes, the Eight Indicators, the Hebrew midwives, the parable of the shrewd manager, and Jesus’ instruction to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” this episode asks what holy shrewdness might look like in the life of a deep disciple.Shrewdness can be used for manipulation or self-protection, but in Jesus it becomes relational wisdom. It is sharp perception submitted to love. It is discernment used for the goodness of another. It is the ability to see what is really happening and respond in a way that serves the Kingdom.Each person is wonderfully unique and deserves a wonderfully unique response.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠http://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What do we do with the enigmatic Jesus?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 122, “The Mystery of Jesus.” Season 6 is exploring Jesus as the object of our formation, and this episode presses into one of His most fascinating and unsettling traits: Jesus is often mysterious, puzzling, and hard to pin down.The conversation asks whether Jesus’ enigmatic way of teaching and relating is something only He could carry, or whether those who are becoming more like Him should also become more comfortable with mystery, ambiguity, patience, and unanswered questions.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc wrestle with Jesus’ cryptic sayings, His refusal to explain Himself, His relational security, His ability to let people walk away, and His wisdom in speaking differently to different people. They also discuss whether deep disciples should sometimes resist the urge to be immediately clear, immediately right, or immediately understood.This episode explores mystery not as a wall that blocks us from God, but as an invitation to move closer to Him. The more we know Jesus, the more we realize He cannot be reduced to slogans, formulas, scripts, or tidy answers. He is a person of extraordinary depth, and following Him may require learning to trust Him even when we do not understand what He is doing next.Becoming like Jesus may not mean trying to be intentionally confusing. But it may mean becoming secure enough, patient enough, and wise enough to live beyond the flatness of easy answers.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠http://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why was Jesus so mysterious?In Episode 122, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring one of Jesus’ most intriguing and often overlooked qualities: His enigmatic nature. Jesus did not always speak plainly. He did not always answer questions directly. He taught in parables, riddles, stories, and sayings that confused even His closest followers.This may feel strange to those of us formed by modern Western assumptions. We often want clarity, direct application, and a simple answer we can immediately use. But Jesus frequently taught in ways that invited people to wrestle, seek, wonder, and press closer. His mystery was not a wall meant to keep people out. It was an invitation into depth.This episode explores Jesus’ use of parables, enigmas, ambiguity, and wisdom. It also examines how the Bible’s wisdom literature, especially Proverbs, challenges our modern desire for simple formulas. Sometimes wisdom requires discernment, context, patience, and relational attunement rather than universal application.Brian also looks at two surprising encounters: the Syro-Phoenician woman and the Roman centurion. In both stories, Jesus acts in ways that can feel confusing or even unsettling, yet both reveal His profound relational wisdom and His ability to draw out faith in unexpected people.If discipleship means becoming like Jesus, then perhaps becoming deep people means becoming comfortable with mystery, wise in ambiguity, and willing to let Jesus draw us beyond simplistic answers.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to experience God’s love, not merely believe in it?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 120, “Beloved by God.” Season 6 explores Jesus as the object of our formation, and this episode delves deeper into one of Jesus’ most foundational realities: He lived from the experience of being beloved by the Father.The conversation centers on the difference between intellectual agreement and heart experience. We may believe theologically that God loves us, provides for us, calls us His children, and invites us into His family. But our hearts may tell a different story. Anxiety, insecurity, shame, disappointment, illness, financial stress, grief, and suffering often reveal places where our hearts have not yet experienced what our minds say is true.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc share personal stories about provision, insecurity, chronic illness, unmet expectations, fatherhood, mentoring, spiritual friendship, and what it means to look back over our stories and recognize God’s presence even when we could not see Him at the time.This episode also explores “complete belief,” the long distance between the head and the heart, and the role of safe community in helping us experience belovedness. God often invites our hearts to receive His love through other people who listen, stay, witness, and help us notice where He has been with us all along.Experiencing God’s love does not mean life always goes the way we hoped. It means learning, slowly and honestly, that we are still beloved even there.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to be beloved by God?In Episode 120, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring the lived reality underneath Jesus’ relational security: belovedness. Jesus was not anxious, defensive, manipulated, or controlled by other people’s opinions because He lived from a deep, abiding attachment to the Father. He knew who He was. He knew whose He was. He lived as the beloved Son.But what about us?This episode asks what it would mean for followers of Jesus to experience belovedness not merely as a doctrine, but as a reality that settles into the heart. Many of us intellectually believe we are God’s children, yet our thoughts, emotions, anxiety, anger, loneliness, fear, and relational patterns reveal that our hearts may not yet fully rest in that truth.Brian explores adoption, trust, self-worth, self-efficacy, secure attachment, identity, and the slow process by which our hearts learn to live in God’s family. He also applies relational security to our relationships with ourselves, others, creation, and culture.Being beloved by God does not make us passive, weak, or doormats. Jesus was secure, but He was not controlled by others. He loved with compassion and boundaries, patience and wisdom, gentleness and strength. As we become more like Him, we learn to seek goodness without losing ourselves, to love others without enabling harm, and to participate in the world from a secure identity in the Father’s love.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it really mean to abide in Jesus?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 118 on Jesus’ relational and emotional security. If Jesus is the most secure person in human history — unshaken by rejection, manipulation, pressure, praise, criticism, or failure — then what does that reveal about abiding in the Father’s love?The conversation returns to the Father’s words at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus does not merely know this intellectually. He lives from it. His identity is rooted in belovedness, and His actions flow from secure attachment to the Father.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc explore why many followers of Jesus struggle to live from that same security. We may believe we are loved by God, but our hearts often tell a different story. Circumstances, failure, shame, self-loathing, anxiety, people-pleasing, and the need for control can reveal places where we are not yet resting in the Father’s love.The episode also discusses formulaic evangelism, particularity, spiritual direction, the difference between producing fruit and bearing fruit, attachment theory, and Curt Thompson’s language of being safe, seen, soothed, and secure. Abiding in Jesus is not anxious striving. It is becoming deeply rooted in Him until fruit begins to grow naturally.This is a Greenhouse conversation about identity, belovedness, relational security, and learning to live as people who are safe in the love of God.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠http://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What would it mean to live with secure attachment to God?In Episode 118, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by exploring one of Jesus’ most compelling qualities: His relational and emotional security. Jesus is not anxious, rattled, manipulated, needy, or driven by what other people think of Him. He lives from a rock-solid sense of identity as the beloved Son of the Father.This episode begins at Jesus’ baptism, where the Father declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” That moment reveals something central about Jesus: His actions flow from secure attachment to the Father. He knows who He is, whose He is, and what He is worth.Brian explores how relational insecurity often shows up in us through perfectionism, people-pleasing, control, anxiety, avoidance, or the need to prove ourselves. Jesus, by contrast, acts with stunning freedom. He treats each person with particularity. He does not follow a formula, a script, or a program. He listens, discerns, withdraws, confronts, heals, teaches, and loves from a secure heart.The episode also connects Jesus’ security to attachment theory, formulaic evangelism, the Four S’s of secure attachment — safe, seen, soothed, and secure — and the invitation to live as God’s beloved. If we are becoming like Jesus, then His groundedness is not merely something to admire. It is something He desires to form in us.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is goodness in the Bible?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 116, “What Is Love in the Bible?” That episode offered a working definition for Season 6: love is seeking someone’s goodness based on God’s ideas. Episode 117 presses into the question underneath that definition: what do we mean by goodness?The conversation begins in Genesis 1, where God repeatedly calls creation good, and then very good. But what happens after Genesis 3? Is creation still good? Are human beings still good in any sense? Or has sin so corrupted everything that goodness only exists somewhere else, someday later?Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc explore original goodness, the corruption of sin, the goodness of creation, the image of God, and the danger of reducing people to “dirty rotten sinners” without also remembering that God made human beings with glory, value, and purpose. Sin fractures relationship, but it does not erase the goodness of what God made or His desire to redeem and restore it.They also discuss the phrase “Love is love,” the problem of moral relativism, religious formulas, Romans 8:28, tragedy, pastoral care, cohabitation, Zacchaeus, and the mysterious way Jesus seeks goodness in particular people and situations. Love and goodness are not simplistic. Jesus does not operate by formula. He loves with wisdom, patience, truth, compassion, and stunning relational shrewdness.This episode helps set the groundwork for Season 6 as Soil & Roots explores the complex, beautiful, surprising Jesus — the One who defines goodness because He is good.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is love in the Bible?In Episode 116, Brian continues Season 6, The Object of Our Formation, by asking a deceptively difficult question: what does it actually mean to love like Jesus?The answer may seem obvious at first. God is love. God is good. Followers of Jesus are called to love God, love others, love ourselves rightly, and participate in the goodness of His Kingdom. But in a fractured and polarized culture, words like “love” and “goodness” are not nearly as simple as they sound. What one person calls loving, another may call harmful. What one person calls good, another may call unjust.This episode explores why we cannot define God by our own assumptions about love and goodness. Instead, we must allow God’s revealed character — in Scripture, creation, and ultimately Jesus — to define love and goodness for us. For the rest of Season 6, Soil & Roots uses this working definition: love is seeking someone’s goodness based on God’s ideas.Brian also applies this definition to the four relationships God placed us in from the beginning: with God, self, others, and creation and culture. Loving God may include honesty, lament, and wrestling. Loving ourselves may require receiving painful goodness. Loving others may include compassion, sacrifice, boundaries, or even distance. Loving creation and culture means stewarding what God has made and participating in His restorative Kingdom.This episode sets the foundation for Season 6: if we are becoming like Jesus, then we must learn what Jesus means by love.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠http://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is the difference between doing what Jesus did and being like Jesus?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 114, the launch of Season 6: The Object of Our Formation. Season 6 explores who Jesus really is and what qualities we should expect to develop as we become more like Him.The conversation begins by revisiting the Soil & Roots journey so far: the Great Omission, the Three Primary Problems, deep discipleship, hidden ideas, the Formation Gap, the Forgotten Kingdom, and the Discipleship Dilemma. But instead of staying focused on the problems, this season turns toward the ultimate answer: Jesus Himself.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc wrestle with two core questions for the season. First, what is the difference between being like Jesus and simply doing Christian things? Spiritual formation is not merely a checklist of actions, habits, service projects, or sermon applications. The goal is not just to imitate Jesus externally, but to be formed from the inside out so that we increasingly think, relate, love, and respond like Him.Second, how complex is Jesus, the object of our formation? Jesus is not predictable, flat, or formulaic. He is gentle and confrontational, compassionate and disruptive, emotionally secure and deeply human. He relates to people with stunning particularity and wisdom.This episode invites us into a deeper vision of Christlikeness: becoming more fully ourselves in Him, more secure in the Father’s love, and more able to love others with the wisdom and freedom of Jesus.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it actually mean to become like Jesus?In Episode 114, Brian opens Season 6 of Soil & Roots: The Object of Our Formation. After five seasons exploring the Great Omission, the Three Primary Problems, Heartview, Greenhouses, and the need for deep discipleship, this episode turns toward the central question underneath it all: Who is Jesus, really, and what kind of people should we expect to become as we are formed into His image?The episode begins with a 30,000-foot recap of the Soil & Roots journey so far. Brian revisits the Great Omission, the Forgotten Kingdom, the Discipleship Dilemma, the Formation Gap, the Five Key Elements, hidden ideas and desires, and the Heartview process. Each of these frameworks points toward the same goal: becoming people who think, act, relate, and love more like Jesus from the inside out.But Season 6 also complicates the question. Becoming like Jesus does not simply mean asking, “What would Jesus do?” and then imitating His actions. Jesus is not flat, predictable, or one-dimensional. He is gentle and provocative, compassionate and confrontational, patient and disruptive, emotionally secure and deeply moved. He reveals Himself differently to different people, and He relates with perfect wisdom to the heart in front of Him.This episode launches a season-long exploration of Christlikeness, spiritual formation, and the surprising, beautiful, unsettling person of Jesus — the One into whose image we are being formed.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does a true spiritual formation community look like?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 112, “The Desperate Need for Deep Communities.” That bonus episode asked whether many modern Christian institutions are structured to form people of depth, or whether deep discipleship requires smaller, more vulnerable, more intimate communities.Episode 113 presses into the practical questions. What do we mean by “deep”? What do we mean by “community”? How can we tell whether a group is actually forming people into the image of Jesus, rather than simply sharing information, attending events, or creating a religious social club?The conversation explores the Soil & Roots Greenhouse model, the five key elements of formation, the difference between knowledge and knowing, the need for vulnerability and trust, and the fruit that can emerge when a small group of people commits to being known over time. Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc also discuss why many people long for this kind of community but struggle to pursue it: church structures, fear of change, resistance to vulnerability, confusion about discipleship, and uncertainty about where to begin.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What kind of community forms deep people?In this Season 5 bonus episode, Brian continues the reflection from Episodes 110 and 111 by exploring the desperate need for deep communities. If a deep disciple is someone increasingly awake and attuned to God, self, others, creation, and culture, then the next question is obvious: what kind of community can actually form that kind of person?Brian argues that deep Christian community requires more than sermons, Bible studies, programs, weekend services, or casual small groups. Those things may have value, but they do not automatically create the vulnerability, honesty, safety, time, intimacy, and shared life necessary for genuine spiritual formation.This episode returns to the Great Omission, the Formation Gap, the Critical Journey, the “nones” and “dones,” and the Soil & Roots Greenhouse model. Brian asks whether many modern Christian institutions are structured to produce deep people, or whether their size, pace, power dynamics, and dependence on professional Christians can sometimes work against the very formation they hope to encourage.The episode also explores why the church may need to grow smaller rather than larger if it wants to recover New Testament discipleship. Deep communities are not built around celebrity teachers or institutional growth. They are formed by people willing to know and be known, listen deeply, suffer together, tell the truth, practice the five key elements, and experience Jesus in one another.Join us online! Web: https://soilandroots.orgSubstack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What makes a person spiritually deep?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian and Handsome Kyle continue the conversation from Episode 110, “The Desperate Need for Deep People.” That bonus episode defined a deep person as someone increasingly awake and attuned to God, self, others, creation, and culture. Episode 111 presses further into what that actually means.Brian and Handsome Kyle explore why spiritual depth is not the same as theological knowledge, religious activity, church involvement, or having impressive answers. A deep person is someone who listens beneath the surface — to the heart of God, to their own heart, to the hearts of others, and to the world God has made.The conversation also returns to one of the most neglected themes in modern discipleship: self-knowledge. Drawing from the long Christian tradition, Brian argues that knowing God and knowing ourselves are deeply connected. We cannot love others well if we refuse to know our own stories, wounds, desires, assumptions, fears, and patterns.Brian and Handsome Kyle also discuss suffering as a common doorway into depth, the risk of authentic love, why Jesus relates to each person with particularity, and how creation and culture belong inside deep discipleship. This is a Greenhouse conversation about becoming people who are less guarded, more awake, more honest, and more able to love like Jesus.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is deep discipleship, and why does the world desperately need deep people?In this Season 5 bonus episode, Brian steps back from the Conversations series to review the Soil & Roots journey so far. Drawing from Dallas Willard’s language of the Great Omission and Richard Foster’s call for “deep people,” this episode returns to the central question behind Soil & Roots: how do people become more like Jesus from the inside out?Brian reviews the Great Omission, the three primary problems explored in Seasons 2–4, and the Soil & Roots framework of story, community, and purpose. The Discipleship Dilemma reminds us that God’s story and our own stories matter. The Formation Gap reminds us that hearts are formed through time, habit, community, intimacy, and instruction. The Forgotten Kingdom reminds us that Jesus’ purpose is not merely private salvation, but the increasing arrival of His Kingdom into every corner of human existence.The episode then asks what a deep person actually is. A deep person is not necessarily the most theologically informed, most charismatic, most active, or most religiously busy person in the room. A deep person is someone increasingly awake and attuned to God, self, others, creation, and culture.This is a short but important overview of deep discipleship, heart listening, hidden ideas and desires, self-knowledge, vulnerability, creation care, cultural discernment, and the kind of people the world desperately needs.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why do our views of the end times matter for discipleship?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 108 with Dr. Darrell Bock on the kingdom of God, Progressive Dispensationalism, Israel, cultural engagement, and Christian mission.The conversation asks why end-times views are not merely abstract theology or speculative debate. How we understand the future shapes how we live today. If the mission of Jesus is only a rescue operation from a doomed world, we may relate to culture, creation, justice, institutions, and our neighbors in one way. If the Kingdom is already breaking into the world through Jesus and His people, we may live with a very different sense of purpose.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc explore the difference between “splitter” and “joiner” approaches to Scripture, how Christians think about Israel and the church, why some followers of Jesus hold to a rapture and tribulation while others do not, and how these views shape our understanding of the cross, resurrection, new creation, and the Kingdom of God.They also reflect on Dr. Bock’s tone: gracious, curious, bridge-building, and willing to hold conviction without hostility. Deep discipleship requires more than being right. It requires learning how to wrestle well, listen carefully, love our neighbor, and represent the Kingdom regardless of how history unfolds.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does the kingdom of God have to do with the end times?In Episode 108, Brian talks with Dr. Darrell Bock, Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement, about the kingdom of God, Israel, eschatology, and Christian mission.This conversation builds on Season 4, The Forgotten Kingdom, where Soil & Roots explored why the kingdom of God is central to the mission of Jesus and the life of deep discipleship. Brian and Dr. Bock discuss Progressive Dispensationalism, how it differs from more traditional dispensational views, and why our views of the end times are not merely side issues. They shape how we understand Jesus’ purpose, the church’s mission, Israel, the nations, creation, culture, and our daily lives.Dr. Bock offers a gracious and bridge-building perspective. He affirms a future for Israel, the importance of the church’s witness now, and the need for followers of Jesus to represent the kingdom regardless of how history unfolds. The church is called to be a “sneak preview” of what is coming: a reconciled people who show the world the way of peace, justice, love, and Shalom.This episode explores dispensationalism, covenant theology, cultural engagement, the rapture, the millennium, the new creation, and why the tone of our witness matters. If we say the right thing in the wrong way, we are still wrong. The kingdom of God is not only something we await. It is something we are called to embody now.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does healing from church hurt actually require?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 106 with Matt Davis. Matt’s story opened up a raw and necessary discussion about church hurt, pastoral burnout, ministry failure, institutional self-protection, and the people who are wounded when church systems value the institution more than the individual.This follow-up conversation asks what comes next. How should we think about pastors? Have we turned the pastoral office into a professional class or a platform role instead of a shepherding role? Can people be deeply formed if they are part of a church where no one really knows them? And why do so many churches have beautiful on-ramps for new people but confusing, painful, or graceless off-ramps for people who are burned out, wounded, or leaving?Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc also explore whether the modern sermon has been asked to carry more formative weight than it can bear. Instruction matters, but spiritual formation does not happen through instruction alone. People need time, habits, community, intimacy, and spaces where they can confess, wrestle, suffer, wait, and be known.This episode is not an argument against the church. It is an honest conversation about the beautiful mess of the church and the hope that Jesus still meets people in the hole. Healing from church hurt often begins when someone is willing to climb down, sit with us in the dark, and walk with us toward restoration.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What happens when church wounds the people it was meant to form?In Episode 106, Brian talks with Matt Davis, founder of Pastoral Transitions and co-host of Life After Ministry. Matt shares his story of ministry failure, church hurt, pastoral burnout, and healing after leaving vocational ministry. Together, Brian and Matt explore the Formation Gap, megachurch systems, institutional self-protection, small communities, confession, identity, and how Jesus restores people in the beautiful mess.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What does it mean to disciple children as whole persons?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 104 with Emily Riffe on spiritual formation for children. Drawing from Emily’s reflections on Charlotte Mason, education, nature, habits, and character formation, the conversation asks how parents, teachers, churches, and communities can better help children become people who love Jesus.The episode challenges the idea that children are empty vessels waiting to be filled with information. Children are already whole persons made in the image of God, with unique personalities, affinities, desires, and God-given capacities. Discipling children is not merely about giving them more Bible facts, better curriculum, or higher test scores. It is about creating an atmosphere where their hearts, minds, bodies, imaginations, relationships, and habits can be formed toward love.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc also discuss the difference between schooling and educating, the danger of reducing faith to intellectual instruction, and why the Bible should be approached as a living book rather than merely an instruction manual. They explore what it means to form children through time, habits, community, attention, family rhythms, and a lived vision of the Kingdom of God.This episode is not a debate about public school, private school, or homeschooling. It is a deeper conversation about child discipleship, whole-person formation, and what kind of people our children are becoming.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

How are children spiritually formed?In Episode 104, Brian talks with author, educator, and homeschool mom Emily Riffe about spiritual formation for children. Emily introduces the work of Charlotte Mason, a British educator whose philosophy treated children not as empty vessels to be filled with information, but as whole persons made in the image of God.This conversation returns to the Discipleship Dilemma from Season 2: to become more like Jesus, we need to know both God and ourselves. Emily and Brian explore why that kind of double knowledge matters for children, whose hearts, habits, desires, imaginations, and ideas are being shaped from the earliest years of life.The episode challenges the assumption that spiritual formation is mostly about giving children more Bible facts, curriculum, programs, camps, or academic achievement. Those things can be good, but they are not enough. Children are formed through atmosphere, habits, relationships, nature, beauty, living books, conversation, attention, obedience, truthfulness, and the ordinary rhythms of home.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 102 with Zach Leighton on Christian storytelling, testimony, and the role of story in deep discipleship. They explore why story is essential to how we understand God, ourselves, our communities, and the larger narrative of Scripture.The conversation asks whether the modern church has lost touch with the power of testimony. In many church settings, story is reduced to a dramatic conversion account or a rare platform moment. But our testimonies also include the ordinary and ongoing ways God forms us: moments of struggle, healing, conflict, joy, suffering, provision, wrestling, and growth.Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc discuss why safe communities are needed for people to tell their stories honestly. They return to the Greenhouse question, “How is it going with your soul?” as a simple practice that opens space for weekly testimony, vulnerability, and attention to God’s work in real life.The episode also explores story as a spiritual discipline, the role of conflict and change in formation, the danger of reducing the gospel to plot points, and the idea that our lives can be understood as living parables. Christian testimony is not just something we share once. It is the ongoing practice of naming what God has done, what He is doing, and how He is forming us into people of love.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What role does Christian storytelling play in deep discipleship?In Episode 102, Brian talks with Zach Leighton, founder of Reliant Creative and co-founder of Kingdom Stories, about the importance of story, testimony, and narrative in the life of the church. Zach has spent more than a decade helping churches, ministries, and nonprofits around the world communicate more faithfully and effectively through story.This conversation returns to the Discipleship Dilemma from Season 2: your story matters. Becoming more like Jesus is not only about knowing His heart more deeply; it also involves knowing our own hearts, histories, wounds, joys, conflicts, and transformations. This is the old theological idea of double knowledge — knowing God and knowing ourselves.Zach argues that the church has largely lost the practice of storytelling. Much of modern Christian communication centers on teaching, doctrine, apologetics, data, models, and strategies. Those things matter, but story reaches the heart in a different way. Jesus taught through story. Scripture is filled with story. Human beings are formed by story.Brian and Zach also explore the hero’s journey, testimony, vulnerability, the difference between salvation stories and lifelong sanctification stories, and why every follower of Jesus has a story worth telling. Christian storytelling is not just a marketing strategy. It is a discipleship practice, a way of bearing witness, and a means of helping people recognize the transforming work of Jesus in their own lives.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠http://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

Why does deep discipleship matter for culture, not just for personal faith?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 100 by asking the “so what?” question at a deeper level. If the Great Omission is real, and many Christians are not being intentionally formed to become more like Jesus, what does that actually cost us?The conversation begins personally. Doc reflects on the ache of wanting more, the need for trusted people to ask honest questions with, and the wounds many of us carry alone. Handsome Kyle describes how deep discipleship has helped him become more fully himself, with Jesus turning up the volume on who he was created to be. Brian reflects on his own need to become more awake to his heart and the hearts of others.The episode then turns outward, exploring how hidden ideas shape not only individuals but also churches, politics, education, culture, and civilization. Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc discuss integration, Christian fatalism, the Kingdom of God, the danger of simply “waiting it out,” and why Jesus’ restoration mission is bigger than rescue alone.Deep discipleship is not merely private spirituality. It is the journey of becoming people of love whose lives participate in the renewal, reconciliation, and redemption of the world around them.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

In this special bonus episode, Brian celebrates Episode 100 by stepping back from the normal Season 5 flow and revisiting the major Soil & Roots journey so far: the Great Omission, hidden ideas, the Discipleship Dilemma, the Formation Gap, and the Forgotten Kingdom.The episode asks a simple but urgent question: so what? If many Christians are not being guided into deep discipleship, what does it actually cost us? Brian argues that the lack of deep discipleship is not merely a church problem. It affects marriages, families, leadership, institutions, communities, creation, culture, and civilization.This bonus episode explores how hidden ideas shape our hearts, why accurate doctrine alone does not automatically produce Christlike love, and why making converts is not the same as making disciples. If Jesus is the King of the cosmos and His people are called to participate in the restoration of all things, then Christian discipleship and culture cannot be separated. Becoming more like Jesus is not private spirituality. It is the pathway to deeper love, human flourishing, and the redemption of the world around us.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What happens when we move through the early stages of faith but are not guided into the deeper ones?In this Greenhouse episode, Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc continue the conversation from Episode 98 with Dr. Jim Reiter on The Critical Journey. They explore the six stages of faith, the Wall, and why many modern churches are well equipped for awakening, learning, and service, but often struggle to guide people through the inward journey, deeper self-awareness, and the life of love.The conversation asks what happens to individuals, churches, and culture when discipleship stops at Stage 3. If the later stages involve wrestling, suffering, deconstruction, character formation, and deeper union with God, then neglecting those stages has real consequences. Brian, Handsome Kyle, and Doc discuss church safety, pastoral scandals, celebrity church culture, the rise of the “dones,” and why being right is not the same as being formed.The episode also returns to Jim’s idea of cinema divina, asking whether Jesus can reveal Kingdom themes through movies, pop culture, and places many Christians might label “secular.” This is a passionate conversation about faith stages, deep discipleship, formation beyond information, and the kind of communities needed for people who know there must be more.Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/

What is The Critical Journey, and why does it matter for deep discipleship?In Episode 98, Brian talks with Dr. Jim Reiter about The Critical Journey, the well-known spiritual formation framework developed by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich. The book describes six stages in the life of faith, including awakening to God, learning the faith, productive service, the inward journey, the outward journey, and the life of love.Brian and Jim explore why many churches are well equipped for the first three stages of faith but often struggle to guide people through Stages 4, 5, and 6. Those later stages tend to involve the Wall, doubt, disillusionment, deconstruction, deeper self-awareness, and a more personal encounter with God. They are often messy, slow, and difficult to manage inside church systems built around programs, sermons, volunteers, and institutional growth.The conversation also explores spiritual direction, the rise of the “dones,” the difference between franchise thinking and Kingdom thinking, and why the Great Omission may be connected to a reduced vision of the church. Dr. Jim Reiter offers a hopeful but challenging vision: perhaps the Spirit is stirring new forms of formation, companionship, and community for people who know there must be more to life with God.Connect with Dr. Reiter at https://zoe-life.net/. Join us online! Web: ⁠⁠https://soilandroots.org⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠ https://soilandroots.substack.com/