What does God say when everything falls apart? In this episode, John Whaley sits down with pastor and author Michael Brewer to talk about the one truth that changed his life: grace is the exception, not the rule. Michael watched his wife Susan fight a brain tumor, then cancer, through 13 rounds of chemotherapy — and walked through her death holding a faith that had been tested at its core. Out of that season came his book Broken but Graced, and a message for anyone who has ever asked, "Why is God letting this happen to me?"

John and Michael get personal — sharing their own experiences with church betrayal, prodigal children, family illness, and the moments where God felt completely absent. What they found on the other side was intimacy with God they never would have discovered any other way. This episode doesn't offer easy answers. It offers something better: an honest look at what brokenness really produces, and why the broken places are exactly where God shows up.

Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

Kyle Reno is the Senior Pastor of Crossgates Church in Brandon, Mississippi and co-host of The OneCry Podcast. He grew up outside the faith in rural Alabama and came to Christ at 19 as a broken college kid — kneeling at an altar he'd never heard of, and walking out free for the first time in his life.

In this conversation with John Whaley, Kyle unpacks what God has been doing at Crossgates over the past three years: 708 baptisms in a city of 3,000, a Better Man Conference that launched 700+ men's groups across Mississippi, and a Sunday morning when 104 people were baptized between 9am and 2pm after a congregation prayed 7,000 names of lost people for months. He also shares the story of a supernatural moment — the baptistry water churning audibly while those names were being read.

But this conversation isn't just about what's happened. It's about what's coming. Kyle believes the church is in the foothills of the greatest awakening in American history — and why being "Revival Ready" is the most urgent call for believers right now.

Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

Bill Elliff has spent decades studying revival. He's read everything. He was in the room when God moved spontaneously at his own church in 2011. And he stood in the balcony at Asbury as a broadcast that normally reaches 100,000 people a year went to 10 million — and felt God speak to his soul about what was coming.

In this conversation with John Whaley, Bill connects every sign he's been watching. He talks about Romans 1 and the reprobate mind — people who now fight and kill to defend their sin — and why that level of moral darkness has always preceded major revival. He explains why entire denominations missed the Jesus Movement because they couldn't get past a debate about guitars, and warns that the same trap is waiting today. He walks through five specific questions the Holy Spirit is asking every believer right now. And he makes a claim that stops the conversation cold: he believes this awakening could be the greatest in human history.

The harvest window is open. This conversation is about what it looks like to actually step into it.

Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

What happens when a TV show brings 30 people back to church — in a single congregation? That's just one of the stories Demetrius Troy shares in this episode.

Demetrius plays Lazarus in The Chosen, the most-watched Christian drama in history. But long before the cameras rolled, Demetrius was a cradle Orthodox Christian — baptized 40 days after birth, raised on icons, prayer at the table morning and evening, and the ancient faith tradition of "come and see."

In this conversation with John Whaley, Demetrius opens up about what it's really like to be part of a show with that kind of reach, what he does when someone is moved to tears by meeting Lazarus in a grocery store, and why he believes The Chosen is the iconography of our time. He also shares the surprising darkness of his current project — the Suicide Trilogy, three films about faith, grief, and a pastor whose daughter has taken her own life.

And: over 1,000 people in 62 countries are praying for him and the cast by name. He shares what it feels like — and what he asks them to pray for.

Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

Austin Bradford is the producer of Rooftop Perspectives. In this conversation, John Whaley turns the mic around.

Austin shares his full story: growing up in church, walking away at 22, hitting rock bottom while bartending, and being relentlessly pursued by a campus minister who wouldn't stop showing up at his coffee shops and parks. He talks about driving solo to Utah to learn how to hear God, sitting under a tree on a mountain in Capitol Reef National Park, and hearing one sentence: "surrender your passions." He came home to find all his camera gear stolen.

Out of that stripping-away came something unexpected — a men's Bible study he accidentally led in November 2021 that grew to 30 guys in his living room by December, and eventually to a movement of over 1,000 young adults in Knoxville doing daily community together. He shares the night a friend's doctor said he'd never walk again, the prayer gathering that felt like a mandate to meet monthly, and the moment they filled a warehouse they thought was too big with 250 people and 10 spontaneous baptisms.

Austin also speaks into what he's watching in his generation right now — the shift from hype to depth, the hunger for authentic relationship, and a simple takeaway that's reshaping how he thinks about everything: prayer is not a resource for ministry. It is the ministry.

Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

Cyril Rayan came to America in 1991 from Mumbai, India — chasing a master's degree in electrical engineering at Mississippi State University. He wasn't looking for Jesus. But a campus minister named Stephen Foster made it his mission to share the gospel with every foreign student he could find. Over several months of coffee and onion rings Bible studies, Cyril came to faith. His wife Jemima would later say what became the defining line of his life: "You were born in India, but you were born again in America."

Today Cyril is co-founder of Potter's Ministries, founding pastor of Blessing Church in San Jose, CA, and the author of a new book — "35 Defining Moments of Faith That Shaped America" — written in under 90 days in response to what he believes is America's most critical hour in generations. In this conversation with John Whaley, Cyril shares the staggering stats behind America's spiritual crisis (176 million identify as Christian; only 6% hold a biblical worldview), the 1579 prayer by Francis Drake that most Americans have never heard about, the Moravian prayer movement that ran for 100 straight years, and why he believes this is not the moment to give up on America. He also shares what God showed him about redigging the Wells of Revival — including a September 18 prayer gathering at the U.S. Capitol that took 9 months to secure.

Learn more at wellsofrevival.us and pottersministries.org. Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

Frank Shelton spent 18 years as a staffer on Capitol Hill. He was ordained in 1998, preaching 110 times in 52 weeks while still holding a full-time government job. Then came the moment of decision — a US Capitol Police training course, a prayer, a ripped thigh muscle, 13 days in the hospital, and a $40,000 bill. He calls it the moment God literally answered his prayer and shut the door. In this conversation with John Whaley, Frank shares the full story: his family's dramatic journey to faith, a woman named Judy who witnessed to Elvis Presley in 1974 and eventually led Frank's entire family to Christ, leaving a six-figure career and millions in retirement behind to become a full-time evangelist, and what he's seeing now — a generation rising that wants real truth, preached hard, and is willing to die for it. One of the most compelling testimonies you'll hear this year.

Learn more at frankshelton.com. Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.

Jonathan Friz is the founder of the 10 Days prayer movement — an annual global call to fasting, mourning, and repentance based on the biblical Days of Awe. What started as a vision of entire cities shutting down to seek God has grown into a movement spanning hundreds of cities worldwide. In this conversation with John Whaley, Jonathan shares the encounter that launched it all, the Jonah and Nineveh parallel God showed him, and what he's seeing on the ground globally — including a nation where the number of people experiencing a specific spiritual gift went from 1 in 200 to 1 in 2 in just five years. He also explores why unity, as Jesus prayed in John 17, may be the critical missing piece before the greatest harvest in history.

Learn more at 10days.net. Find us on YouTube @rooftopperspectivesPod and Instagram @rooftopperspectivespodcast.