This summer, The UpWords Podcast is spotlighting local leaders shaping faith and community life in Madison. Host Dan Johnson sits down with Jon Anderson, founder and executive director of Collaboration Project, to talk about what happens when churches stop working in silos and start loving their neighborhoods together. Jon traces the winding path from twenty years of local pastoral ministry to launching a nonprofit he once swore he'd never start, shares how COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd became unexpected catalysts for church collaboration, and unpacks why Collaboration Project now organizes its work around neighborhoods rather than issues or denominations. Along the way, Jon tells the story of a chance lunch conversation that turned into 1,200 free prom dresses for high schoolers, reflects on 25 years of Madison Missions and a decade of the Kingdom Justice Summit, and offers a biblical definition of justice rooted in shalom. He closes with a hope for what Dane County's church could look like ten years from now.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Jon Anderson — Founder & Executive Director, Collaboration Project

Jon served as a pastor in the Madison area for twenty years before launching the Collaboration Project in 2019. He has a passion for serving the local church and encouraging it as it serves the most vulnerable. Jon has a history of starting programs centered on engaging the church in local service. He helped begin Madison Missions, a local youth service camp that engages hundreds of students every summer. He also co-founded the Kingdom Justice Summit, which annually brings together hundreds of people from dozens of churches around Christianity and justice in our city.

RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED

• Collaboration Project — connecting Dane County churches to love their neighborhoods together
• Kingdom Justice Summit — annual local gathering exploring biblical justice, hosted at Upper House
• Madison Missions — Collaboration Project's local youth service camp, celebrating its 25th summer
• BibleProject's "Justice" video — referenced by Jon as a helpful primer on biblical justice

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CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

Thank you for listening to The UpWords Podcast. We wanted to send you a quick message to let you know that we will be moving to every-other-week podcast releases in July and August this summer, and returning to weekly podcast releases in September. Have a blessed summer!

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour

What do evangelicals mean when they talk about “supporting Israel” — and how did Jewish–Christian dialogue evolve from centuries of suspicion into the conversations happening today?

In the third installment of our series built around the Last Questions of Faith community lecture, host Jean Geran welcomes historian and author Dan Hummel for a wide-ranging conversation on Christian Zionism, evangelical theology, and the hard, patient work of talking across big religious differences. Dan traces the roots of Christian support for Israel — from post-Holocaust theology and the Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate to Billy Graham’s 1969 meeting with the American Jewish Committee — and explains how dispensationalism shapes the way many evangelicals read Israel into biblical prophecy.

Along the way: why Christian Zionists are an organized minority rather than the evangelical majority, how the U.S.–Israel relationship has been deliberately cultivated over decades, and what a more generous, substantive interfaith dialogue — one that includes the more conservative voices in each tradition — might actually look like.

GUEST BIO

Dan Hummel is a historian of U.S. religion and the author of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation (Eerdmans, 2023) and Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations. He is the Director of the Lumen Center at the SL Brown Foundation, and is a co-host of American Evangelicals: A History Podcast. His research and writing focus on Christian Zionism, evangelical theology, and the history of U.S.–Israel relations.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Book — The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism (Eerdmans, 2023), foreword by Mark Noll
• Book — Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations
• Mentioned: Amy-Jill Levine (A.J. Levine), New Testament & Jewish studies scholar; earlier in this series
• Mentioned: Nostra Aetate (Second Vatican Council, 1965); E.P. Sanders; N.T. Wright; Marvin Wilson, Our Father Abraham

Send us Fan Mail

CONNECT WITH US
Subscribe to The UpWords Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and visit slbf.org/studio to learn more about our work at the intersection of faith, the academy, and the marketplace.

This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.

Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour

Edited by Dave Conour