In this episode …

Topics Covered

* Understanding the difference between performance and presence

* How busyness and transactional living keeps us from noticing sacredness, but the deeper barrier is internal fear—not of other people but of what we might reveal if we stopped performing and showed up authentic

* Why conversation as sacrament doesn’t mean using Christianese or performing religiosity, but practicing noticing these moments as important (maybe even sacred) until you graduate into sensing holiness far more often than you used to

* The radical claim that if you just pay attention you’d find one or two moments that were everything you’ve been looking for in the next week

* Changing our mindset around interactions to being sacred rather than battlefields

Timestamps:

01:00 Everyday Sacredness and the Fear People Will Miss It

04:00 Reclaiming “Church” as the Space Between Us

09:00 Performance vs. Presence: The Conditioning That Keeps Us Safe

14:00 Finding Freedom to Just Be in the Pews

19:00 What Keeps Us from Seeing the Ordinary as Holy

26:00 The Holy Work of Silence and Listening

31:00 Abiding in the Vine: Relationship as Spiritual Practice 3

6:00 Practicing Sacred Conversation Like Crooked Yoga

40:00 What Changes When We Notice This Moment Matters

43:00 Finding the Book and the Between Ministry

In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, I sit down with Shannan Martin, author of Counterweights, for a grounding conversation about how her dad’s blue-collar farm wisdom—”carry something equally heavy in the other hand”—became a daily practice for staying upright in a world that feels increasingly overwhelming.

Rather than focusing on “toxic positivity” or the “count your blessings” mantra, Shannan teaches us to honestly name the weights we carry and intentionally find counterweights that pull us back to center so we can keep breathing through the chaos and moving toward justice without burning out.

Topics Covered

* How a blue-collar dad’s practical advice about carrying heavy things to the barn became a metaphor for pulling ourselves back to center when we’re lurching under the weight of collective trauma and constant news cycles

* Understanding counterweights as different from gratitude or mindfulness

* Why the “abundant life” Jesus promised isn’t prosperity gospel glitter but getting all of it

* Learning from incarcerated people at the work release center what accessible counterweights look like

* How protecting your peace can mean staying engaged and bearing witness to trauma (especially for those with power and privilege) rather than opting out

* Why counterweights are always happening and how naming them with intention increases capacity for moving toward justice

Timestamps:

01:00 Defining Counterweights: Dad’s Blue-Collar Wisdom

05:00 Why This Cultural Moment Needs This Practice

11:00 The Abundant Life: We Get It All

16:00 Avoiding Toxic Positivity While Staying Grounded

21:00 Accessible Counterweights: From Cabinet Scrubbing to Dancing

27:00 Learning from Incarcerated Neighbors About What’s Accessible

32:00 Beauty as Emergency: Increasing Capacity for Justice Work

37:00 Finding the Book and Shannan’s Work

In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, I sit down with Joash Thomas, author of The Justice of Jesus, for a conversation about how colonization shaped Western Christianity to resist justice, and what recovering our authentic identities—indigenous, spiritual, and human—has to do with embodying the gospel Jesus actually preached.

The Western church’s complicity in colonization didn’t just harm the Global South, it also robbed Western Christians of their own indigenous practices and created theology that privileges the spiritual over the physical in ways Jesus never did, and how prayer can be the formative work that transforms us into instruments of justice.

Topics Covered

* Understanding colonization not as a political buzzword but as lived reality: India went from 25% of world GDP in 1700 to 1% in 1947 after British extraction, and the Western church was largely on the side of oppressors, excusing colonial theft in theological language

* Why the gospel being “more spiritual than physical” is colonized theology that doesn’t come from Jesus of Nazareth, whose ministry in Luke 4 explicitly defined good news as setting captives free both physically and spiritually

* How empires steal identity by conditioning us to forget who we are beyond labels like “just American” or “just Christian,” and why recovering indigeneity—whether Celtic Christianity or St. Thomas Indian Christianity—reveals pre-colonial traditions offensive to empire

* The prophetic journey from outrage to love: starting angry about injustice (righteous and necessary) but being transformed to see Christ in enemies, transcending trauma to become wounded healers rather than perpetuating violence in words or deeds

* Why reimagining prayer as formative rather than just intercessory—praying with marginalized communities, not just for them—creates the sustainable oxygen advocates need for long-term justice work without burnout

Timestamps:

01:00 From India to America: Learning Power from the Margins

09:00 Justice as Gospel in Global South vs. “Woke Marxism” in America

15:00 How Colonization Stole Western Christians’ Identities Too

20:00 Loving the Church While Critiquing It

27:00 The Prophet’s Journey from Outrage to Love

32:00 Can Western Churches Pursue Justice? (Yes, Here’s How)

38:00 Reframing Mission: Encountering Jesus in the Margins

45:00 Prayer as the Formative Work of Justice

49:00 Finding the Book and Connecting with Joash