What does it take to find peace in a culture engineered for distraction? In this episode of Formation, John Ortberg sits down with a Silicon Valley pastor whose pursuit of attention, rest, and spiritual formation was interrupted by a panic attack — and reshaped by an ancient prayer practice, the problem with multitasking, and the rise of AI.

Jay Kim is a pastor, author, and podcaster who serves at WestGate Church in the heart of Silicon Valley. He's thought deeply about what it means to pursue spiritual formation in one of the most distracted, driven, and technologically saturated cultures in the world. And a few years ago, sitting in his car in a strip-mall parking lot after dropping his kids at school, a panic attack made all of that very personal.

That moment became an invitation to stop striving, to examine his life more honestly, and to rediscover an ancient practice that has become one of the most formative disciplines of his days. It's the heart of his latest book, The Pace of Peace, and the heart of this conversation.

A note for listeners: this episode includes a personal account of a panic attack and references to anxiety and mental health. If you're struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or a mental health professional.


Also in This Episode

• Why the word "multitasking" was coined to sell mainframe computers
• How the engineers building today's most advanced AI openly admit they don't actually know how it works
• Why the ancient church called distraction demonic and why a Silicon Valley pastor thinks they were right


A Few Lines Worth Sitting With

• "There is no multitasking human."
• "I do not have my finger very accurately on the pulse of my inner life most of the time."
• "Peace actually ushers you into the fray."

About Jay Kim

Jay Y. Kim is the lead pastor of WestGate Church in Silicon Valley, a Fuller Seminary graduate, and the author of Analog Church (winner of The Gospel Coalition's First-Time Author Award), Analog Christian, Listen, Listen, Speak, and his latest, The Pace of Peace — the book at the heart of this conversation. He hosts the Digital Examen podcast and co-hosts the ReGeneration Podcast. He has pastored for over 20 years, all in the Bay Area, and lives with his wife Jenny and their two young children.


Resources Mentioned

• Domestic Monastery — Ronald Rolheiser
• Soul Feast — Marjorie Thompson
• Letters by a Modern Mystic — Frank Laubach
• Against the Machine — Paul Kingsnorth
• Jonathan Haidt — research on social media and adolescent mental health
• Gloria Mark — neuroscience research on multitasking and attention
• Curt Thompson — work on shame and confession
• Steve Cuss — Managing Leadership Anxiety and writing on pastoral anxiety
• Rankin Wilbourne — Broom Tree ministry for pastors in difficulty
• The Daily Examen — Ignatian spirituality
• The hedonic treadmill — concept from Brickman & Campbell (1971)


About Formation

Formation is a podcast that explores the science and soul of spiritual formation. Each episode brings together the ancient wisdom of the contemplative tradition and the best of modern research. John Ortberg sits down with some of the most rigorous and honest thinkers working at the intersection of faith and human flourishing for extended, unhurried conversations about how we are being shaped. New episodes every other week, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Connect with Formation

www.formationpodcast.com/subscribe
@formationjohn

If this conversation gave you something to think about, we'd be grateful if you shared it with someone else who thinks intentionally about the things that matter most.

What does it mean to treat people as ends in themselves rather than instruments to get things done? Gary Hamel joins John for a conversation about work, dignity, and the quiet crisis inside most organizations. One of the world's most influential business thinkers, Gary has spent decades asking why so few workplaces actually unleash the people inside them, and what it would look like if they did. This is a conversation about agency, meaning, and why the biblical vision of every human being made to reign with God has profound implications for how we build institutions.

About Gary Hamel

Gary Hamel is one of the world's most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and is a dynamic and sought-after management speaker. Hamel has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and is the director of the Management Lab.

AMA Opportunity

Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chance to ask John a question on an upcoming episode. Here's how: follow the podcast, leave a review, take a screenshot, and email it with your question to editors@formationpodcast.com. We'll answer selected questions in a future episode. One question per person; screenshot required.

What this Conversation Explores

• Why most organizations treat people as semi-programmable robots and what we stand to lose if we don't change that
• The only three reasons someone actually needs to be managed, and why none of them require layers of hierarchy to solve
• What a 16,000-person Dutch healthcare company with almost no managers can teach us about trust, accountability, and human potential
• The biblical vision of dominion and kingdom, and why John argues it is the deepest possible framework for thinking about work and dignity
• Why the question is not how to outperform your peers but how to outperform expectations, and what that shift does to a person over time
• The four force multipliers Gary has observed in ordinary people who do extraordinary things: courage, contrarianism, community, and compassion
• Dallas Willard's vision of job discipleship, and what it looks like to do your work together with Jesus rather than merely alongside him
• How Gary thinks about faith, suffering, and the preponderance of evidence for belief in a world that has grown increasingly nihilistic

Resources Mentioned

• The Death of Common Sense — Philip K. Howard
• The Utopia of Rules — David Graeber
• Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl
• The Management Lab — mlabgroup.com

Connect with Gary Hamel

Website: garyhamel.com

About Formation

Formation is a podcast that explores the science and soul of spiritual formation. Each episode brings together the ancient wisdom of the contemplative tradition and the best of modern research. John Ortberg sits down with some of the most rigorous and honest thinkers working at the intersection of faith and human flourishing for extended, unhurried conversations about how we are being shaped. New episodes every other week, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Connect with Formation

Website: formationpodcast.com
Newsletter: formationpodcast.com/subscribe
Socials: @formationjohn

If this conversation gave you something to sit with, we would be grateful if you shared it with someone else who thinks intentionally about the things that matter most.

Formation is produced by Become New, a community dedicated to helping you grow spiritually, one day at a time. Subscribe for daily teaching from John Ortberg at becomenew.com/subscribe.

What does it look like to follow Jesus when the culture insists that everything depends on the next election? Michael Wear joins John for a conversation about politics, allegiance, and the slow work of keeping ultimate things ultimate. A former White House staffer who came to faith as a teenager in a Wegmans grocery store, Michael has spent his career arguing that Christian knowledge is not just privately meaningful but publicly useful, and that the church has handed political parties a power that was never theirs to hold. This is a conversation about anger, constituency, and why the word of God does not change every four years.

AMA Opportunity:

Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chance to ask John a question on an upcoming episode. Follow the podcast, leave a review, take a screenshot, and email it with your question to connect@becomenew.com. One question per person; screenshot required.

About Michael Wear:

Michael Wear is the founder, president, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, an organization he built around a 30-year vision to contend for the credibility of Christian resources for the public good. He previously served in the Obama White House, where as a young staffer he helped move the issue of human trafficking onto the president's agenda after connecting a senior advisor to the 60,000 students who had gathered at the Passion Conference in Atlanta to worship and give. He is also the author of Reclaiming Hope (2017). Michael came to faith as a teenager, shaped significantly by his sister's conversion and a conversation on the Romans road in the middle of a grocery store. He has said that coming to faith immediately raised a question for him: if this is true, what does it mean for the whole of life?

What this Conversation Explores:

• What Michael means by "Christian knowledge" and why he insists it is publicly available, not merely privately held
• Why Dallas Willard believed politics has a unique capacity to create a pseudo-reality, and what Christians lose when they forget it
• The danger of going to politics to get spiritual needs met, and what it feels like when the results of an election shift the color of the sky
• What MLK's famous quote about the law gets right and how both the left and the right misuse it
• Why Christians should not be so quick to desire a constituency, and what it means to remember who sent them
• Anger in political life: when it is signal, when it becomes sin, and the question every Christian should ask before indulging it
• How politics is actually a healthy arena for spiritual formation, and why the person who cannot be kind in a political disagreement should ask where else they are rationalizing their way out

Resources Mentioned:

• Reclaiming Hope — Michael Wear
• Exuberance: The Passion for Life — Kay Redfield Jamison
• Center for Christianity and Public Life — ccpubliclife.org

About Formation:
Formation is a podcast that explores the science and soul of spiritual formation. Each episode brings together the ancient wisdom of the contemplative tradition and the best of modern research. John Ortberg sits down with some of the most rigorous and honest thinkers working at the intersection of faith and human flourishing for extended, unhurried conversations about how we are being shaped. New episodes every other week, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Connect with Formation:
Website: www.formationpodcast.com
Newsletter: www.formationpodcast.com/subscribe
Socials: @formationjohn

If this conversation gave you something to think about, we'd be grateful if you shared it with someone else who thinks intentionally about the things that matter most.

Formation is produced by Become New, a community dedicated to helping you grow spiritually, one day at a time. Subscribe for daily teaching from John Ortberg at becomenew.com/subscribe.