What would it look like if the church took seriously the 80,000 hours most people spend at work over a lifetime? In this conversation, host John Terrill sits down with Matt Rusten — pastor-turned-vocational-discipleship-advocate and author of Pastoring for Monday: Help Your Congregation Integrate Faith and Work — to explore one of the most neglected dimensions of Christian formation: our everyday work.

Matt shares the story of Tom Nelson — founder of Made to Flourish — who famously confessed to his congregation that he had been "committing pastoral malpractice" by equipping people for a minority of their lives while ignoring where they spent most of their time. That confession became the seedbed for an entire movement, and it shapes every page of Matt's new book.

Together, John and Matt trace the biblical arc from creation to new creation and show why work — far from being a necessary evil — is woven into the fabric of what it means to be human. They discuss four postures Christians take toward workplace engagement (boxing gloves, latex gloves, camouflage gloves, and work gloves), unpack a powerful framework for pastoral care drawn from the stages of enchantment and disenchantment in Ecclesiastes, and offer practical handles for how sermons, small groups, and outreach ministries can begin integrating a theology of vocation — without creating new programs or hiring a "faith and work pastor."

Whether you are a pastor, a church leader, or simply someone wrestling with purpose in your daily work, this conversation offers both grounding and hope.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• The origin story of Made to Flourish and the "pastoral malpractice" confession that launched a movement
• Why faith and work discipleship is a biblical, historical, and pastoral priority
• A creation–fall–redemption–new creation framework for understanding work
• Four postures for cultural engagement: boxing gloves, latex gloves, camouflage, and work gloves
• Lessons from Lesslie Newbigin and Tim Keller on mission, vocation, and the local church
• Practical tools for pastors: preaching, small groups, outreach, and vocational formation
• The enchantment–disenchantment–re-enchantment cycle and how the Gospel reframes work
• Made to Flourish's three initiatives: Common Good Magazine, Scatter, and pastoral residencies

GUEST

Matt Rusten — Executive Director of Made to Flourish; author of Pastoring for Monday (IVP, 2026)

LINKS & RESOURCES

Pastoring for Monday (IVP Press)

Made to Flourish

Common Good Magazine

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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 does it look like when a Jewish New Testament scholar sits down with a Christian host to talk about how two ancient traditions read the same texts — and reach such different conclusions? That's exactly the conversation host Jean Geran has with Dr. Amy-Jill Levine in this wide-ranging episode recorded in Madison, Wisconsin.

AJ Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and one of the most respected voices in Jewish-Christian dialogue today. She recently joined us for our Questions of Faith event in Oshkosh and spent time in Wisconsin as a scholar in residence at First United Methodist Church in Madison.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• How growing up Jewish in a Portuguese Roman Catholic neighborhood in Massachusetts led AJ to a lifetime of studying the New Testament
• Why the Torah is said to have "70 faces" — and what that means for how Jews and Christians approach interpretation differently
• What Jews and Christians share in terms of canon, prayer, and Scripture — and where they meaningfully diverge
• AJ's surprisingly practical take on salvation, Torah-observance, and whether Jews worry about getting into heaven
• Why Jesus used parables — and why he rarely explained them
• The difference between Jewish communal identity and Christian individualism, and what each tradition can learn from the other
• Baseball vs. football: a memorable analogy for understanding Jewish and Christian orientations toward time, memory, and the future
• The Hebrew concept of tzaddik (the righteous one) and what it means to bless the city you're in
• Whether shared stories can bridge religious and cultural divides — and AJ's honest, unsentimental answer
• Lament as relationship: what Tevye, the Psalms, and Job have in common, and why arguing with God keeps us in the conversation

GUEST
Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Science, and the author of numerous books including Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi and The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.

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

This week on The UpWords Podcast, we're bringing you something a little different — and we think you're going to love it.

We're sharing the first episode of a brand-new podcast series from the Lumen Center and SLBF STUDIO: American Evangelicals, A History Podcast. Hosted by historians John Fea, Dan Hummel, and Maggie Capra, this series takes a thoughtful, deep dive into one of the most talked-about religious movements in American history.

In this opening episode, they start with a deceptively simple question: What is an American evangelical? Beginning with the extraordinary story of Nathan Cole, an ordinary Connecticut farmer who rode twelve miles on horseback in 1740 to hear George Whitefield preach, the historians trace the origins of what would become a world-shaping religious movement.

LEARN more about the series - https://slbf.org/americanevangelicalspodcast

Along the way, they discuss:

• The Bebbington Quadrilateral — the four markers historians use to define evangelicalism: conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism, and activism
• Why the "new birth" or born-again experience is so central to evangelical identity
• George Whitefield's remarkable celebrity and his transatlantic influence
• How evangelicalism was, in its early form, a disruptive and progressive movement challenging established religious authority
• The complex relationship between the First Great Awakening and the American Revolution

If you've ever felt like the word "evangelical" is confusing, contested, or a little loaded, this conversation brings real historical clarity. This is episode one of a three-part introduction to evangelicalism — with much more to come in the series.

SUBSCRIBE to the podcast in your favorite podcast app - https://americanevangelicalsahistorypodcast.buzzsprout.com

And if this episode resonates, share it with someone who wants a deeper, more nuanced understanding of American evangelical history.

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