When US Airways Flight 1549 lost power over New York City, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger had 208 seconds to make the right decisions. With two failed engines and nowhere else to land safely, he guided the plane to a miraculous water landing in the Hudson River. The world marveled at his calm under pressure, his split-second judgment, his selfless concern for passengers. But, as N. T. Wright points out, Sully’s heroism wasn’t improvised. It was formed. A lifetime of training and discipline had prepared him for that moment.
In today’s world, we often think of authenticity as doing what comes naturally—following our impulses, being true to ourselves. But moments of courage, sacrifice, and wisdom don’t just happen. They emerge from a thousand unseen choices, from habits shaped over time. This is a crucial aspect of spiritual formation.
At the start of the third season of my podcast Reconstructing Faith, we looked at the life of Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer who defied the Nazis, refusing to swear loyalty to Hitler. His courage cost him his life. We asked the question, How is a person shaped into someone who can stand firm and reflect Jesus when everything else stands in the way? If the church is to rebuild and restore our witness to King Jesus, how do we grow into the kind of people ready for that task?
That’s why this season has focused on the question of spiritual formation—the steady, unseen work of the Spirit who prepares us for faithfulness in moments of testing. This season, we explored the disciplines that shape us—prayer, Scripture, worship—and the ways our digital age, therapy culture, and shifting church dynamics affect our spiritual lives.
The only way we’ll be ready to rebuild is if we look to Christ, abide in him, and trust him to form us into his likeness. All 10 episodes are now available for download wherever you stream podcasts.
1. What If We Can’t Rebuild?
In the first two seasons, we looked at the credibility crisis facing the church today and some of the challenges that stand in the way of our attempts to renew and restore the church’s witness. We heard guest after guest give us truth and point us toward hope. We talked about rolling up our sleeves and finding our place on the wall, doing whatever we can for the church to reconstruct, to rebuild, to restore, to renew. In the premiere of season 3, we ask: What if we’re not up to the task of rebuilding the church’s witness?
2. Three Waves That Have Shaped Your Church
Nothing alters a terrain like water. In severe cases, like flooding from hurricanes and storms, or mudslides in the mountains, or a tsunami overtaking everything in its path, water can leave a landscape totally transformed. But even in mild cases, wind and waves can leave behind noticeable changes to the scenery. Waves affect the landscape of the church also. There are subtle echoes of movements that have shaped churches across the country, regardless of denomination. You might not see them, but they’re there, shaping how we worship. Cultural currents carve out different streams. Movements rise and fall, personalities come and go, and ministry philosophies shift, leaving the terrain transformed. In this episode, we ask: What waves have shaped the landscape of evangelicalism?
3. Spiritual Disciplines Won’t Change Your Life
Before we can even hope to contribute to renewing the church, we must be rebuilt and renewed ourselves. But here’s the danger: In our zeal for spiritual formation, we might mistake discipline for dependence. There’s no magic formula for spiritual growth and no silver bullet to spiritual renewal. God offers us means of grace—postures and practices his Spirit works through, to transform our hearts so that we become more like Jesus. In this episode, we ask: What are those practices? Why do they matter? What is the promise and peril in seeking habits of holiness?
4. An Active Christian Life . . . Where God is Unnecessary
Prayer is essential. The absence of prayer exposes and unmasks our self-sufficient spirit. It’s frightening to consider how easily we can busy ourselves in all sorts of activity in the name of a God we rarely invoke. The more we push God to the periphery, the more we take center stage. We lose eternal perspective because the Eternal One plays only a supporting role. In this episode, we ask: What if the biggest temptation we face in seeking to restore and rebuild the witness of the church isn’t despair, or disillusionment, or cultural pressures, or internal corruption? What if the biggest temptation we face is prayerlessness?
5. Reading the Bible When Nobody Reads
Fewer people read books these days, and those who do, read less often than before. For Christians, this trend hits harder. We’re people of the Book. Our faith is anchored to the Scriptures. If we want to be people of substance in a world of superficiality, if we want to be spiritually healthy, if we want to embody a fortified faith that can contribute to the church’s renewal, we must begin with Scripture. In this episode, we ask: What does faithful engagement with God’s Word look like in a world where fewer and fewer people read, not just the Bible but anything at all?
6. Where’s the Edge?
Faithful Bible teaching, delivered well and received well, is a cornerstone of the church’s renewal. Too often, our preaching and teaching doesn’t hold people’s interest, either because we failed to deliver the message of the Scriptures faithfully or because we failed to construct a bridge from the biblical text to contemporary concerns. And so we miss the opportunity to bring scriptural truth into the sharp edge of conflict with whatever passes for common sense in the world. Whether you’re a pastor, a Bible study leader, or a faithful church member hungry for truth, if we’re going to be involved in the rebuilding work ahead of us, we’ve got to lean in here. We need sharper sermons that deliver truth, and we need sharper listeners attuned to God’s Word above all else. In this episode, we ask: How will preaching and teaching enable us to contribute to the church’s renewal?
7. I Post, Therefore I Am
Digital technologies have woven a complex web that alters our perceptions and interactions. We think of ourselves differently now, and we experience life differently than 20 years ago. How does this shift, this digitization of the self, affect our understanding of what it means to be human? In this environment, spiritual formation will have to be, in some ways, counterformation. An alternative to the digital habits and assumptions that form us, often unthinkingly, in machine-like dehumanizing ways. Renewal will require us to ask hard questions about who we’ve been, who we are, and who we’re becoming. In this episode, we ask: How does the digital age shape, inform, or deform our understanding of discipleship and spiritual growth?
8. No Renewal Without Resilience
As words like “toxic” and “abusive” are increasingly applied to ordinary stresses, the way we interpret and respond to conflict changes. This isn’t just a cultural issue. It’s affecting the church too. There’s a generation gap developing when it comes to leadership, authority, and resilience in church relationships and ministry. Older leaders don’t always share the same assumptions or expectations as younger leaders. The loss of common language and outlook can lead to relational breakdown. We will not be able to rebuild in the coming years unless we’re resilient, unless we persevere through heartache and disappointment. In this episode, we ask: How do we serve together through pain and conflict? How do we deal with disappointment in our pursuit of church renewal? What does spiritual resilience look like in a world that needs resolve?
9. Seven Big Challenges Facing the Church Worldwide
You can’t gather a large group of people without disagreement and debate over what shape the church’s faithful witness should take in our day. Real collaboration with Christians from around the world involves conflict. It’s messy. The conversations are tough. The debates are real. And this has always been the Christian church’s story. In this episode, we examine seven of the big challenges facing the church worldwide. And we take a closer look at what lies ahead for the global church as we seek to follow Christ faithfully.
10. The Kingdom Manifesto
At the beginning of this season, we asked, What goes into the making of a disciple? How does a follower of Jesus become so well-formed, so well-prepared that when the time of testing comes, whether it’s a crisis of courage or a call to quiet faithfulness, they step into their destiny as the person God has always planned for them to be? In the season finale, we turn to Jesus’s words for a blueprint of what life in God’s kingdom looks like. The only way we’ll be ready to rebuild is if, by the Spirit’s power, we live in ways that align our character with Jesus’s wordds, so that we resemble the King who calls us to this holy task.
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