Igniting Imagination
92 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 19 ratingsEvery movement for change starts with a generative conversation. The Igniting Imagination podcast features rich conversations with leaders across the church landscape that invite you into new possibilities for yourself, your church, and your community. Each episode offers inspiring ideas to spark the Spirit within you as a leader and inspire courage and innovation to bring about human flourishing grounded in love, generosity, and belonging.
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Episodes
Igniting Imagination Season 6 Trailer
August 25, 2022 11:01 - 3 minutes - 7.03 MBSeason 6 of Igniting Imagination is coming soon! Host Lisa Greenwood, co-host Gil Rendle, and special guests from diverse theological perspectives discuss what core values and truths to carry forward and include in the future church. What values and truths will you carry forward? Our guests this season are: Bishop Will Willimon Dr. Angela Gorrell Father Greg Boyle and Rev. Justin Coleman Rev. Jorge Acevedo Andy Crouch Bishop Gregory Palmer We’re so grateful to share these conver...
Summer Soul Tending with Tod Bolsinger: Follow a Rule of Life
August 18, 2022 11:01 - 34 minutes - 79.2 MBOur most-downloaded episode is back (!) for one big reason: this conversation remains incredibly relevant today. We are inviting you to listen again or for the first time to Tod Bolsinger because the way he talks about how to manage change, stress and resistance without burning out is as practical as it is inspiring. In this conversation, you’ll hear: What’s the most important thing to hold on to in the face of change (05:54) Tod’s response to a leader who said “I think I can lead chang...
Summer Soul Tending with Joe Stabile: Trust in God’s Lead
August 11, 2022 18:42 - 38 minutes - 87.3 MBJoe Stabile started centering prayer at age 14. If you’ve ever wondered how a lifetime of centering prayer shapes a person, listen to this conversation with Joe. Throughout his life, Joe has had a constant posture of discernment and a deep trust in where God is leading. Joe is so rooted in the Spirit; listening to him, being around him, is like jumping into a cold pool of water on a hot summer day. In this soul-refreshing conversation, you’ll hear: Joe’s story of his life with God and hi...
Summer Soul Tending with Danielle Shroyer: Be a Soul Ninja
July 28, 2022 11:00 - 38 minutes - 87.3 MBDanielle Shroyer’s curiosity about the spiritual path took an unexpected turn in 2018. This founder of the emerging church movement and deeply faithful Christian leader took the path East, towards the wisdom and practices of the Eastern traditions. Her blog, Be a Soul Ninja, chronicles her experiences engaging in different Eastern religious thoughts and practices. So what does it mean to Be a Soul Ninja? In this conversation, we discuss: Why Danielle is a ‘hot mess’ at meditating and sti...
Living the Questions with Shannon Hopkins
May 19, 2022 11:01 - 49 minutes - 112 MBShannon Hopkins has been asking, “God, what is the church you are building today?” for decades–and she’s been living that question. Shannon’s pursuit of new forms of Christian community inspired her to move from Texas to London where she has continued to build an incredible network of friends and colleagues who are living the questions, too. Through her organization RootedGood, Shannon is bringing spiritual entrepreneurs and innovators together to support one another and discern what it mean...
The Parish is My World with Coté Soerens
May 12, 2022 10:30 - 49 minutes - 113 MBCoté Soerens has made her neighborhood in South Park, Seattle her world. She and her husband Tim moved their family into the under-resourced neighborhood with a deep desire to discover God’s dreams for the community and participate in helping those dreams come to fruition alongside their neighbors. Coté started a coffee shop, Resistencia Coffee, that has become a third space for neighbors to gather, to build relationships with one another and to discern next steps towards making their neighb...
The Soul of Reconciliation with David Bailey
May 05, 2022 13:13 - 47 minutes - 109 MBArrabon means “a foretaste of the kingdom.” This conversation with David Bailey is full of Arrabon! David describes the significance of the numbers 8 and 2008 in his life. From an early age, David saw the benefits and challenges of cultivating a diverse community where everyone can thrive. His passion for God and scripture, together with his love of music and vision for reconciled communities led him to start Arrabon. Arrabon, like David, takes the long view of reconciliation, walking alongs...
Creating Healing Spaces through Social Enterprise with Kit Evans-Ford
April 28, 2022 11:01 - 55 minutes - 128 MBDr. Kit Evans-Ford’s passion for providing safe spaces for survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence is deeply personal. Kit’s grandmother, Argrow, is the namesake for her social enterprise Argrow’s House of Healing and Hope, a bath and body social enterprise that employs female survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence. Kit shares how her family story and her own life experiences led her to discern her life’s purpose and learn how to start a social enterprise. This compell...
Brian McLaren on Becoming a New Kind of Christian and New Kind of Church
April 21, 2022 10:47 - 41 minutes - 94.1 MBIn these five episodes of Season 5, we’ll be meeting stunning spiritual entrepreneurs who are making a profound impact as they follow God’s call on their lives. They are the recipients of the 2022 Locke Innovative Leader Award. To help us set the stage for these conversations, we begin with Brian McLaren! In book after book (his newest book Do I Stay Christian? comes out in May… we talk about it!), with startling clarity, he lays bare the deeply troubling and the fundamentally beautiful as...
Igniting Imagination Season 5 Trailer
April 19, 2022 16:45 - 3 minutes - 8.91 MBSeason 5 of Igniting Imagination is coming soon! Host Lisa Greenwood and co-host Matt Russell talk about spiritual entrepreneurship and innovative ministry with author, activist, and public theologian Brian McLaren and our four 2022 Locke Innovative Leaders. Listen to this short trailer for a glimpse of our conversations with courageous leaders sharing their powerful, inspiring stories. If you like our podcast, please share your favorite episodes with friends and colleagues and leave us a re...
Prophetic Imagination in a Parking Lot with Mandy McDow
March 17, 2022 11:00 - 33 minutes - 75.6 MBIn our final episode for the season, Mandy McDow, pastor of Los Angeles First UMC, shares the story of LA First who razed their building in 2002. Yep. No building. That reality forces a posture of constant discernment: God, what is the difference you would have us make in this neighborhood in this season? Theirs is not a tidy, perfect story. It’s messy and real and very much in process. We hope it inspires you as it has us! Wow! QUOTES “That’s the first barrier for entry to understandin...
Power and Abundance with Mike Mather
March 10, 2022 11:03 - 44 minutes - 103 MB“What does ‘Distributing Power’ look like for a congregation?” is a frequent question we get about our fourth adaptive muscle. Now we can say: listen to this interview with Mike Mather! Mike helps us make the connection between distributing power and abundance. When Mike and his congregation started actually living out their beliefs that everyone (both inside and outside of the church) has gifts, it changed their perspective–and their church–for the better. They began to look for the gifts ...
Nurturing Thriving Communities with Adam Barlow-Thompson
March 03, 2022 11:03 - 42 minutes - 97.3 MBAdam Barlow-Thompson, co-founder of The Neighboring Movement, wants us to meet our actual neighbors. While that may seem like a simple idea, research (and perhaps experience) shows us that few of us truly engage our neighbors. Adam invites us to move from the theoretical ‘love your neighbor’ to the literal: meet your neighbors in the eight houses or apartments around you and discover the gifts God has given them. Adam does not simply offer a rosy picture of neighboring. He relates a story of...
The Purpose of the Institutional Church with Gil Rendle
February 24, 2022 11:22 - 38 minutes - 87 MBMost of us can readily identify with having a love-hate relationship with the Institution of the Church. Gil Rendle’s latest paper, Jacob’s Bones: On the Church’s Institutional Future, addresses our ambivalence head-on and offers a distinction that is a gamechanger. He states, “Institutions are not organizations that house values. Institutions are values and disciplines that need organizations to bring their gifts to the people.” Listen to this week’s episode of Igniting Imagination as we d...
Leading Organizational Grief with Shannon Hopkins
February 17, 2022 11:01 - 49 minutes - 113 MBOne big takeaway about the Five Muscles (Grieving Well, Discerning Purpose, Walking Alongside, Distributing Power, Expanding Imagination) is that they are all connected. Shannon Hopkins, co-founder and lead cultivator of RootedGood, profoundly understands that grieving well makes discerning purpose and expanding imagination possible. Shannon shares the origin story of her organization RootedGood. She and her colleagues discerned that Matryoshka Haus, the 15-year-old organization she founded ...
Bonus Episode: “Disruptive Trends Impacting Churches”
February 10, 2022 11:26 - 37 minutes - 85.9 MBVice President of Leadership Ministry and host Rev. Lisa Greenwood welcomes guests Rev. Rachel Billups and Rev. Matt Rawle to discuss disruptive trends impacting churches. Drawing from recent articles about 2022 trends by Carey Nieuwhof, Joe Park, and Thom Rainer, the three discuss how multi-access is here to stay, the shift to more decentralized power, the role of authority, giving permission to play, less givers giving more…and so much more! This engaging conversation will surely ignite yo...
Expanding Imagination with Amy Oden
December 16, 2021 11:00 - 39 minutes - 90.5 MBThe fifth and final muscle the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Expanding Imagination. Dr. Amy Oden teaches theology, the history of Christianity and spiritual formation. Her ability to combine deep theological thought with spiritual practice and bring ancient wisdom to inform contemporary life is not just relevant…her work is truly revelatory for the church today. In this conversation, Amy connects imagination with the life and ministry of Je...
Distributing Power with Joerg Rieger
December 09, 2021 11:00 - 39 minutes - 91.5 MBThe fourth of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Distributing Power. Dr. Joerg Rieger is the Distinguished Professor of Theology and the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has spent the last two decades addressing the relation of theology and public life, reflecting on the misuse of power in religion, politics, and economics. In this conversation, Joerg reminds us that distributed pow...
Walking Alongside Neighbors with Coté Soerens
December 02, 2021 12:35 - 43 minutes - 98.4 MBThe third of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Walking Alongside or Neighboring. Coté Soerens is the owner and midwife of Resistencia Coffee shop in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. She is also the co-founder of Cultivate South Park, a non-profit that lends infrastructure to neighborhood community development projects such as the Urban Fresh Food Collective, Reconnect South Park, and the South Park Arts and Cu...
Discerning Purpose with Susan Beaumont
November 18, 2021 12:09 - 37 minutes - 21.5 MBThe second of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Discerning Purpose. Susan Beaumont is well known for her groundbreaking work in organizational leadership dynamics. She is a consultant, coach, author, spiritual director, and an ordained minister within the American Baptist Churches. She has worked with hundreds of congregations and denominational bodies across the United States and in Canada. In this conversation with Lisa Gr...
Grieving Well with Suzanne Stabile
November 11, 2021 11:00 - 45 minutes - 105 MBThe first of five muscles the church needs to strengthen in order to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now is Grieving Well. Suzanne Stabile is well known as an expert on the Enneagram. This past year, she has done extensive work on grief and the Enneagram because she believes grieving in real time is so important in our world today. Suzanne offers us remarkable insights through this in-depth interview about grief and what grieving well looks like for congregations and communities. Suzanne...
The Five Adaptive Muscles
November 04, 2021 11:03 - 35 minutes - 80.8 MBYou’re listening to Igniting Imagination, a podcast to spark the spirit within you from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. This season, we are sharing conversations about the five adaptive muscles the church must strengthen to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now. For more information about these muscles, visit tmf-fdn.org/leadership-ministry. TMF’s Leadership Ministry team had conversations with pastors, bishops, conference leaders, spiritual entrepreneurs and practitione...
Season 3 Trailer
October 29, 2021 11:00 - 1 minute - 1.78 MBYou’re listening to Igniting Imagination, a podcast to spark the spirit within you from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. This season, we are sharing conversations about the five adaptive muscles the church must strengthen to be fit, agile, and ready for God’s now. For more information about these muscles, visit tmf-fdn.org/leadership-ministry. “God Has Work for Us To Do” music and lyrics by Mark Miller. Visit Mark’s website at markamillermusic.com or find him on YouTube at...
Justice and Healing with Community Defender Emmanuel Andre, Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner
June 17, 2021 11:00 - 46 minutes - 105 MBCo-hosts Lisa Greenwood and Casper ter Kuile talk with Emmanuel Andre, 2021 Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner. Emmanuel prefers to be known as a “Community Defender” instead of a “Defense Attorney,” which says a lot about his approach to his work both inside and outside the courtroom. Restorative justice is more than a program. It is a way of being to Emmanuel, who believes transformation is possible if love is offered unconditionally while walking alongside another. Emmanuel’s non-profi...
Intangible Currencies and Social Banking with DeAmon Harges, Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner
June 10, 2021 11:01 - 34 minutes - 39 MBCo-hosts Lisa Greenwood and Casper ter Kuile talk with DeAmon Harges, 2021 Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner. DeAmon is the original “Roving Listener” who defined the role by his posture of curiosity and his passion for discovering the gifts and talents of the people in his community. He is also the founder of The Learning Tree, a non-profit that uses the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach with city governments and organizations to improve the quality of lives of people, co...
Connecting the Organizational Center and the Innovative Edge with Leroy Barber, Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner
June 03, 2021 11:00 - 34 minutes - 77.8 MBCo-hosts Lisa Greenwood and Casper ter Kuile talk with Rev. Leroy Barber, 2021 Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner. Leroy has dedicated 30 years to eradicating poverty, confronting homelessness, restoring local neighborhoods, healing racism, and living what Dr. King called “the beloved community.” Leroy is the Co-Founder of the Voices Project, which gathers leaders of color across fields, who pursue and work for change, for important conversations about the current challenges and triumphs w...
Improbable Friendships with Matt Russell, Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner
May 27, 2021 11:16 - 41 minutes - 94.8 MBCo-hosts Lisa Greenwood and Casper ter Kuile talk with Dr. Matt Russell, 2021 Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner, about what he calls the “improbable friendships'' that have enriched his life and influenced the direction of his ministry. From these improbable friendships emerged projectCURATE, a non-profit educational and social enterprise incubator that seeks to build bridges across cultural, economic, religious, and racial divides, and Iconoclast Artists, a creative writing and arts prog...
Composting Religion with Jen Bailey, Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner
May 20, 2021 11:10 - 38 minutes - 87.4 MBCo-hosts Lisa Greenwood and Casper ter Kuile talk with Rev. Jen Bailey, 2021 Locke Innovative Leader Award Winner, about her womanist-led Faith Matters Network, whose mission is to catalyze personal and social change by equipping community organizers, faith leaders, and activists with resources for connection, spiritual sustainability, and accompaniment. Jen, founder and executive director, discusses how the organization has focused on “healing the healers” of transformative social movements...
Today’s Spiritual Landscape with Casper ter Kuile and Tom Locke
May 13, 2021 20:18 - 48 minutes - 110 MBIgniting Imagination is a podcast to spark the spirit within you, from Wesleyan Investive and Texas Methodist Foundation. This season, we are sharing conversations with five spiritual entrepreneurs who were awarded the 2021 Tom Locke Innovative Leader Award from the Wesleyan Investive. These five spiritual entrepreneurs share their wisdom through stories and reflections that will encourage and challenge you and ultimately ignite your imagination as a leader. Rev. Lisa Greenwood interviews ...
A Story of Resilience by Liliana Padilla
April 01, 2021 11:02 - 20 minutes - 48 MBRev. Liliana Padilla is the Senior Pastor of Westlawn United Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas. She has overcome many obstacles in ministry. When she was ordained in Mexico, she was prevented from pastoring a church because she was a married woman. When she came to the United States, she had to go through the ordination process again. When she went through divorce, she had to overcome the stigma of divorce in her community. Liliana has never let obstacles prevent her from pursuing G...
Narratives of Resilience with Bishop Robert Schnase
March 30, 2021 11:05 - 51 minutes - 118 MBHow we tell the stories of our lives and the life of our church or organization makes all the difference. Bishop Robert Schnase, Bishop of the Rio Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church, details for us how narrative connects to resilience by sharing personal stories from his time as pastor and his observations as Bishop. He shares how the stories we tell ourselves shape our capacity to move through difficult circumstances. This episode will encourage and inspire you to consider the ...
A Story of Resilience by Romonica Malone-Wardley
March 25, 2021 11:01 - 9 minutes - 22.7 MBWhat is it like to live through storm after storm...after storm? Rev. Romonica Malone-Wardley is District Superintendent of the Southeast District of the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. She has met people and congregations who have lived through one devastating storm after another. Living through a storm though doesn’t mean just surviving. Romonica shares how instead of throwing up their hands in despair, congregations in hurricane-hit areas roll up their sleeves to ...
Resilience for the Church with Bishop Cynthia Harvey and Erin Hawkins
March 25, 2021 11:00 - 57 minutes - 132 MBWhat is needed to enlarge the capacity of pastors, congregations, annual conferences and the denomination to become more resilient, i.e. to absorb change and retain its integrity and purpose? We pose that very deep and difficult question to Erin Hawkins, Executive Director of Connectional Ministries for the California Pacific Annual Conference and Bishop Cynthia Harvey, bishop of the United Methodist Church in Louisiana and President of the Council of Bishops. You’ll notice this is one of o...
A Story of Resilience by Mike Smith
March 18, 2021 11:16 - 8 minutes - 19.4 MBMike Smith is Executive Director of the Holding Institute in Laredo, Texas. He shares the story of a plant at his home that offers a poignant illustration of resilience. Mike is an excellent storyteller who talks about how watering what appeared to be dead is a lesson we can all apply in our own context. While this is our shortest story shared so far in our series, the powerful image of new life will stay with you for a long time. QUOTES “When we’re talking about resilience, it’s not ju...
The Reservoir of Courage with Gil Rendle
March 16, 2021 11:00 - 42 minutes - 96.5 MBWhat better person to talk with about the reservoir of courage than Dr. Gil Rendle, whose book Quietly Courageous has profoundly impacted our work and the work of many leaders in ministry and beyond. He is a retired Senior Vice President and part-time consultant with The Texas Methodist Foundation in Austin, Texas and an independent consultant working with issues of change and leadership in denominations. Rendle has an extensive background in organizational development, group and systems th...
A Story of Resilience by Rev. Bill Lamar
March 04, 2021 19:44 - 17 minutes - 39.3 MBWhen Bill Lamar was appointed Senior Pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C, which sits on the longest continuously held piece of property by persons of African descent in the District of Columbia, the Bishop asked him how he felt. Rev. Lamar said he felt like he had 200 years of history on his back. The Bishop agreed and said, “Now go do something with it.” Rev. Lamar, now in his seventh year as pastor of Metropolitan, draws resilience from ancestors o...
The Reservoir of Purpose with Dori Baker and Stephen Lewis
March 02, 2021 11:22 - 57 minutes - 131 MBOur guests Dori Baker and Stephen Lewis know all about drawing on the reservoir of purpose. They literally wrote one of the best books about purpose we have read! Together with co-author Matthew Wesley Williams, their book Another Way: Living and Leading Change on Purpose, published in 2020, offers a new way of leadership for the 21st Century. Dr. Dori Baker is an ordained United Methodist elder in the Virginia Annual Conference. She’s an educator, activist, and scholar focused on feminist ...
A Story of Resilience by Ugonna Onuoha
February 25, 2021 11:03 - 21 minutes - 49 MBUgonna Onuoha’s daughter Agnes was diagnosed with lupus in third grade and passed away in 2019 at age 23. Ugonna tells the story of Agnes’ illness and death to an audience for the first time in this episode. As a hospital chaplain at Children’s Medical Center, Ugonna has sat with countless families as they navigate illness and grieve loss. She reflects on how going through her own loss has affected her ministry. Ugonna’s deep faith and reliance on scripture is profound; she embodies resilien...
The Reservoir of Hope with Colette Pierce Burnette
February 23, 2021 11:03 - 43 minutes - 99.1 MBIn this episode of Reservoirs of Resilience podcast, Lisa Greenwood, Vice President of Leadership Ministry at Texas Methodist Foundation (TMF), and Bishop Janice Huie, Leadership Formation at TMF, speak with Colette Pierce Burnette. Dr. Burnette knows about drawing on the reservoir of hope to survive and thrive through difficult times. As President and CEO of Huston-Tillotson University, Dr. Burnette reflects on the hope she receives from her students, many of whom are first-generation, ...
A Story of Resilience by Martha Valencia
February 18, 2021 18:51 - 10 minutes - 24.1 MBWe asked six resilient leaders to share a story of resilience with us. We originally planned to include a “Story of Resilience” segment at the end of each episode. Not surprisingly, each story we recorded was incredible and inspiring! We wanted to make sure you didn’t miss these stories and feared you might if they were at the end of episodes. So, our six episode podcast now includes six additional bonus episodes! Each bonus episode features a leader’s answer to our invitation to “tell us a ...
Resilient Leadership with Dr. Tod Bolsinger
February 16, 2021 11:00 - 42 minutes - 97.3 MBIn this episode of Reservoirs of Resilience podcast, Lisa Greenwood, Vice President of Leadership Ministry at Texas Methodist Foundation (TMF), and Bishop Janice Huie, who works in Leadership Formation at TMF, speak with Dr. Tod Bolsinger, Senior Congressional Strategist and Associate Professor of Leadership Formation at Fuller Seminary. Dr. Bolsinger offers insight on what resilient leadership looks like today. He describes the character qualities required of a resilient leader, how stress ...
Reservoirs of Resilience: An Introduction
February 04, 2021 19:24 - 5 minutes - 12.6 MBWhat do leaders need in this moment of unprecedented challenge and change? Resilience. This podcast from Texas Methodist Foundation’s Leadership Ministry is based on Bishop Janice Huie’s publication “Reservoirs of Resilience.” Each episode is packed with insights and inspiration from people who lead with hope, purpose, and courage. The stories and ideas they share will encourage and equip you to deepen your capacity for resilience so that you can not only survive in this challenging season...