Keeping the Stories Alive Together - A Call to Support the Show

In this episode, I want to take a moment to step aside from the interviews and speak directly to you. Shifting Culture has always been about telling better stories - stories that help us live more faithfully and compassionately in a world that’s so often divided by fear. But to keep these conversations going, I need your help.

My wife and I spend our lives training and coaching disciple makers and storytellers around the world, and this podcast is part of that same mission. You can support the work through our donation link or by subscribing on ShiftingCulture.Substack.com, where you’ll get early ad-free episodes, thoughtful articles, and be part of a community committed to the way of Jesus.

I’ll close by reading one of those articles - Breaking the Binary: Building Longer Tables in the Way of Jesus - as an invitation to imagine what’s possible when love is stronger than fear, and when we build longer tables instead of higher walls.

Thank you for listening, for your support, and for embodying the ways of Jesus in this world.

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Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com

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Transcript

Joshua Johnson: 0:00

I Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, today, I want to take a different kind of moment with you. Normally, you hear me in conversation with incredible guests, leaders, storytellers, disciples, people who are embodying the ways of Jesus in their own communities and helping us do the same. We talk about what faithfulness looks like in this world and how compassion can be lived out in the everyday. But this time, I want to step aside from interviewing and speak directly to you. I want to invite you into something deeper into the heart of why this podcast exists and how you can be part of keeping it going. My wife and I have given our lives to helping people embody the ways of Jesus all over the world. We've walked alongside disciple makers and storytellers, people who are learning to bring the love of Christ into their neighborhoods, their workplaces and their cultures. We coach them, we train them, and we encourage them, and shifting culture is one expression of that same mission. Every time I sit down, my goal is to bring you stories that expand your imagination, voices that you might not have heard of otherwise, perspectives that stretch us toward a more generous, more Christ like way of living. The stories we tell ourselves matter. If the only stories we hear are built on fear division and scarcity, then fear division and scarcity will shape the way we live. But if we choose to immerse ourselves in stories of love, compassion, justice, faithfulness, then those are the stories that will form us. That's what I'm trying to do here. That's why shifting culture exists. But here's the honest truth, this work doesn't just happen. It takes time. It takes energy, resources and a lot of behind the scenes work to keep these conversations going, and I am the one that's doing all of it. And so today I want to ask for your help, if you've been encouraged by this podcast, if you've been challenged, if your imagination has been stretched, if you found hope in these conversations, would you consider supporting this work? There are two main ways that you could do that. One through our donation link, this goes directly to the work my wife and I are doing around the world, training disciple makers and storytellers and helping communities embody the way of Jesus. And two, through shiftingculture.substack.com, when you subscribe, you're not just supporting the podcast. You also get early, ad free episodes, thoughtful articles and access to a community of people who are asking the same question, how do we live faithfully and compassionately in today's world? Both of these avenues make a real difference, and both are a way of saying, I want to be part of this. I want to see more of these stories told. I want to help create a world where love gets the last word, because here's what I believe, the way forward isn't about doubling down on fear. It isn't about dividing the world into neat little categories of who's in and who's out. The way forward is about creating longer tables. It's about making space for the immigrant family down the street. It's about welcoming doubt and questions instead of pushing them aside. It's about listening before we speak, telling better stories and embodying the perfect love of Jesus that can actually break cycles of fear and violence. And that's the vision we're working toward, not just through this podcast, but through our whole lives. And when you support shifting culture, you're helping extend that vision further than I could ever do alone. So today, instead of closing with my own words, I want to share with you one of the articles I've written over on substack. This is the kind of reflection you'll find there if you subscribe. It's called breaking the binary building longer tables in the way of Jesus. It's a piece about resisting the temptation to see the world in black and white, about refusing False Divisions of us versus them, and about embracing the love of Jesus that stretches wider than any binary could. So let me read it for you. Now, our world is obsessed with binaries, right or wrong, safe or dangerous, us or them. It's easier that way, isn't it? Life feels more manageable if we could divide it into clean categories. You know where you stand, who you could trust, who you could fear, but the binary is a mirage. It comforts us with a sense of control, while flattening the complexities of human lives into caricatures. It blinds us to the nuance of suffering, the beauty of difference and the mystery of grace. The problem is real life doesn't fit into our binary systems. You can't reduce the grief of a mother who's lost her child to a neat label. You can't check a box for the pain of a refugee who has fled bombs only into land in poverty. You can't put into categories the faith and doubt that rise and fall inside each of us on any given day the binary. Leaves us stuck suspicious and small. Jesus offers something else entirely. Look at how Jesus moves through the world. He doesn't ask the Samaritan woman at the well which side she's on before offering her living water. He doesn't demand that Zacchaeus, the tax collector, fix his theology before inviting himself to dinner. He doesn't treat children as a nuisance, but as honored guests, he doesn't shun the leper or cast out the doubter. Jesus refuses the binary categories of pure, impure, insider, outsider, holy, profane. Instead, he keeps building longer tables, tables where Pharisees sit alongside prostitutes, where fishermen rub shoulders with zealots, where betrayers and doubters share the same bread. The table keeps stretching longer, wider with enough room for everyone. The way of Jesus is not about wielding power to dominate or winning arguments to humiliate. It is the way of the listener and the storyteller. Think of the crowds who pressed in to hear him. He didn't shout slogans or wield data points. He told stories, a farmer scattering seed, a father running to embrace his son who had squandered everything, a shepherd searching for one lost sheep. These weren't neat little moral lessons. They were disarming invitations. They forced listeners out of binary thinking, out of good people versus bad people, and into a larger imagination where God's grace and justice disrupt the cycle, and Jesus listened to he asked people to tell their stories. What do you want me to do for you? Who touched me? Why are you afraid? He dignified people by listening first, then invited them into a bigger story. This way still works when we choose to listen before we speak. When we share stories instead of slogans, something shifts. Fear loses its grip. Walls start to crumble. Stories make strangers into neighbors. I'll never forget sitting in a cinder block home in Jordan drinking tea with a Syrian widow named Sarah. She had fled bombs and carried with her the trauma of an uprooted life raising children alone in a foreign land, we shared a story of Jesus calming the storm. Disciples terrified in the boat, waves crashing, fear overwhelming, and Jesus wakes up, speaks a word and the chaos stills. Sarah's eyes lit up. Can Jesus really do that? She asked, can he calm storms? We told her yes, and not just storms on the sea. He could calm the storm in your heart too. Later, she told us of a dream where Jesus himself appeared, eyes of compassion, words of claim, I want what is rightfully mine. At first, the phrase felt heavy, almost harsh, but as she sat in listening prayer, tears streaming, the meaning softened into grace. Jesus wasn't seizing or demanding. He was renewing, refreshing, inviting her into the love she was made for. And this is how perfect love works. It meets us in the wreckage. It doesn't deny the storm, and it doesn't let the storm have the last word either. Fear breeds violence. Violence breeds fear. It's a cycle as old as Cain and Abel as current as today's headlines. We kill because we're afraid, and our killing makes others afraid, and their fear fuels retaliation. But perfect love, the love embodied in Jesus, interrupts the cycle. When soldiers nailed Him to a cross, Jesus refused to mirror the violence. He prayed for their forgiveness. When his disciples wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan Village, Jesus rebuked them and told them another story. When his accusers demanded binary answers, are you with us or against us, he often responded with silence or with a story that exposed their fear. Perfect love disarms. Perfect love refuses to be caught in the trap of us versus them. Perfect love sits down at the table, listens to the story and makes space for one more we live in a time where fear sells. Fear drives clicks, votes, donations and ratings. Fear is the currency of our culture, but Jesus invites us into a different economy, not fear and scarcity, but love and abundance. The way forward isn't to double down on the binaries. It isn't to build higher walls or sharpen our categories. The way forward is to build longer tables, a longer table in your neighborhood where the immigrant family down the street has a seat, a longer table in your church where doubt and questioning aren't pushed to the margins, but as are welcomed as a part of faith, a longer table in your friendships where listening takes precedence over winning. When we build longer tables, we participate in God's own hospitality. We resist the lie of the binary, and we embody a kingdom where fear doesn't dictate the guest list. My friends from Syria, Abu Fatima. He once counted bombs exploding at night, like others counted sheep when he fled with his family, his daughter insisted on bringing her kite in a refugee camp. Filled with fear, she unfolded that tattered kite and sent it soaring. Her father looked at the sky and said, I used to count bombs. Now I count kites. That's. What happens when perfect love breaks in? That's what happens when we tell better stories. That's what happens when we build longer tables. The binaries collapse, the fear begins to fade. Violence loses its grip, and we find ourselves in the presence of the one who still calms the storm, still welcomes enemies, still embodies a love strong enough to make all things new. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this journey with me. If what you just heard resonated, I'd encourage you to take a step today. Go to shiftingculture.substack.com, and subscribe or give through our donation link, which you can find at the bottom of the show notes on this episode, or go to shifting culture podcast.com and you can find the donate, donate button and donate through there. Your support keeps this podcast alive. It keeps these conversations going, and it helps us all continue to tell better stories, build longer tables and embody the way of Jesus in the world today, until next Time, I'm Joshua Johnson and this is shifting culture.

Unknown: 11:22

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