The Art of Holiness

Mike Voigts is a great man of God, and he loves a lot of the same things I love – spiritual formation, the life of prayer, Asbury Seminary. He also loves HEB … more on that later. His focus is on personal and community spiritual direction … drawing connections between spiritual traditions in the global church. He served as a professor at Asbury SEminary for nine years, and now serves as the lead pastor of Waco First Global Methodist Church. He has written The Fourth Degree of Prayer (Cascade, 2022) and Letters of Ascent: Spiritual Direction in the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux (Wipf & Stock, 2013). A great contemplative life … enjoy this conversation.

David Chotka strikes me as a well educated mystic, which is a delightful combination. He has degrees from Regent College in Vancouver and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he studied under Gordon Fee. He served for three decades as a pastor and for all those years plus some he has traveled as an evangelist and teacher especially of prayer – healing prayer, spiritual discernment, the Lord’s prayer, and using our spiritual gifts. To learn more about him, go to spiritequip.com. He has written a book together with Maxie Dunnam on the art of healing prayer, and another on hearing the voice of God, entitled, Hey, Are You There? Its Me – God! That’s our topic today. This is all about what it means to hear the voice of God so we can more confidently do the will of God.

This one is good, people ... really dense. Lisa Allen has served on staff and on the teaching team with with Proverbs 31 Ministries, on staff with a large church, and as a coach and mentor to women leaders around the country. She is the author of Your Confidence Compass: From Self-Doubt to Self-Leadership, which is all about peeling back the parts of our ministry stories that are not true so we can confidently live in and tell the story we actually have. Today we’ll talk about how to get thick skin without getting a hard heart and how to reject the lies so we can live in the truth. So … yep! This is really good. It was like counseling and spiritual direction and revelation ... all rolled into one podcast. I hope you listen.

Dr. Lynn H. Cohick is a for-real Bible scholar – which is the way you say that when you’re not a for-real Bible scholar. Dr. Cohick is Professor of New Testament and also Director of Houston Theological Seminary at Houston Christian University.She served as President of the Institute of Biblical Research, as a senior translator on the New Living Bible Translation team. She serves on the Board of Trustees at Biola University and as the founder and President of Center for Women in Leadership. She has a great podcast – The Alabaster Jar -- and she’s just a delightful human being. It is a joy today to talk with her about women in the Bible and in the 21st century, and about a passage in Ephesians that I think you’ll find illuminating.

You will love this conversation with Dr. Jonathan Powers, a Levite all the way through. He has a great take on what it means to worship in Spirit and in truth. Dr. Powers serves as Associate Professor of Worship Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He has (I’m quoting from the seminary website here) "a passion for the intersection of liturgy and spiritual formation in the life of the church." Look up his books on Seedbed: Echo: A Catechism for Discipleship in the Ancient Christian Tradition, The 12 Days of Christmas Sermons, and Watchnight: John Wesley’s Covenant Renewal Service. He had done good work with grief and lament, and he has participated in the formation of a hymnal (Our Great Redeemer’s Praise). His most recent book is New Life in the Risen Christ: A Wesleyan Theology of Baptism.

Today, we kick off a new year on The Art of Holiness with a conversation amongst ourselves* about evangelism. These seminary students did a FABULOUS job thinking through what it means to evangelize in the 21st century, and their conversation will be the first of several this semester on the topic. Glad to be back, and glad you're back with us. * This semester, "us" includes Brandy Lee and Katherine Reiley. Our good friend, Taylor Williams, has concluded her time on AoH. We will miss having her solid voice among us, but thank God for all the good he is generating in her life.

Jonathan Edwards is our faithful, fun producer of The Art of Holiness podcasts, who listens to -- and loves! -- every single episode. Today, Jonathan and I think back on all the ones we produced this fall, discussing what stood out for us and what's worth listening to twice.

Bill Kierce has served ten years as an itinerant evangelist, 22 years as pastor of a local church, 5 years as a congregational consultant, and is now serving as the President of the Francis Asbury Society. He has a whole lot of education in organizational leadership, including a PhD in that area of study from Eastern University. Bill’s heart now is promoting the gift of evangelism and the message of scriptural holiness … and today, that’s the heart of our conversation. Got a passion for evangelism? Connect with The Francis Asbury Society: https://francisasburysociety.com/

Beth Felker Jones (PhD, Duke University) teaches theology at Northern Seminary, and loves to write for the church and the academy. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband Brian, four kids, two dogs, and Dwight, her theology cat. She was on The Art of Holiness a couple of years ago to talk about her really great work, Practicing Christian Doctrine. She has also published a book called “God the Spirit. Today we are talking with her about her latest work, “Why I am Protestant.” What does it mean to be Protestant? How can its strengths shape faith in the modern world, and how should its challenges be addressed?

Dr. Jason Vickers serves as professor of Christian theology and the Wesley Endowed Chair of Christian Theology at Truett Seminary, on the campus of Baylor University in Texas. He serves as a member of the Discipleship, Doctrine, and Just Ministry Commission of the Global Methodist Church. Ryan Barnett is an ordained elder in the GMC. Today, he serves on staff at Truett and as the Connectional Operational Officer (COO) of the MidTexas Conference of the Global Methodist Church. Together, Ryan and Jason have created a fabulous resource for the church -- Profoundly Christian, Distinctly Methodist. Their work gives us a great opportunity to talk about what it means to be Methodist, and what we can celebrate as we teach our people the joys of this tradition.

Dr. Ken Collins has been a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary since 1995 (which means he got there the same year I did). He has written and taught extensively on all facets of Wesleyan theology. His The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace was ground-breaking and established Collins as a preeminent theologian in the field. His work on holiness as "holy love” and grace as both "free and co-operant" is fascinating and that's where we'll be in this podcast, as we talk about his latest publication, Generous Divine Love.

Dr. Arnold is the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. He joined the faculty of Asbury my freshman year, so we have grown up at Asbury together. He has written extensively on the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern Culture. Look for his excellent book, Introduction to the Old Testament, if you want to get a start on his scholarship. He is currently writing a two-volume commentary on Deuteronomy, the first half of which was released in 2022. He served on the Old Testament translation team for the New Living Translation, and was responsible for translating the books of 1 and 2 Kings. And that’s why we want to talk to him today … because we love Bible translators! Let’s jump in.

Carmen Imes is one of my favorite people, and such a marvelous resourcer of the Church. With her latest book, Becoming God’s Family, she completes a trilogy of teachings on what it means to belong to the Body of Christ. Its an excellent read and this is a great conversation! Dr. Carmen Imes is the Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University in La Mirada, California. Dr. Imes earned a PhD in Biblical Theology from Wheaton College, an MA in Biblical Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a BA in Bible and Theology from Multnomah University. She and her husband, Daniel, served as missionaries with SIM for 15 years.

We loved this conversation with Dee Baty. Dee was a charter member of the Wesleyan Coveanant Association Global Council, where she served on both the Accountable Discipleship Task Force and the Sexuality Task Force. Her call is to equip the church to live into sexual holiness. She authors the weekly Resources4Redemption newsletter (available on Substack). which serves to equip followers of Jesus to speak the gospel fluently, truthfully, and kindly on issues related to sexuality. Along with Mark Ongley and Garry Ingraham, she is a speaker for the 3 C Seminars on Sexuality and Gender.

David Wilkinson is a Christian theologian and Methodist minister who has earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics and another in systematic theology. His expertise as a scientist is in star formation and galaxy evolution. As a theologian he works to build bridges between science and Christianity. He leads the "Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science" project and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day. His latest book, just released in August is How Does God Work in the World?: Science, Miracle and Mission. To describe the book, I want to quote from his website: “From The Simpsons to a wedding in Cana, from grace to quantum theory, and from the problem of evil to eschatology, David argues that the biblical picture of a God who acts in the world makes sense in the light of modern science, but how God acts cannot be reduced to simple models.” We are honored to have Dr. Wilkinson with us for a conversation about all these things.

This episode is part of an emphasis we're making this fall on the Bible. Dr. Jennifer Holloran is president and CEO of The American Bible Society (the first woman to hold the this lead role in its 209 year history). Dr. Holloran has a long history in bible advocacy, having spent 22 years at Wycliffe Bible Translators USA and served on all kinds of boards and with nonprofit organizations that champion Jesus and his Word. I’m honored that she’s taken time to be with us at AoH to talk about a growing theme in this fall’s Art of Holiness library … the Word of God for the people of God.

Dr. Instone-Brewer received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he specialized in early rabbinic literature. Today he is a Baptist minister in the UK who served for twenty years as a research fellow at Tyndale House in Cambridge, He is the author of lots of books and articles, including Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible (which my friend Gordon Spivey recommends) and also The Jesus Scandals, Moral Questions of the Bible, and Science and the Bible. He has helped develop a solid Bible app called STEPBible -- one more way the academy is shaping the practice of ordinary Christians, especially as they engage scripture. Oh, and Dr. Instone-Bridges is on the NIV translation team … which totally fascinates me and is the reason I asked him to join us on AoH.

J.R. Briggs is a pastor, seminary professor, coach, consultant, and writer. He has served in megachurches, church plants, and house church networks. In 2011, he founded Kairos Partnerships -- "an organization committed to equipping leaders with the perspective and tools they need to lead with clarity, health, and confidence." He works with The Ecclesia Network and Fresh Expressions. Find him in Christianity Today and read his books, including The Sacred Overlap, Eldership and the Mission of God: Equipping Teams for Faithful Church Leadership, A time To Heal and most recently The Art of Asking Better Questions: Pursuing Stronger Relationships, Healthier Leadership, and Deeper Faith ... and that’s why we wanted to have this conversation!

Tara Beth Leach has been with us before. She is a friend of New Room (and a friend of mine!), a pastor, preacher, writer, and advocate for women in ministry (find her latest blog on that topic if you are a woman leader who needs a little encouragement. Its powerful). Currently, Tara Beth serves as the senior pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Naperville, Illinois. She previously served as senior pastor of First Church of the Nazarene of Pasadena (“PazNaz”) in Southern California (that story is also worth finding and reading). She is the author of Emboldened, Radiant Church, and Forty Days on Being a Six. Today, we’re talking with her about a new book that releases this week called The Great Morning Revolution. She’s here to help us get back to the basics and discover how a morning devotional routine can revolutionize your life. I hope you not only listen ... but live this.

I found this author by the title of his book -- You Are Not Your Own. Just the title alone was enough to want to interview Alan Noble, who is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. Dr. Noble is the author of books like On Getting Out of Bed, and Disruptive Witness. His latest book (published by IVP and on sale now wherever you buy your books) is a testament to biblical freedom. It addresses yet one more paradox of the gospel: when we give ourselves away to Christ, we become not less but more free, more human, more whole.