“Mission” is this: We are Sent People.

Just as Jesus is the Sent One, now the Father and the Son has sent the Holy Spirit into his people so that we too can be sent ones. All of us—not just the ministry professionals—can encounter God and experience God’s power as we are boldly living every aspect of life for Him and for the sake of others.

Our guest is Jon Hietbrink. He is the co-author, along with Linson Daniel and Eric Rafferty, of Reviving Mission: Awakening to the Everyday Movement of God (InterVarsity Press, 2024).

In this episode, we discuss:

• Every believer—not only in ministry occupations as pastors, campus ministers, and missionaries, but also everyone—is in full-time missional work in and through our everyday jobs–businesspeople, teachers, baristas, homemakers, politicians, artists, and scientists. Our “ordinary lives” are the context for amazing mission.

• The “Four Es” for living a missional Christian life: Encounter, Explore, Empower, and Establish.

• Encounter: As Christians, we believe we encounter a God who is here and moving. But what we believe and what we experience can be very different. Many of us have not encountered God like we see in the Bible. We discuss ways to move away from our cynicism and to seek to encounter God in our everyday lives.

• Explore: Since God is with us and God is moving, then God is already at work everywhere we go and he is doing things all around us. We just need to lift up our eyes and become inquisitive as to what’s going on. We talk about practical ways to do this.

• Empower: In John 16:7, Jesus tells his disciples something pretty shocking: “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” A quote from the book: “Let that sink in. The Holy Spirit inside of you is better than Jesus next to you.”

• Establish: Committing to communal rhythms of transforming habits and habitats. We want to live for Christ in every aspect of our lives, but we get burned out, or we just drift away. We need to be resilient. Establishing habits and enmeshing ourselves in various depths of Christian community helps us be able to keep going in our faith and mission.

Scroll down to learn more about Jon Hietbrink.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Jon Hietbrink

Jon Hietbrink serves as a Vice President of Campus Ministry for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, helping to cultivate missional movements on campuses across the country. He’s one of the founders of the EveryCampus coalition. Jon earned his MA in Missional Church Movements from Wheaton College. He loves hiking in creation and traveling to new places. He lives in the Midwest with his wife, Stephanie, and their two Gen Z kids.

We recorded the first part of this interview on August 29, 2025. This was before the assassination of one of the leading voices of Christian American Nationalism, Charlie Kirk. In light of that devastating event, we thought we’d table the episode and then revisit with Caleb and get his thoughts. So the first part of this interview is from last year, and the second part is from this year.

• Caleb shares his personal story of how people in his congregation became more strident about political issues and how he suffered relational fallout because of it.

• What is Leviathan? And why does Caleb think that American Christian Nationalism is “Leviathan”?

• Many feel that the actual Leviathan that has gripped the country is liberal progressivism. Is Caleb equally concerned about what’s happening with the secularist Left?

• Politics seems to always revolve around anxiety and rage. But Christians should know better. We follow Jesus, who constantly told us, “Do not be afraid.” How do we help people move away from being so anxious and angry?

• How do we engage with people who have become even more strident in light of the awful assassination of Charlie Kirk?

• How is AI imagery creating iconography that creates a heretical syncretism of Christianity and Americana?

• In the book, Caleb offers a “Field Guide for Responding to American Christian Nationalists.” The loose structure of our conversations looks like this:

  1. Clarifying Questions

  2. Possible Shared Values

  3. Shibboleths (vs Red Flags)

  4. Good things to honor, and then

  5. “Humble Subversion” with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• We reflect on Galatians 6:1-2, “If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Scroll down to learn more about Caleb Campbell.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Caleb Campbell

Caleb Campbell is Lead Pastor at Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix. Check out Caleb Campbell’s Substack, also called Disarming Leviathan.

In the early 2000s, Caleb was invited to play the drums with one of the bands at the church. He met Jesus through a friendship with someone from at the church. In 2006, he joined staff. In 2015, he was called to serve as Lead Pastor.

Caleb is the Director of the J29 Coalition, which seeks to equip pastors to “recapture the evangelical political imagination.” He also serves on the board of United Pastors of Arizona and as the statewide regional director of the Surge Network. Caleb has a Masters Degree in Ministry from Phoenix Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary.

On two previous episodes, we had historian John Fea on to discuss his books, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? and Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. These are well worth a listen to be educated on all the nuances of these issues.

Where to purchase Caleb’s book: Support independent booksellers! Purchase any of the books mentioned above from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

In her new book, What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience (Convergent/Random House, 2026) Tish Warren draws from both her own season of exhaustion and the rich well of Christian tradition — particularly that of the earliest Christian monks — to discover the habits and mindsets that anchor us, give us resilience, and offer us hope.

We discuss:

• Tish was very busy after becoming a best-selling author. She was writing for the New York Times and Christianity Today as well as her next book. But she came to a place of burnout, when she became spiritually dry. She stopped all that writing and went off social media in order to explore how to get through these difficult times. She tells us what she learned in that time.

• The things that make us weary are usually the good things in life, what Thomas Aquinas called “arduous goods.”

• When we experience dryness and weariness, we choose to escape that through scrolling or binge-watching. But the Desert Fathers and Mothers chose to live in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. We can learn a lot from them as they struggle with the “dark night of the soul,” to find a deeper, more satisfying faith in God.

Scroll down to learn more about Tish Harrison Warren.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Tish Harrison Warren

Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is the author of several books, including Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life, which won Christianity Today‘s 2018 Book of the Year, and Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep, which won Christianity Today‘s 2022 Book of the Year and the 2022 ECPA Christian Book of the Year.

She formerly wrote a weekly newsletter for The New York Times, which focused on faith in public discourse and private life. She was also a columnist for Christianity Today. Her articles and essays have appeared in Comment Magazine, The Point Magazine, Religion News Service and elsewhere.

She currently serves as the C. S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence for the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. She is a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum. She and her husband Jonathan recently planted Immanuel Anglican Church. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three children.

Where to purchase these books: Support independent booksellers! Purchase any of the books mentioned above from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

There is revival happening on college campuses, especially among sports teams. As a CCO staff person (ccojubilee.org). I had the privilege of being the team chaplain for the Kent State Baseball Team. Of the 37 players on the team, 25 of them regularly attend the team Bible study!

In the Fall, I started meeting one-on-one with a pitcher, Nick. He loved to pepper me with theological questions! As we talked each week, it became clear that God had connected us so I could help Nick as he led the team Bible study. It’s been an honor to be a part of their Spring season! I also got together each week with individual players to hear their stories and to offer mentorship. And the greatest blessing: I’ve seen players lead their teammates to Christ!

It’s been one of the most fruitful and enjoyable ministries of my career… and not just because I love to go to the games (Well, they are one of the top teams in the nation, so sure, I enjoy the games…).

The semester ended with 250 students attending a worship and baptism service in the Kent State Field House. It was organized by a student! 9 students were baptized, including 2 students from the other ministry I am a part of on campus, Late Night!

Rocco, a Kent State pitcher, gave his testimony and boldly proclaimed the gospel! He talked about how before Christ, baseball was his idol, he was always getting drunk and doing drugs, and he mistook lust for love. Now, he has a new identity and purpose.

Mentoring A Young Entrepreneur

This past semester, I had the pleasure of mentoring Jake, a Business Entrepreneurship major. I helped him to develop his Christian worldview and then we applied that worldview to the development of the business charter for Marriner Outdoor, his lawn-care business.

We met weekly and talked about life (especially in light of his getting engaged), we studied the Bible, and I helped him envision his business plan. He prayerfully determined that his business should seek the flourishing of his customers, his employees, and his community. I loved seeing God give this young man a vision of business beyond the common bottom line!

Jake presented his business plan at the Kent State Business School “Spring Pitch Competition.” He won second place, winning $2,000!

We are Moving!

After three decades of following God’s call to live, work, and minister in Ohio, Linda and I feel free to follow our dream to live in Colorado! We are moving to Buena Vista, a small mountain town (elevation 7,965 feet) about ninety five miles west of Colorado Springs. It is situated in a valley at the foot of the Collegiate Peaks, a string of nine 14,000 foot mountains. There are white-capped mountains from one end of the horizon to the other. Our new home has a fantastic view of the mountains!

Linda interviewed at two physical therapy clinics in town, and they both offered her a position! She had a difficult time choosing, but she decided to go with a sports medicine clinic, that not only provides rehabilitation but also performance coaching for high-end athletes who want to get back to their sports or outdoor activities.

I will continue as staff with CCO, prayerfully pioneering a new college outreach ministry at Colorado Mountain College in Leadville. It is the highest elevation college campus in the country at elevation 10,152 feet! It’s a residential campus, serving thousands of students studying for bachelor degrees in Business Administration, Leadership & Management, Education, Ecosystem Science & Stewardship, as well as associate degrees in everything from Ski Area Operations to Fire Science Technology, to Outdoor Recreation Leadership (this is, after all, Colorado!). Please pray for open doors so that I can meet students there.

Of course, with Reintegrate, I will continue to produce the podcast with David, create resources for marketplace leaders, and mentor pastors as they encourage and equip their people to participate in God’s mission through their vocations!

Check out my Substack for lots of resources for whole-life discipleship. You’ll find the podcast and short articles on faith, the Bible, theology, work & calling, church life, business, culture, arts & entertainment, education, tech & science, government & politics, family, and community.

Give to Bob's Ministries

Please consider helping me continue my ministry as I set up shop in a new context! Thank you!

Our guest is Steven Garber. He has spent his life as a teacher of many people in many places, including his work as Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good for the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, and the Economics of Mutuality Alliance. He was the founding principal for the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture. And Steve continues his work as Senior Fellow for the Institute for Marketplace Transformation.

Anybody who is a regular listener to this podcast will have heard the name “Steven Garber” mentioned a lot. Not only was he Bob’s doctoral mentor, but he has also influenced many of our previous guests.

Steve is the author of some fantastic books, the latest being Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate (Paraclete Press, 2026).

In our conversation we discuss:

• How our work in this broken world can be frustrating and that even the most beautiful things we see and do show signs of that brokenness.

• But that we can, and must, work (empowered by God’s Spirit) toward something “proximate” to how God would want things, bringing hints of the hope that is to come.

• The Gospel of John begins with ‘The word became flesh.” While this is the center of Christian theology, it is also a statement of pedagogical genius. We discuss how, in the things we do in our various vocations, we see “words become flesh,” in other words, we see that ideas are not just ideas, but that they can result in practical transformation.

• Quoting Samwise Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings, we see that good books (and good movies, good music, good poems, good art) tell the truth about the human condition.

• We hear the story of the Mars Corporation (M&Ms, Dove, Pringles, Pedigree Wiskers), a family-owned company who wanted to honor God and people with their business. Steve was asked to help them think through what it might look like to have a more complex bottom line than just about making money, creating a sustainable business model that seeks the flourishing of all entities in the business ecosystem (from the procuring of chocolate from African farmers, all the way to the end user eating a Snickers bar).

• They created the Mutuality of Economics Alliance, a model for business that puts human and environmental flourishing at the heart of value creation.

• Oxford University’s Saïd Business School teamed with the Economics of Mutuality group to publish Putting Purpose into Practice: The Economics of Mutuality, which is now free online.

• Steve mentioned the book Completing Capitalism: Heal Business to Heal the World by Bruno Roche (chief economist for Mars, Inc.) and Jay Jakub (Senior Director of External Research at Mars Inc.), a practical book that sees capitalism as more complete when generating financial capital is joined with generating human, social, and natural capital.

Scroll down to learn more about Steven Garber.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Steven Garber

Steven Garber served as the Professor of Marketplace Theology at Regent College for several years. He also served as adjunct professor of the Doctor of Ministry in Faith, Vocation, and Culture at Covenant Theological Seminary (where he mentored Bob as he researched how to reintegrate the mission of God with the mission of human vocations).

Garber is also the author of Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good, The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work, and The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior. Together with his wife Meg, he lives near children and grandchildren in Virginia.

Support independent booksellers! Purchase any of the books mentioned above from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

When, in the midst of an ever-increasing culture war, we hear that Jesus advocates for radical change not through waging war but by waging peace, many of us roll our eyes and think, “Pie in the sky thinking.”

Easter week is the culmination of the earthly ministry of Jesus. Our guest, Jason Porterfield, has written a book about Holy Week that will shake us out of our lethargy about hoping for peace.

He is the author of a fantastic book, titled, Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace throughout Holy Week (Herald Press, 2022), an award-winning book that equips readers with practical peacemaking skills as it examines how Jesus waged peace on each day of Holy Week.

Scroll down to learn more about Jason Porterfield

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Jason Porterfield

Jason Porterfield’s passion is to cultivate God’s shalom peace wherever it is painfully absent and to help churches embrace their peacemaking vocation. Jason is with a ministry called Servants, an international network of Christian communities living and ministering among the urban poor. He was a founding member of the Servants team in Vancouver, started a new team in Indonesia, and was the director of operations for North America. Jason holds a Master in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Support independent booksellers! We recommend purchasing Jason’s book from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

Bishop Wright is the author of over seventy books, many of which are highly regarded as top academic scholarship. But his influence on regular run-of-the-mill Christians is greatest through his many books written at a more popular level, including the three books Simply Christian, Simply Jesus, and After You Believe, which guide readers in faith and Christian living.

And, of course, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. In that groundbreaking book, Tom Wright dismantled the narrative we all assumed was the gospel story: that we are saved in order to go to heaven. He wrote that our hope for the future is our physical resurrection to live with God in the New Heavens and New Earth.

This new book, God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal (HarperOne, 2025), almost serves as a sequel to that. He returns to the grand narrative of the Bible and explains that God’s promise has always been that he would dwell with humans in a renewed creation. God’s home has been, and always will be, with us.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Support independent booksellers! Please consider purchasing Tom Wright’s books from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

Our guest is one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of this generation. John Walton has spent his career engaging deeply with the Old Testament’s text and understands the ancient context in which it was written.

His latest book is Old Testament Theology for Christians: From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief (InterVarsity Press, 2025). In it, he invites us to leave our modern, and even our inherited Christian, preconceptions at the threshold as we enter the world of the Old Testament.

We discuss:

• How the New Testament writers viewed the Old Testament, and the danger of shirking our desire to understand it.

• That since the Old Testament was written for us, it was not written to us. To fully comprehend the way that it is for us, we have to do whatever it takes to join the author’s implied audience. We discuss the importance of delving into both the cultural and literary contexts.

• The Israelites swam in the “cultural rivers” of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian religious ideas. Does this mean that the Old Testament is just a flawed human creation because it was influenced by its Ancient Near Eastern context?

• From the beginning, God’s intention has always been to dwell among his people and to be in relationship with them. Not only that, God makes plans and has purposes, and includes humans in his plan as fellow workers. How can this foundational relationship principle help us grasp all the stories of the Old Testament?

• As Christians, we think the focus of faith is on salvation and eternal life. Therefore, we define our identity in those terms: “I’m saved and heaven bound.” The Israelites didn’t see it that way. The substance of their faith was something else. What can we learn about authentic faith from their view of their relationship with God?

Scroll down to learn more about John Walton.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

John H. Walton, Ph.D.

Dr. John H. Walton (PhD, Hebrew Union College) is professor of Old Testament, emeritus, at Wheaton College and Graduate School. His many books include “The Lost World” series, which includes the influential book, The Lost World of Genesis One. He has written commentaries on Genesis, Job, Daniel, and Jonah. He is also the co-editor (with Craig S. Keener) of the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible.

Support independent booksellers! We recommend purchasing John’s books from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

Whether you’re single or married, young or old, finding and keeping meaningful and genuine personal relationships is what we all desire.

In our digital age, relationship building is not easy. Young people are finding people to date on apps, and they are communicating with friends on social media. No matter whether you're married or single, we all need to understand how to have healthy relationships.

College chaplain Erin Moniz is deeply attuned to the questions and concerns of today’s emerging adults. In her new book, Knowing and Being Known: Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships (IVP, 2025), she explores the essential elements of healthy relationships, addresses the complexities of intimacy, and shines a light on the barriers that can impede genuine connection.

What we discuss in this episode:

• The secular culture says that the two key benchmarks of full adulthood are (1) Autonomy, and (2) Sexual Activity.

• But the sad truth is that this hypersexuality and romance idolatry has seeped into the church. We still see adulthood in these categories, though they're framed slightly differently.

• We begin to reimagine a theology that emphasizes the importance of intimacy in all our relationships (with God and with our fellow humans).

• The Fall introduced shame into our relationships. Shame is destructive and is not the same as guilt or conviction.

• Erin explains how vulnerability is the currency of intimacy.

• While marriage and family remain important, the church and other ministries need to focus on what true friendship is and how to develop friends.

Scroll down to learn more about Erin Moniz.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Rev. Erin F. Moniz

Rev. Erin F. Moniz (DMin, Trinity School for Ministry) is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and Associate Chaplain and Director for Chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults and journeys with them toward healthy, gospel-centered relationships.

Support independent booksellers! We recommend purchasing Erin’s book from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

Bob Robinson and David Loughney talk with Dr. Chip Roper. He is the Founder and President of the VOCA Center. The VOCA Center is a faith-based organization that brings God's wisdom to your work through teaching, coaching, and leadership development.

It recently partnered with the Barna Group to conduct a research survey to discover what brings joy and what brings challenges in the contemporary workplace.

Listen to the whole podcast here.

How do we get beyond the competition we often see among different Christian ministries and work together for God’s glory and Kingdom? Churches and nonprofits are all seeking people’s attention, their participation, and especially their funding. But they do so from a scarcity mindset, believing that any funding directed to one organization or church is funding taken away from their own. We all like to say that we work for the same Lord Jesus and for the sake of His kingdom, but in practice, we compete with each other.

Into this fray comes Dr. Angie Ward, professor of leadership and ministry at Denver Seminary. She is a leadership author and teacher with nearly 30 years of experience in church, parachurch, and Christian higher education ministry. Her new book is Beyond Church and Parachurch: From Competition to Missional Extension (InterVarsity Press, 2025).

In our conversation, Angie Ward offers a new blueprint for churches and all other Christian ministries toward a unified future.

In our conversation,

• Dr. Ward provides a comprehensive definition of “church.”

• She explains why it is essential that we see the church in terms of the people of God united to participate in God’s mission in a variety of ways.

• She provides a new paradigm: “Missional Extensions.” This terminology helps us understand how various Christian ministries function and interact.

• She provides practical ideas for ministries to cease competing and to start collaborating.

Scroll down to learn more about Angie Ward.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Angie Ward

Angie Ward (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program and Associate Professor of Leadership and Ministry at Denver Seminary.

In addition to Beyond Church and Parachurch, she is the author of Uncharted Leadership: 20 Case Studies to Help Ministry Leaders Adapt to Uncertainty (Zondervan, 2023) and I Am a Leader: When Women Discover the Joy of Their Calling (NavPress, 2020).

Angie loves running, basketball, humor, and movies. She and her husband live in a college neighborhood in Denver. They have two young adult sons and one very spoiled beagle.

Support independent booksellers! We recommend purchasing these books from Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-3333. Ask for 20% OFF by mentioning that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast!

God did not create work to be drudgery, but due to the effects of the Fall and our sinfulness, work can definitely not be what it should be. But that does not mean that work is all bad.

In fact, work is where we often find purpose and joy.

Dr. Chip Roper is the Founder and President of the VOCA Center. The VOCA Center is a faith-based organization that brings God's wisdom to your work through teaching, coaching, and leadership development.

It recently partnered with the Barna Group to conduct a research survey to discover what brings joy and what brings challenges in the contemporary workplace. This “Life@Work 2025 Report” is free to download here.

Our conversation with Chip Roper:

• We discuss practical strategies to increase joy at work for both workers and leaders.

• The study discovered that the majority of U.S. adult workers (7 out of 10) say that they experience joy more than half the time they’re at work.

• What brings us joy at work includes (1) work relationships, (2) our achievements and purpose, and (3) helping others and making a difference.

• Workers who derive their primary satisfaction from helping others are nearly 3 times more likely to experience high levels of joy compared to those motivated primarily by financial rewards.

• Gen Z and Millennial workers seek meaning beyond the paycheck and find joy in helping others in and through their work.

• While relationships with people bring joy at work, what’s ironic is that this is the same category that scored high on what creates challenges at work.

Scroll down to learn more about Chip Roper.

Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Chip Roper

Dr. Chip Roper is the Chief Solutions Officer and President of the VOCA Center. He earned a Doctorate of Ministry from Missio Seminary and an Executive Coaching Certification from Columbia University. He coaches business leaders, drawing on his 30-plus years of experience in Profit & Loss leadership.

The way of Jesus is for organizations to nurture flourishing individuals and societies.

But many of us have experienced the devastating effects of a toxic work environment.

This is not the way God meant organizations to run. From the ancient Old Testament Scriptures and the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles, everything in life is meant for universal flourishing, or Shalom.

Our guest is Dr. Justin Irving, Professor of Christian Leadership at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. His newest book is titled, Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations: Creating Contexts Where People Flourish (Baker Academic, 2024), In it, he provides theological foundations for healthy Christian leadership in for-profit corporations, nonprofits, and churches. He also provides insights from interviewing over 200 executive leaders.

In our discussion, we discuss:

• Leadership for human flourishing

• Cultivating healthy teams

• Delegation for the good of the people we lead and for the organization

• What hinders good organizational communication

• How to measure how healthy an organizational culture is

• How to be sure that every aspect of an organization aligns with the organization’s values and beliefs

In our conversation, we discussed the Good Place Operating System (GPOS), from The Good Place Institute, for which Bob Robinson is a Partner Consultant. The GPOS is a systematic approach to clearly stating a purpose and mission in a charter, to build all the systems in an organization to align with the charter, and then to measure success on business dashboards. If you’d like to explore implementing an operating system meant for kingdom purposes in which people are valued, communities flourish, and profits are made for these regenerative purposes, connect with Bob by emailing him at Bob.Robinson@goodplaceinstitute.com .

Scroll down to learn more about Justin Irving.

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Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Justin Irving

After serving for 20 years at Bethel Seminary in a variety of faculty and administrative roles, Dr. Justin Irving now serves as Professor of Leadership, Chair of the Department of Leadership and Discipleship, and Director of the Ed.D. program at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. Check out his Purpose in Leadership blog. Dr. Irving is a member at Sojourn Church Midtown in Louisville, Kentucky. He is married to Tasha, and they have five children.

Would you consider buying Dr. Irving’s books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore? They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about the book on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

The Christian faith is the key to Reintegrate all of life!

I am celebrating 20 years as a campus minister with CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach)!

Four College Campuses

I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that college students are being called to transform the world in and through their vocations. Their studies matter because their work will matter. Their work will matter because that will be the main way they will participate in God’s mission to renew the world.

Kent State University Main Campus

I’ve been teaching these concepts at the CCO ministry there, “Late Night Christian Fellowship” on Thursday evenings.

One of my ministry partners at Kent is Kris Herman (that’s him in this selfie, with the silly drawn KSU hat). Each year, he hosts a Thanksgiving dinner for the students we have reached out to on that campus (this year, we had so many students that we had the event at Parkside Church in Kent).

I have also been meeting one-on-one with six students at Kent State, helping them follow Jesus Christ in every aspect of their lives.

One of those students, Jake, made me cry after one of our meetings because of what he said. I asked him to text it to me to share with all of you:

“Meeting with Bob has changed my life. Meeting with him has given me a greater understanding of Scripture, a greater understanding of the Gospel, and a greater understanding of my purpose in God’s mission.”

I also meet weekly for deep discipleship with Nick, a pitcher and team captain for Kent State’s baseball team. He has been leading a weekly Bible study for his team. He now has half the team attending!

I recently led that group through a Bible study, held in the baseball locker room, on the goodness of work and how all that they do (including playing baseball) can glorify God. What an exciting thing to see: Revival is happening on college campuses through their sports teams!

Kent State’s Stark campus

I am leading the weekly Bible study, “Revive,” in the Campus Center every Wednesday for lunch (with free pizza!). Pray for Joseph, Cam, Tyler, McKenna, Alex, Savanah, Isabella and Joe — that they will feel connected to the group and will grow in their faith. Pray also for Mya, Eve, Emmy, Diana, and Fatima, that they will be able to come more often to the group. Thanks to Dr. Lucas Engelhardt, the faculty advisor, for his faithfulness in partnering with us in this endeavor.

Walsh University

I am leading a weekly group in the student center on Tuesday evenings. We play a simple game to open the students up for discussion, then we do a Bible study. I give them the text on a sheet of paper, they mark it up with their observations and their questions that need to be interpreted. It’s a robust conversation that leads us into applying it to our lives.

Pray for Jonah, Freddie, Rhyme, Tamera, Xavier, Mitchell, and Laney, that I will get to know them enough to help them grow spiritually. Pray that they will be bold enough to invite others to the group.

Malone University

I am now a member of the Steering Committee of the Missional Innovation Hub at Malone University. MIH is a robust, Christ-centered ecosystem for leaders and aspiring leaders of churches, ministries, non-profits, and for-profits to pursue spiritual and holistic health and engage the community. I am leading the MIH Steering Committee in creating our strategic plan for the next three years.

I spoke last month as part of a panel at the “FORWARD Summit” MIH held for pastors in our region. I discussed the “kingdom of God” and the importance of pastors inspiring and equipping their people to be missional in and through their vocations.

Also, I am now on a new Malone University curriculum team, tasked with designing a new Entrepreneurship major in the College of Business and Technology. The school's dean believes that my unique background in business, pastoring, and college ministry can contribute to this new major. She wants to use my workbook, Reintegrate Your Vocation with God’s Mission as a significant piece of the learning for these students!

Give to a ministry this year, but maybe not to me.

As you know, my ministry is dependent on the gifts of my supporters, who are committed to partnering with me in finances and prayer.

If you have been partnering with me in this way, thank you! Please keep our partnership going! These have been wonderful and blessed relationships!

But in light of the dire circumstances in our world, I don’t feel called to ask for more funding. Instead, I’d like to invite you to consider giving to a ministry like World Relief. The crisis is very real.

• Devastation in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.

• Families who have come to the United States seeking refuge are now living in fear due to the current immigration crackdown.

• Millions of people around the world in danger of losing their lives due to the shuttering of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID).

• Prolonged suffering in Gaza due to the two-year-long war there.

As Christians, no matter our political bents, I feel that we need to step into the void that has been made by natural disaster, war, malnutrition, and refugee displacement.

I gladly doubled our support of World Relief in light of the crises that have arisen this year. World Relief is boldly responding to these crises, coming alongside those in peril in the name of Christ, providing tangible relief.

At Christmas, I’m inspired by their audacious belief that human flourishing, in and through Christ, is possible — even amid devastation.

To consider giving, check out the World Relief website.

World Relief is a global Christian humanitarian organization whose mission is to boldly engage the world’s greatest crises in partnership with the church. The organization was founded in the aftermath of World War II to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of war-torn Europe.

Since then, for over 80 years, across 100 countries, World Relief has partnered with local churches and communities to build a world where families thrive and communities flourish. Today, organizational programming focuses on humanitarian and disaster response, as well as community strengthening and resilience.

Some people are lucky enough to get paid to do what they love. But many are not.

In You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful, (Brazos Press, 2025), award-winning author Karen Swallow Prior has encouraging news: If you pursue the good, true, and beautiful in all your work, you will find your greatest fulfillment.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• The difference between passion and calling. How does this help us make vocational decisions?

• What are the various callings we have, not just in our 9-to-5, but in all of life?

• How does our context determine our callings, including when and where we live, who is in our lives, and what needs arise?

• How are our callings from outside ourselves, often in the service to others?

• How can we find meaning in every role, regardless of what our career is?

• How can we reintegrate our vocational lives through truth, goodness, and beauty?

Our discussion will help anyone and everyone who wants to know that our daily work, ordinary though it may be, can fulfill a higher calling to God. You will gain a renewed sense of purpose, knowing you are created for virtue in all that you do.

Scroll down to learn more about Karen Prior.

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If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Karen Swallow Prior

Dr. Karen Swallow Prior is the 2025-26 Karlson Scholar at Bethel Seminary. She has been a reader and a writer her entire life. She earned her PhD in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has taught at Liberty University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She has written or co-written several books, including study guides for some of the greatest books in British literature.

Would you consider buying Karen’s books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore? They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

After another day of trying to meet deadlines and working on projects, you’re again dissatisfied with how much you did or how well you did it. Then you go home, grab a bite to eat, and then go to your kid’s concert or sporting event. When you come back home, you see that big house chore that has been waiting for weeks. You sigh and drop into bed thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get more done?” We are constantly colliding with our limitations.

And we think that it is because we are fallen, sinful people. But what if? What if our limitations are a gift from God, that this is part of the very good part of being a created being? What if we are not supposed to carry the burden of trying to be something we are not and cannot be?

Our guest on this episode is theologian Dr. Kelly M. Kapic. He’s written a book that addresses this guilt we all experience when we feel that we should always be doing one more thing. Its title is You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why that’s Good News (Brazos, 2022). This book has won a number of awards, including Christianity Today’s Book of the Year award in the category of Popular Theology.

Scroll down to learn more about Kelly Kapic.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Kelly M. Kapic

Kelly M. Kapic is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College, where he has taught since 2001. With a PhD in Systematic and Historical Theology from King’s College University of London, Kapic has written or edited over fifteen books.

His earlier work includes Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering, A Little Book For New Theologians: Why and How to Study Theology, and The God Who Gives: How the Trinity Shapes the Christian Story. He also completed two volumes with the economist Brian Fikkert: Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty isn’t the American Dream and A Field Guide to Becoming Whole: Principles for Poverty Alleviation Ministries. His upcoming release will be Christian Life (in the New Studies in Dogmatics series of books from ‎Zondervan Academic).

We recommend purchasing these books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

The murder of Charlie Kirk has shaken both political and faith communities. It is fortunate that we interviewed Shirley Mullen a couple of months ago. We are glad to provide that interview now. She encourages us to take up the courageous middle in the midst of the kind of polarization that has led to this kind of violence.

We are experiencing increased suspicion and animosity in our churches, our workplaces, and even our families. It has also led to a false sense that our options are limited to choosing only one side.

When we look around us, we see people so extremely confident that they are absolutely right and that the opposition is not only absolutely wrong, but downright evil.

Is there a better way? Are Christians called to be peacemakers and bridgebuilders? And can they do that without jettisoning our core convictions?

Into the fray comes Dr. Shirley Mullen and her new book, Claiming the Courageous Middle: Daring to Live and Work Together for a More Hopeful Future (Baker Academic, 2024).

Scroll down to learn more about Shirley Mullen.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Dr. Shirley A. Mullen

We welcome Shirley Mullen, who served as president of Houghton University for fifteen years before retiring in 2021. After receiving two doctorates (one in history from the University of Minnesota and the other in philosophy from the University of Wales), she spent four decades in the field of faith-based liberal arts education, serving as a professor, residence life director, chief academic officer, and president. In her role as president of the college, she led her institution to a place where students and faculty could be courageous in creating space for people to be in the courageous middle.

She continues to invest in the next generation of leaders through mentoring and serving on the boards of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the Jericho Road Community Health Center, the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary, and the 1st Amendment Partnership.

We recommend purchasing this book from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about this book on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

Our guest, Wesley Vander Lugt, believes what breathes life into us is something that we can easily miss or dismiss: BEAUTY.

His book is Beauty Is Oxygen: Finding a Faith That Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024). Here is not your ivory-tower theologian; his PhD is in Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. Wes shows how beauty can break us out of self-centered malaise, promote healing and hope for our broken world, and re-enchant our lives. Wes believes that Beauty is as essential to our souls as oxygen is to our bodies.

Here is the poem that Wes cites in the podcast:

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s made
Sing his being simply by being
The thing it is:
Stone and tree and sky,
Man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made,
Means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
Trying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s made
There is given one shade
Shaped exactly to the thing itself:
Under the tree a darker tree;
Under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
The things that bring Him near,
Made the mind that makes Him go.
A part of what man knows,
Apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing He’s made.

Scroll down to learn more about Wesley Vander Lugt.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Wesley Vander Lugt

Wesley Vander Lugt is the Director of the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte.

His publications include Beauty Is Oxygen: Finding a Faith that Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024), A Prophet in the Darkness: Exploring Theology in the Art of Georges Rouault (IVP Adademic, 2024), Living Theodrama: Reimagining Theological Ethics (Routledge, 2014), Pocket Dictionary of the Reformed Tradition (co-authored with Kelly Kapic), and Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith (edited with Trevor Hart).

We recommend purchasing these books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.