Sittin' In Your Own Pew (And Doin' Nothing Else)

Show open and cartoon banter

The episode opens with the produced intro and station IDs, followed by loose pre-show banter about cartoons: Denver the Last Dinosaur, Land Before Time, and Great Babe on the USA Cartoon Express. A recurring gripe about overly loud headphone mixes at the start of the show comes up again. The tone is casual warm-up comedy before the hosts settle in.

Host and guest introductions

The host introduces the co-hosts by name - including Dan Hudson - and welcomes guest Rick (introduced as 'Rick Lee' in the transcript) to the studio. Light breakfast talk follows, including a sausage croissant from Casey's. Rick settles in as a participant for the rest of the episode.

Chocolate milk stories

Fairway's donation of chocolate milk for the Saturday Roof Project sparks a run of chocolate-milk stories: one host's hatred of the Robert's brand, the swapped soy-milk prank, and Ben's fixation on keeping chocolate milk front and center in the fridge. Pasteurization gets a mock-scientific treatment. The bit closes on the joke of growing a third arm from ultra-pasteurized milk.

The third-arm hypothetical

• What would you do with a third arm?

The hosts debate what they would do with a third arm - shoplifting, carrying kids, foosball, shaving while driving - then pivot to the uncontrollable human tongue, which one host compares to James's 'uncontrollable thing.' Chat complaints about choppy video and a quip from Pants interrupt briefly. The segment returns to third-arm logistics and concludes the bit could double as holding and slapping.

Show info, call-in numbers, and the podcast fix

The host plugs livefromthepath.org and the newsletter, apologizes for double-posted podcast audio and video, and announces the feed is back to audio-only. The studio call-in numbers (327-1007, toll-free 888-327-1007) are given with an open invitation: dating advice, medical questions, Jesus questions, or general babbling. The third-arm bit gets a theological coda: 'where the Lord is silent, we're silent.'

How would God use a man with three arms?

The third-arm bit turns theological: what method would Jesus use a three-armed man for - passing communion, burying his talents quicker, the laying-on-of-hands problem. The hosts settle the arm's anatomy (a normal arm out of the back, with the armpit question unresolved) and decide the design was a human mistake, not God's approved design.

Jeremiah 9: inviting to church vs sharing your faith

Reading Jeremiah 9:5 ('they're wearing themselves out'), one host reflects on the gap between inviting people to church and having a frank conversation about his own walk with Jesus. Rick pushes back that church is tangible while God is invisible - and safer to invite someone into. The hosts agree the personal conversation is harder but more honest, and tie in Francis Chan's Crazy Love on not settling for small spiritual progress.

'Put me in, Coach': excuses for not serving God

A host describes his 'Put me in, Coach' sermon series at Pathway, born from a high-school football memory: players who endured brutal practices but didn't want to play the game. The hosts list the standard excuses - not good enough, not smart enough, not qualified - and answer with flawed biblical figures: Moses the murderer, David the adulterer and murderer, Paul the murderer, Judas rushing ahead of Jesus. Serving without feeling results is framed as obedience, even if the audience is twenty people a day for sixty years.

Knowing God makes you want to serve: the dishes anecdote

Rick tells how, before leaving for the studio, he felt like washing the dishes - and notes it never crossed his mind to wash the neighbor's dishes, because he doesn't know them. The hosts riff: the more you know God, the more you want to serve him. A long detour into laundry follows - hanging every shirt, hating folding, 'shoulder nipples' - plus Dan's sermon line about not knowing where laundry goes. The segment lands back on the point: the dishes were never the point; knowing someone drives serving them.

The 80/20 question begins: inactive believers and spiritual gifts

• How do you find people willing to do the unglamorous serving jobs, like janitors?

The hosts ask why so many churchgoers believe in Jesus but do nothing, blaming pastor-centric churches that train people to sit while staff do everything. They debate pastors who assign people to ungifted roles (the nursery example) versus serving from giftedness, recalling a spiritual-gifts sermon series preached years ago in Atlantic. The guy scrubbing the toilet and the guy preaching are declared equally serving God. Short-term 'somebody has to do it' work gets an honest carve-out.

Neighbor kindness stories and their backfire

Two neighbor stories anchor the segment: one host mowed his absent neighbor's front lawn before three days of rain, then got confronted by the neighbor's four-year-old asking who mowed their lawn - and later admitted he had also run over a toy with the riding mower. Another host shoveled a neighbor's walks and driveway all winter after the man's shoulder surgery - 'the worst winter ever' - as a test of his faith. A shorter riff covers the fear of retribution for doing nice things, and Dan washing dishes in boxers and an apron.

Food tangents: pizza, fasting, flan, and tres leches

A Pizza Hut giant Italian pizza ad ($12, two feet long, 18 slices) derails the show into ordering pizza, Dan's 40-day no-meat fast, and a long debate over flan versus flan and tres leches cake ('like picking bread out of the sink'). Chat regulars Olsen and Vince weigh in on Sarpino's; Dave Ramsey's name comes up over the credit card; a credit-card tip-scam warning, a Yonkers shirt accusation, and the anti-fold shirt philosophy fill the gaps.

Pathway Church promo and a question for the pastor

• Are the 80% (inactive churchgoers) as important as the 20% (active servers), and should pastors try to guilt the 80 into serving?

The host plugs Pathway Church in Johnston - new service times 9 and 10:30 at Wallace Elementary, thepathonline.org - then puts a direct question to 'Pastor Dan': most pastors preach to the 20% already serving; are the 80% as important, and is guilt the right lever? Dan answers that his job is teaching truth, not manufacturing guilt, while 'faith without works is dead' (James) still stands. The hosts debate giving - 'don't give to Pathway, give to God' - and whether the 80 are doing fine as they are.

80/20 debate: shallow faith, soapbox preachers, meeting people where they are

The 80/20 debate continues: is the distinction itself the problem? A CNN Belief Blog article on 'mutant Christians' - kids raised on a watered-down, self-esteem God who walk away when they need substance - frames the danger of softening the message. Paul's approach to the Greeks (Acts 17) is held up as meeting people where they are without toning the message down. The 'Trust Jesus' soapbox guy at the farmer's market and a college-campus turn-or-burn screamer test the hosts: biblically accurate, but is the medium closing doors?

The street preacher: called by God or just obnoxious?

The chat asks: if the farmer's-market preacher is called by God, who are we to question him? The hosts weigh his Noah-like lone-witness role against the reality that 99% of people are turned off, and concede he is 'more loud and irritating than angry.' Noah is proposed as the biblical equivalent - the crazy man in the wilderness telling you you're going to die - though the hosts doubt he has the firepower to back it up. The segment closes half-conceding God can use even abrasive mediums, while still disliking the method.

80/20 comedy hour: dandelions, Pareto, showers, and Wyoming

The 80/20 concept gets fully roasted: dandelions (Jim Dandy shining, Craig Dandy curling), the revelation that it is Pareto's Principle, and mock-horror at ever having heard of it. The hosts compare longest stretches without a shower - Ben answers four days when asked by name, another host lost a 15-day high-school bet with Josh - and relive a no-running-water Wyoming cabin trip with guns, hiking, and beavers caught by hand. Mike declines any future Wyoming trips. Job-application jargon ('blue movements in an upscale moving environment') gets mocked along the way.

How do the 20 engage the 80? Soft vs hard messages

• How should the active 20% engage the less-active 80% without judgment or baggage?

Returning to substance, the hosts ask how the active 20% should engage the 80% - take them by the hand, or let God do his job? A newcomer anecdote (a man who fled a church after being offered volunteer work in week six) tests the 'take them by the hand' instinct. Psalm 119's sweetness of God's word is quoted against both fire-and-brimstone and feel-good extremes; Andrew, Peter, and Paul model Scripture's range of evangelism styles. The hosts land on genuineness: ambition and laziness both detract when performed rather than real.

Testimonies: saved from vs saved out of; who distorted Jesus?

One host argues most non-churchgoers have heard of Jesus - 'it's not because you haven't heard' - but the church has muddied the picture, citing Westboro's funeral protests and the megachurch-as-business model. The testimony discussion turns personal: one host says his story is being saved from 25 years of sexual addiction and drug addiction by never having them, and from a broken marriage by never having one - grace as preservation, not just rescue - after a childhood where his dad normalized girlfriends. 'Speak the truth in love' (Ephesians) is the stated standard.

My story is my story: grace, personality, and carrier pigeons

The hosts resist polishing testimonies into evangelistic angles - 'my story is my story,' and God uses people as they are, personality intact ('Dan's not debonair'). One host admits envying dramatic rescue stories while another counters that celebrating both is right. They warn against becoming 'carrier pigeons' so excited about the message they forget the people, and against touting your story as an invitation to spiritual attack. The segment closes agreeing that God will use even the abrasive street preacher however he wants.

Personality, peace, and why you shouldn't envy other testimonies

The testimony discussion continues: preaching doesn't make anyone a different person ('Dan's not debonair'), and envying dramatic rescue stories misses the point - 'God has more grace for the 20 that's trying than for the 80 that's absorbing.' The hosts probe whether the peace people describe actually comes from God, and admit they still use 'the Lord is my comforter' as the polite thing to say when they're really stressed.

Nursery crunch, judgment day, and killing the 80/20 distinction

The hosts circle back to the 80/20 question: the nursery crunch (18 kids, a relocated room, tape on the floor) grounds the abstraction, and one host claims the absorbing-80 is Pharisee-like while another says none of it matters if it's genuine. A 24-Hour Fitness analogy (the fit guy offends the fat guy just by existing) illustrates how motives get read. They close in exhausted agreement that the distinction itself is the problem: 'there should be no 80-20.'

Does following Jesus imply serving? Foot washing and leprosy

• Does following Jesus necessarily imply serving?

Reading chat pushback - 'following Jesus doesn't necessarily imply service' - the hosts counter with Jesus washing the disciples' feet (all of them, not just the 20%) before the cross. The mood breaks into pure banter: foot-washing a neighbor as assault, a lingering Hawkeye emblem on a toe, loofah reviews, washing faces with Lava soap in high school, and gratitude for never having leprosy. The segment ends with mock thanks to the (nonexistent) callers.

Sign-off and the Man Show teaser

The show closes thanking guest Rick and inviting him back (minus the 80-20 topic, which one host vows to tattoo on his back with his third arm). The host reminds lapsed podcast subscribers the feed is audio-only again and plugs the blog, YouTube channel, and newsletter. A teaser lands: two weeks out, 'the Man Show' on the biblical man in today's culture - does he hang or fold his shirts, does he loofah? The hosts sign off from Des Moines Amplified.