Zimbobster

Show open and introductions

Ben opens the show from the Pathway studios in Johnston; Mike introduces the full crew after a thin week — Dan is back from Zimbabwe, Mike himself is back from Skyping in a hotel room last week, and guest Jake Brennan joins in the studio. Opening banter about Boova trying to introduce himself.

Dan's Zimbabwe trip report

Dan recounts the Zimbabwe missions trip: a Friday-to-Sunday revival that launched a new church at Chichichi, a growth point split by a river where villagers cross crocodile water to attend; an undeveloped area where the team may have been the first white people locals had seen, with children touching their skin. He tells the hotel story — the only two hotels in the area, one the women were sure was a brothel with drugs in the room, so they all bunked in one room while Dan stayed miles away. Also: orphanage visits, a teammate beginning an adoption, Bibles and a keyboard for churches, a bicycle for a pastor who walks eight miles to work, and a treasured Shona Bible for a sponsored student.

Fishing where the fish are

Reacting to Dan's report, the hosts contrast Zimbabwe's hunger for the gospel with American apathy — free doughnuts and air conditioning versus people wading through crocodile rivers to hear about Jesus. Ben suggests maybe they should ‘fish over there,’ where people want to know Jesus. Mike and Dan add that the excitement can't be manufactured; it starts like the flicker in Acts 2 and spreads because people are actually seeing God work.

Jake on returning to Ethiopia; cumulative witness

Jake says his first Ethiopia trip overwhelmed him — he didn't soak any of it up until weeks later — and he's eager to return now that he knows what to look for. The hosts discuss how repeated visits build real relationships: villagers realize you crossed an ocean because Jesus sent you, and that cumulative witness — ‘Jesus keeps sending people here’ — is how orphans and villagers come to know him. Dan adds a follow-up: a teenager from the orphanage who came to faith at last year's revival is still growing a year later.

The teammate who didn't look like she belonged

Dan tells of an African American teammate who worried how Zimbabweans would receive her — she looked like them but knew neither the culture nor the language, leaving her feeling neither American nor African. In the end nobody cared what color she was; race simply wasn't an issue there. Ben contrasts that with America, where he says people manufacture racial and religious division because they have the time and comfort for it.

The danger of bringing your brand of awesome

The hosts name the two edges of short-term missions: the chance to see Jesus work and be changed, and the danger of going to feel great about yourself — ‘taking my brand of awesome’ somewhere it isn't currency. Ben says he's softened from outright skepticism toward missions: the posture that works is ‘let me see what you want me to see,’ whether in Philadelphia, Chicago, Ethiopia, or Zimbabwe.

Telling God's stories; the mother and her daughter

Mike says he's cut out most Christian books except Scripture and stories of God at work — seeing God move is what sets people on fire. Ben wishes the wider church had a hub for sharing those stories, the way Paul's letters circulated news. Dan then tells of a mother at the Chichichi revival whose twelve-year-old daughter cannot walk: the mother came to faith Friday night, carried her daughter all weekend, and was folded into the new church with joy. The team hopes to fund a wheelchair or wagon for the girl, given anonymously through the local church.

Remember what God did

Picking up Mike's point, Jake notes how rarely American churches talk about even small things God has done. Mike argues for replacing the morning news with ‘what did Jesus do yesterday,’ and adds that remembering God's past works — the way the Old Testament prophets constantly point back — informs today and tomorrow. A high view of Scripture doesn't preclude the community from talking about what God is doing now.

Is God good, and is he paying attention?

Ben says he's not a fan of spotlight devotionals but would sign up for plain stories of God acting — even Voice of the Martyrs mostly makes him feel guilty by comparison. He frames the core struggle behind following Christ: people doubt whether God is living and active, and even if he is, whether he's good. Quoting a Josh Garrels lyric — ‘wonder why the good man dies, the bad man thrives, in Jesus Christ because he loves them both’ — the hosts agree the church needs more stories showing God as a God of action.

Nightly debriefs: 'what did God do?'

Dan describes the trip's nightly debriefs — twelve people going around the room naming what they saw God do — as the engine that changes people, including the ones who came for the wrong reasons. Jake parallels it with his Denver youth-trip small groups, where the whole evening was spent naming one way they saw God working.

'What did we see God do?' as a church habit

• How do we keep mission-trip fire alive back home instead of riding roller-coaster faith?

Mike proposes making ‘what did we see God do?’ a standing church question — if forty people have no stories, that itself reveals whether anyone expects God to be working. Ben adds the other half: when you return from a trip, don't stop gathering to ask what God is doing; the difference between Zimbabwe and Monday at the office is mostly what you've allowed to fill your attention.

Altars and Ebenezers

Boova teaches on biblical remembrance: God isn't only in Zimbabwe or Ethiopia — he's in Bondurant and Altoona too. The hosts contrast manufactured spiritual highs with marking where God actually moved, like the Old Testament altars — Joshua's stones at the Jordan, naming a place for what God did there. Mike adds that God's law built in memory practices (hauling the heifer to the sacrifice meant you didn't forget), and suggests modern equivalents: write it down, tell the stories, set the marker — the sacrifice of Jesus should make us more remembering, not less.

Manufactured presence: key changes and fog machines

• Should we still do big worship events if some people get nothing real out of them?

Ben asks whether worship leaders can tell the difference when the Holy Spirit shows up — would the set go the same either way? The hosts discuss Ichabod, rehearsed key changes designed to fake the Spirit's movement, and the danger of manufacturing feelings: people ‘accept’ an emotion, not Jesus, and it collapses by day eight. Mike defends Chris Tomlin — the manipulation isn't the songwriter's fault — and says he's learning to love any Jesus song that properly reflects God, whatever the style.

Worship is ascribing worth

Jake confesses he's caught himself worshiping the music instead of Jesus and now checks his motives when a song moves him. Boova reframes worship as ascribing worth to God — not inherently music at all: he worships reading God's speech to Job (‘do you know where the rains are kept?’), and one of his most shattering worship moments was simply repeating the names Yahweh and Yehoshua, not knowing the song's words.

Favorite way to connect with God

• What is your favorite way to connect with God?

Ben asks each person their favorite way to connect with God. Jake: two solitary hours in the woods at Hidden Acres with a prayer packet. Mike: singing ‘working songs’ — he once sang Rend Collective's ‘Yahweh’ through a stomach-churning Minneapolis train ride, the song itself becoming an Ebenezer. Dan: the low-lit prayer room, or singing with the church. Boova: a pew in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, where he realized worship is about who he's speaking to, not who he's with. Ben: hearing children sing worship tunes, and reading the creation story back to God in second person. Dan closes with two stories — souring on nursing-home hymns until he recognized genuine worship (‘you got Zimbabweed’), and a shaky phone video of the new Zimbabwe church singing ‘the presence of the Lord is here.’ Boova notes they've spent the last stretch doing exactly what they prescribed: remembering what God has done.

Chaotic corporate prayer and Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

Jake tells of a middle-school camp where the pastor had 250 kids all pray out loud at once — chaos he first dismissed, then found to be one of the most amazing things he'd witnessed. Mike connects it to Jim Cymbala's Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire and the Brooklyn Tabernacle's turnaround through a Tuesday-night prayer meeting, and argues for embodied, communal prayer over a purely intellectual faith. A running joke about ‘tingly hands’ derails into complaint-line banter.

Complaint line comedy: tingly hands

The hosts spiral on Mike's ‘tingly hands below the waist’ phrasing, inventing hashtags — #tinglyhands, #hatejake — and plugging the complaint line at (515) 517-0085 for calls or texts. Jake takes friendly fire as the gang jokes that listeners always complain the hosts don't let him talk enough.

Clean Bible jokes

With the pope-style segment bumped for time, Mike reads clean Bible jokes from jokes.christiansunite.com: a collector's Gutenberg Bible scribbled in by Martin Luther, a boy negotiating car use with his minister father via the long hair of Samson, Moses, Noah, and Jesus, and a girl asking whether Jesus's mother was the virgin Mary or the King James virgin. The crew riff on a Christian-barber joke and land on circumcision before moving on.

Dear LFTP: the compulsive-liar friend

• Should I end my friendship with my compulsive-liar friend, and will it damage my other relationships?

Ben reads a Dear LFTP letter from a professional woman in her early forties whose beautiful, magnetic friend of ten years compulsively lies about everything; the friend has now absorbed the writer's social circle, and she fears ending the friendship will cost other relationships. The hosts advise: don't stage a big confrontation or gossip-brand her a liar — just calmly name lies as they happen without emotional investment, quietly step back, and trust people will see through her. The ‘secular answer’ agrees: no grand announcement needed; if asked, answer truthfully and quietly.

Dear LFTP: the talkative sister; Pat Sajak poll

• How do we stop our sister's rude nonstop talking without hurting her feelings?

Ben reads the second letter: three senior sisters in the same Iowa city, and the oldest talks nonstop about herself — the writers want it stopped without hurt feelings. The hosts mostly riff — ‘hang out less,’ ‘stop being so freaking old’ — alongside a live Facebook poll on whether Boova has heard of Wheel of Fortune's Pat Sajak (100% yes on one vote, cast by a host). Signed ‘all listened out in Iowa,’ the letter gets joke advice about thermostats, prunes, and Gladys, Dolores, and Eunice.

Outro

The show winds down with a Princess Bride ‘randy doesn't mean what you think it means’ riff, a final complaint-line plug, thanks to Jake for coming in and safe-travel wishes for Ethiopia, and the sign-off: ‘be faithful in the means; God will handle the ends.’