12 to 13 Mistakes From Wildin

Cold open: Bible trivia game, round one

The show opens live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper and launches straight into a Bible trivia game with six categories (Old Testament, history and geography, prophets and prophecy, names, letters/numbers/sequence, New Testament, wisdom). A host reads questions and calls on people in the room by name, including Dan and Nathaniel; answers trade on Bible facts like Peter's 'not only my feet' reply and every knee bowing. The game sets the docket: two trivia rounds, the mistake list, and Dear LFTP ahead.

Jim Palmer's 25 mistakes: putting church over community

• Is putting church over community a real mistake or a false dichotomy?

A host reads Jim Palmer's list of '25 mistakes I made' as a pastor of a large North American church, and the hosts decide to walk through the list one critique at a time. The first item, putting church over community, draws the main thesis of the segment: every item is a false dichotomy. The hosts argue the church IS community, so the real caution is against insularity — don't run the church as an all-inclusive club that cares only for people inside the walls.

Putting orthodoxy over love

• Does holding orthodox doctrine conflict with loving people?

The hosts take up the list's 'putting orthodoxy over love' item. One host argues orthodoxy IS love — communicating doctrine God intended people to know is itself an act of love — but warns against wielding doctrine as a tool of manipulation without the heart of God. Another host adds that doctrines are rules and fences that lead people to know the God they are invited to follow, and the delivery must fit the person in front of you.

Putting certainty over wonder

• How much certainty should Christians claim, and where does wonder belong?

On 'putting certainty over wonder,' a host agrees the church has claimed certainty where none exists and set fire to things it had no business defending — like the details of Christ's three days before the resurrection. The hosts agree Scripture defends itself and silence in Scripture should be left silent; at the same time another voice insists on bedrock certainty: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus are non-negotiable, and origins and other unobserved questions are where wonder belongs.

Putting teaching over conversation

• When is 'just having a conversation' really avoidance of what Scripture says?

The 'teaching over conversation' item gets another false-dichotomy verdict: people learn from teaching and then talk about it, so do both. The conversation sharpens when one host names the Rob Bell pattern — endless 'let's have a conversation about hell' without ever landing on what Scripture says — as the version of conversation that is really pride: the belief that merely thinking something makes it true. Questioning is welcomed when it is an honest search for an answer, not a performance of depth.

Putting polished over real; putting explanations over empathy

'Putting polished over real' gets instant unanimous agreement. 'Putting explanations over empathy' earns a longer treatment: a host explains that facts don't matter when feelings have overtaken someone, using the sixth-grade crush as an analogy, but insists you never say anything untrue to comfort a person in a war zone. Another host tells of a funeral where a preacher 'preached' an unbeliever into heaven — empathetic to the room but communicating that anything goes. The verdict: meet people where they are, but don't stay there; don't rewrite the true thing to match the feeling.

Putting answers over questions

On 'putting answers over questions,' the hosts argue the fear behind the item is real: churches have clammed up when people ask hard questions, and that silence can feed deconstruction. But they draw a line between honest questioning and weaponized curiosity — 'what if God is a narcissist?' asked for attention rather than an answer. One host counsels looking for people of peace who are actually hunting the answer rather than the performance of asking.

Meeting grief without fixing it: the delayed-trip story

A host tells a story about his family running late for the kids' commitments, being detoured two hours, and learning later that the delay kept them out of the path of tornadoes. He uses it to show how 'why did this happen' questions need empathy before explanation: fallen world, a God we don't fully understand but trust — those are true answers, but they don't meet someone standing in the middle of something terrible. The point: God weeps in that situation too, so mourn with people before defending Him.

Membership over friendship, prayer over action, services over self-care

Three list items get quick verdicts. 'Putting membership over friendship' is read as a repeat of the church-over-community item and skipped. 'Putting prayer over action' is rejected as another false choice: prayer IS action, and one host would go sixty-forty for prayer over action every time. 'Putting services over self-care' is read as the pastor who sacrificed himself and his family on the altar of the church; legitimate danger, but if the demand came from God's call rather than human demand, the burnout is a bring-on-yourself problem.

The arrogance in house-church purism: Ecuador story

A host recounts a Facebook house-church group post from a man in Ecuador whose house churches are multiplying faster than leaders can sustain them. When the man asked for prayer, a privileged North American critic lectured him that the group had 'discerned' he didn't need a building. The host calls it the same arrogance the list critiques, flipped: 'your particular brand of Oscar Meyer ain't a sausage for everybody.' The segment lands on leaving room for God to work in different ways for different people.

Bible trivia game, round two

The second trivia round runs the categories again with harder questions: which book says nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8), which two books use 'seal' for God's protection of the remnant (Ezekiel and Revelation), which king said 'almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian' (Agrippa), which book opens 'Now David was old' (1 Kings), and a Proverbs 25:25 riddle about cold water to a thirsty soul (good news from a far country). A spelling dispute breaks out over Nathanael.

Dear LFTP: resentment over the next generation's milestones

• Are we wrong to feel hurt, and should we skip the next generation's events?

A letter comes from a couple who married and had children very late, so their kids are far younger than the extended family's. After years of feeling their kids ignored at relatives' events, they decided to skip the next generation's celebrations in return. The hosts call it understandable but petty: staying away punishes children for a dynamic they didn't create and breeds the very selfishness being complained about. The Secular answer says their feelings are human; the hosts push toward honesty and showing up anyway.

Dear LFTP: a husband who lies and exaggerates

• How should I handle a husband who lies and exaggerates?

A wife writes that her husband lies and exaggerates facts about their life to people they meet, then blows her off when confronted. The hosts diagnose a self-conscious man protecting a low view of himself rather than a cartoon villain, but insist he has to stop — an untrustworthy person isn't relationship material. One host tells a story about his own small lie at a gas station the same day to show the spectrum, and they close with caution about who the letter-writer is called to stay and help versus walk away from.

Dear LFTP: the warped lid on the 9x13 pan

• Who should pay for the replacement pan lid?

A listener bought her mother-in-law a 9x13 pan; the mother-in-law warped the plastic lid against a hot oven and now expects a replacement. The hosts' standing advice: you give a gift because you want to, then you're done with it — but a warped lid is cheap to replace, so just buy another one rather than stand on principle. The comedy is in the folding-arms posturing over what might be a six-dollar lid.

Outro: complaint line and merch

The episode closes with the standard benediction, the Bob Eisenlauer complaint line at (515) 517-0085, a shout-out to the band Ren Collective, and a merch plug for livefromthepath.org — including a 'Mike Machovan' shirt and a Thrift Store Priest shirt. A host jokes the shop makes them just a hair over a penny but keeps them in decaf coffee.