A Confession

Show open and cold-open banter

Boova opens with the live "Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper" intro and Ben joins in; the room riffs on the air conditioning in the back, a trucker hat with moving lips, and a "terrible dream."

Opening game: things you'd never go back on

• What is something you thought was dumb or useless until you tried it, and now you'd never go back?

Ben introduces the pre-show game, which he needs as an example for an upcoming presentation: a product, service, or method you thought was dumb or useless until you tried it, and now you'd never go back. Boova's answer is his automatic toothpaste dispenser; Dan's answer is ditching satellite for streaming (which Boova teases him about, since he only did it in 2024); Boova offers a deodorant joke at Mike's expense; Dan describes switching to buying one good tool instead of five cheap ones; Boova confesses he caved on Target drive-up pickup; Ben tells his Walmart pickup routine and a drug-deal joke about it; the room debates water bottles; Ben admits he now voice-texts everything after hating it; someone suggests the digital book, and the room debates e-readers versus phones for Bible reading, including one host's switch from staunchly opposing phone Bible reading to using it for its sheer convenience.

Complaint line and prank stories

Ben plugs the Bob Eisenlauer complaint line, (515) 517-0085, and the room jokes that "Robert s Eisenhower" sounds like an assassinated president. Boova tells how someone signed him up on Facebook as house-hunting in Arizona, burying him in realtor calls, and declares Dan the one person he'd never suspect of shady browsing. Dan admits he once did it to himself to test a friend's South Carolina realtor's response time. Boova tells the glitter-covered $40 payback story at Casey's.

Never going back: workarounds, car work, and Fiverr

Back to the game: Ben wants an example from car work, where you struggle for hours and then watch someone do it in seconds. The room trades tips — a jack handle over a ratchet for torque, Boova's three-day F250 brake-caliper ordeal at Ben's place ending with "just buy new calipers" — and Ben tells how he paid a woman on Fiverr $10 to edit a PDF in 36 hours instead of fighting it for 45 minutes. Dan explains why he outsources oil changes now, and the room debates what to do with used oil, including the burn pile.

Ben's New Year confession: grace you don't deserve

Ben delivers his New Year confession in the first person: listing his job, his marriage, the radio program, his pastorate, and fatherhood, he says that held to the strict standard of any of them he would lose all of it — "I don't deserve to keep my job," "I deserve to be fired." What struck him two to three weeks ago was not that he's imperfect (he always agreed to that on paper) but the tangible sense that everything he loves could justifiably be taken from him, which made God's grace feel touchable — "the opposite of It's a Wonderful Life." The point is gratitude, not self-loathing: recognizing how much mercy he's collecting from God, his wife, his coworkers, and the fellows in the room instead of presuming upon it.

Responding to the confession: devotionals and God's mighty right hand

Dan responds to Ben's confession: the hard middle perspective between minimizing your sin and drowning in "I'm the worst ever." He describes his recent daily devotional practice — recounting the whole day and asking God to show him where he fell short — and the theme saturating his minor-prophets reading: God's mighty right hand, judgment pronounced and then the constant refrain "if you will just turn to me," still waters, mountains made low. He cites Isaiah's promise of guidance to the left and to the right, and lands on gratitude that overflows into faithfulness because God is faithful.

Dear LFTP: anger and living with grandmother

• What can I do about my anger and constant fighting with my grandmother, short of moving out?

Dan reads the Dear LFTP letter: a twenty-something who has lived with their grandmother (who raised them from age three) for 22 years; they used to be best friends but now fight constantly with name-calling and disrespect, and the writer admits an anger problem but doesn't know how to start fixing it short of moving out. The hosts converge: it's time to move out — two adults, one household, and the anger is the writer's issue, not grandma's. "You should be adding to grandma, not taking away from her"; if there's a genuine care need, set boundaries and separate lives instead.

Dear LFTP vs Secular vs AI

Ben reveals a new twist: he pasted the grandmother letter into Google Bard and reads its full answer on air — self-regulation, I-statements, therapy, support groups, plus three resources including Susan Davis's "Calm Down Now" booklet. The room judges it decent but entirely you-focused, and notes AI didn't try to sell anything, unlike Secular's answer, which hawked an $8 anger booklet for a check or money order ("I don't think that's true" — admitting it is not the big first step for anger). Ben tells his "I think I'm a dog" anecdote: the AI affirmed him until he pushed back, then it supplied the Christian worldview and apologized. Mike responds on AI programming and data telling stories we'd rather not hear (crime statistics, protected classes), and Ben tells the stroke-symptoms sign story — men's and women's symptoms differ, and blurring that to fit a narrative can kill people.

You-focused vs God-focused: devotionals, AI advice, and the Lord's Prayer

• Can I pray for the forgiveness of other people's sins, the way Job did for his children?

Dan critiques the you-focus shared by devotionals and AI advice: "you're only angry because your kingdom is being attacked," and a Western faith that must process everything through the self. Ben reframes with the Lord's Prayer as deliberately communal — "give us," "forgive us" — Jesus assumed you're praying for the group, not just yourself. Ben adds that he read Job 1–5 two days ago and was struck by Job sacrificing in case his children had merely sinned in their thoughts.

Praying Job-style for others: transaction vs trust

• As a pastor, what spiritual authority do I have — for example, to release a troublemaker from the congregation?

Dan wrestles with praying Job's prayer for his family — "will you cover the sins of all my family today?" — and whether that's even allowed. Ben argues we've become transactional in our faith ("you can blame the German theologians"), treating prayer, baptism, and even the cross as one-for-one exchanges, when the gospel writers saw far more in Jesus' death; he cites "saved through childbirth" as a text that refuses to fit the box. Mike shares his pastor's-heart question about what spiritual authority he has, telling of times he prayed "I release them" over a troublemaker and watched them leave within days. Dan closes it: we're not failing to see God move because we use the wrong words, but because we use no words — scheming instead of surrendering.

Outro and benediction

Ben closes: plugs the Bob Eisenlauer complaint line again and asks listeners for their own "never going back" examples for his presentation, then gives the standing benediction — "be faithful in the means, God will handle the ends."