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Posts by Transforming Center

Season 20: Episode 1 | Beyond the Frenzy: Worship that Transforms

By Transforming Center | October 4, 2023 | 1
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We’re back! This season we’re focusing on worship, particularly worship that is transformative. Our season long guest is Rory Noland and we will be working with his book, Transforming Worship:…

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Special Mini-Episode: A State of the Podcast Announcement

By Transforming Center | May 23, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Hello! We’re popping in the podcast feed with a little “State of the Podcast” announcement (don’t worry! It’s not ending!). Ruth gives a peak behind the curtain as to what…

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Season 19: Easter Monday | Transforming Post-Resurrection Encounters with Jesus

By Transforming Center | April 10, 2023 | 1
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

He is Risen, indeed! Happy Easter Monday, friends. Today, Ruth helps us celebrate the Risen Christ with five stories of post-resurrection encounters with Jesus. In each story she helps us…

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Season 19: Lent Week 6 | Lament: Saying No to Triumphalism

By Transforming Center | April 3, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 19: Lent Week 5 | Communal Suffering: Can These Bones Live?

By Transforming Center | March 27, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 19: Lent Week 4 | Opposing Violent Injustice: Bringing Light to the Darkest Places

By Transforming Center | March 20, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 19: Lent Week 3 | The Work of Justice: Healing our Broken Ways

By Transforming Center | March 13, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 19: Lent Week 2 | Colonialism and Christianity: Bible Translation as a Work of Justice

By Transforming Center | March 6, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 19: Lent Week 1 | Confession: What We Have Done and What We Have Left Undone

By Transforming Center | February 27, 2023 | 1
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 19: Ash Wednesday | Learning to Love What God Loves

By Transforming Center | February 21, 2023 | 2
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion:…

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Season 18: Episode 5 | What about the Congregation? How Everyone Benefits from a Pastor’s Sabbatical

By Transforming Center | February 7, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We are wrapping up our sabbatical season by turning our attention to the congregation; how does a congregation benefit from a pastor’s sabbatical. Ruth sits down with her brother, Pastor…

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Season 18: Episode 4 | Are You Willing to Quit Your Job: Sabbatical for the Rest of Us

By Transforming Center | January 31, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Are sabbaticals just for pastors? This week, Ruth sits down with guest Andy Crouch to talk about sabbatical from an everyman perspective. Andy has taken full responsibility for his own…

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Season 18: Episode 3 | Boundaries: Protecting What is Precious

By Transforming Center | January 24, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Inevitably, every sabbatical will meet a challenge, a place where the outside world creeps in and threatens to call you back to the work you’ve committed to set aside. When…

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Season 18: Episode 2 | More Than a Vacation: Planning for a Meaningful Sabbatical

By Transforming Center | January 17, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We have two extra special guests this week! First, Ruth sits down with Christine Lee, Priest-in-Charge of St. Peter’s Chelsea in New York City. She and Ruth discuss how Christine…

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Season 18: Episode 1 | When Sabbath Isn’t Enough: Embracing the Gift of Sabbatical

By Transforming Center | January 10, 2023 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Happy New Year! We are ringing in the new year by talking about sabbatical! Friend of the Transforming Center Rick McCall is back with us, and he and Ruth are…

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Bonus: Advent 2022 Year A

By Transforming Center | November 22, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We find ourselves again beginning a new Christian year with Advent. This year the lectionary finds us in Cycle A. In this episode Ruth helps us prepare for advent with…

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Season 17: Episode 11 | Sabbath Journey: Do Something Before You Do Everything

By Transforming Center | November 8, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We’re wrapping up our sabbath season with a solo episode. Ruth is on the mic to help us discern the something we can do to start our sabbath journey. What…

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Season 17: Episode 10 | Fruit and Frustration: Creating a Culture Where Everyone Can Rest

By Transforming Center | November 1, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

As we’ve camped out around this idea of a “sabbath community” the last few weeks, we’ve explored the possibility and very real struggles of what that kind of commitment to…

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Season 17: Episode 9 | Getting Honest About the Challenges of Sabbath Community

By Transforming Center | October 25, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Today’s conversation is an honest and vulnerable one about the challenges of leading communities in the ways of the sabbath. Ruth sits down with Christine Lee who leads a busy…

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Season 17: Episode 8 | Sabbath Leaders Cultivating Sabbath Communities

By Transforming Center | October 18, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Over the next few episodes we are turning our attention from a leader’s personal sabbath practice towards how they can form and shape their communities around sabbath. We’ll be talking…

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Season 17: Episode 7 | Sabbath Rhythms During Seasons of Singleness and Care-giving

By Transforming Center | October 11, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

In this episode we continue discussing how each season or stage of life presents its own challenges and opportunities with regard to sabbath keeping. Today we’re joined by two guests,…

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Season 17: Episode 6 | Sharing Sabbath Presence Within Our Families

By Transforming Center | October 4, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

As we continue to discuss the idea of a sabbath practice and the very practical ways one can incorporate it into one’s life, we want to acknowledge that each season…

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Season 17: Episode 5 | The Power of Unplugging

By Transforming Center | September 27, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We’re here this week to talk about the elephant in the sabbath room… technology. Ruth and guest, Tiffany Shlain, talk all about how our technology impacts our ability to truly…

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Season 17: Episode 4 | Shabbat: Conversation with a Jewish Rabbi

By Transforming Center | September 20, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Our guest this week is Rabbi Evan Moffic, a rabbi leading a congregation in the Chicago suburbs who also teaches and writes about the Jewishness of Jesus. He and Ruth…

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Season 17: Episode 3 | Sabbath as Resistance

By Transforming Center | September 12, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We had so much goodness in our conversations around the idea of sabbath as resistance that we decided to release them as separate episodes. In this episode, Ruth and guest…

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Season 17: Episode 2 | The Poetry of Sabbath

By Transforming Center | September 12, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We continue to celebrate the launch of Ruth’s newest book, Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again. This week, Ruth sits down with pastor…

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Season 17: Episode 1 | Awakening to God’s Gift of Sabbath

By Transforming Center | September 6, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We’re back! This season we are celebrating the launch of Ruth’s newest book, Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again. Ruth has invited a…

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BONUS: A Conversation with Glenn Packiam on Being a Resilient Pastor, Challenges Facing the Church, and Cultivating A Spiritual Life

By Transforming Center | July 22, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We can’t wait for you to hear this encouraging conversation between Ruth and Glenn Packiam, a pastor and author of The Resilient Pastor: Leading Your Church in a Rapidly Changing…

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BONUS: Ask Ruth #5 Excerpt

By Transforming Center | July 14, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Over on Patreon, we concluded season 16 with our fifth installment of our Ask Ruth series. This episode included questions specific to this past season on Transforming Leadership: Managing Anxiety…

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Juneteenth: Celebrating the Good News of Freedom

By Transforming Center | June 20, 2022 | 4

Where the Spirit of the Lord there is freedom. II Corinthians 3:17  Today as we mark the Juneteenth national holiday, we invite you to reflect on this documentary that expands…

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Season 16: Episode 8 | Systems Theory and Leadership: Picking Up the Tools that Diffuse Anxiety

By Transforming Center | June 20, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We’re nearing the end of our season on Systems Theory and leadership anxiety! In this last episode with Ruth and Steve together, the two give really practical help with concrete…

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Season 16: Episode 7 | It’s a Human Thing: Systems Theory in Non-Majority Spaces

By Transforming Center | June 13, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This week we invited two additional guests to tackle this tender and challenging topic. Ruth and Steve are joined by Pastor Tina Harris, a former pastor and lawyer and currently…

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Season 16: Episode 6 | Second Order Change: Recognizing and Dissolving Stuck Patterns

By Transforming Center | June 6, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Sometimes our greatest anxieties can surround areas of stuckness, places where we know what we are doing isn’t working, but we can’t seem to find our way out. This week,…

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Season 16: Episode 5 | The Freedom of Taking Responsibility

By Transforming Center | May 30, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This week, Ruth and Steve are talking about differentiation. What is differentiation and how does it differ from individualism? Steve shares his framework of the Four Spaces and explains how…

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Season 16: Episode 4 | Calm Presence: Leadership, Anxiety, and the False Self

By Transforming Center | May 23, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Ruth and guest Steve Cuss continue to explore Systems Theory. This week they look at leadership, anxiety, and the false self. What are some examples of false selves and false…

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Season 16: Episode 3 | The Sins of the Fathers (and Mothers): How Family of Origin Impacts Our Leadership

By Transforming Center | May 16, 2022 | 2
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This week, Ruth and Steve delve into the topic of family of origin and its impact on leadership. Why do we need to do the messy work of untangling our…

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Season 16: Episode 2 | The Most Powerful Leadership Tool: Diagnosing and Diffusing Anxiety

By Transforming Center | May 11, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Welcome to Season 16, Transforming Leadership: Managing Anxiety Within Our Communities. This season we will be exploring Systems Theory, also called Family Systems Theory. Many of us have seen the…

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Season 16: Episode 1 | What’s Really Going On? Systems Theory and the Soul of Leadership

By Transforming Center | May 9, 2022 | 1
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Welcome to Season 16, Transforming Leadership: Managing Anxiety Within Our Communities. This season we will be exploring Systems Theory, also called Family Systems Theory. Many of us have seen the…

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Season 15: Easter Monday | Practicing Resurrection

By Transforming Center | April 18, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We couldn’t leave you hanging in the darkness of Good Friday, so to wrap up season 15 of the podcast we are concluding with a conversation about Easter and the…

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Season 15: Holy Week | Following Jesus All the Way

By Transforming Center | April 13, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Ruth and Steve guide us into Holy Week with the reminder of the importance of keeping vigil and a discussion on the temptation to fall asleep. In what ways do…

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Season 15: Lent Week 6 | Living Between Two Passions

By Transforming Center | April 6, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We have arrived at Palm Sunday and this week Ruth and Steve discuss the disorienting swing the people create between hailing Jesus as King and calling for his crucifixion in…

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Season 15: Lent Week 5 | Out With the Old, In With the New

By Transforming Center | March 30, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

We seem to be turning a corner during this week of Lent! Ruth and Steve discuss the lectionary readings for the fifth Sunday of Lent and the call to prepare…

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Season 15: Lent Week 4 | The Power of Confession

By Transforming Center | March 24, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This week’s temptation may bring us to the hardest, deepest places of Lent. We are talking about the temptation to be silent about our sin and the power of the…

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Season 15: Lent Week 3 | Seeking God While He May Be Found

By Transforming Center | March 16, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This week Ruth and Steve address the temptation to invest in that which does not satisfy. So many of us leaders find ourselves turning towards escapist behaviors in our exhaustion…

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Season 15: Lent Week 2 | Consenting to God’s Will Deep Within

By Transforming Center | March 9, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

What is it about leaders that we seem to struggle so much with the temptation to take matters into our own hands and “help” God out when we distrust His…

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Season 15: Lent Week 1 | Fashioning Our Own Wilderness

By Transforming Center | March 1, 2022 | 4
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Ruth Haley Barton and Steve Weins will journey through Lent with a spirit of self-examination and desire for intimacy with God. Each episode will highlight a particular temptation found in…

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Lent 2022 Teaser | Lent for Leaders: With God in the Wilderness

By Transforming Center | February 28, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Our next podcast season begins on Ash Wednesday! Season 15 will help us walk through Lent together. Steve Weins is back with Ruth and together the two will tackle this…

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BONUS: A Conversation with Rory Noland about Transforming Worship

By Transforming Center | February 2, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Please enjoy another bonus conversation about worship, this time with our friend and former Transforming Community worship leader, Rory Noland.  Rory has a new book out called Transforming Worship: Planning…

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A Conversation with Aaron Niequist about Fixed Hour Prayer and Transforming Community 18

By Transforming Center | January 24, 2022 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

Please enjoy this bonus episode, a conversation between Ruth Haley Barton and Aaron Niequist, recorded at the Becoming A Transforming Church retreat. Ruth and Aaron discuss Aaron’s experience as both…

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Season 14: Advent Week 4 | Saying Yes to God

By Transforming Center | December 15, 2021 | 0
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast Show Notes

This season we invite you to walk through Advent by engaging with the lectionary Scripture readings and listening for what God might want to say through them. In each episode,…

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