Season 15

Lent Reflections: A Season of Returning

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Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast

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 one of the passages from Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary for Lent that is relevant for leaders today and Ruth and Steve will provide practices to combat those temptations.

Support the podcast! Patrons at the $10 level will receive a digital download of Ruth Haley Barton’s Lent: A Season of Returning. It includes Cycle C scriptures and space to journal your own thoughts and prayers. This season $10 patrons will also receive guided spiritual practices like Lectio Divinas and Examens that correspond with each week’s episode. Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page.

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

February 28, 2022

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 time that invites us to self-examination and intimacy with God. In this teaser episode, Ruth and Steve will share their hearts for this season of…

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Season 15: Lent Week 1 | Fashioning Our Own Wilderness

March 1, 2022

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 one of the passages from Cycle C of the Revised Common Lectionary for Lent that is relevant for leaders today and Ruth and Steve will…

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

March 9, 2022

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 plans or when we are impatient with His timing? And what is our transformational moment when we realize we’ve been pushing our own agenda and…

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

March 16, 2022

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 and grief. How do we discern between what is distracting and what is satisfying? How can we abstain in order to give time to that…

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Season 15: Lent Week 4 | The Power of Confession

March 24, 2022

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 practice of confession. Why are leaders especially tempted to hide our wrongdoings, and how can we use confession carefully, lovingly and honestly in our lives?…

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

March 30, 2022

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 ourselves for whatever new things God desires to do in us. This requires us to resist the temptation to cling to the past. In this…

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Season 15: Lent Week 6 | Living Between Two Passions

April 6, 2022

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 a matter of days. It brought us to wonder, in what ways do we create our own agendas to put on Jesus, and how do…

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Season 15: Holy Week | Following Jesus All the Way

April 13, 2022

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 we turn our gaze away from that which is difficult to see? What does it mean to keep vigil with Jesus and how is it…

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Season 15: Easter Monday | Practicing Resurrection

April 18, 2022

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 Resurrection. Ruth and Steve discuss the story of Mary and the empty tomb and what it reveals about the new order Jesus wants to bring.…

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