Formation with John Ortberg

Episod

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  009. Everything You Need to Know About the Next Generation ft. Kara Powell 05.08.2026 1j 21min

  About the Guest Kara Powell leads the Fuller Youth Institute as its Executive Director, where for more than twenty years her team has tracked how young people are changing across three generational cohorts, from Millennials to Gen Z to Gen Alpha. She holds a PhD in Practical Theology and has helped shape some of the most widely used research on the next generation. AMA Opportunity Leave us a review for a chance to ask John a question on an upcoming episode. To enter, follow the podcast, leave...
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  008. As the World Gets More Synthetic, the Church Must Get More Human ft. Carey Nieuwhof 22.07.2026 1j 16min

  In this episode of Formation, John Ortberg sits down with Carey Nieuwhof to talk leadership, fame, faith, and what it means for the church to stay human as the world turns synthetic. Carey Nieuwhof has spent the last decade in a chair few people occupy: hundreds of conversations a year with pastors, CEOs, authors, and public thinkers, watching up close what success does to a person's character. In this conversation with John Ortberg, recorded in the redwoods of Northern California, that vant...
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  007. Quadriplegia, Despair, and Learning to Truly Live ft. Joni Eareckson Tada 08.07.2026 1j 13min

  Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic at seventeen after a diving accident that severed her spinal cord. In the nearly six decades since, she has written dozens of books, founded a global disability ministry, survived two bouts of cancer, and woken up every single morning asking Jesus to get her through the day. This is a conversation about what it means to receive suffering with both hands: the anger, the prayers that didn't get answered the way she hoped, the agony, and what gets faithf...
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  006. A Silicon Valley Pastor on the Spiritual Cost of a Distracted Life ft. Jay Kim 24.06.2026 1j 20min

  What does it take to find peace in a culture engineered for distraction? In this episode of Formation, John Ortberg sits down with a Silicon Valley pastor whose pursuit of attention, rest, and spiritual formation was interrupted by a panic attack — and reshaped by an ancient prayer practice, the problem with multitasking, and the rise of AI. Jay Kim is a pastor, author, and podcaster who serves at WestGate Church in the heart of Silicon Valley. He's thought deeply about what it means to purs...
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  005. The Hidden Spiritual Cost of How We Work ft. Gary Hamel 10.06.2026 1j 25min

  What does it mean to treat people as ends in themselves rather than instruments to get things done? Gary Hamel joins John for a conversation about work, dignity, and the quiet crisis inside most organizations. One of the world's most influential business thinkers, Gary has spent decades asking why so few workplaces actually unleash the people inside them, and what it would look like if they did. This is a conversation about agency, meaning, and why the biblical vision of every human being mad...
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  004. How Politics Shapes Our Spiritual Formation ft. Michael Wear 20.05.2026 1j 34min

  What does it look like to follow Jesus when the culture insists that everything depends on the next election? Michael Wear joins John for a conversation about politics, allegiance, and the slow work of keeping ultimate things ultimate. A former White House staffer who came to faith as a teenager in a Wegmans grocery store, Michael has spent his career arguing that Christian knowledge is not just privately meaningful but publicly useful, and that the church has handed political parties a power...
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  003. Facing Humanity's Hidden Capacity for Evil ft. Gary Haugen 06.05.2026 1j 18min

  What does it take to do hard things for a long time without being broken by them? Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world. He joins John for a conversation about evil, the human capacity for violence, and why the people most serious about changing the world may be the ones most in need of spiritual formation. AMA Opportunity: Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chan...
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  002. How to Read the Old Testament (and Still Have Faith) ft. Tremper Longman 22.04.2026 1j 11min

  What do we do with a God who commands violence, permits slavery, and seems to change his mind? Tremper Longman III — one of the most prolific and trusted Old Testament scholars of his generation — joins John for a conversation about the parts of Scripture that trouble us most, and why sitting with that trouble might be more formative than explaining it away. AMA Opportunity: Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chance to ask John a question on an upcoming episode. Here's how: fol...
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  001. How God Gets Our Attention and the Pace of Formation ft. Tyler Staton 22.04.2026 1j 18min

  What does it mean to know God, not as a doctrine held, but as a presence inhabited? Tyler Staton joins John for the first conversation in Formation's history: an unhurried exploration of how the Holy Spirit forms us, why prayer is less about technique than attention, and what it looks like to discover God not only in the sanctuary but in the chaos of a basketball sideline, a marriage, and a cancer diagnosis. This is a conversation about the ancient and the empirical, and how sometimes we may ...
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  Your Chance to Ask John a Question 08.04.2026 1min

  Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. Do you want a chance to ask John a question? Four easy steps. Follow the podcastLeave a reviewTake a screenshotEmail it to usEmail proof of your review to us along with your question for John — ⁠connect@becomenew.com⁠ We’ll answer selected* questions in an upcoming episode of the podcast. (Your screenshot must be attached. Submissions without proof of review will not be considered. Entries are limited to...