Prayer. Deeply sacred. Nearly universally practiced. Kind of weird. Strangely secretive for many people. Rarely discussed in public. Prayer.Rev. Dani Hillyer and Matt Mattson dive deeply into their understanding of and experience with prayer in this episode. How do you pray? Take some time to enjoy this sacred episode exploring the wild and wonderful world of prayer with Matt and Dani.
In this episode of The BETWEN Podcast, host Matt Mattson dives deeply into the mystical and the concrete with author Kevin Sweeney.Kevin Sweeney was co-founder and lead pastor of Imagine Church—an urban church in Honolulu that is welcoming of all people, sees imagination as the key to the future, chooses authenticity over performance, substance over hype, and quality over quantity. He is the host of podcast “The Church Needs Therapy” and is the author of the books, “The Making of a Mystic: My Journey with Mushrooms, My Life as a Pastor, and Why It’s Okay For Everyone to Relax,” out on May 31st, and “The Joy of Letting Go”. His newest book is titled "The Cosmic Christ and the Concrete Jesus: Mystics, The Black Prophetic Tradition, and Why I'm Still A Christian" and is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Christ-Concrete-Jesus-ebook/dp/B0F2Q3P6K2# He lives In Honolulu with his wife and co-founder of Imagine, Christine, and their two kids, True and Mikayla.
Are you a prophet? Should people claim to be prophets in today's world? What do the prophets of the ancient times have to teach us about the way we're supposed to be with each other today?Fr. Richard Rohr recently released a new book titled, "The Tears of Things" that Pastor Dani and Matt Mattson discuss in detail on this episode of The BETWEEN Podcast. The book serves as a jumping off point for a truly sacred conversation to take place... They discuss our inner "prophetic" voice, our ego, seeing the world in new ways through tears-filled eyes, the courage to embrace paradox.MORE ABOUT THE BOOKHow do we live compassionately in a time of violence and despair? What can we do with our private disappointments and the anger we feel in such an unjust world? In his most personal book yet, Richard Rohr turns to the writings of the Jewish prophets, revealing how some of the lesser-read books of the Bible offer us a crucial path forward today.The prophets’ writings reflect the full spectrum of human maturity. In almost every case, their initial rage and their accusatory words evolve into a profound pathos and lamentation about our shared human condition and the world’s suffering. Through astute critiques of culture and institutions, and their journey from anger to sadness, and ultimately compassion, the prophets exemplify what Rohr calls “sacred criticism”—a distinct approach to confronting evil and injustice that acknowledges the wholeness of history, the interconnectedness of every living being, and the reality of a divine and universal love. In this, they set the stage for Jesus, who follows this identical pattern.Drawing on a century of biblical scholarship and written in the warm, pastoral voice that has endeared Rohr to millions, The Tears of Things breathes new life into ancient wisdom. It paves a path of enlightenment for anyone seeking a compassionate way of living in a hurting world.
In this episode of The BETWEEN Podcast, host Matt Mattson and special guest Kate Boyd dive deeply into faith disentanglement, Batman (the dog), the danger of fundamentalism, and the untidiness of our personal and communal faith lives.Kate Boyd helps weary and wounded Christians rebuild their relationship with Scripture and community... and she helps them love God and their neighbors with their whole selves. Kate has traveled the world to interview and tell the stories of believers around the globe while she has been on mission trips. She is the author of a book we discuss in this episdoed titled, “An Untidy Faith: Journeying Back to the Joy of Following Jesus”. She is also creator of the Threaded Bible studies, and founder of The Remembered Table. She holds a masters in theological studies with an emphasis in biblical studies from Perkins School of Theology.
Are you longing for rest? (you're not alone)In this episode Dani reveals that the last time she felt rested was NEARLY A DECADE AGO! And we know she is not the only one who feels like they're rushing through life and always expected to be "on."This episode of The BETWEEN Podcast features co-hosts Matt Mattson and Dani Hillyer doing a deep dive into their relationship (or lackthereof) with REST.A well-rested person is far more likely to be able to experience the sacredness of human connection, don't you think? We certainly do. Join us for this conversation and maybe you'll find some ways to provide rest for other people in your life.
Grace E. Kelley is a follower of Jesus, a wife, and mother of five, including a set of boy/girl twins. She graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelors in Creative Writing and a double emphasis in Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction. She writes poetry and stories — both fictional and non-fictional, and occasionally enjoys the opportunity to speak. She is also a farmer, a foodie, an unrepentant mug addict, and a deep believer that incredible beauty can come from the compost heap. Among her writing credits you can find her debut poetry collection titled, "as the Sparrow flies." And her newest collection that is soon to be released... in fact it might be out by the time you're listening to this episode... it's called, "Daughter of Breath." Grace's Website: https://gracekelleywrites.com/ Grace's Substack: https://graceekelley.substack.com/
In this episode of The BETWEEN Podcast, we explore the challenges of sacred connection... especially for men. Shannon TL Kearns is a transgender man who believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story. Shannon’s first book In the Margins: A Transgender Man’s Journey With Scripture is available now from Eerdman’s Books. He has three books forthcoming: No One Taught Me How To Be A Man: What A Trans Man’s Experience Reveals About Masculinity (Broadleaf), Come and See: An Invitation To A Radical Encounter With Jesus A Youth Devotional (Hodder Faith), Reading the Bible Through Queer Eyes (HarperOne, co-written with Brian G. Murphy). Shannon is a recipient of the Louisville Pastoral Study Grant for 2025/2026, the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship for 2022, a Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowship in 20/21 and he was a Lambda Literary Fellow for 2019 in playwriting and in 2022 for screenwriting. He was a Finnovation Fellow for 2019/2020. He is a sought after speaker on transgender issues and religion as well as a skilled facilitator of a variety of workshops. Shannon co-founded QueerTheology.com with Brian G. Murphy. Since its start in 2013, this work has reached more than two million people all over the world through videos, articles, and online courses and community. Their Queer Theology podcast is the longest running LGBTQ+ Christian podcast. Selected recognition: Winner of the ScreenCraft Pitch competition, finalist for Bull City Film Festival for his pilot Transformed. Winner of the New Hope Film Festival for best premium/tv script. He’s been a playwright in residence at the Inge House, participated in the Seven Devils’ Playwright Conference and the Great Plains Theatre Conference. He was a semi-finalist for the O’Neill and a finalist for the Blue Ink playwriting award. Shannon’s plays include Laughing, Flexing, Dying, The Stories We Tell At The End Of The World, Body+Blood, in a stand of dying trees, Line of Sight, Twisted Deaths, The Resistance of My Skin, and Who Has Eyes To See. Shannon's Website: https://www.shannontlkearns.com/
Welcome to the second season of The BETWEEN Podcast. This short episode features host Matt Mattson encouraging us all to not get sucked into the vortex, the mud pit, the rage machine. We are called to be peacemakers at a time like this. We are called to move our attention away from abstraction and into the up-close-and-personal. If you're new to the podcast, we focus on the intersection of FAITH (your faith) and HUMAN CONNECTION. We are radically inclusive of all points of view. We are wildly curious and perpetually uncertain. We believe the space between us is the most sacred space on earth. Learn more about BETWEEN (join our email list) at https://between.church/ Subscribe to our Substack at https://matthewmattson.substack.com/ Learn more about our host Matt Mattson at https://matthew-mattson.com/
In this episode, regular host Matt Mattson is joined by Dani Hillyer (in her debut on the show as an occasional co-host). Their sacred conversation is a deep dive into the idea of "worship" and whether it can be something we do in every moment.Tune in to receive a spiritual invitation, some new perspectives, and an exploration of how your faith might intersect in new ways with the ways you connect with the humans around you.Rev. Dani Hillyer brings vibrant passion and deep commitment to all of her work -- while she is a co-creator of BETWEEN, her primary professional roles have her serving two local churches in the Denver area as a pastor with a specialization in innovative ministries. ,Her journey into pastoral ministry was sparked during her tenure as a Children and Youth Director. Equipped with an M.Div. from McCormick Theological Seminary and a B.S. in Business Management from Grand Canyon University, her blend of theological depth and practical acumen enriches her ministry. Native to Colorado, Pastor Dani and her family embrace the state's beauty through hiking, paddle boarding, skiing, camping, and exploring mountain towns. Her heart is devoted to cultivating spiritually vibrant environments within families and communities. With dynamic leadership and unwavering dedication, she eagerly looks forward to journeying alongside all she has the honor to pastor, guiding them in deepening their faith and impacting their community.
Moments of transition in our lives and relationships can be really scary. They can be really sacred too. This short episode of The BETWEEN Podcast features host Matt Mattson offering some thoughts on this season of transition, and the transitions in our lives. This episode also serves as the official conclusion of Season 1 of the show (don't worrry... we're already working on Season 2!) As always, listen to our show wherever you listen to podcasts, or just visit our website: https://between.church/podcast Thanks to everyone for their support with this first season of the show! We're so grateful for the sacred connections we share with you.
"Our world is hurting and broken. People are divided, disconnected, and lonely. It’s time for a fresh reimagining of what it means to be the Church in our day." -New Wine Collective Website This new episode of The BETWEEN Podcast (the first that includes a video version!) features host Matt Mattson cherishing a sacred conversation with Eugene Kim, founder of New Wine Collective. Eugene is an ordained minister with over 25 years of experience in local church ministry. For 17 years, he played a pivotal role in growing a church from its early stages into a thriving, multi-location community. However, recognizing the need to rethink traditional models, Eugene discerned that it was time to step beyond the familiar and reimagine what it means to be and do “church" from the ground up. He left his pastoral role in 2020 to establish New Wine Collective—a church innovation think-tank and R&D lab.Since founding New Wine Collective, Eugene has been learning, ideating, and convening conversations about the evolving spiritual landscape and future of the Church. He is New Wine Collective's chief architect and synthesizer of ideas but still a pastor at heart who loves walking alongside people in their journeys. He is passionate about systemic change and designing new ways of being the Church that can help heal the world and give everyone a place to belong.Eugene grew up in Queens, NY and Seoul, Korea, and now lives in the Boston area. He loves hanging out with his three children, enjoying good food, cooking, and watching Korean dramas with his wife. Learn more about New Wine Collective: https://www.newwinecollective.org/
This episode features an amazing new author, Jenai Auman having a beautiful and sacred conversation with host, Matt Mattson. Her new book, Othered is for anyone who has felt left out or pushed out of the church, Othered is your invitation to find spiritual rest and belonging in a God who loves, restores, and blesses the outcast and the marginalized. Jenai Auman draws on her experience growing up as a biracial kid in the American South as well as working within toxic ministry environments to reveal a hopeful, trauma-informed way forward. Her book illuminates how hurt and betrayal in the church are longstanding problems that God neither sanctions nor tolerates. It offers holistic responses to the grief, anger, and trauma that come with being ostracized or oppressed by the church. And it shows how God provides shelter and provision in the midst of the wilderness. Buy the book: https://www.jenaiauman.com/otheredbook Learn More about Jenai: https://www.jenaiauman.com/about-jenai Subscribe to Jenai's Substack newsletter: https://jenaiauman.substack.com/
MaryB Safrit is a NYC-based relationship coach, an author, the host of the Found Family podcast, and she also makes and sells some pretty fun and empowering clothing and merch. She’s also your friendly neighborhood bisexual, recovering people-pleaser, and current goblin obsessed with all things relationship-building, hospitality, spirituality, and culture. (We talk about those obsessions in this episode). This episode is a truly sacred conversation about the idea of found family, about the idea of "church" in the modern world, about the idea of singleness within the weight of marriage culture, and about the idea of hospitality as a way to think about our cultures and organizations. Learn all about MaryB at https://www.marybsafrit.com/
Our special guests on this episode of The BETWEEN Podcast are Ashlie Sanders and Emilie Call... and these two sisters are doing something really cool... Ashlie and Emilie are the hosts of a podcast called "That's Church." They're also both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In fact, Ashlie has a separate big social media presence... she goes by "The Nuanced Mormon." Ashlie and Emilie's "That's Church" podcast features the two of them visiting and talking with people at different religious communities around Utah. They've visited with people all over their home state about traditions like Krishna Consciousness, Catholicism, several different flavors of Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Islam, and more. Their mission is to build bridges between many diverse religious communities. They're inspired by their grandparents' mixed-faith marriage. Grandma Maxine always said “there is good in all religions.” This example of love and mutual respect, inspires the hosts to reach beyond their LDS backgrounds and embrace different ideas, beliefs, and truths. They explore how their friends and neighbors experience spirituality and define church for them.
Catherine McNiel is our guest and WOW, what a powerful and sacred conversation this is about fear and faith. Catherine's newest book is titled, Fearing Bravely: Risking Love for our Neighbors, Strangers, and Enemies. This book is an amazing mirror into which we all might look to see how much we might have been unknowingly discipled in fear instead of love. Catherine is an author and speaker who lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband, where they care for their three kids and their enormous garden. Catherine has studied and taught Intercultural Studies and Theology, has an degree in Human Service Counseling, and is working on a Master of Divinity at North Park Theological Seminary. She has a couple of other books that came out before Fearing Bravely.... those books are also about the intermingling of spirituality and our ordinary lives... One is titled, All Shall Be Well: Awakening to God’s Presence in His Messy, Abundant World.... and another is called Long Days of Small Things: Motherhood as a Spiritual Discipline which was an ECPA New Author finalist. Catherine is a sought after writer and speaker; her work has been featured by numerous magazines, websites, churches, and ministries. Find all of Catherine's amazing contributions to the world, including her books, newsletter, and links to her social media at https://catherinemcniel.com/
This episode features Kristen Lavalley (author of "Even If He Doesn't") and host Matt Mattson diving deeply into the experiences of trauma and suffering that mark so much of our life path. Our guest has experienced so much -- a major faith crisis, witnessing a murder, the loss of a pregnancy, a traumatic birth experience with twins, and yet finds faith even when God doesn't show up in perfect ways. Kristen LaValley is a gifted writer whose words provide a refreshing perspective on faith and spirituality. Her writing resonates with those who carry tensions in their faith, offering insights that intersect doubt and belief, hope and suffering, beauty and heartache, complexity and simplicity. With a deep love for the Christian faith and a willingness to explore its complexities, Kristen's writing offers nuanced conversations that challenge readers to think deeply and wrestle with important questions. Kristen lives in Massachusetts with her husband Zach and their five children - Jonah, Emery, Anna, Chloe and Lydia. Website: https://www.kristenlavalley.com/ Substack: https://kristenlavalley.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristen.lavalley
This new episode of The BETWEEN Podcast features a sacred conversation between host Matt Mattson and author Gregory Coles, Ph.D. about his book No Longer Strangers. Gregory Coles is a tangle of identities: born in upstate New York, raised on the Indonesian island of Java, and now working as a freelance author and scholar in Idaho's Treasure Valley. He holds a PhD in English from Penn State and has been in love with language since age 8, when he started learning his older brother’s SAT vocabulary words and reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Greg’s fiction and expository writing have been published by Penguin Random House and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. His academic research on rhetorics of marginality (how language works in society for disadvantaged groups) has appeared in College English and Rhetorica and in an edited collection from Cambridge University Press. His two memoirs, Single, Gay, Christian and No Longer Strangers, have earned awards that include a Foreword INDIES Award Finalist and an InterVarsity Press Readers' Choice Award. His newest book, a novel exploring the power of language to shape human thought, is The Limits of My World. Facebook Instagram Twitter Website
Whoa. Near Death Experiences is new territory for our podcast, and what a cool conversation this was. Host Matt Mattson shares a sacred conversation with Rev. Stephanie Chase Bradbury about the moments when people seem to transcend beyond our earthly realm and live to tell about it. The Reverend Stephanie Chase Bradbury is a graduate of Yale Divinity School, ordained an Episcopal Priest for 28 years, and serves a congregation in Massachusetts. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She is drawn to the thin shimmer between matter and spirit, and how life in this world is affected by our connection to the next. She believes that every human being, every part of the cosmos, is profoundly precious to God. No exceptions. To that end she has a newsletter entitled “Jesus and the Enchanted Cosmos.” She also founded and hosts two support groups for Christians who have had Near-Death and other Transcendent Experiences, and regularly speaks at the conferences of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. In 2022 she published a book of sermons entitled, “Holy Incarnation! God Said What?” While grounded in the Christian tradition, Stephanie looks for truth beyond as well. Rev. Stephanie's Substack: https://revstephaniecbradbury.substack.com/
This episode of The BETWEEN Podcast features a gentle and beautiful conversation between host Matt Mattson and our special guest, Sarah Westfall. What if BELONGING isn't something to attain, but instead is someone to become? How could faith offer a kind of belonging that could transform us all into "people of welcome"? Sarah E. Westfall is a writer, speaker, and host of the Human Together podcast. She has a brand new book out titled, The Way of Belonging: Reimagining Who We Are and How We Relate. Her previous work includes serving as director of community for online writing groups and as a student development professional on college campuses. She has been published in RELEVANT, Fathom Mag, and (in)courage. Sarah lives in Indiana with her husband, Ben, and four sons. Sarah's website: https://www.sarahewestfall.com/ Sarah's Substack: https://sarahewestfall.substack.com/ Sarah's podcast: https://www.sarahewestfall.com/human-together Sarah's social media: https://www.instagram.com/sarah_westfall/
What if loneliness isn't the boogeyman we've made it out to be? What if in our pursuit of belonging we skipped self-worth and it has left us feeling inauthentic? What if God showed up in a hotel lobby, would you recognize God? This episode of The BETWEEN Podcast features a wonderfully sacred conversation between host Matt Mattson and our special guest, Dr. Kelly Flanagan. Dr. Kelly Flanagan is an author, speaker, relationship coach, and licensed clinical psychologist. He writes regularly at drkellyflanagan.substack.com. His writing has been featured in Reader's Digest, Christianity Today, and The 5 Love Languages, and he has appeared on the TODAY Show with his daughter. Kelly’s two non-fiction books—Loveable and True Companions—both debuted as a #1 New Releases in Interpersonal Relations on Amazon. His first novel, The Unhiding of Elijah Campbell was an ECPA bestseller and has won multiple literary awards. Kelly is married to another clinical psychologist named Kelly, and they have three children who are twenty, sixteen, and fourteen years old. They live in a small town outside of Chicago. Kelly's website: https://drkellyflanagan.com/ Kelly's Substack: https://drkellyflanagan.substack.com/