jmcconnell@myministrymission.com

What does it mean to build your life on God's Word? In this episode, I sit down with pastor and author Jacoby Jordan, a former atheist and touring punk musician who came to faith on a pastor's driveway in LA in 2011, to explore the sufficiency of Scripture. Jacoby shares how the Bible's authenticity, its manuscript evidence, and the clarity of the gospel finally broke through his skepticism, and how that same Word has shaped his ministry and writing ever since. We talk about what it means to really trust the Bible, how to introduce it to new believers, and [...]

In episode 3 of Read It Again, I look at Romans 8:28, the verse we reach for at hospital bedsides and gravesides. God works all things for good, we say, and we usually fill in what good means with our own hopes for how the circumstance resolves. But Paul defines the word himself, one verse later, and it is not the definition most of us are carrying. I walk through the three groanings of Romans 8, creation, believers, and the Spirit itself, before we ever get to verse 28, because that context is what makes the promise honest rather than [...]

In episode 2 of Read It Again, I take on Philippians 4:13, the verse on the sneaker, the eye black, the tattoo. It shows up everywhere strength is being claimed for a win, but Paul wrote it chained to a guard in a Roman prison, not knowing if he would live or die. I trace the verses right before it, where Paul says he learned contentment through hunger and plenty alike, and I dig into the word he uses for strength, a word that describes an ongoing supply, not a one time power up. What we find is not a [...]

In this first episode of Read It Again, I take on the most quoted, most printed verse in modern Christianity: Jeremiah 29:11. It is on coffee mugs, wall prints, and graduation cards everywhere, but almost nobody has read the verse before it or after it. I trace the letter back to where it actually started, a prophet writing to a people who had just watched their city fall and their temple burn, exiled hundreds of miles from everything they knew. What God tells them to do next is not what you would expect, and it changes everything about how verse [...]

In this episode, I sit down with Alex Lopez, a former high school teacher, Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach, and author of A Father's Forge, a 365-day devotional system built to help fathers raise strong sons. Alex's journey started with a single question at a leadership conference: if you've read every personal development book on the shelf, why haven't you read the Bible? That question sparked a daily devotional habit now approaching 1,000 days and eventually produced a book grounded in six biblical pillars: identity, discipline, character, strength, leadership, and legacy. We dig into what Proverbs 22:6 and Deuteronomy 6 actually [...]

Have you ever heard someone drop the phrase "seven deadly sins" and just assumed it was straight from Scripture? In this episode, I unpack the full story behind both the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues -- where they actually came from, who wrote them, and how they hold up against the Bible. We go sin by sin and virtue by virtue, testing each against passages from Galatians 5, Proverbs 6, Colossians 3, and more. My goal is not to tear these lists down but to help you hold them rightly, as a theologically useful tool that serves Scripture [...]

In this episode, I take on something that's quietly reshaping churches across the country: political division in the pew. I look at why political identity has fused with religious identity for so many believers, what the research reveals about pastors losing credibility and leaving ministry over this exact issue, and what real church splits are costing congregations right now. Then I turn to Scripture, walking through Ephesians 4:3 and Paul's call to "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit," to show that unity in Christ was never meant to require agreement on every political question. If you've [...]

Have you ever read your Bible, understood it, and still felt nothing change in your life? I sat down with Reverend Kimberly Braxton, a speaker, teacher, and ordained minister based in Boston, who has lived that question from the inside out. We talk about what happens when ministry becomes a performance, when seminary knowledge crowds out the Holy Spirit, and why pride is so much harder to see in yourself than you think. Rev. Kim opens up about her own journey through burnout, backsliding, and the moment God broke through everything she had built up, using just a single verse [...]

In this episode, I sit down with Rebekah Van Natta, author of The Growing Christian: Two Paths of the Christian Belief, to explore a question that stops a lot of believers in their tracks: what is the difference between believing in God and truly following him? Rebekah grew up in church, never doubted God's existence, and still found herself living almost entirely on her own terms. Her turning point wasn't dramatic. It was a quiet moment of surrender that began with a conviction about her workout playlist and led to a complete identity shift. We talk about grief, the cost [...]

In this episode, I take on one of the most heated debates inside the church — young earth creationism versus old earth creationism — and try to do something that does not happen nearly enough: lay out both positions fairly. I walk through what each view actually claims, survey where the major Christian denominations land, and then answer the question that really matters. Does what you believe about the age of the earth affect your salvation? Drawing from 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, Romans 10:9, and Ephesians 2:8–9, the answer is clear. And it might just change how you hold this conversation [...]