This Could Be Interesting

TCBI #6 - How to Have a Conversation - Christopher Rosevear

Christopher Rosevear is a Tyndale University and Seminary Graduate and has served in several churches in various positions including Associate Pastor of Youth and Young Adults at Uxbridge Baptist Church. He's an articulate communicator and a very intelligent and thoughtful guy. He's challenged me and my worldview at various stages in life, and has always been willing to have deep and/or difficult conversations with me. Sometimes talking to someone as articulate as Christopher can be intimidating, and admittedly, that's something I've struggled with in our relationship at times. I have the sense, though, that people and situations that intimidate me often do so because they reveal places I need to grow. Taking some time to reconnect with Christopher was a great opportunity for some of that growth. It was also a genuinely fun and engaging back and forth on some ideas I was really happy to get to unpack with him.

TCBI #5 - The Sin God Commands - Lloyd Vandenberg

Lloyd Vandenberg is my dad. He's 100% Dutch by blood but was born in Canada. He grew up in the Dutch Reformed church and became part of the Charismatic Evangelical tradition as a young adult. He and my mom have been touring with the rest of the family around the United States and Canada under the name "New Generation Ministry" for the past 30 years performing Christian "worship music" as well as counseling couples and sharing my dad's story of freedom from addiction.

The last two years have been pretty wild for us as a family, and my dad has had to process a lot of change in his life. My dad and I have had a lot of interesting conversations about the changes both of our lives have been going through, but some of the most interesting chats we continue to have are about faith. I'm really happy to get to share this conversation with you, as this type of conversation is exactly the kind of conversation I'm attempting to work on getting better at with this channel. It's also one of my favorite conversations we've recorded so far. I hope you enjoy it.

TCBI #4.5 - Stickin' it to Jared Byas - Evan Vandenberg

After the last conversation with Jared Evan and I had a lot of thoughts we still wanted to unpack, so we sat down to do our first ".5". I'm not sure if this is a format that's going to stick or not, but we'll see. The obvious flaw with doing this sort of thing is that in discussing a guest's ideas (or trying to rebut their ideas) they don't have a chance to respond or correct us if we're missing something important. The cost is dwarfed by the benefit, though, I think, because it seems to be the case that almost every time we bring in a guest with a time limit, we end up scraping the surface of some really interesting ideas but end up running out of time before we can give those ideas their due. Rather than risk leaving untapped gold, I think taking a little extra time to chat after an especially good conversation is worth it even if our guests miss out on the fun. On the other hand, Jared, if you want to come back and push back on this point, I'd be more than happy to sit down for another conversation.

Jared's New Book - https://www.jaredbyas.com/book/​

An Article Jared wrote about talking to people you disagree with: https://peteenns.com/talking-to-peopl...

TCBI #4 - Speaking in Tongues and Cheek - Jared Byas

Jared Byas is a self-proclaimed "serial question-asker and ideas explorer". He's also the co-host of the popular podcast "The Bible for Normal People" along with Pete Enns and is the co-author of the book "Genesis for Normal People" with Pete too. He also just wrote a new book called "Love Matters More". Jared is a really interesting guy, and I'm so thankful he took the time to ask some questions and explore some ideas with me. Jared's New Book - https://www.jaredbyas.com/book/​ An Article Jared wrote about talking to people you disagree with: https://peteenns.com/talking-to-peopl...

TCBI #3 - To Take Arms Against a Sea of Complexity - Ken Paradis

Ken Paradis is an Associate Professor at Wilfred Laurier University in Brantford Ontario. Before coming to Laurier, Ken spent time working at Palcky University in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, as well as at McMaster, SUNY Buffalo, and Dalhousie. While teaching at Laurier Brantford Ken has taught or administered in several programs including English, Contemporary Studies, and Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (CAST). Ken has a particularly interesting perspective to me regarding the Christian faith as he's taken a bit of a deep dive into understanding Christian pop culture. A big part of his study of Christianity focuses on the history of Evangelical Christianity, especially as it relates to and expresses North American working-class cultural identity. Ken is a fantastic speaker and listener and has a ton of interesting things to say. If you're studying at Laurier and have any elective credits next semester, maybe join me in taking his class on Moby Dick. (Even if you're not a Laurier student, you can always sign up to "audit" the class like me and still enjoy the class).

TCBI #2 - The Church Catholic - Tyler Seidenberg

Tyler (B.Mus., B.Ed., OCT, A. Piano Perf.) is an Evangelical to Catholic convert. He works as a freelance pianist/vocalist, educator, and producer from Oakville, Ontario. His works have been performed on radio and television across North America, and his music workshops have inspired music students and teachers across Canada. He also acted and performed in the Christian children's television show "God Rocks!". Tyler's family have been long-time family friends, but since a young age I always identified with him in a certain way that I never totally unpacked. I saw him as an older version of myself, and in some ways, he is an older version of the trajectory my life could have gone. We've both grown up and developed our own views on things moreso now, but reconnecting with him and learning about his experience and journey with Catholicism was really interesting to me.

TCBI #1 - Talking to the man upstairs - Ken Paradis

Ken Paradis is an Associate Professor at Wilfred Laurier University in Brantford Ontario. Before coming to Laurier, Ken spent time working at Palcky University in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, as well as at McMaster, SUNY Buffalo, and Dalhousie. While teaching at Laurier Brantford Ken has taught or administered in several programs including English, Contemporary Studies, and Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (CAST). Ken has a particularly interesting perspective to me regarding the Christian faith as he's taken a bit of a deep dive into understanding Christian pop culture. A big part of his study of Christianity focuses on the history of Evangelical Christianity, especially as it relates to and expresses North American working-class cultural identity. Ken is a fantastic speaker and listener and has a ton of interesting things to say. If you're studying at Laurier and have any elective credits next semester, maybe join me in taking his class on Moby Dick. (Even if you're not a Laurier student, you can always sign up to "audit" the class like me and still enjoy the class).

TCBI #0 - What could be interesting? - Andrew Kalmar, Connor Howard, Evan Vandenberg

Hey, I just started a podcast!

 

The concept of the show is based around the medium of the "long-form conversation". It's a medium that allows people to unpack complicated and positions on things in an appropriately long format that allows for some nuance and genuine humanity. I've been watching people in my community gradually sort of "drift apart" in certain ways, especially in their ability to have conversations about issues they don't see eye to eye on. While I found this increasingly concerning pointing at other people, it hit me in a big way when I began to see that tension about certain issues and the charged format we'd be handed for discussing them was starting to break apart the fabric of my own family. Certain family members won't talk to each other anymore. I can't talk to my wife about certain things. What's going on?

 

Well, I'd been wanting to start a podcast for a bit anyway, and this problem finally gave me a big enough problem to work on. I had the sense that if things are going to get any better for me and my community regarding this issue, they're only going to get better if we spend some time working on relating to each other better, so I started this show as an opportunity to spend some time practicing doing that.

In this episode, I sit down with Ken Paradis, who's interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that I think he may be one of the few academics left that is genuinely willing and interested in engaging with people from a variety of political and religious perspectives about current issues. Another reason is that he's my neighbour--or he used to be. I explain it in the episode.

 

Anyway, if you're interested in hearing me struggle to relate to people and give wrestling with some different perspectives on things an honest try, feel free to subscribe and come along for the ride. I may not succeed, but hey, this could be interesting.

 

Andrew Kalmar https://www.instagram.com/kalmarotor/​​ Connor Howard https://www.instagram.com/connorjhowa...​ Evan Vandenberg https://www.instagram.com/evanskates/...​ Garrett Vandenberg https://www.garrettvandenberg.com/​​ https://www.facebook.com/garrettvande...​ https://www.instagram.com/garrettvand...​ https://twitter.com/GarrettJVMusic​