The Signpost Inn Podcast

Here's a sentence that'll get you kicked out of most small groups: you need to give up on spiritual growth. On today’s show we have a special guest with us who says that from the pulpit. Join us! By the end of this episode you’re going to have a whole new way of thinking about spiritual growth.

Rev. John Newton has served as an Episcopal priest since 2009 and is the rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of three books exploring grace, faith, and the Christian life, and is passionate about helping people experience the freedom of the gospel. John and his wife, Emily, have three children and a beloved golden retriever named June. When he's not preaching or pastoring, he's usually cheering on the Texas Longhorns.

Links:

Falling Into Grace by John Newton https://amzn.to/4gTussb

Join us for for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events

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Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org

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Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!

Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

You may believe God loves you and still feel like he is one failure, one unanswered prayer, or one hard season away from pulling back. You brace for disappointment. You work to stay acceptable. Or you keep him at a careful distance because needing him feels too exposed.

Brandon, Matt, and Liv talk about attachment theory in plain language, and why the ways we learned to handle closeness can shape how we relate to God. They turn to Psalm 131 and the work of Jesus: his incarnation, cross, resurrection, and gift of the Holy Spirit create a secure relationship with God that we could never create for ourselves.

They also talk about practices that help us receive that reality in the places we feel it least. Confession and absolution let us bring God our worst and hear his forgiveness spoken back to us. Spiritual direction or therapy can help us name the old stories we carry about love, vulnerability, and rejection.

If you keep waiting for God to be disappointed in you, or you don’t know how to let him get close, this episode is for you.

Links:

The Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson https://amzn.to/4fQ1sB5

Attachment styles slide

The attachment project

Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events

Connect with us:

Email: podcast@signpostinn.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/SignpostInn

Instagram: www.instagram.com/signpostinn

Website: www.signpostinn.org

Music credit: Rex Daugherty, rex-daugherty.com

You picked up your phone 186 times yesterday. That's not a discipline problem, it's a hunger problem. This week we trace the ache behind the scroll back to Augustine and forward to the empty tomb, and land on the strange freedom of a faith that doesn't need you to fix yourself first.

When you scroll, you're looking for something real. The compulsion isn't random, and it's not just weak willpower. It's a hunger for heaven, misdirected. Samuel James calls the internet an "epistemological habitat" — not a tool you use but an environment that shapes what you crave, what you notice, and what you believe is true. And it's designed by teams of behavioral psychologists who know your patterns better than you do.

We walk through the five digital liturgies that form us online, the structural forces stacked against you (and why shame is the wrong frame), and then what Jesus actually offers when you're starving for something real. If you've ever felt trapped by your phone and blamed yourself for not trying harder, this one's for you.

Links:

Samuel James, Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age (Crossway, 2023) https://amzn.to/3RLOZX4

Giving Up On Growth: Rest in Restless World. Lecture by  John Newton https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/giving-up-on-growth-rest-in-a-restless-world-john-newton/id1381533696

Augustine’s Confessions https://amzn.to/4fyXMEQ

Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events

Connect with us:

Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org

Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn

Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn

Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!

Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

The world is genuinely dangerous and your nervous system knows it! The usual answers (trust God more, don't be anxious, just believe) don't seem to help, they only make you feel more ashamed that you must not be “doing it right!”

So what does Jesus actually do with our generalized anxiety and fear?

Brandon, Matt, and Liv work through what it feels like when Jesus changes the context you're living inside. Why willpower-based answers to anxiety tend to make things worse. How Jesus recontextualizes even death. And a few practices — imaginative Gospel reading, the Daily Examen — that train your body to feel what your theology already knows.

If low-grade dread is just part of how you move through the world, this one's for you.

Links:

Check out Liv’s substack https://livbooth.substack.com/

Book: How your 21st-Century Church Family Works by Peter L. Steinke: https://amzn.to/3QXcMTy

Book: A Roman’s Confession by Kade Dutton https://amzn.to/4eNpbmd

Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events

Connect with us:

Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org

Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn

Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn

Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!

Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

What does Jesus actually feel when he looks at you — worn out, knocked flat, barely holding on? The Gospels have a word for it. And it's nothing like the soft, managed thing we usually call "compassion." Today Brandon and Matt dig into Matthew 9:36, the Greek behind two of the most overlooked words in the Gospels, and a gut-level emotion that drove everything Jesus did. Then we close with an imaginative exercise to help you actually receive it — not just understand it.

Links:

Käthe Kollwitz, The Downtrodden https://i0.wp.com/nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1986.187-GAP.jpg?fit=1200%2C999999&quality=80&format=webp

N.C. Wyeth, The Lost Sheep: https://www.manresa-sj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/11-N-C-Wyeth-The-Lost-Sheep.jpg.webp

Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events

Connect with us: Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org

Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn

Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn

Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!

Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com