Podcast
The Shock Absorber
Hosted by Soul Revival Church · EN
Thinking and doing church a little differently...
34episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Subversive Spaces - Why the church needs more than a service
1w ago00:50:47Tap to summarizeWhat if the most countercultural thing a church could do was have a lounge?Joel, Stu and Tim are into theme four of Stu's PhD - alternative Christian shared spaces that embed belonging. Stu traces the intellectual journey from new social movement theory through Melucci's subversive spaces to Oldenburg's third place theory, and explains why a barber shop in New York where a Mercedes driver and a homeless person sit together laughing about the Knicks was exactly the image he needed for what Soul Revival was trying to build.The conversation covers why Christian third places are harder to create than secular ones, why food slows everything down in the right way, why architecture says more about what you expect people to do than any welcome strategy, and why the biggest challenge isn't creating a third place, it's convincing people that church can be one.Also: Mary the Tasmanian devil's 14-day escape from a Gold Coast wildlife park, Sproul Hall at Berkeley, the feminist movement that started because someone asked the women to make coffee, and why Stu's original garage felt like Sproul Hall.Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →Friendship is an ecclesial category
2w ago00:52:59Tap to summarizeJesus didn't call his disciples servants. He called them friends. And Stu thinks that matters more for how we do church than most ecclesiology conversations acknowledge.Joel, Stu and Tim are working through the emerging themes of Stu's PhD — and theme three is an ecclesiology of friendship and intergenerational family. Why friendship is a legitimate theological category, not just a social preference. Why industrialised schooling has trained us to only be friends with people our age, and what we lose when church reproduces that model. Why young people being listened to isn't a nicety but a theological conviction. And why a community built on friendship with Jesus produces friendships that wouldn't otherwise exist.Plus: the Luddites, a 1958 newspaper article about surfers at Cronulla, e-bikes doing monos, and Jesus beads in the 90s.Timestamps00:00 Welcome: Sky Guide and the World Cup 06:00 PhD recap: themes one and two 07:30 Theme three: ecclesiology of friendship and intergenerational family 11:00 The peer group balance: too large and you never grow beyond it, too small and there's loneliness 13:30 Friendship as an ecclesial category 15:00 The metaphors of church: body, family, royal priesthood, and friends 17:30 Why friendship was a powerful category in the 90s: Friends, Seinfeld and Cheers 20:00 The Good Samaritan and who my neighbour is: church as one big friendship group 22:00 The intergenerational revolution: what if Jesus is the basis of friendship, not special interests? 26:00 Industrialised schooling and why friendship defaults to same-age 32:00 Why young people being listened to was disorienting and powerful 38:00 The youth council, the moderating voice and the shock absorber in practice 44:00 E-bikes, surfboards and seeing youth culture with curiosity rather than fear 48:00 Jesus beads, organic evangelism and what happens when young people have voice 51:00 Preview of theme four and the limitation of the Shock Absorber when it institutionalisesDiscussed on this episodeMark Senter III: When God Shows UpMark Senter III: Four Views of Youth MinistryLev Vygotsky: Zone of proximal developmentJohn Creswell: Qualitative research methodologyJames Jasper: Emotional dimensions of social movementsSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →Deeper than just community
3w ago00:49:31Tap to summarizePeople came to Soul Revival because of relationships. But relationships weren't enough to keep them. Something deeper had to happen.Joel, Stu and Tim continue working through the emerging themes from Stu's PhD, and this week it's theme two: Christian identity formation through conversion and biblical discipleship. The research keeps showing that people came through the relational front door, felt a real sense of belonging, and then encountered something they weren't expecting. The gospel was preached, clearly and consistently, every single week. And that's what changed people.The conversation covers belonging before believing, cheap grace versus costly discipleship, the difference between a consumer and a participant, why the commitments group was the key to the culture, and what it looks like when your social life and your Christian life aren't two different things.Also: Tim's Value Pack Sunday Christian memory, soggy spaghetti bolognese and the hip hop night that happened the night before the Cronulla riots.Timestamps00:00 Warm beanies, Square One godgles and a man who caught a shark06:30 Theme two: Christian identity formation through conversion and biblical discipleship08:30 How people came in and what they found: relational front door, explicit Christianity12:00 The production line vs the shared life: Paul in 1 Thessalonians15:00 The commitments group and the culture it created18:30 The hip hop night before the Cronulla riots23:00 Tim's reflections from the interviews: authentic whole-of-life faith27:00 Two kinds of belonging: sociological and spiritual33:00 Come and see: Philip, Nathaniel and the Samaritan woman36:30 Service culture: spaghetti bolognese, Romans 12 and costly discipleship46:00 The difference between a community and an event48:00 Preview of theme three: ecclesiology of friendship and intergenerational familyDiscussed on this episode:Dietrich Bonhoeffer — The Cost of DiscipleshipValue PacSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →Enhanced Christianity
4w ago00:57:09Tap to summarizeJoel, Stu and Tim open with the cultural curiosity of the Enhanced Games, and what it reveals about why manufactured greatness never quite works, before turning to something more significant: Stu's PhD is reaching its final stages, and the emerging themes from 20 qualitative interviews about the Soul Revival Youth community.Six themes. Thirty years of ministry. And a finding that keeps surfacing: relationships were the front door. Not the events, not the programs, not the music. The relationships. And when people encountered authentic Christian community — something they couldn't find anywhere else — it created the conditions for hearing the gospel and responding to it.The guys unpack what the research is actually showing about how counter-cultural community, spiritual formation and intergenerational friendship work together.Subscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →What we've lost
May 2600:49:26Tap to summarizeEvery technology gives you something. Every technology takes something away. The problem is we're usually so focused on what we gain that we don't notice what we've lost until it's gone.Joel and Tim open with new creation theology and the deep physicality of what Christians are actually looking forward to — then trace that thread through rally driving, unwrapping CDs, the washing machine, the microwave, the self-driving car and Zoom meetings that left everyone exhausted for reasons nobody could explain.Mike Dicker's framework for thinking about technological trade-offs is the practical anchor. Alan Noble's theology of presence is the theological one. And the question underneath all of it: are we trading away what makes us human?Timestamps00:00 Welcome, rambunctious toddlers and Square One talks on new creation02:00 What the age to come actually looks like09:00 Rallying, sights, smells and what we miss when it's taken away12:00 Not all technology is progress14:00 Mike Dicker's framework — enhancement, obsolescence, retrieval and reversal20:00 The Spotify trade-off23:00 Theology of creation and physicality27:00 Alan Noble on presence33:00 Yann Martel's bad stories36:00 The microwave and the family dinner table38:00 The car, the 20-minute circle and the loss of geographic embeddedness42:00 Zoom fatigue, pheromones and what we didn't know we were processing in person45:00 AI and the wisdom of refusing the easy answer47:00 Navigating technology with wisdomDiscussed on this episodeMike Dicker — Navigating TechnologyAlan Noble — Presence in an Age of AI ReproductionAndy Crouch — The Tech-Wise FamilyAndy Crouch — Culture MakingJohn Dyer — From the Garden to the CityYann Martel on the How I Write PodcastAlan Noble — Disruptive WitnessSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →The thick relational ecosystem - why we need youth ministry more than ever
May 1901:04:50Tap to summarizeSeth Kaplan's article on the After Babel Substack reads like a secular argument for why youth ministry matters.Joel and Tim trace the arc from 1950s street culture to the latchkey generation to the screen-based void that smartphones were custom-built to fill, and ask what the church uniquely offers in response. The answer, according to both secular sociology and Christian theology, is the same thing: thick, embedded, multi-generational communities where kids are known, challenged, given genuine responsibility and can't just opt out when conflict arises.Tim also pushes back on one of Kaplan's conclusions, and the pushback is worth hearing.00:00 Welcome, studio upgrades, the Soul Revival car door and half marathon training05:50 We Took Away the Phones. Now What? Seth Kaplan's After Babel article10:00 How we lost the street, from 1950s community to suburban isolation13:30 Overprotection, the latchkey generation and the void screens filled18:00 What kids actually lose when they stop playing outside22:00 Organised activities as a poor substitute for free play27:00 Board games, conflict resolution and what teachers are being asked to fix32:00 Scouts, third places and the church as embedded community36:00 The 30-year generational arc: Miranda campus now vs Kirrawee in the 90s43:00 The cognitive shift: from "my parents' church" to "my church"48:00 Sport vs church: what non-negotiables reveal about priorities54:00 Tim's pushback on Kaplan: why experiences AND instruction both matter1:00:00 Church attendance as covenant, not option. Plus Tim's takeawaySubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →Relational and responsive
May 1301:05:32Tap to summarizeLast episode was the intangibles. This is the tangibles.Joel, Stu and Tim open with the Met Gala, a $1 bill across Sarah Paulson's eyes, and whether millionaires protesting billionaires is tone deaf, before tracing the thread from wealth inequality all the way to how the church should function as a genuine leveller. Then they get practical.What systems does Soul Revival actually use? How do you say no to a good idea without crushing the person who brought it? What is ministry slide and why does grace need to be structurally built into your teams? And what does teams not tasks actually mean, and why does it protect against utilitarianism in a way that pure efficiency thinking never can?Plus: why prayer nights in the 90s drew the biggest crowds, what happened when the bands Soul Revival raised started pulling people to pub gigs on Saturday nights, and Stu's memory of a meeting 25 years ago where they cancelled all the plans and just prayed — and why he still remembers it.Timestamps00:00 Welcome — excursions, the Met and peanut butter sandwiches on a school bus03:00 The Met Gala, Sarah Paulson and tone-deaf protest art07:00 Francis Schaeffer — how philosophy flows through artists into culture12:00 Wealth inequality, housing and the church as a leveller19:00 Galatians 3 — no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free24:00 Practical levelling — $7 meals, camp subsidies and families taking home leftovers29:00 Church systems — ChurchSuite, communication across generations and the pigeon budget35:00 How to say no to a good idea — the shock absorber in practice42:00 Prayer in the service — building a bridge to a new reality48:00 Teams not tasks — why friendship protects against utilitarianism57:00 God gives different personalities — honouring everyone in the team1:02:00 Ministry slide revisited and wrapping upDiscussed on this episodeFrancis Schaeffer — The Great Evangelical DisasterAndy Crouch — Culture MakingRobert Greene — The 48 Laws of PowerChurchSuite — churchsuite.comSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →Organised messiness - An element of grace beats efficiency every time
May 501:00:21Tap to summarizeIs efficiency a godly value? And if the Good Shepherd leaves 99 sheep to find the one, what does that say about how we should be running our churches?The guys open with King Charles's surprisingly funny speech to the U.S. Congress, a masterclass in soft power, humour and resetting an agenda without throwing a punch, before getting into the real conversation: how do you manage a church well without accidentally turning it into a business?Stu unpacks Soul Revival's approach to project management — organised messiness, ministry slide, double-up meetings and why grace has to be baked into the structure from the start. Tim brings in Andy Crouch's cultural postures and Marshall McLuhan's medium-is-the-message warning about what happens when corporate metaphors quietly reshape how you think about ministry.Timestamps00:00 Welcome — fake arrogance, King Charles and the Churchill bath story08:30 Soft power, constitutional monarchy and why Charles reset the agenda without throwing a punch17:30 Church project management — theology, strategy and practice21:00 The African church vs the Sydney church — context shapes everything25:00 Metrics, growth and the danger of deterministic ministry thinking31:00 Andy Crouch, Marshall McLuhan and why corporate metaphors aren't value-neutral37:00 Organised messiness — Stu's philosophy of church management43:00 The Good Shepherd, the 99% and why efficiency isn't a godly value47:00 Isaac Gordon's late arrival and what it taught Soul Revival about grace54:00 Ministry slide — a practical framework for holding people and mission togetherDiscussed on this episode:King Charles III addresses US CongressAndy Crouch - Culture MakingMarshall McLuhan - The Medium is the MessageColin Marshall and Tony Payne - Trellis and VineSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to Joel at joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →Jesus is the synthesiser
Apr 2800:59:04Tap to summarizeTony Abbott wrote a history of Australia called, wait for it, Australia. Tim has been reading it, which sent him down a rabbit hole about celebratory versus critical history, cognitive dissonance, steel-manning both sides, and why we're so terrified of changing our minds.Joel and Tim work through black armband versus three cheers versions of Australian identity, and what Christian Smith's critical realist personalism has to do with welcoming newcomers at church. Then they land somewhere that ties it all together: Jesus is the synthesiser. Not a middle ground between two political tribes, not a careful hedge, but the total truth above and beyond all of it, which is exactly what a generation exhausted by polarisation is starving for.Plus: two Michael Jensen articles on how not to be weird to newcomers, the difference between a hobby and a practice, and Tim's takeaway on being genuinely curious about other people.Timestamps00:00 Welcome — adventures, new creation and Tim's AI-generated book cover05:00 Tony Abbott's history of Australia and the history wars09:30 Black armband vs celebratory history, why we can't hold both at once16:30 Steel-manning both sides with Claude and the danger of always complexifying22:00 Christian Smith's critical realist personalism: objective truth, subjective engagement28:00 Michael Jensen on how not to be weird to newcomers at church34:00 The regulars and irregulars problem: when community becomes a closed circle43:00 Hobby vs practice: Brad Stulberg on getting 1% better at welcoming51:00 God's sovereignty and our practice: the both/and of sanctification56:30 Tim's takeaway: be genuinely curious about othersDiscussed on this episodeTony Abbott - Australia: A HistoryChristian Smith - What is a Person?Sean Nolan - The Way He WalkedMichael Jensen - How Not to Be Weird to Newcomers at ChurchMichael Jensen - How to Be Normal to Newcomers at ChurchBrad StulbergCal Newport - How To Build Discipline in a Distracted WorldThe Antilibrary: The Hidden Value of Unread BooksJoin the Shock Absorber Network: shockabsorber.com.auSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to Joel at joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →School, church and the home: Who's actually responsible for your kids' faith?
Apr 2101:22:29Tap to summarizeEvery Christian parent has felt the tension. Do you send your kids to a Christian school? They're plugged into kids church right? The faith formation is happening right? But is it? And whose job is it really?Joel, Stu and Tim are joined by David Stonestreet — Principal of Shire Christian School and Soul Revival member number 009, to work through the history of Christian schooling in Australia, what sets a covenantal Christian school apart, why church attendance in the Sutherland Shire has dropped from 11% to around 1% in a generation, and why the school-church-home partnership is more urgent now than it's ever been.They also end up somewhere unexpected: a conversation about transcendence, immanence, why young people are flocking to ancient liturgical churches, and what the seeker-sensitive movement got wrong about a generation that hates its own life.Timestamps00:00 Welcoming Dave and some old Soul Revival stories06:30 Francis Schaeffer, L'Abri and why Christianity doesn't require intellectual suicide13:30 What sets a Christian school apart, David unpacks the covenantal model20:30 Tim's school choice story, pro and con lists, a billboard and vanilla Christianity28:30 The offload problem: why sending kids to Christian school isn't enough34:00 Church decline in the Sutherland Shire: the statistics that should concern every church leader44:00 Schools and churches working together: the partnership model54:00 Has state school become more hostile to Christianity?1:07:30 Transcendence and immanence: why young people are flocking to ancient churchesDiscussed on this episodeShire Christian SchoolAbraham Kuyper's sphere of sovereigntyFrancis Schaeffer and L'AbriFrancis Schaeffer's The Great Evangelical DisasterNCLS Research: How Religious Are Australians?NCLS Research: What draws newcomers to church?Kendra Creasy Dean's Practicing PassionJoin the Shock Absorber Network: shockabsorber.com.auSoul Revival Church: soulrevivalchurch.comSubscribe, leave a review, and send your thoughts to Joel at joel@shockabsorber.com.au
Transcribe →