Soil and Roots

Soil and Roots At Soil and Roots, we desire to help form and support small communities that actively listen to the stories and experiences of one another. Let’s dig in.

🎙️ Soil and Roots is a Christian ministry featuring a podcast that explores deep discipleship in modern life.
💚 We help form and support small communities who actively listen to the stories and experiences of one another.
🌱 Let's dig in! In some ways, a life of apprenticing with Jesus is straightforward, but in other ways it’s confoundingly complex. Through our varied backgrounds and perspectives,

we can navigate that complexity together by centering our lives on the King and His Kingdom. Though the hectic pace of modern life often reduces our spiritual journey to memes and catchphrases, the human heart requires more…much more. Our hearts long to know others and to know that there are others who truly want to know us. We long to be known when we’re joyful and celebratory, but also when we are filled with doubts and disillusions. The life of a deep disciple is one of curiosity, exploration, discovery, and sharing.

Brian Fisher wraps up his exploration of intimacy—the fourth element of spiritual formation—with a heartfelt reflection ...
10/24/2025

Brian Fisher wraps up his exploration of intimacy—the fourth element of spiritual formation—with a heartfelt reflection on what it really means to know and be known by God. He reminds us that true intimacy isn’t about trying harder or putting on a polished spiritual front—it’s about receiving love, uncovering our hidden ideas and desires, and allowing God’s Spirit to transform our false selves into something whole and authentic. As Brian writes, intimacy requires authenticity. God is always honest with us, but we often hide behind fear, control, and performance.

Drawing on Scripture, C.S. Lewis, and his own experiences, Brian points out that God’s intimacy isn’t “safe” in the way we’d prefer—it’s transforming. Like Aslan, He’s not tame, but He’s good. And while vulnerability with everyone isn’t wise, deep trust with God and a few trusted friends can reshape us from the inside out. As Brian prepares to move into the fifth element of formation—instruction—he leaves us with this invitation: to keep pursuing authenticity, even when it’s messy, and to let God’s deep love become more than a belief—an experienced reality.

Read "The First Cut is the Deepest" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/4bmvn

Brian Fisher dives into one of the most overlooked forces shaping our spiritual lives: our ideas. While we often talk ab...
10/23/2025

Brian Fisher dives into one of the most overlooked forces shaping our spiritual lives: our ideas. While we often talk about beliefs in church, he explains that it’s our ideas—the deep, often unconscious assumptions of the heart—that truly govern how we relate to God, others, and ourselves. Brian introduces six core ideas that sit at the root of our formation—identity, anthropology, value, power, purpose, and love—and shows how misalignment between what we believe and what we actually assume creates tension in our inner life.

He explores how these hidden ideas play out, from our obsession with power and control to our distorted views of what it means to be human. Using vivid examples from church culture and his own experience, Brian shows how the journey toward deep discipleship requires courage, humility, and curiosity—especially when facing the gap between our stated theology and our lived reality. The invitation is simple but profound: gently examine your heart’s six core ideas, compare them with God’s truth, and rediscover what it means to live as a beloved child of God—whole, free, and deeply rooted.

Check out "Six Degrees of Separation" on the Soil & Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/4bgim

In this special bonus episode, Brian invites his two young adult sons, Caleb and Zachary, on to the show to discuss spir...
10/21/2025

In this special bonus episode, Brian invites his two young adult sons, Caleb and Zachary, on to the show to discuss spiritual formation in different generations.

Caleb and Zach grew up in the church and are now involved with a church plant in their area.

Both share some of their stories of apprenticing with Jesus, what they find fascinating about Him, and their perspective on discipleship and institutional churches.

We hope you enjoy this fun, intimate look at three men who are all following Jesus in their own ways, and seeking the Kingdom as they continue to be wrestle with what it means to become more like Jesus in our age.

If you watch this on video, be advised Zach's camera was having hissy fits! You will hear him perfectly, but his video alternatives between clear and blurry.

Join us online!

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/4b9ei

Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/4b9ee

10/07/2025

There is a profound connection between rest, trust, and surrender through a heart-centered perspective. Embracing silence and finding solace in Jesus even amid challenging conditions can lead to experiencing overflowing delight and passion, and surrender.

Check out the new episode on YouTube and Spotify.
Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/49kj3
Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/49kj8

Brian Fisher’s latest piece, A Rock and a Hard Place, continues his deep dive into the tension between what we believe a...
10/07/2025

Brian Fisher’s latest piece, A Rock and a Hard Place, continues his deep dive into the tension between what we believe about God and what we actually assume about Him in our hearts. He explains that beliefs are intellectual conclusions, while ideas are unconscious realities formed mostly through early relationships and experiences. The two often clash: we may believe God loves us unconditionally, yet still live with the idea that we must perform to earn His favor. This disconnect keeps Christians stuck, anxious, or even deconstructing. Brian argues that the journey of deep discipleship requires not just right beliefs, but the integration of those beliefs with the hidden ideas governing our hearts.

So how do we reform harmful ideas? Not just through sermons or arguments, but through relationships and lived experiences. Ideas shaped in childhood are healed through authentic, long-term community where we are truly known, accepted, and loved apart from performance. While spiritual practices like silence, Scripture, and prayer help us encounter God’s transforming love, Brian insists that God delights in reforming us through one another. Unfortunately, modern church structures often undercut this process by keeping groups short-term and surface-level. True transformation, Brian suggests, flows not from breadth and numbers but from depth—spaces where our ideas and beliefs align, and we grow into people securely attached to Jesus.

Read "A Rock and a Hard Place" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/49jhg

Brian Fisher takes aim at one of our age’s most pressing challenges: drowning in information while starving for depth. I...
10/06/2025

Brian Fisher takes aim at one of our age’s most pressing challenges: drowning in information while starving for depth. In Informing Ourselves to Death, he contrasts Orwell’s fear of censorship with Huxley’s fear of distraction—and points out that Huxley seems to have won. With endless newsfeeds, church conferences, courses, and voices competing for attention, Brian asks if modern Christianity has lost its center—focusing more on numbers and noise than on forming people who truly resemble Jesus. Instead of feeding the machine, he reminds us that deep discipleship is slow, relational, and rooted in authenticity with God and each other.

But the real heart of this reflection digs into our hidden ideas of God—the unconscious assumptions shaping how we live. We may believe God loves us, but many of us still assume He is disappointed, frustrated, or even angry. Quoting David Benner and Dallas Willard, Brian shows how these buried ideas form the “operating system” of our souls. If our idea of God is disappointment, then our obedience will come from fear, not love. The path to depth begins by uncovering those assumptions, exploring the gap between our beliefs and ideas, and letting God’s radical love reshape our inner life. Only then can what we do flow naturally out of who we are.

Read "Informing Ourselves to Death" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/49ewn

Spiritual disciplines are not the goal — they’re the pathway.They’re meant to lead us to God, not become empty routines....
10/04/2025

Spiritual disciplines are not the goal — they’re the pathway.
They’re meant to lead us to God, not become empty routines.
The goal is meeting God and being transformed within.

Check out the new episode on YouTube and Spotify.

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/4992t
Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/4992p

Brian, Doc, and Handsome Kyle engage in a lively, honest conversation about what it means to live a relaxed life, just l...
10/03/2025

Brian, Doc, and Handsome Kyle engage in a lively, honest conversation about what it means to live a relaxed life, just like Jesus. Instead of the performance-driven, always-busy version of Christianity so many of us grew up with, they reflect on Jesus’ calm, centered presence—rooted in His secure attachment to the Father. From raccoons clinging to shiny distractions (yes, just like our anxieties) to the distinction between intellectual belief and heart-level trust, the three unpack how transformation flows from receiving God’s love first, then surrender, and then obedience—not the other way around.

The crew also digs into where this kind of relaxed life really takes root: in small, intentional communities. Doc, Kyle, and Brian highlight how these spaces help us notice God in the ordinary—through conversations, creation, and the most mundane parts of life. The invitation is simple but profound: let go of the shiny substitutes, receive the love that makes sin less appealing and obedience more natural, and discover that being relaxed like Jesus isn’t passivity—it’s the steady freedom of knowing you’re deeply loved.

Check out the new episode on YouTube and Spotify.

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/496ka
Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/496k8

What if the ideas we carry about God aren’t the ones we confess out loud, but the ones buried deep in our hearts? In Mis...
09/23/2025

What if the ideas we carry about God aren’t the ones we confess out loud, but the ones buried deep in our hearts? In Mistaken Identity: Uncovering our Authentic Ideas of God in our Spiritual Formation, Brian Fisher explores how these hidden assumptions—what Dallas Willard called “ideas”—shape our lives far more than our formal beliefs. Deep discipleship, Brian reminds us, is a long journey that can’t be reduced to quick fixes or clever quotes. Instead, it requires cultivating time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction while courageously examining the unconscious ideas that govern how we see God, ourselves, and the world.

Drawing on A.W. Tozer’s insight that our “real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions,” Brian invites us to look honestly at what we truly believe about God’s presence and character. Do we function as if His love must be earned? Do we carry quiet assumptions that He was absent in our suffering? These questions aren’t meant to condemn but to free us. As God gently reforms our distorted ideas into His life-giving truth, intimacy deepens, and transformation takes root. That’s the soil where authentic discipleship grows.

Read the rest of "Mistaken Identity" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/47tm8

Naked and Afraid: Relational Vulnerability in the Age of Algorithms, takes a hard look at how technology is shaping our ...
09/22/2025

Naked and Afraid: Relational Vulnerability in the Age of Algorithms, takes a hard look at how technology is shaping our hearts—and how that impacts discipleship. He reflects on the shift from curated wisdom offered by pastors and trusted leaders to the opaque influence of algorithms that claim to know us better than we know ourselves. While memes, reels, and endless content promise satisfaction, Brian reminds us that true depth comes only through intimacy with God, others, and ourselves. Vulnerability—courageously opening our true selves—isn’t optional; it’s the soil where trust, authenticity, and transformation grow.

Drawing from the heart of Soil & Roots’ mission, Brian shows how hidden cultural and personal ideas shape us more than intellectual beliefs alone. He illustrates this through families where faith teaching was abundant but relational authenticity was missing, leading to disconnection rather than discipleship. Genuine formation, he argues, requires safe spaces where we can be known as we truly are, in all our fear and fragility. It’s not about oversharing with everyone, but about cultivating trusted circles where vulnerability leads to intimacy and intimacy leads us closer to Jesus.

Read "Naked and Afraid" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/47q9g

God cares less about what people applaud and more about who we’re becoming in the quiet places. The Spirit’s finest work...
09/19/2025

God cares less about what people applaud and more about who we’re becoming in the quiet places. The Spirit’s finest work often happens unseen.

Catch the latest episode of the Soil and Roots podcast on YouTube and Spotify!

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/47e7u

Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/47e7r

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