Soil and Roots

05/29/2026

Some people think deep faith means never struggling. But many people in Scripture became deep precisely through it.

God is not intimidated by honest questions. Deep faith is often formed in the trials, not apart from it.

Check out episode 142 on Spotify and YouTube.

Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/55vzq

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/55vzr

05/28/2026

Christianity was never meant to be information transfer alone. Real formation happens in deep, vulnerable, lived relationships.

Check out episode 142 on Spotify and YouTube.

Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/55rxy

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/55rxz

05/27/2026

Hi FB family!

This summer, I’m meeting with a handful of wise advisors to review all we’ve experienced over the past five years and plan for the next season of deep discipleship.

One of the things we’ve realized is that we know many of you through words on a screen, podcast downloads, and email addresses. Still, we don’t really know where you are, what your spiritual experience has been like, or what kinds of deeper formation environments you may be longing for.

Your feedback would genuinely help us discern what the future of this ministry could look like.

If you’d be willing to take 2-3 minutes to complete this anonymous short survey, it would mean a great deal to us. Thanks in advance!

Made with Tally, the simplest way to create forms.

05/27/2026

Some of us know how to serve, achieve, and produce—but not how to simply be still before God.

The world measures usefulness. God looks deeper than that.

Check out episode 142 on Spotify and YouTube.

Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/55mft

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/55mfv

05/26/2026

Brian Fisher explores one of the deepest and most uncomfortable questions in spiritual formation: What if, somewhere beneath our theology, we’re not actually convinced God is good?

Drawing from Scripture, personal experience, psychology, and the Soil & Roots framework of deep discipleship, this episode examines the hidden “ideas” that quietly govern our inner lives. While many Christians intellectually affirm God’s love and goodness, our anxiety, control, resentment, and guardedness often reveal a very different lived reality beneath the surface.

Brian contrasts beliefs with deeper heart-level ideas formed through relationships, suffering, wounds, and experience. He explores why modern Christianity often produces informed people without necessarily producing transformed people, and why true discipleship must involve the healing of the unconscious self—not just the transfer of information.

Along the way, he reflects on suffering, authenticity, vulnerability, the limits of scholastic Christianity, and the relational safety Jesus invites us into. From the story of a former missionary who lost faith after witnessing profound suffering, to reflections on anxiety, control, and our difficulty receiving love, this episode offers a compassionate and deeply honest look at the hidden places of the human heart.

Ultimately, “Too Good to Be True” is an invitation into radical honesty before God. Not performance. Not pretending. But the kind of authenticity where healing and deep transformation can finally begin.

If you’ve ever struggled to trust God in the middle of pain, disappointment, fear, or unanswered questions, this episode is for you.

Check out episode 142 on Spotify and YouTube.

Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/55h9i

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/55h9k

05/20/2026

Brian Fisher continues his series on our unconscious “ideas of God” by exploring how living in deeply partial cultures may shape the way we relate to Him. From first-class airline seating to celebrity pastors and donor culture, he argues that modern life constantly reinforces the message that some people are simply more valuable, more connected, and more worthy of access than others. Over time, those experiences can quietly lead us to assume God operates the same way.

The article challenges the transactional spirituality many Christians unknowingly adopt — treating prayer, discipline, and church involvement as ways to earn greater intimacy with God. Brian suggests that if we believe God is partial, vulnerability becomes frightening because we fear rejection and disapproval. But he closes with a hopeful invitation: what if God does not relate to us the way our systems do? What if His love and presence are just as available to ordinary, wounded, unnoticed people as to the spiritually impressive?

Read the full version of "No Soup for You" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/54upk

How Partial Cultures Shape Our Ideas of God

05/19/2026

Brian Fisher explores the difference between what we consciously believe about God and the deeper assumptions we actually live from. In this piece, he argues that many Christians say God is good while quietly operating from fear, control, anxiety, resentment, or emotional distance. Those reactions may reveal that our hearts aren’t fully convinced God is truly for us, even if our theology says otherwise.

The article also challenges modern Christianity’s tendency to focus more on correct beliefs than deep inner transformation. Brian suggests that spiritual formation happens not just through information, but through healing the hidden “operating system” of the heart. The essay ends on a deeply personal note, as he reflects on his own struggles with disappointment and mistrust, while discovering that God continues to invite honest, vulnerable conversation instead of condemnation.

Read "The Good Place" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/54pyh

Spiritual Formation and the Questions We’re Afraid to Ask About God’s Goodness

05/18/2026

The turning point isn’t covering our flaws—but discovering we’re loved despite them.

Check out the new episode of the Soil and Roots podcast.

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/54iys
Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/54iyk

05/16/2026

Dr. Tim comes loaded with rich and probing questions about our ideas of God in this Greenhouse episode of the Soil & Roots podcast.

If what the world needs most is deep people, and those people are generally formed through suffering, how do we reconcile that with our desire to experience safety?

Since the Soil & Roots journey tends to approach discipleship anthropologically, does that align with the Bible and sound theology? Can we understand spiritual formation through sources apart from the Bible?

How does our worldview (our beliefs) connect to our heartview (our unconscious ideas)? And how does that impact our day-to-day interactions with God, ourselves, and others?

It’s become popular today to claim that “Jesus is enough.” Is He really?

Tim flexes his PhD, while Brian just tries to keep up. Enjoy!

Check out episode 141 on YouTube and Spotify.

Watch on YouTube: https://vist.ly/54f76
Listen on Spotify: https://vist.ly/54f74

05/07/2026

Brian Fisher takes the conversation a step deeper by naming one of the most powerful hidden ideas many of us carry: the quiet suspicion that God isn’t actually good. He explains that this isn’t primarily an intellectual issue—it’s an experiential one. Our hearts form conclusions about God based on suffering, loss, and lived experience, even when our theology says otherwise. Through the story of a former missionary who walked away from faith after witnessing immense suffering, Brian shows how pain can reshape our inner world, leaving us not just doubting God’s goodness, but feeling anger toward Him.

Instead of offering quick theological fixes, Brian invites us into a deeper, more honest path. The first step is uncovering whether this idea is actually operating in us. The second is recognizing that healing doesn’t come through more information alone, but through relational experience—especially what he calls “withness,” the power of presence. In the middle of suffering, God’s goodness may be less about changing circumstances and more about His willingness to be with us through them. And often, that presence is mediated through others who simply show up, sit with us, and embody the kind of love that slowly restores trust in God’s heart.

Read "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" on the Soil and Roots Substack page: https://vist.ly/53cxw

Spiritual Formation and the Hidden Idea That God Isn’t Actually Good