What if discipleship isn’t about trying harder, learning more, or getting your theology exactly right—but about being reshaped at the level of story and identity?

In this episode of The Ordinary Discipleship Podcast, Jacob is joined by Jessie Cruickshank and Julia Schmaltz to explore how God actually forms us. Drawing from their book Becoming Good News, they unpack how discipleship works not primarily through information, but through experience, story, and the way God designed our minds and bodies to change.

The conversation weaves together neuroscience, theology, and lived experience—especially the role of autobiographical memory, identity formation, and the stories we live out of every day. Along the way, they challenge performance-based models of discipleship and offer a hopeful vision: God has already built transformation into us. Our task is not to strive, but to surrender and participate.

If you’ve ever felt inadequate to make disciples, exhausted by “trying harder,” or curious about how faith actually works on Monday morning, this episode opens a different way forward.

Pre-Order Jessie and Julia's book Becoming Good News: Reimagining Discipleship Through Identity, Story, and Science

ORDER Jessie’s book, Ordinary Discipleship: How God Wires Us for the Adventure of Transformation

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