Do you feel that our isolating individualism, nonstop injustices, consumerist lifestyles, or everyday monotony are suffocating your soul?

Our guest, Wesley Vander Lugt, believes what breathes life into us is something that we can easily miss or dismiss: BEAUTY.

His book is Beauty Is Oxygen: Finding a Faith That Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024). Here is not your ivory-tower theologian; his PhD is in Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. Wes shows how beauty can break us out of self-centered malaise, promote healing and hope for our broken world, and re-enchant our lives. Wes believes that Beauty is as essential to our souls as oxygen is to our bodies.

Here is the poem that Wes cites in the podcast:

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing He’s madeSing his being simply by beingThe thing it is:Stone and tree and sky,Man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing He’s made,Means a storm of peace.Think of the atoms inside the stone.Think of the man who sits aloneTrying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing He’s madeThere is given one shadeShaped exactly to the thing itself:Under the tree a darker tree;Under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s madeThe things that bring Him near,Made the mind that makes Him go.A part of what man knows,Apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing He’s made.

Scroll down to learn more about Wesley Vander Lugt.

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Wesley Vander Lugt

Wesley Vander Lugt is the Director of the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte.

His publications include Beauty Is Oxygen: Finding a Faith that Breathes (Eerdmans, 2024), A Prophet in the Darkness: Exploring Theology in the Art of Georges Rouault (IVP Adademic, 2024), Living Theodrama: Reimagining Theological Ethics (Routledge, 2014), Pocket Dictionary of the Reformed Tradition (co-authored with Kelly Kapic), and Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith (edited with Trevor Hart).

We recommend purchasing these books from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. They are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about these books on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

On this episode, we welcome back our friend, Erica Reitz, who has been helping young men and women transition out of college for several years. The transitions that 20-somethings experience in the years after college are some of the most stressful, unstable, and uncertain times we can ever experience.

Erica Young Reitz is the author of After College: Navigating Transitions, Relationships, and Faith (InterVarsity Press, Revised Edition, 2025). It has been republished in a revised edition this year by InterVarsity Press. No book on the market deals with the after-college years so thoroughly and so practically.

Scroll down to learn more about Erica Young Reitz.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

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Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Erica Young Reitz

Erica Young Reitz is the founder of After College Transition, an organization that helps higher education professionals, church leaders, and college ministers equip students to thrive after college.

Her experience working with college students has included teaching advanced writing at Penn State and serving in campus ministry with the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach), as well as directing Senior EXIT. She holds an MA in higher education from Geneva College with a research focus on the senior year transition. Erica serves as a leadership development specialist for Bartell & Bartell, helping individuals and teams uplevel their leadership and unleash their organizational potential. Erica lives in central Pennsylvania with her husband, Craig, and their two children.

You can purchase Erica’s book from our partner in ministry, Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Byron and Beth Borger are eager to serve God’s people with great books. Order online through their secure server or call 717-246-333. Mention that you heard about this book on the Reintegrate Podcast and get 20% off.

For this episode, we have one of our favorite guests: Jordan Raynor.

On a previous episode, we had a blast talking with him about his last bestselling book, Redeeming Your Time. Be sure to go back and listen to that episode. What was impressive about that book was how, even though very practical, it was so clearly written on a strong biblical foundation.

His latest book is The Sacredness of Secular Work: 4 Ways Your Job Matters for Eternity (Even When You're Not Sharing the Gospel) (Waterbrook Press, 2024)

Here at Reintegrate, I often discuss overcoming the false dualism between the sacred and the secular. I love how Jordan Raynor plays with those words in the title. We might want to call it “secular work,” but God calls the work of normal everyday workers, not just overseas missionaries or pastors, sacred work.

Scroll down to learn more about Jordan Raynor.

Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app:

Thanks for listening!

Please share this podcast with your friends. Your hosts are Dr. Bob Robinson and David Loughney. For further resources on reintegrating all of life with God’s mission, go to re-integrate.org.

Jordan Raynor

Jordan Raynor’s other books that help us reintegrate faith and work include Redeeming Your Time: 7 Biblical Principles for Being Purposeful, Present, and Wildly Productive, Master of One: Find and Focus on the Work You Were Created to Do and Called to Create: A Biblical Invitation to Create, Innovate, and Risk.

He has also written two children’s books (The Royal You, and The Creator in You) and a weekday devotional (The Word Before Work).

Jordan’s books can be purchased from independent booksellers Byron and Beth Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore. Go to their secure order form, mention you heard about Sarah’s books on the Reintegrate Podcast, and receive 20% off your order! If you have questions or need more information, contact Byron here. Or call Beth and Byron at 717-246-3333.

Be sure to check out Jordan’s fascinating podcast, Mere Christians, where he interviews people from a wide variety of vocations about how they reintegrate faith and work.

Jordan lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife and their three young daughters.