The Signpost Inn Podcast

Here's a sentence that'll get you kicked out of most small groups: you need to give up on spiritual growth. On today’s show we have a special guest with us who says that from the pulpit. Join us! By the end of this episode you’re going to have a whole new way of thinking about spiritual growth.
Rev. John Newton has served as an Episcopal priest since 2009 and is the rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of three books exploring grace, faith, and the Christian life, and is passionate about helping people experience the freedom of the gospel. John and his wife, Emily, have three children and a beloved golden retriever named June. When he's not preaching or pastoring, he's usually cheering on the Texas Longhorns.
Links:
Falling Into Grace by John Newton https://amzn.to/4gTussb
Join us for for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us:
Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

You may believe God loves you and still feel like he is one failure, one unanswered prayer, or one hard season away from pulling back. You brace for disappointment. You work to stay acceptable. Or you keep him at a careful distance because needing him feels too exposed.
Brandon, Matt, and Liv talk about attachment theory in plain language, and why the ways we learned to handle closeness can shape how we relate to God. They turn to Psalm 131 and the work of Jesus: his incarnation, cross, resurrection, and gift of the Holy Spirit create a secure relationship with God that we could never create for ourselves.
They also talk about practices that help us receive that reality in the places we feel it least. Confession and absolution let us bring God our worst and hear his forgiveness spoken back to us. Spiritual direction or therapy can help us name the old stories we carry about love, vulnerability, and rejection.
If you keep waiting for God to be disappointed in you, or you don’t know how to let him get close, this episode is for you.
Links:
The Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson https://amzn.to/4fQ1sB5
Attachment styles slide
The attachment project
Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us:
Email: podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram: www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Website: www.signpostinn.org
Music credit: Rex Daugherty, rex-daugherty.com

You picked up your phone 186 times yesterday. That's not a discipline problem, it's a hunger problem. This week we trace the ache behind the scroll back to Augustine and forward to the empty tomb, and land on the strange freedom of a faith that doesn't need you to fix yourself first.
When you scroll, you're looking for something real. The compulsion isn't random, and it's not just weak willpower. It's a hunger for heaven, misdirected. Samuel James calls the internet an "epistemological habitat" — not a tool you use but an environment that shapes what you crave, what you notice, and what you believe is true. And it's designed by teams of behavioral psychologists who know your patterns better than you do.
We walk through the five digital liturgies that form us online, the structural forces stacked against you (and why shame is the wrong frame), and then what Jesus actually offers when you're starving for something real. If you've ever felt trapped by your phone and blamed yourself for not trying harder, this one's for you.
Links:
Samuel James, Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age (Crossway, 2023) https://amzn.to/3RLOZX4
Giving Up On Growth: Rest in Restless World. Lecture by  John Newton https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/giving-up-on-growth-rest-in-a-restless-world-john-newton/id1381533696
Augustine’s Confessions https://amzn.to/4fyXMEQ
Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us:
Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

The world is genuinely dangerous and your nervous system knows it! The usual answers (trust God more, don't be anxious, just believe) don't seem to help, they only make you feel more ashamed that you must not be “doing it right!”
So what does Jesus actually do with our generalized anxiety and fear?
Brandon, Matt, and Liv work through what it feels like when Jesus changes the context you're living inside. Why willpower-based answers to anxiety tend to make things worse. How Jesus recontextualizes even death. And a few practices — imaginative Gospel reading, the Daily Examen — that train your body to feel what your theology already knows.
If low-grade dread is just part of how you move through the world, this one's for you.
Links:
Check out Liv’s substack https://livbooth.substack.com/
Book: How your 21st-Century Church Family Works by Peter L. Steinke: https://amzn.to/3QXcMTy
Book: A Roman’s Confession by Kade Dutton https://amzn.to/4eNpbmd
Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us:
Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

What does Jesus actually feel when he looks at you — worn out, knocked flat, barely holding on? The Gospels have a word for it. And it's nothing like the soft, managed thing we usually call "compassion." Today Brandon and Matt dig into Matthew 9:36, the Greek behind two of the most overlooked words in the Gospels, and a gut-level emotion that drove everything Jesus did. Then we close with an imaginative exercise to help you actually receive it — not just understand it.
Links:
Käthe Kollwitz, The Downtrodden https://i0.wp.com/nmwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1986.187-GAP.jpg?fit=1200%2C999999&quality=80&format=webp
N.C. Wyeth, The Lost Sheep: https://www.manresa-sj.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/11-N-C-Wyeth-The-Lost-Sheep.jpg.webp
Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us: Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

A listener asked a question we couldn't stop thinking about: if nothing we do saves us, are we just supposed to sit back and let Jesus do everything? Are we "grace potatoes"? This episode untangles what it actually means to work on your relationship with God — and why the real question might be bigger and better than you realized.
Links:
Liv’s Substack https://livbooth.substack.com/
Not Home Yet https://amzn.to/4gDZC8e
Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us: Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

Join Matt and Brandon for an incredibly moving discussion with Tom Gibbs, the creator of Art Lectio. After a brief introduction and explanation of Tom’s unique method for meditating on and praying with art, Tom guides the gents through three meditations on three completely different paintings. Each one opens up thoughts, and prompts prayers, that are profound and beautiful. 
If you are listening to this one on your podcast player you’ll definitely want to open the images linked below, or pop over to our YoutTube channel and watch along. https://www.youtube.com/@signpostinn 
Links to view the Art we looked at
Thomas https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Der_ungl%C3%A4ubige_Thomas_-_Michelangelo_Merisi%2C_named_Caravaggio.jpg/3840px-Der_ungl%C3%A4ubige_Thomas_-_Michelangelo_Merisi%2C_named_Caravaggio.jpg 
The Temptation of Christ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Christ_in_the_Wilderness_-_Ivan_Kramskoy_-_Google_Cultural_Institute.jpg/3840px-Christ_in_the_Wilderness_-_Ivan_Kramskoy_-_Google_Cultural_Institute.jpg 
Woman Holding a Balance https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/Johannes_Vermeer_-_Woman_Holding_a_Balance_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/1920px-Johannes_Vermeer_-_Woman_Holding_a_Balance_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg 
Other Links:
https://artlectio.com/
https://instagram.com/artlectio
https://www.youtube.com/@ArtLectio 
https://substack.com/@artlectio 
Join us for for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us:
Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

When the structures we lean on for spiritual safety collapse, what remains? Terri Fisher joins Liv Booth and tells her story of leaving a “mechanized faith” and spiritually abusive past and discovering a quieter and more durable faith.
After years in rigid ideological communities that promised predictable outcomes, Terri found herself without words, stripped of spiritual identity, and wondering whether to stay in the faith at all. Ancient prayers, creeds she didn't write, and a liturgy that turned out to be bigger on the inside, rescued her. 
Terri and Liv also discuss how Tolkien's daily mass shaped The Lord of the Rings, why humility matters more than confidence, and how attentiveness, to your kids, to the birds, to the onion you're cutting, might be the most practical spiritual discipline there is.
Links:
Terri Prays with Saints https://terriprayswithsaints.substack.com/
Prayer for Beginners by Peter Kreeft - https://amzn.to/4usVcoX
Prayer: the Great Conversation by Peter Kreeft - https://a.co/d/0diRCjCZ
The High Hallow: Tolkien's Liturgical Imagination - https://amzn.to/42VxvJN
Anselm Society — anselmsociety.org
That Thing Liv Wrote livbooth.substack.com
Stand Up - U2 https://open.spotify.com/track/3541c9HnGOaCrPbUnO2e0K?si=c881114a8c2146ed
Join us for an event: https://www.signpostinn.org/events
Connect with us: Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

In this episode, we read John 5:1-18 together and enter the story of a man who's been disabled for 38 years. We ask the question Jesus asks him: do you actually want to become whole? Not just relieved. Not just a little better. Whole. 
Links:
Death Comes to the Soul: The Vulnerable Christian in Distress — Fr. Gabriel O’Donnell The Thomistic Institute Podcast https://podcast.thomisticinstitute.org/death-comes-to-the-soul-the-vulnerable-christian-in-distress-fr-gabriel-odonnell/
Connect with us:
Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work at rex-daugherty.com

In this episode, we read John 4 together and invite you to enter the story of the woman at the well with us. As we go, we reflect on soul thirst, the deeper questions that drive our lives, and the way Jesus makes himself available to people who feel ashamed, skeptical, or far from God. This is a slow, prayerful episode for anyone who needs to be reminded what Jesus is really like.       
Links:
Books and other things referenced in the show
John 1:1-7:1 - Concordia Commentary by William C Weinrich https://amzn.to/41B0JwZ
Friends of big bear valley eagle cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-L2nfGcuE
Connect with us:
Email us at podcast@signpostinn.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/SignpostInn
Instagram www.instagram.com/signpostinn
Check out our website www.signpostinn.org for more resources!
Thanks to Rex Daugherty for creating the original theme music for this podcast. He's an award-winning artist and you can check out more of his work atrex-daugherty.com