Podcast

This is the story about taking apart a vegetable garden to make place for a parking lot.

Does that sound crazy? It looked crazy. It felt crazy. But this is the story about being brave enough to break down what you thought you wanted in order to make room for what you believe you need.

This is the story about one thousand Easter eggs.

Really it’s the story about listening for invitations rather than setting goals. It’s the difference between taking control of your future and surrendering control.

This is an honest conversation about why the language of goal setting is a struggle for us, and why we both tend to use the word “invitation” instead.

This is the story about a business card.

For years, Lisa-Jo and Christie defined their significance according to the business cards in their pockets. They knew just what they wanted those cards to say, and exactly what they never wanted to see printed there.

This is the story about being full.
Really it’s the story about understanding the difference between being empty, being full and then being stuffed to feeling sick. And we’re not even talking about food.

This is an honest conversation about what we hunger and thirst after. How do we fix our cravings?

This is the story about strawberry jam and Wednesday night parenting.
Because this is the story about how our podcast got it’s name. Buried deep in the thick of the most ordinary things we could think of was the surprising discovery that everything we valued most might easily be described as ordinary, if not even boring on some days.

This is a story about the search for a barn.
Today we dig into what it looks like and feels like to watch your dream break into little bits and pieces you can’t make sense of. Christie takes us from Chicago to Florida to a small town in Pennsylvania that often reeks of mushroom farms and manure where she buried all her broken bits of hope and then watched them grow. She shares the story of the time she opened her home to a small group, bought all the study books, and not one person showed up.

This is the story of eating a 3 course dinner soaking wet in the middle of a rainstorm in Zimbabwe. And the story of yellow leaves falling in the middle of summer in Pennsylvania.
And how we have often both been so desperate in our dissatisfaction it took us years to find the antidote. But in this episode we share what that looks like, how to apply it in your own life, and the very best place to take all your longing and dissatisfied dreams. In this episode we share some of the biggest demands we’ve made of God and how He’s answered. It wasn’t what we expected.

This is the story of a packet of grass seeds and a pitcher of water.
What started out as the smallest, most unexpected parts of our ordinary lives have became the very best bits we couldn’t imagine life without. Welcome to Out of the Ordinary! We’re delighted you’re joining our conversation. As always it was recorded on the third floor of Christie’s old farmhouse, Maplehurst, and today we sat down to unpack the idea that everything big starts small.