Between Heaven & Earth

Episode 28: Part 1: Bridging the Divide: A Candid Conversation on Ethnicity, Racism and the Gospel of the Kingdom

Episode 27: Part 1: It Takes Two (Male & Female): Edenic Leadership in the Kingdom of God

Episode 26: The Power of an EncounterLife Cohort - A Pastor's Experience

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SummaryThe podcast episode Between Heaven and Earth, hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, features Reverend Matthew McIntosh sharing about Encounter Life, a 12-week cohort for pastors and church leaders designed to foster healing, renewal, and sustainable ministry. Born out of the need to integrate powerful encounters with God into everyday life, the program offers a safe, confidential space where pastors can process wounds, uncover lies, and develop healthy rhythms of rest and prayer.
With nearly four decades of ministry experience, Matthew describes how the cohort helped him face deep emotional pain and find freedom through practices like praying with people rather than just for them, recognizing Kairos moments, and cultivating “soul friends” for accountability. Unlike typical leadership training, Encounter Life centers on heart transformation, Sabbath rest, boundaries, and storytelling as tools for healing. Ecumenical in design, it welcomes pastors from diverse traditions. The episode closes with prayer and an invitation to embrace Encounter Culture’s community, reminding leaders that effective ministry flows from intimacy with God and wholeness of heart.
Highlights🙏 12-week cohort for pastors focused on healing, growth, and renewal.💔 Creates safe space to face wounds and hidden struggles often ignored in ministry.🔄 Emphasizes praying with people for Spirit-led encounters.📖 Curriculum integrates emotional awareness, Sabbath, and storytelling.🌍 Inclusive across denominations, fostering broad renewal.🙌 Encourages “soul friends” and trusted relationships for long-term support.
Key Insights💡 Pastors’ Hidden Struggles: Many leaders mask pain out of fear, leading to isolation and burnout. Encounter Life offers a safe, healing alternative.
🔄 Praying With vs. For: Shifting to interactive prayer invites deeper encounters with God.
⏳ Kairos Moments: Recognizing emotions as signals of God’s timing fosters breakthrough.
🔐 Discerning Lies: Leaders learn to replace false beliefs with God’s truth for authentic ministry.
🛑 Boundaries Matter: The program helps pastors avoid codependency and burnout.
🌿 Sabbath & Rhythms: Healthy leadership requires sustainable rest and soul care.
🤝 Soul Friends: Trusted relationships provide ongoing accountability and healing.
🌐 Ecumenical Reach: Adaptable across traditions, reflecting a growing hunger for authentic encounter with God.

Episode 25: Trinitas Unleashed: A Bold New Approach to Spiritual Direction

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SummaryThis episode of Between Heaven and Earth with Justin and Amy Howard features Paula Schrod, a therapist and spiritual director, sharing her experience with Encounter Culture Mission Collaborative (ECMC). ECMC integrates therapy, spiritual direction, and healing prayer to create safe spaces rooted in God’s love and emotional health.
Paula describes a life-changing encounter with Jesus through ECMC and highlights how therapy and spiritual direction work together in discipleship. The conversation also introduces Trinitas, a two-year training program co-created by Amy and Paula that blends liturgical, charismatic, and evangelical traditions to equip pastors, therapists, and lay leaders for spiritual direction.
The episode emphasizes supporting pastors through trained spiritual directors, using practical tools like the “four R’s” (repent, renounce, release, receive), and prioritizing God’s love over behavior management in true healing and transformation.
Highlights🌟 ECMC blends therapy, spiritual direction, and healing prayer.💖 God’s love is central to healing and growth.🎓 Trinitas unites three Christian traditions in training.🤝 Spiritual directors lighten pastoral burdens.🛠️ The “four R’s” give simple steps for healing.
Key Insights💡 Therapy + Direction Together: Both disciplines complement each other, countering evangelical stigma around therapy.💡 Love First: Experiencing God’s love is essential for lasting change.💡 Trinitas as a Bridge: Training draws on evangelical, charismatic, and liturgical streams for holistic formation.💡 Shared Pastoral Care: Lay spiritual directors help prevent burnout and strengthen communities.💡 Practical Tools: The “four R’s” provide an easy framework for daily healing.
Overall, this episode invites listeners into a vision of discipleship that unites emotional health, spiritual formation, and healing prayer—equipping a new generation of spiritual directors to bring renewal in churches and communities.
 

Episode 24: Heaven and Earth in the Workplace: Beauty, Presence, and Intercession

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SummaryThe Between Heaven and Earth podcast, hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, features Ashleigh Coleman, an encounter life coach and photographer. Ashleigh shares her journey from spiritual numbness to awakening at an Encounter Weekend, moving from head knowledge of God to a heartfelt experience of His love.
She describes spiritual growth as a slow, steady process and highlights tools like the Kairos Circle for healing and discernment. Through coaching and photography, Ashleigh brings dignity and beauty into broken spaces, encouraging believers to embrace curiosity, prayer, and safe community for authentic discipleship.
Highlights✨ Encounter Weekends bridge head knowledge and heart experience.🌿 The Kairos Circle guides emotional healing with the Spirit.📸 Creativity reveals God’s image in places of pain.💡 Growth is gradual—God’s kindness meets us where we are.🙏 Safe community fosters confession and restoration.
Key Insights💖 Transformation involves both knowing and experiencing God’s love.🌱 Spiritual growth takes time, requiring patience and grace.🌀 The Kairos Circle is a simple, powerful tool for discipleship.📷 Art and ministry intersect by honoring dignity amid brokenness.🙌 Confession in community breaks shame and fosters healing.
Additional ReflectionsAshleigh’s story shows how encounters with God, community, and creativity bring lasting healing. Her journey encourages believers to embrace God’s pace and join Him in bridging heaven and earth through everyday life and ministry.

Episode 23: Learning from the Nations: Encounter Origins, Deliverance, and Longevity in Ministry

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SummaryThe Between Heaven and Earth podcast, hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, features J.C. Alzamora, a veteran deliverance and inner healing minister. J.C. shares his journey into deliverance ministry and its impact on his life, marriage, and global ministry. The conversation emphasizes deliverance as an essential part of discipleship—particularly in the Western context, where intellectualism often overshadows spiritual realities. J.C. highlights the importance of joy, obedience, and God’s presence in sustaining ministry and encourages believers to walk in true freedom and generational transformation through Jesus’ authority.
Highlights✨ Deliverance is a vital aspect of discipleship and freedom in Christ.🌍 Global South approaches to ministry confront spiritual realities more directly than the West.🛡️ Healing and freedom require repentance, renunciation, and renewal of the mind.💖 Joy, obedience, and presence sustain long-term spiritual health.🔥 A rising movement of young believers is embracing vibrant, empowered faith.
Key Insights💡 Deliverance addresses spiritual roots often mislabeled as psychological issues.🌐 Western churches must balance teaching with experiential, Spirit-led ministry.🧩 J.C.’s Five Rs—Repent, Renounce, Release, Receive, Renew—provide a holistic path to lasting freedom.👪 Deliverance breaks generational cycles, creating healthier families and communities.⚖️ True authority flows from heavenly alignment, not striving in the flesh.
ConclusionThis episode calls believers to move beyond intellectualism toward experiential freedom in Christ, embracing deliverance, healing, and Spirit-led discipleship for lasting personal and generational transformation.

Episode 22: Part 2: The Zeitgeist is Eating your Lunch: The spirit of Judgement

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SummaryThe Between Heaven and Earth podcast, hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, explores the role of judgment in today’s culture through a Christian lens. They distinguish between toxic judgment—condemnation, labeling, and loss of dignity—and holy judgment, which is evaluative, hopeful, and Spirit-led. Judgment often springs from fear, envy, or hurt and is amplified by social media and politics.
Listeners are encouraged to ask whether an issue truly involves them and to seek God’s perspective before engaging. Instead of “drive-by judgment,” Christians are called to respond with compassion and hope. Groups often judged—like parents, leaders, and the envied—should be seen through prayer, remembering that harsh labeling blocks the possibility of healing.
The episode closes by pointing to intimacy with Jesus as the path to freedom from judgment. As believers experience His grace and forgiveness, they can reflect His love, bringing restoration instead of condemnation.
Highlights🙏 Judgment as a cultural and spiritual force💡 Toxic vs. holy judgment—condemnation vs. hopeful evaluation🌍 Social media fuels quick, shallow judgments👪 Parents, leaders, and the envied are frequent targets❤️ Believers are called to respond with compassion, not condemnation
Key Insights⚖️ Judgment reflects the cultural “air we breathe,” not just personal flaws🧠 Good judgment evaluates with God’s wisdom; bad judgment condemns💔 Judgment often masks deeper pain or fear🌐 Media and politics magnify judgment into polarization💖 Freedom from judgment grows through intimacy with Jesus

Episode 21: Part 1: The Zeitgiest is eating your lunch: The spirit of Judgement

Summary
Between Heaven and Earth is a podcast hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, leaders of Encounter Culture Mission Collaborative in New England. The show seeks to explore what it means to follow Jesus by uniting heaven and earth within families and communities. This episode focuses on the theme of judgment, addressing its cultural prevalence and biblical understanding. The hosts examine how judgment manifests in believers and communities, differentiating between toxic judgment, which condemns and limits, and healthy judgment, which is restorative and compassionate. They highlight the cultural spirit of the age (“zeitgeist”) that fosters fear and judgment, often opposing the gospel’s message of grace and healing. The podcast emphasizes the need to respond to judgment through the power of the Holy Spirit, moving beyond fear and anger towards freedom and hope. The conversation also addresses the complexity of judgment in Christian communities, the importance of self-awareness and healing, and how to practice non-toxic judgment rooted in love, restoration, and truth. The hosts encourage listeners to confront their own pain caused by judgment, seek healing, and foster communities that extend grace without compromising truth. They conclude by inviting listeners to continue the conversation on judgment—especially in polarized cultural and political contexts—and to engage with Encounter Culture’s resources for support and growth in discipleship.
Highlights
🌍 The podcast explores how to bring heaven and earth together in everyday life through Jesus’s mission of restoration.
⚖️ Judgment is dissected into toxic judgment that condemns and healthy judgment that restores and encourages growth.
🕊️ The “spirit of the age” often fosters fear and judgment, conflicting with the gospel’s message of freedom and grace.
❤️ True Christian judgment calls people higher in their identity and is rooted in compassion and healing, not condemnation.
🔄 Self-judgment impacts how we judge others; healing personal pain enables greater compassion and mercy.
🏘️ Healthy community judgment involves safe, honest conversations that acknowledge sin and brokenness while maintaining hope.
🙏 Listeners are encouraged to seek healing from past wounds caused by judgment and to embrace Christ’s restorative love.
Key Insights
🌬️ The Spirit of the Age as a Cultural Stronghold: The hosts describe the “zeitgeist” or spirit of the age as a pervasive cultural mindset that influences global and regional values and behaviors. This spirit often manifests as Babylonian opposition to the kingdom of God, embedding fear and judgment into social, familial, and church environments. Recognizing this helps believers understand why judgment feels natural yet unhelpful and challenges them to consciously oppose it through the Spirit’s power.
⚖️ Differentiating Toxic and Healthy Judgment: The episode clarifies that judgment is not simply prohibited by scripture; rather, Jesus and Paul call believers to exercise righteous judgment. Healthy judgment involves discernment that seeks restoration and loving correction, while toxic judgment is characterized by final condemnation, assigning identity labels, and writing off others based on limited perspectives. This distinction is vital for navigating relationships and church discipline.
💔 Judgment’s Impact on Identity and Relationships: Toxic judgment damages relationships by reducing people to their worst choices or perceived faults, robbing them of dignity and the possibility of change. It creates barriers to the movement of the Holy Spirit and shuts down healing. By contrast, judgment rooted in grace sees people as made in God’s image and holds space for their potential to grow beyond current failings.
🔄 Self-Judgment and Its Cyclical Effect: The hosts emphasize that the way believers judge themselves directly influences how they judge others. Those who live under harsh self-condemnation or self-righteousness tend to project these attitudes outward, perpetuating a cycle of judgment and fear. Healing and forgiveness in one’s own life enable a more compassionate and hopeful approach toward others, breaking this destructive cycle.
🛡️ The Danger of Both Licentious Mercy and Legalistic Condemnation: The podcast warns against two extremes: unsanctified mercy (sloppy agape) that ignores sin and allows destructive behavior to continue unchecked, and legalistic condemnation that harshly judges without grace. Both approaches are harmful as they usurp God’s judgment role and cripple healthy community life, leading to distrust, hypocrisy, and spiritual death.
🏘️ Creating Safe Communities for Honest Conversations: A healthy Christian community allows space for sin to be acknowledged without shunning or writing off people. It cultivates safety where individuals can be known, share struggles, and receive loving correction aimed at healing. This environment requires leaders and members who have themselves been on healing journeys and can extend compassionate judgment grounded in hope.
🙏 Invitation to Healing and New Stories: The episode closes with an invitation to listeners to confront the pain caused by judgment—whether from others or themselves—and to bring it honestly before Jesus. Healing prayer, spiritual direction, and counseling are recommended pathways to freedom. Embracing Christ’s love enables believers to release bitterness, forgive others, and rewrite their personal and communal narratives with hope and restoration, embodying the kingdom of God in tangible ways.
This rich exploration of judgment within the context of Christian life and culture offers deep practical and theological insights for believers seeking to live out grace and truth amid a judgmental world.

Episode 20: Oppression, Poverty and Lament: An interview with a World Vision Pastor

Summary
The podcast episode of Between Heaven and Earth, hosted by Justin and Amy Howard, features a deep and insightful conversation with Carolyn Poteet, a seasoned leader and pastor with extensive experience working globally in challenging environments through World Vision. Carolyn shares her transformative journey working in war-torn, impoverished, and spiritually diverse regions, highlighting the contrasts between physical and spiritual poverty she witnessed. Her experiences across Africa, Eastern Europe, and other global contexts profoundly shaped her theology, compassion, and understanding of ministry, teaching her to rely deeply on faith and lament amid suffering.
Carolyn reflects on the resilience and spiritual wealth found in some impoverished communities, such as Ethiopia and Angola, contrasted with the stark spiritual poverty in places like Romanian orphanages and Native American reservations. These observations challenged Western assumptions and underscored the importance of discerning local contexts in ministry. The conversation explores the concept of “territorial spirits” and the spiritual struggles embedded in places marked by historical trauma and ongoing oppression.
A significant theme is the power of lament as a biblical and spiritual practice, which Carolyn emphasizes as vital for navigating suffering and brokenness in ministry and life. She explains lament’s structure—addressing God, expressing honest complaint, making specific requests, remembering God’s faithfulness, and culminating in praise—and how it fosters authentic relationship with God, especially when faith feels tested. The episode also touches on the importance of holistic ministry that addresses both physical and spiritual needs, exemplified by Carolyn’s stories from World Vision projects.
Throughout, Carolyn encourages listeners to engage with their local realities thoughtfully, seeking God’s heart for the unique struggles and hopes within their own communities. She emphasizes faith as a muscle strengthened through persistent trust even when outcomes seem uncertain. The episode closes with lighthearted moments and an invitation for pastors to join Encounter Life, a supportive journey of spiritual renewal and healing.
Highlights
🌍 Carolyn Poteet’s decade-long global experience with World Vision shaped her theology and ministry approach.
💔 Stark contrasts seen between physical poverty with spiritual richness and spiritual poverty despite material resources.
🌳 The story of the Boabab tree illustrates God’s power over entrenched spiritual oppression.
🙏 Lament Psalms offer a biblical framework for expressing pain honestly and maintaining faith amid suffering.
🌱 Holistic ministry addresses both physical needs and spiritual transformation.
🏡 Understanding local contexts is crucial for relevant and effective ministry.
💪 Faith is like a muscle, strengthened through continual trust even when life is unpredictable.
Key Insights
🌍 Global Exposure Deepens Compassion and Theology: Carolyn’s work in diverse, high-conflict regions exposed her to forms of faith and suffering that transcended Western paradigms. Witnessing resilient faith in war zones and impoverished communities humbled her and expanded her understanding of God’s presence in suffering, prompting a posture of learning rather than assuming cultural superiority. This highlights the transformative power of cross-cultural ministry experiences for shaping mature, compassionate Christian leadership.
💔 Physical Poverty vs. Spiritual Poverty: Carolyn contrasts vibrant spiritual life amid extreme physical poverty (e.g., Ethiopia and Angola) with devastating spiritual emptiness in orphanages and some post-communist Eastern European contexts. This distinction reveals that material conditions do not determine spiritual vitality, and ministry must address both domains carefully. Spiritual poverty, characterized by hopelessness and broken relationships, can be harder to detect but is equally urgent to address.
🌳 Territorial Spirits and Spiritual Oppression: The episode introduces the concept of “territorial spirits”—spiritual forces influencing regions and communities, resulting in generational cycles of brokenness, violence, or apathy. The Boabab tree story symbolizes confronting these deep-rooted spiritual barriers through prayer and faith. While recognizing these realities, Carolyn emphasizes starting with God’s power and presence rather than demon-chasing, underscoring a posture of dependence on God’s leading in spiritual warfare.
🙏 Lament as a Vital Spiritual Discipline: Carolyn’s detailed explanation of lament Psalms as a vehicle for authentic prayer challenges Western Christian tendencies to bypass lament. By naming grief, anger, and frustration directly to God, believers engage in honest dialogue that sustains faith even in prolonged hardship. This practice fosters deep relational trust with God, enabling perseverance without denying pain or glossing over suffering. The structure of lament—address, complaint, request, remembrance, and praise—provides a spiritual roadmap for healing and hope.
🌱 Holistic Ministry Integrates Physical and Spiritual Needs: Carolyn’s stories illustrate that effective ministry in impoverished contexts attends to both the body and the soul. For example, providing food and clean water can open hearts to the gospel, showing that practical care and spiritual transformation are complementary, not competing, priorities. This model challenges dichotomous thinking and encourages ministries to embrace a both/and approach.
🏡 Contextual Listening Shapes Kingdom Work: Carolyn stresses the importance of discerning the specific brokenness and hopes of local communities rather than imposing generalized solutions or external agendas. The good news must resonate with the lived realities of the people served—whether freedom from addiction in Maine or liberation from oppressive power structures in Washington, D.C. This insight calls for humility and attentiveness in ministry, inviting ongoing dialogue with God about local needs.
💪 Faith as a Muscle Strengthened through Trials: Carolyn likens faith to a muscle that grows stronger through consistent exercise, especially in unpredictable and challenging environments. Her experiences in Africa and ministry struggles at home teach that faith is not a one-time switch but a dynamic journey requiring trust even when outcomes are unclear or suffering persists. This metaphor encourages believers to cultivate endurance and resilience by leaning on God repeatedly, trusting in His faithfulness across seasons.
Conclusion
This episode of Between Heaven and Earth offers a rich conversation that bridges global Christian experiences with local ministry challenges. Carolyn Poteet’s stories and reflections invite listeners to deepen their faith through compassionate engagement with suffering, embrace lament as authentic prayer, and pursue holistic and context-sensitive ministry. The themes of spiritual resilience, the power of prayerful dependence on God, and the need to listen carefully to local brokenness provide a compelling framework for anyone seeking to join Jesus in His work of restoration both globally and at home.

Episide 19: Part 3: Permission to be okay in Jesus: Freedom from co-dependancy and emotional idolatry