In this first episode of Open Minded Christian, we share the vision of the podcast and introduce the host, Jonathan Hostetler. Click “Play” below to listen, or scroll down to read the transcript.
[TRANSCRIPT]
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of open-minded Christian! I’m Jonathan Hostetler and I’m really excited to get this podcast kicked off with this first episode where we’ll be casting the vision for where we’ll be headed with this podcast, and a bit of an introduction and backstory of my life so you have a more of an understanding of where I’m coming from, as I will be interviewing a lot of different people from many walks of life, many different experience.
Podcast Vision
So, what is the vision behind this podcast? In a nutshell, there are really two goals that we are looking to achieve here. And they’re so closely intertwined that they’re almost two sides of the same coin.
The one side is exploring mankind’s relationship with. How do human beings have different beliefs, different cultures, different faiths, perceive God interact with God, what did they believe about God?
And the other side is how learning and listening to each other’s stories can bring us close together as human beings, regardless of what we believe about.
So that’s, the nutshell of what we’re trying to accomplish. The way we’ll be accomplishing this is, plain and simply, interviewing people of all kinds of backgrounds, walks of faith, beliefs, and hearing their stories, their experiences with God, their experiences with family, with culture. And, while evangelism conversion, and persuasion all have their place, that’s not the goal of this podcast.
So it is not my goal to persuade anyone that I’m interviewing to believe differently, to act differently. It’s not my goal to be persuaded by them to act or believe differently. And it’s neither my goal as the host, nor each interviewee is goal to persuade you to believe one way or the other.
We’re simply sharing our stories and sharing our beliefs. And those beliefs might be very different from what you believe. but the purpose here is to hear each other. And I think that doesn’t happen enough, at least in my circles of culture. That doesn’t happen enough.
While it’s not always spoken, this sense of, well, I’ve studied, I’ve researched. I’ve had experiences in life that have led me to believe this particular thing about God, about the world, about life. And because of that, I’m going to hold that close and to hold it dear to me and someone that doesn’t believe that well, they’re wrong. And either I’m going to persuade them or, or I’m going to just not talk about it. I’m flipping the coin here with this podcast and say, no, let’s talk about it. let’s talk with others that believe very differently from us and see how we can learn from each other. And again, see how we can grow closer together as human beings.
So if that resonates with you, I welcome you to stick around. We’ll be interviewing a whole host of individuals from, individuals in my own community, my Christian circles, and branching out from there. We intend to interview people in the Amish community, interviewing people of different beliefs within various Christian circles and denominations in your viewing, individuals of Protestant denominations, individuals of the Catholic faith, members of the church of latter day saints and Jehovah’s witnesses. And it will be branching out further into individuals in the Muslim, Wiccans, Buddhists, really anyone who has a strong belief system in God and has experiences in their life that have shaped who they are and have shaped their belief and their relationship with.
So, yes, I’m sure at times we’ll be addressing topics that are very controversial, maybe very different from what you believe.
Definitely will be very different from what I believe at times. But again, our focus, our central point is, deepening our relationship with God and with each other as human beings. So if that sounds exciting to you. I would love for you to join me on this journey. It’s going to be a wonderful ride.
With that said I’d love to give a brief introduction to who I am and some of my background, so that you have a better familiarity with me as a host before we start interviewing other people.
Host Introduction
So again, my name is Jonathan Hostetler. I grew up here in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. My parents were missionaries in Chad central Africa. That’s actually where I was born. I was almost three years old when we left. So I don’t have any personal memories from there, but that experience shaped a lot of my growing up years.
So I grew up in a very strong Christian and a Baptist family for the most part, Mennonite beliefs, very pacifist Anabaptist beliefs, which we’ll get into at some point. So all throughout my childhood, I grew up going to church, being around members of the church, particularly the Mennonite denomination. And in my mid to late teen years, I started to explore and study ways of understanding God and the Bible that were a little bit different from how I’d grown up.
And really throughout those years of discovery and self-introspection, I not only gained a much stronger relationship with God and had personal stories of my own that brought me closer to him, and to Christ. But I also gained a different perspective on other people’s beliefs. And so I guess that brings us back to the whole purpose of this podcast, which is to hear other people’s stories about their relationship with God and the world, and to therefore deepen our relationship with God and help us to interact with each other in a more positive way.
So that’s it for this episode, a very brief one, very much an introduction. So again, if this sounds interesting or intriguing to you, I welcome you to join me on this adventure.
How To Get Updates
The best way to stay up to date as new episodes come out is to visit the website open-minded christian.com and subscribe to our email new.
And we’ll be sharing our episode updates from there. You can also subscribe on apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, et cetera. But the best way is to be on the email list. As you’ll get notifications about episodes, sometimes exclusive content, articles we may post and share and so on and so forth. So very excited to have you with me.
Get Involved
If you have any specific questions that you would love to hear addressed in any of these episodes. If you have a friend or a family member that has an interesting belief that you would love to invite into this podcast as an interviewee, please reach out to me at hello at open-minded christian.com.
Or if you yourself have, an interest in being interviewed on this podcast. Again, email me at hello at open-minded christian.com. Thank you so much again, and I look forward to having you join us in our next episode!
This is great! Thanks for doing this Jon!