After 8 years, we’re finally doing a listener-questions episode on Compass: Finding spirituality in the everyday.
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Whether you’re a spiritual seeker, questioning your relationship with church, or simply curious about how faith fits into our polarized world, this candid, heartfelt episode is for you. Host Ryan Dunn opens up about the podcast’s origins, the challenges of finding community, why (and when) Compass talks about politics, the evolving format of the show, favorite episodes and guests, and what he’s personally learned along the way.
In this episode:
(00:00) Welcome to Compass
(01:27) Why do the Compass podcast?
(03:44) What are your favorite episodes?
(05:58) Politics?
(09:49) Can I be on your podcast?
(10:55) Is it enough to listen to a podcast without going to church?
(12:45) What’s something you’ve learned through Compass?
(14:51) What do you listen to?
Episode Notes:
Some of the episodes mentioned in this episode:
- Ben Roberts: How advocacy becomes ministry
- Kevin Nye: Homelessness and justice
- Damon Garcia: Fresh look at radical Jeus
- Steve Austin: Remembering Steve
- Brian McLaren: Questioning the church
- Shane Claiborne: Life is hope
- Kate Bowler: Everything happens for a reason
- Kaitlin Curtice: Everyday glory
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More podcasts
- Get Your Spirit in Shape and other United Methodist podcasts
- Rev. Ryan Dunn also hosts and produces the MyCom Church Marketing podcast
Thank you for listening, downloading, and subscribing.
This episode posted on October 30, 2025
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Compass. Finding spirituality in the everyday. We're over eight years and 160 episodes into this podcast, and we're finally trying something that we have never done before, a mailbag episode. First of all, my name is Ryan Dutt, and how we're going to do that here on Compass is a little bit different. And again, I need to. For the second week in a row, I need to apologize for being late on the release of an episode. The hectic schedule is what made that happen, and it's part of why we're trying something new with this particular episode. Anyways, we've never done a mailbag episode, partly because we've never really had a direct feedback mechanism.
Ryan Dunn [00:00:48]:
So actually, the questions that I'll respond to in this episode aren't directly from some kind of inbox or literal. Literal mailbag. Right. Rather, I'm pulling from questions that have been emailed directly to me. They've been commented on previous episodes. They've been asked directly to me in conversations, or they've been posed on a social media platform. Let's get into it, though. We're gonna fly right into it.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:16]:
The first question is one that I got a bunch in the early days of this podcast. So we're talking like 2018, 2019. The. I haven't gotten it so much lately. But the question is, why do this podcast at the time, going back to its beginning, which was like late 2017, early 2018, I had noticed several people in my life who had questions about their Christian faith and were definitely spiritually curious. But because of their questions, they felt a little bit disconnected from their churches. They kind of felt like they didn't fully fit in. So I had this idea to provide a platform for posing and responding to the questions people like that might be asking.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:02]:
And that's still the vision for this podcast today. Actually, we say we're trying to find spirituality in the everyday, and that means trying to tie the spiritual to our lived experiences, which is where a lot of our questions of faith come from. Like, what difference does this make? How does this impact my life? This podcast seeks to provide a sense of community and connection for people who are asking questions around the Christian life. It's an opportunity for people to see that they're not alone in having questions and looking for alternative viewpoints. In the beginning of days of this podcast, I didn't envision it being as interview focused as it is now. Most of our episodes are interviews, but without this focus. It's why we started this podcast with co hosts, namely Pierce Drake and then later on Michelle Maldonado. I felt like I was ill equipped myself for being a monologuer every episode and I wanted to provide an atmosphere of conversation.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:06]:
And I found pretty quickly that even with having a co host, it was necessary to invite in guests to speak to specific questions, which is how we evolved into a primarily interview focused podcast. Now, as for the co hosts, I do want to mention them. I loved working with both of them. The reasons that they phased off the podcast are varied and honestly they're, they're business related these days. I find scheduling to be a challenge as it is when it's just myself and including multiple parties makes that even more challenging. So we're likely for now to stay with a single host. Okay, now for the question that I do actually get asked the most and that is do I have a favorite episode? My general answer is that the most recent episode is my favorite episode. And that's because that's just what's fresh on my mind.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:02]:
Or the episode that we're getting ready to release might be my favorite episode for the same reason. It's just what's fresh in my mind of invested all this time and energy into it. So I just feel rather fond about it. And it's just too hard to qualitate previous episodes to discern what would be a favorite because I love so many of them for various reasons. Like there are some that I go back to and I listen to with a little bit of sentimentality. Steve Austin was an early advocate for this podcast and a guest several times. He was someone I collaborated with on several projects. I consider Steve a friend and he died a few years ago.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:43]:
So those early episodes with him on as a guest, they kind of serve as snapshots for fond memories. That kind of makes it, you know, a would be favorite. Then there are the times that I got to talk with people who influenced my faith journey as a young adult. I dove heavy into the writings of people like Shane Claiborne and Gregory Boyle and Brian McLaren and and was heavily influenced by Kate Boulder. And now I've gotten to have conversations with so many of my personal heroes. And then there are the times that I talked with people who I weren't familiar with. But because of this podcast I met them and they inspired in me a new way of thinking or a fresh perspective. I think of Caitlyn Curtis and Kevin Nye and Damien Damon Garcia and Amy Jill Levine and Lenny Duncan.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:35]:
The there's so many more. And then there have been the episodes that turned into ongoing Relationships and collaborations and friendships. In some ways, this podcast has become an excuse to hold a specific conversation with someone who I've known for a while. So, yeah, each episode has some kind of fond value for me. And for that reason, I can't really pick out favorites. All right, so from here on out, I'm just gonna, like, take questions in a random order. So I have five more questions that I'm going to address. I asked my AI assistant to throw them into a random order for me to respond to.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:12]:
That's what we're going with. And with that, the next question is, why do you slash, why don't you talk about politics? And it's funny because I've heard both questions in different ways over the years. Why do you talk about politics? And why don't you talk about politics? So for the sake of those who ask, why do we talk about politics on this pro podcast? Well, it's probably they're asking probably in reaction to things our guests have said. We don't really make editorial decisions when editing what a guest says on this podcast. What they say is generally what they say as we record is generally what is released to the public. Our editing of an interview really comes down to just removing anything that is going to distract from the listening experience. So that's going to be a digital glitch or a Burpen recording, or when someone misstates something and wants to back up and restate it, or when I garble somebody's name and we just want to re quote that and get it right, that kind of thing. The only times I recall making editorial decisions about what goes in and what goes out is when we get down to having a super long episode and something just needs to go.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:27]:
And that's happened maybe three or four times over the eight years that we've been doing this podcast. And if we are all about encountering a faith that impacts daily life, then that means that it's going to impact our political selves as well, which invites us to have conversations about public policy from time to time. And I'm thinking specifically of conversations with, well, recently Ben Roberts and Kevin Nye, previously, when they both advocated for that practicing of a faithful compassion for those who are the most vulnerable. And that led them to interpreting a call to endorse or to stand against specific governmental policies or actions. So as they're talking about that faith, witness you. Yes, they are mentioning some political things. On the flip side, why don't I talk about politics? I. I think I do at times.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:25]:
I just talked about that. I don't talk about specific candidates. At least I don't recall ever doing that. I think I do. To do so, to talk about specific candidates, that conflates the space of church and state too much. Now I vote for sure. In my personal life, I'll talk about candidates for sure. But here on the podcast, not so much just because of that conflation of those two areas in the public record.
Ryan Dunn [00:08:52]:
As I think about this, the public record that we have of Jesus's ministry, he pointed towards a state of reality or a state of being which kind of transcended Paul politics. To make a long story short, if we exist in right relationship with each other and and with God, then the need for one human to like, subjugate another becomes superfluous. I guess if I get really radical about it, the system of human government is not our salvation, but rather a mark of our human brokenness. So when I can, I guess I prefer to point towards and aspire towards talking about living into such an abundance of compassion and strength of community that then our need for ruling, our need for governance becomes secondary or even meaningless. I mean, we're a long, long way from that. But the little steps are a beginning. All right, next question is, can I be on your podcast? Yeah. Particularly if you have a story to share about your community of faith, reaching into your community in an innovative or or transformational way.
Ryan Dunn [00:10:07]:
We want to tell stories right now that upset the narratives of polarization and the related stories that leave people feeling more marginalized. So if you have stories about drawing together with a marginalized community or bringing people together in new ways or upsetting the spiraling trend of the epidemic of loneliness or helping people meet their material needs, the those would all be inspiring, sometimes fun, fantastic stories to share. And we have an email address for you to use to contact our podcast people. It's podcast Org that is a shared inbox. So if you want my attention specifically, go ahead and open up the email message with something like hey Ryan, I've got an idea for you. Next question. Is it enough to do things like listen to podcasts instead of going to church? I guess it depends on what you mean by enough. Like that word to me kind of holds an odor of performative faith.
Ryan Dunn [00:11:11]:
And that's this suggestion that you're a Christian when you are seen doing certain Christiany actions like going to Sunday worship. Now listening to podcasts is great. I full heartedly endorse that podcasts can be really informative. They can be inspiring. Maybe the problem here though is that God has plans for us to be connected with one another. Or to put it another way, in a world that is set to rights, that's a world where people live in community. And right now I believe that faith communities are kind of the laboratories for us to work at that connection and community. And churches aren't the only spaces for that kind of development for sure, but they are one of the few where most of the people are engaged for the same reason and, and that reason being to work out how we live in faithful community and connection with one another.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:06]:
So yeah, it can be a real pain to be a part of the church at times. I'm going to kind of riff on I, I think it's Thoreau and say that life in the church can have many pains, but the solitary life of faith has fewer rewards. And that our faith isn't just about what we know or what we believe. It's about what we practice and how we engage with one another. And there are ways to do that outside of church for sure. But I do believe it's more than listening to podcasts, reading books and other solitary activities. I don't know, maybe join a discussion about the podcast or book as a beginning. And the next question is, what's something you've learned through this podcast? Ooh, I've learned, or am learning still to to de center my own experience as the normative experience.
Ryan Dunn [00:13:04]:
Not everyone is supposed to be just like a straight, cisgendered, middle class, middle American white guy. There's some nugget buried deep down in my inner being that keeps suggesting that this is what it looks like to be a person of faith. And I get reminded over and over again that that is not the truth thanks to this podcast. Long before I was doing this podcast, and even longer before we hosted Miguel de la Torre on this podcast, I read an essay by him suggesting that someone from my background would have a really hard time understanding the gospel because I was less likely to have experienced the kind of marginalization that makes the gospel evident. Dr. De la Torre wasn't just talking about a gospel of forgiveness of sins, but a gospel that is really liberating a gospel that restores a all of creation and right relationship. So it's tough to hear that I would have a hard time grasping that gospel. So actually I had a hard time grasping what he was talking about in that gospel.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:09]:
And I kicked around the idea for years. But when you start hearing and experiencing the stories of God's love becoming real for those who have been told that they aren't as loved. For those who are disenfranchised, for those who have been consistently marginalized, well, that gospel takes new meaning, that gospel becomes real. And this podcast has provided so many witnesses to that happening, which teaches me so much about the gospel. So going back to the previous question about whether or not you can be on the podcast, if you have those kinds of stories, those stories about the gospel becoming real for the disenfranchised or marginalized, again, hit me up. And I think we're down to the last question. We're kind of breezing through this episode. That's okay.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:57]:
What do you listen to? They're probably talking about podcasts, but I'm actually going to start by saying music, music and collection of physical media for music are my hobbies. And this includes collecting records and CDs and then finding ways to listen to those records and CDs. So actually, when it comes to podcast consumption, I listen to podcasts about those hobbies, vinyl nerds and, well, people who are into stereo equipment. And when my family and I are listening together, we listen to spooky podcasts and true crime or whatever else they want to suggest. When I listen to faith based podcasts, I, I generally have a research hat on. So I do listen to a lot of faith based podcasts, but it tends to fluctuate pretty quickly because I'm listening to learn about a potential guest or, or to get more information about a movement or a theological idea. Those that I go back to again and again are basically I go back to them because they're produced by friends and sadly I'm not going to list those because I'm super afraid that I'd forget someone and then they're going to question whether or not we're friends because I didn't list their podcast. Really don't want that to happen.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:10]:
So I will say that a lot of them have been guests on here at one point and the rest are destined to be guests on the Compass podcast sometime. Those are the questions. This was. This was kind of fun for me. A little revealing, hopefully somewhat helpful and meaningful for you. I might do this again, especially as we Approach Episode number 200. So now that I've mentioned the podcast email a few times, let me invite you to send in some possible questions that we might do in a mailbag episode. They can well be for a future mailbag episode.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:43]:
Or actually I might find them so fascinating that we're going to do a whole episode about it. So that address again is podcast. Org, if you want to find some of those episodes that I mentioned in this particular episode, or try to find some of the people on my podcast role. Be sure to visit our [email protected] Compass there you're going to find all the episodes episode notes. You're going to find the full library to help keep you inspired in the coming weeks. We're grateful to the team at United Methodist Communications for making this podcast possible. And of course, if you haven't already, please take a moment to subscribe to Compass on your favorite podcast platform. Your ratings and reviews help others discover the stories of hope and inspiration that we love to share.
Ryan Dunn [00:17:33]:
Thanks for joining with us. We'll see you next time. Peace.
