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PODCAST

Formation with John Ortberg

Formation is a podcast for leaders, seekers, and lifelong learners at the intersection of theology, psychology, and lived wisdom. Hosted by John Ortberg, PhD, each episode explores the science and soul of spiritual flourishing: what shapes us, what changes us, and what it means to be fully human.Topics include:- Spiritual formation- Contemplative practice- The psychology of transformation and habit change- Leadership, character, and the inner life- Theology in dialogue with modern science- Emotional

religion & spirituality social sciences

All Episodes

78:34

012. The Apple Store Creator on Why the Most...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/09/30

What if the most important thing you bring to work isn’t your résumé, your expertise, or even your ideas? Ron Johnson helped transform Target, built the Apple Store alongside Steve Jobs, and later became CEO of JCPenney. Across a career spent reimagining some of the biggest names in retail, he came to believe that your most important contribution at work is something no résumé can capture: your inner voice. It’s the perspective you discover when you get still enough to realize what you actu...

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76:22

11. This Ancient Creed Can Rescue Us From Spiritual...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/09/16

This year the Nicene Creed turns 1,700 years old, and Glenn Packiam thinks it might be the most important thing the modern church has forgotten how to use. In this conversation, John and Glenn talk about the difference between hope and comfort, how the ancient world considered hope a weakness, and why the Creed's insistence on saying "we believe" instead of "I believe" might be the most countercultural thing a Christian can do today. ABOUT THE GUEST Glenn Packiam is the Lead Pastor of Rockh...

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93:29

10. A Systems Theory Expert on the Anxiety Running...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/09/02

What happens when the person managing everyone else's anxiety is the most anxious one in the room? Steve Cuss joins John for a conversation that starts in a childhood home in Western Australia and ends up inside the emotional wiring of every leader, marriage, and church staff meeting. Steve talks candidly about growing up in a household run by unpredictable anger, the confidence he built on a foundation of fear, and the hospital chaplaincy that stripped all of it away. What emerges is a wor...

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40:52

AMA01. Predestination, Soul Care, Navigating Church...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/08/19

Since Formation launched, we've talked about giving our listeners the chance to have their questions answered by John. This is that episode. No guest this time, just John and Creative Director, Jackson, working through the questions you sent in when you left a review, on everything from predestination to spiritual abuse to what AI is doing to his own attention span. Want your question answered for the next one? Leave us a review for a chance to ask John anything about spiritual formation or l...

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81:19

009. Everything You Need to Know About the Next...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/08/05

About the Guest Kara Powell leads the Fuller Youth Institute as its Executive Director, where for more than twenty years her team has tracked how young people are changing across three generational cohorts, from Millennials to Gen Z to Gen Alpha. She holds a PhD in Practical Theology and has helped shape some of the most widely used research on the next generation. AMA Opportunity Leave us a review for a chance to ask John a question on an upcoming episode. To enter, follow the podcast, leave...

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76:21

008. As the World Gets More Synthetic, the Church...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/07/22

In this episode of Formation, John Ortberg sits down with Carey Nieuwhof to talk leadership, fame, faith, and what it means for the church to stay human as the world turns synthetic. Carey Nieuwhof has spent the last decade in a chair few people occupy: hundreds of conversations a year with pastors, CEOs, authors, and public thinkers, watching up close what success does to a person's character. In this conversation with John Ortberg, recorded in the redwoods of Northern California, that vant...

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73:37

007. Quadriplegia, Despair, and Learning to Truly...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/07/08

Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic at seventeen after a diving accident that severed her spinal cord. In the nearly six decades since, she has written dozens of books, founded a global disability ministry, survived two bouts of cancer, and woken up every single morning asking Jesus to get her through the day. This is a conversation about what it means to receive suffering with both hands: the anger, the prayers that didn't get answered the way she hoped, the agony, and what gets faithf...

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80:13

006. A Silicon Valley Pastor on the Spiritual Cost of...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/06/24

What does it take to find peace in a culture engineered for distraction? In this episode of Formation, John Ortberg sits down with a Silicon Valley pastor whose pursuit of attention, rest, and spiritual formation was interrupted by a panic attack — and reshaped by an ancient prayer practice, the problem with multitasking, and the rise of AI.Jay Kim is a pastor, author, and podcaster who serves at WestGate Church in the heart of Silicon Valley. He's thought deeply about what it means to pursue

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85:02

005. The Hidden Spiritual Cost of How We Work ft....

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/06/10

What does it mean to treat people as ends in themselves rather than instruments to get things done? Gary Hamel joins John for a conversation about work, dignity, and the quiet crisis inside most organizations. One of the world's most influential business thinkers, Gary has spent decades asking why so few workplaces actually unleash the people inside them, and what it would look like if they did. This is a conversation about agency, meaning, and why the biblical vision of every human being mad...

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94:47

004. How Politics Shapes Our Spiritual Formation ft....

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/05/20

What does it look like to follow Jesus when the culture insists that everything depends on the next election? Michael Wear joins John for a conversation about politics, allegiance, and the slow work of keeping ultimate things ultimate. A former White House staffer who came to faith as a teenager in a Wegmans grocery store, Michael has spent his career arguing that Christian knowledge is not just privately meaningful but publicly useful, and that the church has handed political parties a power...

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78:25

003. Facing Humanity's Hidden Capacity for Evil ft....

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/05/06

What does it take to do hard things for a long time without being broken by them? Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world. He joins John for a conversation about evil, the human capacity for violence, and why the people most serious about changing the world may be the ones most in need of spiritual formation.AMA Opportunity:Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chance to ask

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71:56

002. How to Read the Old Testament (and Still Have...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/04/22

What do we do with a God who commands violence, permits slavery, and seems to change his mind? Tremper Longman III — one of the most prolific and trusted Old Testament scholars of his generation — joins John for a conversation about the parts of Scripture that trouble us most, and why sitting with that trouble might be more formative than explaining it away. AMA Opportunity: Leave us a review ahead of our launch for a chance to ask John a question on an upcoming episode. Here's how: fol...

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78:27

001. How God Gets Our Attention and the Pace of...

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/04/22

What does it mean to know God, not as a doctrine held, but as a presence inhabited? Tyler Staton joins John for the first conversation in Formation's history: an unhurried exploration of how the Holy Spirit forms us, why prayer is less about technique than attention, and what it looks like to discover God not only in the sanctuary but in the chaos of a basketball sideline, a marriage, and a cancer diagnosis. This is a conversation about the ancient and the empirical, and how sometimes we may ...

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1:36

Formation Teaser

Formation with John Ortberg ·

2026/04/08

Explore the soul and science of spiritual formation with Dr. John Ortberg.

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