Praying the Parables of Jesus for Lent

Show Notes

In this episode, Dan Ehrman sits down with Steve Macchia and S.K. "Suz" Skinner to explore their new book, Praying the Parables of Jesus: A 40-Day Devotional Journey in Word and Image (NavPress/Tyndale). Steve is the founder and president of Leadership Transformations, Inc. (LTI), an author of 17 books, and a leading voice in spiritual formation and discipleship for Christian leaders. Suz is an artist and spiritual director who serves on LTI's Emmaus faculty and helps others encounter Christ through Scripture and art.

Together, Steve and Suz discuss their unique collaboration — pairing written devotional reflections with original artwork — and how the ancient practices of Lectio Divina (prayerful reading of Scripture) and Visio Divina (prayerful reflection on sacred art) can open fresh encounters with the parables of Jesus. They share about LTI's broader mission of cultivating vibrant spirituality and attentive discernment among Christian leaders and churches, and how this book grew naturally out of that discipleship work.

With 40 devotions perfectly suited for the season of Lent, this conversation explores how believers can use the parables as a framework for slowing down, recalibrating their hearts, and drawing closer to Jesus during the 40 days leading to Easter. Whether used individually or in a small group, Praying the Parables of Jesus offers a rich, multisensory path into the Kingdom stories Jesus told — and an invitation to let those stories reshape how we live, pray, and follow.

Lenten Prayer Experience
Steve Macchia
 S.K. Suz Skinner
Godspeed Movie

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Creators and Guests

Host

Dan Ehrman

Director of Church Relations & Strategy - Tyndale House Publishers

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[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Welcome to The Church Around the World. I'm Dan Ehrman, honored today to be joined by two authors with NavPress — Steve Macchia and Suz Skinner. Really great to meet you here, and to talk about your work with Leadership Transformations. Suz, would you give a quick introduction to Leadership Transformations?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] Well, I am newer to Leadership Transformations than Steve — Steve is the founder and president. I've been a part of this organization for about ten or fifteen years. It is a beautiful gathering of people who are interested in paying attention to the way that God forms us, and creating hospitable spaces where God is at work in our lives. We have a variety of ministries — I'll let Steve take it from there, because he loves to talk about it.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] I started with you on purpose, because I know Steve is in leadership here — but I love hearing from people who are doing the work and why they're drawn into it. I think that really gets after the heart of God and the heartbeat there. But yeah, Steve, I'll turn to you.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] I love that you started with Suz, and I love her phrase 'hospitable spaces' — that really defines all that we do as individuals, as Christ followers, and as ministry partners. We have three primary programs. We have a certificate program in spiritual direction called Selah. We have a certificate program in formational leadership called Emmaus. And we have a certificate program in spiritual formation that we call Abide. Abide, Emmaus, and Selah are the three hallmarks of LTI. But we do a lot more than that. We have a podcast, the Discerning Leader podcast, that goes out to about a hundred and fifty countries worldwide and all fifty US states — we're trying to raise the mantle of formation, discernment, and renewal for leaders and learners. We've been around for almost twenty-three years. We did a lot of work at Gordon-Conwell with seminary students, helping them in their formation experience. That's where Suz and I partnered most specifically, and that led to our friendship and the writing of this book together.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] She's the artist. I'm the word guy. She's the heart and soul of this book.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] When you work your way through it, we're looking at forty parables of Jesus and praying those parables. Suz has created beautiful images for individuals to pray into as they sit with the parables.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] The reason why we wrote this book is because we have a passion for the soul of a leader and the soul of a learner. We're into soul care in a big way, and we know that the soul can often be the most neglected part of us. We're trying to reprioritize the care and nurture of the soul. This is a resource we trust will do exactly that for people who are loving and serving God.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Steve, I love that you've jumped to the book — Praying the Parables of Jesus — and how it's suitable for this time of year. But before we get into that, I want to back up a bit, because I don't know you guys well and I want to get to know you better. Steve, what drew you into ministry? What has God called you into doing today?

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] I've been in ministry for more than four decades. My first two and a half decades were in a local church context and in a ministry context serving the wider region of New England. Then, to be very honest with you, God woke me up with a dream that needed some interpretation — that was the summer of 2002. For the next year I shared what I was sensing God calling me into with a discernment team and my board, and we determined a year later that it was for something new. Leadership Transformations was really born from the heart of God through me. God has seen fit to multiply that in the hearts and lives of many others who share the desire to feed and foster the health and development of our inner life as our number one priority. My vision is to help leaders prioritize — or reprioritize — the care and nurture of their soul as their number one responsibility. Leaders get sidetracked and sent down different alleyways that keep them from nurturing their soul and their personal time with God. We're really trying to reverse that. LTI has been around since July first of 2003. The first thing we started doing was working with seminary students, and we had an amazing experience doing that together with Suz.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Steve, as you're talking, I'm thinking about how the church has navigated the word 'leadership' over the last forty or fifty years — it's become more of a mixed bag than it used to be. How has that shifted your perspective on leadership? Has it modified it, deepened it? What has that journey been like?

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] I served in a large church. I was engaged from the very beginning in strategic planning — 'what's the next big hill we're going to conquer together?' We would do all that planning and then ask God to bless our planning. My life has been totally reversed from that. Instead of coming at things with an earnest desire to capture the next hill, we're trying to get people to first ask each other, 'How are you really doing? How is it really with your soul? How is it really with your walk with God?' We're knit together by our humanity as Christ followers so that we bring our full story into the mix and say, 'What's God doing in our midst, in our hearts, in our ministry?' And then we participate with what that next thing is that God has for us, as opposed to shooting the arrow and then chasing it. I really believe that leadership needs to be focused around the way Jesus led others — as a servant, a steward, a shepherd, a guide. He invited people to pay attention to his voice. That's what we're trying to do at LTI. Let's pay attention to God's voice and see how he's inviting us into the next thing — or it may not be a next thing; it may be a deeper thing, a relational thing, a worship thing. My life today as a leader is completely different from what the evangelical world was teaching me twenty-five or thirty years ago. It was all about competition and the next big thing. I don't want God to be a postscript to my leadership. I want God to be the one writing the letter to my heart and soul, saying, 'Dear Steve — this is what I have for you. If you'll just slow down long enough to listen and pay attention, I'll fully reveal that good thing.'

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Specific to Suz and me — we were friends first, then colleagues. There were times I was in the leadership role and many times she was in the leadership role. We learned how to follow each other's lead and respond prayerfully and reflectively on what we were noticing together. Out of that friendship and collegiality came this dream to do this book together. The clarifying nature of the book project came from prayer, from relationship, from trust. That's the essence of what leadership needs to be — how well do you know the people that God has called you to serve? Could you call each other for help in a time of need? And would you feel safe in that relationship? Suz has done that for me over and over again for this past decade. So writing a book together felt like the most natural thing in the world.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Suz, Steve mentioned that early on you were drawn to serving and ministering to university students and helping them be grounded in their faith. How did you sense God putting that on your heart, and what was your sense of calling into that work when you first got started with Leadership Transformations?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] It started way back when — it always does, right? When I was a college student, I was taken under the wing of someone who discipled me, gave me space to be heard and valued, and I grew like crazy in the Lord. I was an art major — art education — and when I graduated I knew I wanted to work with college students. So I set aside the vision of being an art teacher for a while. I've been in many different ministry contexts — youth ministry, campus ministry, pastoral ministry with my husband, wilderness ministry. What brought me to LTI was the idea of spiritual direction as another hospitable space — a space where people are given the freedom and safety to explore life with God, to process that verbally, and to be invited into noticing how God is with them. Slowing down and listening to the Holy Spirit who abides in us. It's a space where you're listening to one another but also listening to the movement of God. When I heard that description, I thought: that's what I've been doing my whole life. I didn't know there was a paradigm for this. So I was all in. I went through the Selah training. The calling is to simply provide space for people to explore this God who loves them — and to discover that they are the beloved. What does it mean to a leader to be the beloved of God? It changes everything. You're no longer out there striving to become what you thought you wanted to become. You already have the greatest thing in the world: you are a child of God. There's something empowering and freeing and healing about that. That's the place we come from — finding that belovedness with God.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] As you were explaining that, it reminded me of a short film I saw maybe ten years ago called Godspeed — are you familiar with that? It's a great little film, talking about just walking with God, and what it looks like to serve in a way that you're seen by the world but also seen by God — being able to detach from the always-pressing-forward in ministry. I love the vision you all have with Leadership Transformations, wanting to engage people and grow them in discipleship and delight in God. It's what the church needs to rediscover. And I believe the work you've put together here with Praying the Parables of Jesus starts to lay a template and a new rhythm for how you might discover that in life.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Interesting that you mentioned Godspeed — just a little parenthesis here. Matt Canlis, who created that film, was a speaker for us at one of our events and had dinner in Suz's home. Right behind where she's sitting is her dining room. We had a meal with him and an opportunity to co-labor together. During that time, Suz the artist created beautiful centerpieces that were reflection opportunities for us to sit with the topics of slowing down, paying attention, and moving at God's speed rather than the world's speed. And that's really what LTI is all about — slowing down and becoming much more than we could ever ask or imagine. It comes out of that understanding of being the dearly beloved child that we are of God.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] So often when I hear people talk about using the Bible as a template for prayer, we immediately go to the Psalms — and probably skip the imprecatory Psalms. Suz, in praying the parables of Jesus, how did going through the parables point you toward prayer? What was the orientation for you in that?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] The parables are such a place where Jesus taught through story. I love how Eugene Peterson points to Emily Dickinson's poem about telling it slant — 'Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.' Peterson writes a book about this and uses the parables as an example: this is the language Jesus used. He told stories that tell all the truth about the Kingdom of God, but they don't say everything. They say just enough to perk us up, wake us up, arrest our attention, and cause us to ask questions and ponder and reflect. And what do we do when we're pondering, reflecting, and asking questions? We're praying. So that's what praying the parables is all about — slowing down with the Teacher himself and saying, 'Okay, Jesus, you said this. I want to sit with that. With you. Will you open and unfold that for me?' Or as you're reading a parable, you may find yourself parked in your conscience about something, and a memory comes up and you think, 'I can't believe that just came up for me.' And then it opens a space for confession and healing and forgiveness. Sometimes the parables provoke us in a way that upsets us. It might make us see something in the world that's unjust, that we need to grieve over. And who do we do that with? We do it with him. So that's prayer.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] That's such an interesting perspective on prayer. I think sometimes we instinctively formalize it. And you just took prayer down to a level of even just pondering — and there's a dynamic of that interplay with the Holy Spirit in us as we do that.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] It's so true — and that's where he works. He begins to shape us and direct our thinking and perspective. It always starts somewhere, right? And then it grows. That's what some of the parables are about: it starts with a seed, and then it grows and becomes something. So often people think of prayer as the words we're going to say to God. We close our eyes, bow our heads, and offer our prayer. And that's beautiful. But what we're trying to do is add more attentiveness into the prayer equation rather than doing all the talking. How about we do less than half of the talking? How about we tip the scale more toward attentiveness and listening? Asking a question and then holding that question prayerfully. Or taking a simple story that Jesus taught — one of his parables — reading it, praying into it, noticing the phraseology, noticing the picture he's painting, the image, the metaphor, the simile. The ancient practice we're bringing to light is known as lectio divina. You can say it either way. Lectio goes back fifteen hundred years in the life of the church — it predates the Reformation by about a thousand years.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Fifteen hundred years ago, Dan, there was no Tyndale House, there was no NavPress, there were barely handwritten copies of the Scriptures. The ones who had access to them would publicly read the Scripture in a church or an outdoor setting. And listeners on the edge of their seats would say, 'Read that again. Wait a minute — one more time.' Because those listeners would go back to their homes and talk about what they just heard. Can you imagine going back fifteen hundred years, hearing the biblical text come alive in your heart, but having no written copy? That's what lectio divina is: listen to the word, notice a word or phrase, begin to pray into it, ask God to give you a quietness to contemplate further, and then pray that God would help you live that in your daily life. It's a beautiful way of praying the biblical text that brings our souls alive in God.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] So translate that into this book — Praying the Parables of Jesus. We've brought the ancient practice of lectio divina alongside the ancient parallel practice of visio divina, which is taking the visual creation, beauty, design, and art of our world and placing that side by side with the written text. What Suz has done is create beautiful images to reflect on prayerfully, so we're immersing ourselves in the word as men and women of prayer. The prayer that comes from our heart and soul comes first and foremost from God's heart through his word. I get pretty passionate about this project because what we're really wanting to do is see lectio and visio become more of a lifestyle in our prayer closet experience — alone and in our collective communal experience together.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] I know from my own experience — just this weekend, I read three books, did a cursory read of some Bible passages in prayer, went to church. But I was consuming a lot of content. By definition, that's a lot of noise. I didn't spend an hour sitting with an idea and just turning it over. And yet you've gone through the hard work, going all the way back to college, of building these practices — whether lectio divina or by some other name, basically contemplating Scripture reflectively in a concentrated way over a half hour or an hour. I don't imagine you can just walk into that. That has to be built up — it's a muscle that has to be exercised. How have you seen that journey, either for yourself or for others?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] What immediately comes to mind is what Steve and I were able to do in the seminary setting. A group of seminary students would come together and we would read the Scriptures. These students are exegeting scripture and studying it all week long. But what we offered them was a totally different space — a place where we could read Scripture four times, slowly, with space between each reading and an invitation: 'What do you notice? What words or phrases seem to pop off the page for you?' In the silence between the readings, there would be silent prayer. Each person would be talking to the Lord about what they were experiencing. Sometimes we would offer a time where they could give voice to the word or phrase they were holding with the Lord in prayer. And in a very quiet, reverent way, each person would just go around the room and say their word. What a beautiful expression of community — a realization that the Holy Spirit is actually working in all of us at the same time, but in a different way for each of us. How beautifully we can be in one space with one passage of Scripture, and he's taking each of our stories and working his word into our story. And then we would read it again and simply rest, acknowledging that God is at work in us and it's not something we need to strive and stress about, but to rest in. Every time we would do that, I would go away seeing something brand new in the Scripture, even though I had read it many times before.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Those times were so beautiful, so ripe with experiencing God at work. For twenty-two years I led or co-led these groups — probably eight hundred of them. Never once was there a repeat story to the other. Everyone was unique, and it always included people who had all sorts of ideas about what we were doing and why. So we had to allow them to express their uncomfortableness and their anxiety. We had to be patient with each other and give opportunity for people to share their experience. And almost to a person, they would say, 'I've never done this before. It was absolutely wonderful. I want to know how to lead this in my future settings, because I want to carry this practice with me.' We would have ninety minutes with these students — sharing around the circle, quiet reflective prayer, sharing about the state of their soul and their walk with God, honestly and candidly. Those became life-changing spaces for all of us. It is a practice. It is a discipline. You don't want to just do it once and say you've kind of done it. And frankly, how you're facilitated in that process matters a lot. That's why we have these certificate programs — we want to train people to do this in a life-giving, God-honoring, prayerful way. It's not about how articulate you can become in your prayers. It's actually about learning to listen — opening your ears as wide as possible and your heart as big as possible, so that God has your attention and can speak love and grace and mercy and kindness into your heart.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] You too, Dan — I have great hope in you. There's no one outside the orbit of hope. Come join us on a retreat, or sit with Suz in her art studio and sit reflectively with the Scriptures. You will be changed. And you won't want to go back to the old way ever again. That's a guarantee — I've seen it thousands of times over my twenty-two and a half years of doing this kind of work.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] I've been encouraged to see this practice being incorporated in the local church. I feel like it's widely used in parachurch contexts — a lot of campus ministry organizations lean into it. And I'm finally seeing the local church incorporate it. One example: a pastor who wanted his people to sit in the word. He created an order of service where he tightened up his sermons to about twenty-five minutes and then tagged on twenty minutes for reading, reflection, and guiding people through the Scripture as a church together, to really encounter the Lord in it. It's been transformative in terms of the deeper discipleship and formation in that church.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] I want to turn to your book, Praying the Parables of Jesus. I think everything we've covered has been laying the foundation for it. As you put this together, how does this book serve as a guide for people in contemplating the work of Jesus and how that can speak into our souls?

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] First of all, in terms of the book — it's a collection of the forty parables of Jesus. It walks you through them from mostly the Matthew accounts, one distinct Markan one, and then a number of Luke passages. You'll notice from the start that the Gospel of John does not include any parables — all the parables are in the synoptics. The book takes you through the parables one at a time, giving you an opportunity to practice the discipline of lectio divina. The whole idea is not just to talk about lectio, but to actually give a guiding hand to experiencing it. You sit with the passage and the words that come alive through the lectio experience. Then you turn the page and you're invited into an image that Suz has artistically created — with questions for reflection that are distinct per parable. The questions take the same outline of lectio into visio, but with specific art-related reflective questions. Lectio has six historic movements, and we introduce those movements and then repeat them over and over again through all forty parables. The whole reason is that once a person has gone through that forty times, hopefully lectio becomes a part of their prayer experience. I don't know of a single book out there that actually takes you into an immersive experience of lectio and visio. That's why I commend NavPress and Tyndale House for taking a bold step in creating this resource for the body of Christ.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Suz, I wanted to ask you about the process of creating the art. How did you prepare your heart in terms of doing the lectio work? And how was that formative to the images you ended up creating?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] That's such a great question, because it is true that it was a very unique experience. When Steve threw out the idea, I just decided to go and literally pray the parables. I started with the first eight parables and worked my way through each one — just sitting with them, chewing on them, soaking in them, allowing the imagery of the parable to expand in my own imagination, letting the Lord come alive in my mind's eye. It never failed — with each one, I was invited into a specific part of the parable. I didn't want the images to be illustrations just telling the story. I wanted to hone in on a narrower aspect of the parable. And I also didn't want them all to be so familiar and recognizable that as you open the pages, you'd just look at the picture and say, 'Oh, I know that one,' and flip to the next. I wanted them to be different enough to draw you in — to make you stop and think, 'Wait a minute. What's that? Why did she do it from that perspective?' For me, each one was an encounter — just a really amazing experience of being with the Teacher himself, spending time with him in each story. And it's still going on. It's still a part of me. These images and words and stories keep coming back to me.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Suz, as you were going through this, there's a certain level of vulnerability in putting that art forward — in a reflective way. Were there any of the artworks that you hesitated on? Were there any where you thought, 'Is this really what I want to put in there?' Or how did you navigate that internally?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] All of them felt that vulnerable. Every single one. The whole project felt vulnerable. And it's interesting that the very first parable in the book is the parable of the lamp on the lampstand — and I wanted the bucket to be over the light. I wanted to hide that light that was stirring in me. Each time it was like, 'Do I dare put this out there?' That's just very vulnerable. And in that very parable there was a place of growth for me. It was a place of Jesus meeting me in those fears and giving me courage — helping me to see that this is so different than being put on a pedestal. It's being put on my lampstand. This is my light on my lampstand. Are you willing to let me do this? It was a place of decision. And that first drawing reflects the shadow places — the lamp isn't on the lampstand in that first drawing. It has a huge ball hovering over it like a monster. It is the story of that moment of 'Can I trust God? Can I let him do this in me?'

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Well, Suz, I appreciate you sharing that. Folks will enjoy engaging with the visual art and what you've created. The book, Praying the Parables of Jesus, is a forty-day devotional journey. It's useful for personal use, but I could also see a small group going through this over the course of a year, picking away at it. There are all kinds of different contexts within the local church where this would work well.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Steve, your team has put together something special for Lent with this. Take us through the vision with the forty devotions and the Lenten season.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Lent is a great time for humble reflection — to really see what the Lord has for us in the Lenten season as we're approaching the cross, the tomb, and the empty tomb. We're reflecting on who Jesus is and was and remains today. What better way than to sit with his parables? Because every single one of his parables is about the Kingdom of God and a choice that we need to make: are we pursuing kingdom priorities or earthly priorities? Every single parable is a picture of contrast, and the decision we need to make — for humility, grace, kindness, friendship, compassion — all the attributes of the Kingdom of heaven. So for the forty-day experience of Lent, Leadership Transformations has put together a series of podcasts featuring Suz and myself. It's on the Discerning Leader podcast — seven weeks with the two of us talking through each section of the parables. You get through the forty in the season of Lent, and it's for individuals or groups to use. You have the podcasts, a reading list to take you through the forty, thematic reflections each week that come through email and through the podcast, and a bookmark that you can download and place right into your copy of Praying the Parables of Jesus. You find all of this at leadershipTransformations.org/2026. You can sign up anytime during Lent — if you're late into the season, that's fine. Come join us anyway and you'll get all the resources offered in that Lenten experience.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] As people look to encounter Jesus — both in his parables and through how the Spirit of God wants to speak into our lives — what are some of the things we can be hoping for as we enter into the journey of going through forty days looking at the parables of Jesus?

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] My hope is that you will have an ever-deepening intimacy with Jesus as you sit with words that he conveyed that matter most to him. It's really all about the Kingdom of God. So I'm confronted with that reality every time I read one of these parables: Am I in? Am I willing? Am I desirous? Or am I distracted?

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] Yes, that's my hope too. You were asking me those questions about feeling vulnerable and coming to that decision of saying an all-in yes to the Lord — and that was really because I experienced such a rich time in praying the parables. I said, 'If this is what this is all about, then I want that for others.' That is my greatest desire and my greatest hope. So yes, I'm all in. And that is our hope — that slowing down, making space, learning to listen, and giving time for Jesus's words is going to change us. It's going to be a rich experience.

[DAN EHRMAN (Host)] Suz Skinner and Steve Macchia — it's really an honor to connect with you here, to hear both about the work and how God has moved and led in your ministry over the years. Thank you for serving faithfully for a long time and for setting a good course for a new generation. I'd commend people to Praying the Parables of Jesus: A Forty-Day Devotional Journey in Word and Image. Thank you both for joining me here on The Church Around the World. I'm Dan Ehrman. Blessings.

[SUZ SKINNER (Guest)] Thank you, Dan.

[STEVE MACCHIA (Guest)] Thank you, Dan.

[ANNOUNCER] You've been listening to The Church Around the World with Dan Ehrman — discovering how God is working in and through the church. Practical takeaways and insights from this conversation equip church leaders like you to carry out Great Commission work in your local community. To help expand the impact of this show, make sure you subscribe, review, and share The Church Around the World on your favorite platform. To learn more, hear previous episodes, or contact Dan, visit us at churcharoundworld.com.