E100: Celebrating 100 Episodes of After IV: A Top 10 Countdown!

100 EPISODES!!

This week, we celebrate the 100th episode of After IV! Enjoy a countdown of the Top 10 most popular episodes from the last 3 years along with some commentary from Jon and a returning guest, Steve Baty (Jon's bestie). And stay tuned until the end for a very exciting announcement for InterVarsity Alumni!

Thanks so much to all of our listeners, guests, and supporters for three years and 100 episodes of After IV! Alumni, it is a huge honor to walk through this post-graduation season with you.

Here's to the next 100!

LINKS TO FULL EPISODES FROM THE TOP 10:
#10 - E1: Eunice from U of M Duluth (Apple, Spotify)
#9 - E51: Making Space for Hospitality with Mike and Annie Zientara (Apple, Spotify)
#8 - E26: Why Lent? with Jason Gaboury (Apple, Spotify)
#7 - E45: Get to Know Your Urbana 22 Emcee with Anna Lee-Winans (Apple, Spotify)
#6 - E94: Faith, Courage, and a Much-Needed Hug: Persevering When Community is Hard to Find with Corryn Sams (Apple, Spotify)
#5 - E87: From Gap Year to Volunteer: Why Failure Should Always with Linda Lopez (Apple, Spotify)
#4 - E41: A Visit From the President with Tom Lin (Apple, Spotify)
#3 - E74: Rollercoasters, Fairytales & Waiting in Line: When Alumni Life is a Walk in the (Theme) Park with Betsy Bourne (Apple, Spotify)
#2 - E93: But What ACTUALLY Happened?: 5 Months Post-Graduation with Nolan Groninger (Apple, Spotify)
#1 - E72: I’m A Rocket Man!: Following Jesus as a NASA Rocket Scientist with Anson Koch (Apple, Spotify)

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jon Steele

Jon Steele, a 2011 InterVarsity alumnus from Minnesota State Mankato, lives in Mankato, MN with his wife Kaitlynn and their two daughters. He’s been on staff with InterVarsity since 2012 and has been hosting After IV since its debut in 2020. He is also the producer and primary editor for the podcast. Jon enjoys gaming, reading, and leading worship at his church.

Host

Steve Baty

Steve is a Minnesota State Mankato alumnus and works with InterVarsity as an Area Ministry Director in Southern Minnesota. In addition to being a guest host on After IV, his greatest claim to fame is being best friends with Jon Steele

Guest

Anna Lee-Winans

Anna Lee-Winans is an NYU alumna, a Director of Strategic Initiatives with InterVarsity, and was the Urbana 22 Emcee.

Guest

Anson Koch

Anson is a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumnus and rocket scientist for NASA (no big deal).

Guest

Betsy Bourne

Betsy is a Purdue University alumna who lives in Orlando and works for the Walt Disney Resort.

Guest

Corryn Sams

Corryn is a '22 South Dakota School of Mines Alumna

Guest

Eunice Diabe

Eunice is a University of Minnesota Duluth alumna and the VERY FIRST guest on After IV!

Guest

Jason Gaboury

Jason Gaboury serves as Director of Alumni Relations with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and is a member of the Anglican Order of Preachers, a religious community committed to prayer, community, study, and preaching.

Guest

Linda Lopez

Linda is an Iowa Centra Community College Alumna who also volunteers on campus with InterVarsity!

Guest

Mike & Annie Zientara

Mike and Annie Zientara are alumni from U of I Urbana-Champaign and Purdue University and both work with InterVarsity Alumni Team.

Guest

Nolan Groninger

Nolan Groninger is a Greek InterVarsity alumnus from Purdue University.

Guest

Tom Lin

Tom Lin is A Harvard College alumnus and the President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship!

What is After IV?

Hey, InterVarsity alumni! This is After IV, your podcast for navigating life after graduation. This is both an exciting and potentially tricky transition you’re making and you might feel a little unsure about the coming weeks and months. We’re here to provide you with expert advice, practical skills, and plenty of encouragement as you learn how to keep saying "Yes!" to Jesus in your new context. This is After IV, and this podcast is for you, alumni.

After IV
E100: Celebrating 100 Episodes of After IV: A Top 10 Countdown!

Podcast Intro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

Jon Steele  0:09  
Hey everyone. I'm Jon Steele. And this is After IV: a podcast for InterVarsity alumni. Life after college is hard. And even a great experience with your InterVarsity chapter doesn't shield you from the challenges of transition. As we hear stories from real alumni learning how to make it in their post-InterVarsity reality, my hope is that this podcast will offer some encouragement, a few laughs and even some hope for the future. This is After IV, and these are your stories.

Main Episode

Jon Steele
What's up Welcome to After IV the podcast for InterVarsity alumni, and even more specifically, welcome to the 100th episode. 

Steve Baty
Hey-o! 

Jon
Excited to celebrate it with you. That “hey-o” in the background is my bestie, Steve Baty.

Steve Baty  0:55  
Sorry did I just ruin the intro? 

Jon Steele  0:57  
No, not at all. 

Steve Baty
Great. 

Jon Steele
Glad to have you here again, Steve. 

Steve Baty  1:02  
Jon, great to be here. 100 episodes. Wow, who knew this time would fly by so quickly?
Jon Steele  1:07  
I thought you were gonna say “Who knew that this time would ever come?”

Steve Baty  1:12  
Who knew we would make it to 100 episodes? Who knew you had 100? Honestly, I didn't think you had it in yet. 

Jon Steele  1:17  
I don't know. Well, Steve Baty, Southern Minnesota area director, my former supervisor. My best friend. Ever.

Steve Baty  1:28  
Ever. That's new territory. I think sometimes I was competing with old best friends.

Jon Steele  1:33  
They're old news. That's true. And they don't listen to his podcast. So very true. Be either. That's not true. It's gonna be a test of our friendship right here.

Steve Baty  1:43  
Well, I haven't listened to every episode. Jon, I will full disclosure. 

Jon Steele  1:47  
Nobody has. Except me. And my mom. 

Steve Baty
Barry, maybe? 

Jon Steele
Oh, you're right. Barry.  top fan. So today, our 100th episode, the main structure of this is going to be a top 10 countdown top 10 episodes from the last three years of After IV. With a few segments splashed in here and there a few extra things we're going to do. And, and a really exciting announcement that we're going to make at the end of this podcast. We've been alluding to it for a while here, if you episodes, and today's the day that we will actually announce it so so we're gonna take our time. This is not going to be a normal length episode, we're going to move a little slower. You know, usually we try to stick to 30-35 minutes this will not be happening today. We've got our coffee, we're ready to rock and roll.

Steve Baty  2:37  
This is just gonna be a great time. I'm you know, 100 episodes, let's go off all 100 100 like to go big or go home.

Jon Steele  2:42  
Here we go. Starting with Number 100. 50 hours straight. Let's get started. No, today we're looking at the top 10 most popular episodes of After IV from the last three years. Before we do that. Let me just say that. I mean, we've had a lot of guests on the show in the last three years. And they have been amazing. Like every guest has been fantastic. We've learned a ton from our alumni. They have just a diverse set of experiences in life after graduation, and they have blessed us greatly. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been on the show. You've been a blessing to us and to our alumni listeners. And so we have awesome alumni. Yeah, sure. I've been grateful for every one of them. Alright, let's get this party started. Okay, number 10. Number 10. The list starts right where the podcast started. December of 2020, we dropped four pilot episodes of alumni interviews, and we just wanted to see like could this be something that people might enjoy listening to stories of life after graduation? Living in this post graduation world from other alumni. I'm really excited that this episode in particular made it on the list I mean, through sheer force of will combined with the power of time and and featuring a fantastic guest. It was right at the beginning. We had no following I had no idea what I was doing. You'll listen to this episode and you'll hear like wow, Jon didn't know how to edit. He didn't know how to interview. We're gonna start off this countdown with a few memorable moments from our very first episode, my conversation with Eunice from the University of Minnesota Duluth. 

Steve Baty
Go Dawgs. 

Jon Steele
Here's Eunice. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, everybody. It is finally happening. Many of you have been asking for it. Some of you didn't even know you wanted it. It's a podcast for InterVarsity Alumni about InterVarsity alumni. I'm your host Jon Steele. And this is the After IV podcast. Eunice, welcome to the podcast. It's exciting to have you here.

Eunice  4:45  
Thank you so much excited to be here as well. 

Jon Steele  4:49  
Okay, so I'm going to use my powers of perception here and assume by a lot of the laughing that you've done as you read these things, that your expectations not the They turned out bad. But things did not go the way that you anticipated. 

Eunice  5:05  
And you wouldn't be right. Be Right. And I wanted to be an OBGYN college kicked my butt just a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. We can still do this. However, I got this huge stack of MCAT Study book. And if you haven't seen those things, four years of college is one thing. But studying for the MCAT is just out of this world for me, I could barely remember what I learned in my own one. And when I look at this stack of books, I thought maybe I'm not that passionate. Oh, that's funny. I don't know. Um, I just like to watch YouTube videos of babies and call it a day.

Jon Steele  5:51  
Eunice, I know that our time is short, I have several more questions that I really want to ask you about one in particular, if you could go back and tell young about to graduate Eunice something? What would you have wanted to know?

Eunice  6:05  
I have done have a saying that I always told myself at least. And I wish that I knew this before graduating that will allow me to give a little bit more grace. And that would be there's always something that you don't know. Now, if I told myself that that would be a lot more flexible. And maybe not beat myself up so much. Because there's so much I've learned and I've come to understand within that timeframe, but God has exposed people into my life exposed situations and  has taught me different things….

Jon Steele  6:36  
Oh, boy, that was that was it's fun to go back and listen to something at the very beginning. And and to have I mean, a great piece of advice there. At the end, there's always something you don't know, you know, that we would have recorded that conversation right around three years ago, this time, it's 2020. In the in the late fall, moving into winter. And that seems like advice that was worthwhile for that time, but always something you don't know. Still very applicable today, three years later.

Steve Baty  7:06  
Seems like a lifetime ago. I mean, if you think about it being COVID the pandemic. That is, that's strange to almost think about going back to that, but it is kind of funny because you know, college, you sort of, it's this sort of momentous conclusion, right of your academic studies, and you feel like you should know, maybe more than you do. You know, like you're fully prepared and ready to enter this workforce. Maybe it's at least what we think we should know, coming out. But then, in reality, there's just all this change happening and a lot of unknowns, which, you know, is natural and must have grace with yourself.

Jon Steele  7:41  
Yes. Grace with yourself, grace with the people around you who also don't know stuff,

Steve Baty  7:47  
right? Yeah, a lot of people who don't know stuff that are trying to figure out stuff together. Stuff and things.

Jon Steele  7:51  
Exactly, stuff and things. Exactly. Steve, let's take a pause here, I'd like to make a request that's beyond the typical subscribe Review share requests that we make on here. Today, the day that this episode is dropping, is giving Tuesday. So maybe you're listening on Giving Tuesday, maybe you're listening sometime way after, but in a season that can be really focused on consuming. I'm wondering if you all would consider giving a gift. If this podcast has blessed you in some way. Maybe you've heard a story that encouraged you or gave you hope for life after graduation. If it blessed someone you know, maybe you shared it with a friend or a loved one who was struggling and needed to hear a particular episode. If you've been a guest. I mean, you've gotten to engage directly with the work that we're doing here. Or if you just really believe in, in this work, if you understand that life after graduation is challenging, that it's extremely important for young alumni to be encouraged to keep following Jesus, to be blessed with real life practical skills, and to be reminded that they aren't alone in this huge transition. If any of those things resonate with you. I'm wondering if you would consider giving a gift to the podcast.

Steve Baty  9:00  
What a phenomenal opportunity to keep this thing going. 

Jon Steele  9:05  
Yes, these gifts help ensure that more and more young alumni have an easily accessible companion and guide for this huge season of transition after graduation. So if that's something that you're excited about, we'd love to invite you to give a gift here on Giving Tuesday or end of the calendar year as you're listening to this episode. To continue blessing alumni in this way. There's a link to the giving site for this podcast in the show notes. unlock your phone, jump in the show notes. Take a look at that set up a gift and we are really grateful for your partnership. Let's keep going here. So we're gonna have a few of these and then we'll and then we'll pause and change topics for a few minutes. But let's keep going to number nine here. Steve, what comes to your mind when I say the word hospitality? 

Steve Baty
Food. 

Jon Steele
Oh, okay. Nice. Say more. Why food?

Steve Baty  9:54  
It's good to eat. Everybody likes to eat and food is good and food really welcomes people in It's used in Scripture multiple times. So that's holy. You know, I think of warmth. I think of food. I think of togetherness. Being a northern Minnesotan. Think I often even think of like that iconic. who's a famous painter dude who? Norman rock, not walk? Well, the light guy, Thomas Kincade. Oh, yeah, the painter of light Thomas Kincade. I think of like, wintry sort of settings in northern Minnesota where, you know, like, you see that out you from the outside, you're outside the house, looking in and you see this warmth of light and fireplace and turkeys on the table and food and people gathered around and that kind of stuff, I think of those sorts of things, you know?

Jon Steele  10:40  
And if there are any arts InterVarsity alumni listening to this, and they hear you say, Thomas Kincade they're gonna be like, This guy knows his art. 

Steve Baty  10:47  
And I do. I really do. I'm very familiar with Thomas Kincade.

Jon Steele  10:51  
All our grandmother's had prints of Thomas Kincade in their house. 

Steve Baty
Mine dind’t, but yes. 

Jon Steele
Okay. All right, sorry. This next episode on the countdown is about, you know, where do we start with hospitality, which is, you know, a really, I think, is a really interesting question to ask in these early days after graduation, when you probably feel like you don't have a lot of resources to give you like you probably don't have, I'm assuming that you don't have a room that you could open up to somebody that maybe you don't feel like you can prepare a big meal and host people in your home. And something I appreciate about appreciate about something I appreciate about this episode is that it does work to contextualize of what are these early steps that we can take? And what are what are the the most important things that we consider for what it looks like to be hospitable. Even if you don't feel particularly gifted in hospitality, like myself, I would not say that I am a hospitable person. Like it's not a gift. It's not a gift of mine. That's way more Caitlin's gifting than mine. And this episode is a helpful place to get started with some of that. So let's jump into number nine on the countdown. Here. It's episode 51. Making space for hospitality with Mike and Annie Zientara. How would you recommend alumni go about developing the practice of hospitality, especially new alumni who are developing their own post college rhythms or alumni like me? Just don't consider hospitality, one of their strengths. What are some things that you would offer up to them for developing those rhythms? 

Annie  12:24  
Well, I think hospitality is a lot about seeing people and making sure they know they're cared for and loved. So like I said, my hospitality often comes out in the form of food or inviting people over to our home. But if you're not a good cook, that's okay. You can still be hospitable. Just doing small things like inviting a friend out to eat at their favorite restaurant, not even saying Where do you want to go to eat? But I know you like this place. Let's go to lunch together. Or if you listen to a podcast, like maybe After IV podcast, yes. And you think oh, my friend would really enjoy that. Send that to them. So I think just small things can be a good way to start practicing hospitality to let your friends know you're thinking about them. And you know them, you know what they like, and you want to care for them.

Mike  13:15  
The other person who's formed me as I think about hospitality is Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers.

Jon Steele  13:22  
Yes. Won't you be my neighbor? 

Mike  13:24  
Won’t you be my neighbor? Right! I think of a song that he sings. It's you I like, How can I communicate that it's not anything about how someone looks or how they act? It's just the fact that they are and how can I express the fact that I like them just the way they are? Because that's the way that God sees them.

Jon Steele  13:43  
WWMRD 

Steve Baty
Man! 

Jon Steele
Man! What would Mr. Rogers do? Yeah.

Steve Baty  13:49  
What would he do? That's a that's a great litmus test right there. Yeah. Hospitality.

Jon Steele  13:53  
Yeah. And that's I really, I appreciate the some of those framings that that Mike and Annie both give of like, I just like you the way that you are. And that's that's what I want to communicate and, and Annie, Annie making this comment about, like, inviting somebody to a restaurant they like or to a movie that they wanted to see or something like that. It's just not even asking, but just knowing those things about them and saying, let's go do this. Yeah, that, you know, I think about hospitality. I think I definitely think about hosting people in your home in some way. And that I appreciate that they kind of blow the doors off of that and say like now that we can think much more broadly about what it looks like to be hospitable.

Steve Baty  14:31  
I think in my younger days, too, it was probably easy to think like hospitality has to look a certain way or act a certain way feel a certain way. And I think what I loved about Mike and Annie's episode was the nature of hospitality can just be like, Hey, where are my passions in life? And where do I see a need in the world right to go meet it? Yes, can be very simple. It can be complex, and that is such a vastly diverse sort of answer than maybe what I used to see hospitality as.

Jon Steele  14:59  
Right. Yeah, I really like that, because it makes it feel like, oh, I can even if I don't feel gifted in hospitality, that I can still be hospitable by leaning into the gifts that I have the things that I like, or I'm actually good at this. And it serves people in this way, and helps them feel seen and taken care of. It's like, Oh, that's really nice. Yeah. Hey, let's do let's do one more as we before we jump into our next thing here. Let's jump to number eight on the countdown. Before we do that, Steve, a question for you here. And that's how much interaction over the course of your life have you had with rhythms of the church calendar? 

Steve Baty  15:35  
Not a whole lot. Okay. Yeah, I grew up in an evangelical tradition. We didn't talk about the church calendar a whole lot. So I would say much more so recently, in my current church practice, yes.

Jon Steele  15:46  
Same thing for me. I did not grow up in a high church experience, like, very laid back, you know, we went to church regularly. But the big things that we would celebrate were Christmas and Easter, you know, those were the big church celebrations are so very similar experience to you, which is in part, what sort of made me want to do this next episode and some of the other episodes that came along with it. It's a very unique episode for us because it was a change from alumni interviews and advice about day to day life after graduation and focused in on something very different. This the Christian calendar, the church calendar, this is also a podcast where the buzzword comes out for me, which is fascinating. Fascinating, it's hard not to use that word in some of these conversations. But yes, this is episode 26. Why Lent with Jason Gabriel. So for others who are listening, maybe who find themselves in a similar place, can you just start by giving us a general overview, a general explanation of the season that we're about to step into? What is Lent exactly? 

Jason Gaboury  16:54  
Lent is the 40 day period that the Church celebrates between Ash Wednesday and Easter. So it's basically 40 days before Easter. And traditionally, it's been a time of fasting and almsgiving, which we can talk about almsgiving later, but it's been a time of fasting and almsgiving to prepare spiritually for Easter. You have people going through a process of learning the faith before they get baptized. catechesis is what it was called a process of learning the basics. What do we believe about who God is? What do we believe about Jesus? What do we believe about the faith that we're joining in and so people who had come to faith in Jesus, they would be a part of the body, they'd be part of the community, but they wouldn't participate in communion, they wouldn't participate as full members of the church until they were baptized, Easter became a key time to be baptized, because for those who might not think in these terms, baptism symbolizes dying with Christ and rising with Christ. And what better time to celebrate dying and rising with Christ, then on Easter Sunday when you're celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. And so new converts to the church would go through a period of 40 days of learning and instruction and fasting and almsgiving. And it was important to prepare them for full immersion in baptism and full inclusion in the church as they're getting Be baptized on Easter Sunday. And so that's kind of how lent formalized in its beginnings. 

Jon Steele
This is fascinating.

Jon Steele  18:34  
Had to do it had to include one official fascinating. I do remember, you know, having that conversation with Jason and just walking away thinking how Lent and the leading into Holy Week and Easter, which we do also have episodes with Jason about Holy Week and Easter in particular, it made that whole process much more meaningful to me knowing about that history, that these were people who were wanting to join the church community, but we're going through a very serious process of development and asking questions, and I mean, practicing what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. And then on eat, I've never seen someone baptized on Easter. And then for them to have a baptism service like that to be the place where we baptize people is on Easter Sunday rising again with Christ. Yeah, such great imagery. 

Steve Baty  19:24  
It is it is. I mean, that it's fair and appropriate for you to use the word fascinating. It doesn't come across as contrived or, you know, it's totally authentic when you use it. So yes, use the buzzword fascinating in that episode was really quite fascinating with Jason, just the church history piece. And like anything in life, it's just nice to know why you do something like once we dig in a little bit like it does make something more rich. And I really liked the way that Jason mentioned, you know, that it's freedom to follow Jesus through the practice of Lent, you know, that we're not bound to these rituals in and of themselves, but they bring us to a further place of freedom in Christ. You know, such great reminder of what some of those practices are. 

Jon Steele  20:02  
Yeah, I'm really grateful for that bit of knowledge that Jason imparted and Jason return for several other episodes, Holy Week, there's a two part episode on that. Then he came back to talk about Advent. And those were also extremely helpful. And he also came on to talk about loneliness just in the last couple of months here and to share about his book wait with me meeting God in loneliness. We actually had an alum write in about that episode in particular, you know, it's not related to land to what we just talked about, but to engaging with Jason and some of his episodes. This is Kayla C. She said, Jason's episode truly encouraged me and made me feel seen. I'm also so grateful to be able to hear shared experiences from people in the same stage as me who may be going through tough seasons of transition.

Steve Baty  20:48  
That's a great word from Kayla, just Yes. You know, to see that that episode met her where she was at. 

Jon Steele  20:53  
Absolutely, yeah. And I mean, Kayla is also a recent grad just graduated in May of 23. And so thankful to hear that After IV has been a blessing to you, Kayla, as you've made that transition, and hope it continues to encourage you to walk with Jesus through the season of life. And long after that is so much what we want After IV to do to be something that gives practical skills, yes, but really primarily encourages alumni to keep saying yes to Jesus in this big transition of life that they're experiencing after graduation. We actually have a few different alumni that we've heard from so I think let's pause our countdown right here for a few minutes. And take just a minute to hear from a few other alumni who have written in to share about their experience with After IV. Sarah C says, when I heard about the podcast, it felt like a dream. Like God answered my prayer to realize there was a podcast in existence talking about the hardships and the highs and the lows. Honestly, I cried listening to the podcast. It's authentic. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's pretty crazy. Like somebody who just felt like, oh, there are other people. There are other people who are experiencing this I can lament with I can celebrate with and I know that I'm not alone in this. Another another alum, Ted H. Ted says this is a great podcast with amazing content for current students as well as recent grads, definitely recommend.

Steve Baty  22:20  
Good to hear from you, Ted.

Jon Steele  22:21  
Let's see here. Grant D another alum says I wish this podcast had been around when I graduated, this podcast has been so refreshing. As an InterVarsity alum, I can relate to all the stories shared, I would highly recommend this podcast to other alumni and students who are about to graduate and enter the real world. 

Steve Baty
Thank you, Grant. 

Jon Steele
One, one last one that we have here. It's fun to see not just recent grads who have written in but even an InterVarsity staff who listens and wrote in and said, After IV feels like we have this fantastic gift to give to alumni to resource them as they leave college. And years down the road as they continue applying their IV experiences in new contexts. What students experienced in IV is often quite different from what churches offer and After IV helps bridge that gap. I've sent specific episodes to alumni and encouraged other staff to do the same. It's a super simple way that we can continue shepherding and caring for alumni. I've been longing for this resource for years. And I'm so grateful we have After IV to offer our alumni. 

Steve Baty  23:22  
The work that InterVarsity does, right, there's already so much that's sort of intangible feeling. And I suppose when you when you're in a ministry, it can be challenging to know what's happening with the work right? What are the tangibles that are going on? Yes. And, you know, as a producer, as a producer of you know, After IV and making this content, you don't necessarily know like, where it's landing, how it's hitting. And so right. Just it is encouraging to hear that this is meeting some real world needs as people find their way with God and out there beyond college.

Jon Steele  23:51  
Yes, yeah. And, you know, obviously, we do this, we do this work, because we love it. And we believe in it. We don't do it for praise or encouragement, necessarily, but it is always really nice when people say like, Hey, this is this is how this is landing for me. Yeah, I'm just gonna say it again. If you would like to help support this kind of impact, then please consider giving a gift After IV today, you get to support more alumni like Kayla, Sarah, Ted grant Laura, as they make these incredibly important transitions to life after graduation. And thank you so much for partnering with us in that. All right. Well, shall we jump back into more of the countdown to your stories? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. All right, number seven on the countdown here last year, we did a number of Urbana specific episodes in Urbana 22. We got to have some amazing times with alumni at Urbana, studying the Bible hanging out hearing stories from them super fun. Leading up to Urbana. We had a number of people on the podcast we got to meet Ruth Hubbard, the director of Urbana, you may have Santiago the worship director of our alumni manuscript leader Ross Haymond. But we also So got to hang out with our next guest on the countdown, our Urbana 22 MC Anna Lee-Winans. And she talks about Urbana as a place to lay down your life and to rise up with the spirits. And we got to hear that illustrated through a pretty like serious story of Anna's as she was her story of having COVID and the early days of the pandemic, a really serious case, wondering if it might take her life, and then talking about the encouragement that she received from Jesus, for herself and for us, as well. So here's Episode 45, with Anna Lee-Winans.

Anna  25:38  
At the end of the day, it is an invitation to come and lay down your life and the freedom that you find in that. And then the clarity of the calling, then one next, yes, the one next step of discipleship that happens, it happens and it's really profound. I highly recommend for us who are in times of discernment or banter is a tremendous conference to see and hear of God's global work and then our place in it even Yes, locally. In my own life, I had contracted COVID here in New York City when it was like alpha variant. I was like the first time it was so scary. My neighborhood was like the ground zero of it in Elmhurst queens, refrigerator trucks full of dead bodies, at the hospitals. And there I was two weeks with this crazy high fever, my lungs, unable to breathe. It was very frightening my children on the other side of the door of my quarantine bedroom asking for me, it was very frightening. And I remember asking, Jesus helped me I don't know how to pray, and I'm not going to die, like everyone around me. And the Holy Spirit gave me Psalm 31. It was March 2020. And that season of Lent and Psalm 31, if you're familiar, verse five is the famous into thy hands, I commit my spirit, last words of Jesus, and me saying, Oh, my goodness, are you telling me I'm going to die? Scripture to pray, Lord, and I hear the Lord say, Anna, quit, just pray. Like, okay, okay. So I pray, and I pray, and you know, I get to be one of the ones who live. And it's been my conviction that from that moment where God is saying, trust me, trust me, it was not just to me, it is to entire generation of Christians of those who dare follow Jesus in a time when the church does not have the best witness when it is not known for the good news of great joy, but other things that it's specifically in the season, but the Holy Spirit desires to rise up and for us to join the spirit in that work, to trust Him that He will resurrect from all the stuff he is the only one who can resurrect from such death. And to see it in the global context at Urbana will be such an amazing gift that I'm so excited to emcee that for Urbana. To shepherd people into that experience.

Jon Steele  28:05  
I know that Anna's talking about Urbana, in particular there. But I mean, this feels like a great encouragement for anyone that's entering life after graduation, at any point, you know, what does it look like to lay down your life in this new season? What does it look like to trust Jesus completely, even when the outlook might be bleak in that situation that you find yourself in, and to join the Holy Spirit in the work of resurrection, both for us and for other people? And

Steve Baty  28:31  
just what a powerful story to like, you know, it's one of those ones that you've kind of listened to, and you're like, I just don't even know what that is light, that COVID story. And Anna Lee  is one of those people that when she speaks, I tend to listen to almost every word because yes, she seems so thoughtful and methodical with each and every word that she says that I kind of just hang there on each word. And I want to listen, it was it was a lot of fun to just be under her leadership. And that way, you're back conference as well. 

Jon Steele  28:56  
And we actually had one one last alumni note here that I wanted to read and alumna reached out on our Instagram and had this to say about Anna's episode I messaging because I just listened to this episode and wanted to express my gratitude for your work with these podcasts. This episode reminded me to go back to the last thing God spoke at Urbana. This podcast has been received very well and is encouraging me in my own walk of faith this very morning. So thank you. So I mean, it's great to to have been able to facilitate that for this alum for this alumni to get to hear that. So I mean, I think that thanks really goes back to Anna know for sure of being a faithful, being a faithful witness, being a faithful leader and shepherd that the things she said before Urbana, were things that she held up at Urbana, and that even, you know, months afterward, she was still speaking things that were faithful to what God had been leading her too. 

Steve Baty  29:51  
You know, it is a great reminder that you can come back to be reminded of what God has done or what he said and you know, even through the podcast, so yes, yeah, great to be reminded of that.

Jon Steele  30:00  
Well, let's, let's do one more here and cap off the first half of our countdown. Okay, jump into number six. Our our next episode is one that I really identified with on a personal level. Steve, do you have a moment that you can look back on in life and say, Wow, I am really far from home?

Steve Baty  30:20  
I do. Would you like me to share it? 

Jon Steele
Yeah, please do. 

Steve Baty
I think it's probably when I interned in Washington DC is one of the times that I think about most and then I went back out there to work. It's just a very different culture than the Midwest. It's the most educated place in the world, I believe. And there's a lot of socio economic sort of power dynamics there at play and very different place than northern Minnesota. So yeah, I felt very much far from home when I was spending my few summers back to back in Washington, DC.

Jon Steele  30:50  
That sounds very similar to the story that I would think of just moving to Minnesota. I've talked about that, like probably too many times on the podcast, people like move on Jon, just get over it. But But I do think back to those days, those those first two or three years of being in Minnesota, and just what a challenging transition. That was, I mean, I never wanted to leave Indiana in the first place. Sure. You're here I was in here. I still am 14 years later. But yes, that time of just like cash, I am so far from everything. I know, all the people that I know, there's nobody here that I'm connected to, and how am I supposed to function, let alone thrive? Like how am I supposed to function in the space? The guest that's on this next episode, tells a story that illustrates how painfully aware of the same scenario she was, and will hear about how after months of making no connections whatsoever, she finally had a meaningful interaction with someone while she was visiting a church. And how that blossomed into just a very real friendship that connected her to many other friends as well.

Steve Baty  31:55  
Yeah, I was immediately drawn to this episode, because of Warroad, Minnesota. Oh, anybody in the hockey community, you hear Warroad, at least in Minnesota, and you're immediately like, oh, well, I'm listening. I mean, it's hockey town, USA. It's produced so many NHL players, I mean, the two gold medals that the men's Olympic team has produced in its history, both teams have had people from Warroad, Minnesota, Wow, very hockey town, you know, just I mean, it's frozen 10 months out of the year. So what do you do you play hockey, so I immediately was ready to listen to her story.

Jon Steele  32:25  
That's amazing. I mean, didn't know any of those things. And the sheer fact that it's frozen 10 months out of the year speaks to some of the things that Corinne was sharing. So number six on our top 10 countdown is Episode 94, faith, courage and a much needed hug.

Corryn Sams  32:40  
I had this vision in my head that, yeah, I'm gonna get up there and move into my little apartment. And I'm immediately going to find friends and join a small group and join the worship team. And it's all just going to be a great community. And then it wasn't. There just are very few people here that are my age. Okay. So you've got high schoolers, and then married adults with kids. There are very few even like married adults who don't have kids. So a pretty wide gap in just life experiences. Yeah. So I just really struggled to get plugged in. To community that could relate to where I was at, I can relate to where they were. So I went and sat next to one of those ladies during service. At the end, I got to have a heart to heart conversation with her. And I remember she gave me a hug. And it brought me to tears because that was the first time I'd gotten a hug. In like, four weeks. Yeah. Wow. It's so different when you when you leave, and then you really have to be intentional and persistent.

Jon Steele  34:02  
What is it required of you to keep going?

Corryn Sams  34:06  
Honestly, like, faith in God's provision, and, and courage.

Jon Steele  34:13  
There's probably still stuff that you have yet to see come to fruition, there's things you're still waiting on God to provide? Would you say that it's been worth it? Being courageous and faithful in this way? 

Corryn Sams
Oh, yeah. 100%. 

Jon Steele
Faith and courage. I don't think it actually ended up in the episode. But the word that came to mind as Karina and I were talking was the word grit. That it just feels like not just for making friends and finding community but that life after graduation just requires grit for most of us.

Steve Baty  34:44  
Yeah, it does. I love that you can sense it. You can hear it in her voice. You know, I get this picture of her. I've been to war road played hockey there. When I was a kid and I can picture the town. I can picture the winters up there from up that way. And they can just kind of picture the isolation she talks Well, and it feels real time like it's happening. She's letting letting us in on sort of this is my window, here's what I'm looking at all the time. And that's really valuable, I think, to just be able to hear that as well as somebody's kind of living it out, you know, she hasn't just had this great revelation, or God's really met me X, Y, and Z, or, you know, I'm still living in it. And it does require that grit, which is hugely important. 

Jon Steele  35:21  
Yeah, I very much appreciate that about her episode, as well as that, you know, she's, she's finally experiencing some of that movement in the direction that she's wanted. But it's only been very recently, and that she's still sorting out like, what does it look like for me to actually build meaningful community here? Yeah, not not every story that we share here has a nice ribbon tied on it. It's just like, No, I'm still, I'm still in the grind right now. And I'm seeing God's goodness, but I'm also kind of waiting. Alright, we've made it. We made it halfway through our countdown. But let's take a pause here for let's play a game together. How do you say games? Yeah. All right. Let's do it. I know you do. So I'm hoping this will be interesting. And not a total flop. So we're gonna play a play game. And it's called thanks, AI.

Steve Baty  36:07  
Is it a good thing? Or a bad thing? 

Jon Steele  36:09  
It's like, it's more of like, a 

Steve Baty
Wah-Wah… 

Jon Steele
Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, not actually. Thanks. So here's how it works. We live in a world where artificial intelligence is growing. It can do a lot of stuff. And so you know, I just asked the question, could AI take over my job? Could interesting what I do? Okay. I mean, the reality is, probably yes. answer is yeah, so maybe this is more how close are we to AI taking jobs? So I asked chat GPT. Okay, to give titles and descriptions for three of our episodes from this year. Okay. So your job Steve, is I'm going to read chat GPT his title and description. Your job, you can open up Spotify or something and scroll through is to see if you can identify the episode that it's talking about. Okay, so if you want to, if you want to take the time to read descriptions, you can or if you just want to read episode titles, you can do that. But your your job is to see if you can identify based if basically if if chat GPT did a better job than me, okay, of writing titles for these episodes. Sure. There are a couple times that it actually used like the guests name in the title or the description. So I just put blank. So when I say got blank, because that would have been a dead giveaway from a journalist. So all right, are you ready? I think I'm ready. We're doing three of these number one. Lonely in Jurassic Park. The moms guide to spiritual depth, description. Strap in for a roaring good time as blank trades in dorm floor adventures for parenting escapades proving that loneliness is a shared experience, even in a neighborhood turned to Jurassic.

Steve Baty  37:54  
Are these all in the top 10? Are these just like?

Jon Steele  37:58  
No. Just from this year? 

Steve Baty  37:59  
Okay. So can you read it again? I was like thinking so hard about trying to get it right that I didn't really listen very well.

Jon Steele  38:06  
Okay, I'll read it one more time for you. Lonely in Jurassic Park of the moms guide to spiritual depth. Description strap in for a roaring good time as blank trades in dorm floor adventures for parenting escapades. Proving that loneliness is a shared experience, even in a neighborhood turned to Jurassic.

Steve Baty  38:29  
I mean, it's like I'm just thinking about Jurassic Park the movie so much. 

Jon Steele  38:34  
Really, there's like one comment made in this episode. And it really, really dialed into that. 

Steve Baty  38:41  
I guess I just don't understand AI enough. Chat. GPT has bested me. I have no idea. I don't know what's going on.

Jon Steele  38:46  
This is episode 81. Where's my proxy station, finding your footing with evangelism. Okay, clearly it found all of the most important points from that episode to create a title and description. Yeah, I would not have paired that with Jurassic. No anything? No. Okay. All right. Are you ready for another one here? Yeah, I'll give it a shot. Okay. The title is fear of failing at Netflix binging blanks guide to navigating couch confusion. And here's the description. Discover blanks. Ingenious strategies for overcoming the ultimate challenge. Deciding what to watch next without breaking a sweat. Okay.

Steve Baty  39:28  
Wow, it's yes, definitely hammering on like, alright, Jurassic Park. Okay, Netflix.

Jon Steele  39:34  
Yeah. Obsessed with TV.

Steve Baty  39:35  
Yeah, it seems. I mean, it's like, it's got me for a moment like I remember something and then and then I just sort of latched on to this idea of like Netflix. I'm like, What? What are you talking about chat GPT?

Jon Steele  39:46  
Yes. What are you talking about chat GPT? 

Steve Baty  39:48  
I was thinking of the gap year episode like navigating failure. Like there was that piece? Oh, yeah, that's something in there. But then with the Netflix piece, I don't remember that at all being in that episode, so I'm lost. 

Jon Steele  40:00  
Okay, the answer is episode 89 navigating anxiety with grace and grit with our good friend, Dr. Barry Ries.

Steve Baty  40:08  
Wow.

Jon Steele  40:10  
There's some other really great title options that chat GPT gave for this Jeremy to read it read a couple more anxious academics from PhD to OMG. Navigating stress in ivory towers laugh along is Dr. Barry Ries spills the beans on his on his journey from academia to anxiety expertise with a few cowboys and a dash of sarcasm.

Steve Baty  40:33  
Man that would have been dead giveaway for Barry. All right. 

Jon Steele  40:36  
Are you ready for our last one? Yeah, I'm gonna make this one just a little bit easier for you. All right, I'm gonna give you a narrower timeline for this. This episode was released sometime between the beginning of October and now. Okay, so here is chat GPT has title and description for this episode. Breath prayers or breath mints discussing God's preferences for freshness. Description. Hold your breath for this divine discussion on the theological importance of breath mints join the hosts as they debate whether God prefers peppermint or spearmint. And if heavenly halitosis is a genuine concern for the Almighty. It's theology with a fresh twist. 

Steve Baty  41:14  
This is episode 98. Correct? What is theology? And why should it matter to me? 

Jon Steele
Yes, there you go. Dr. Emily Hill and Dr. Jeff Leo.

Jon Steele  41:22  
Yes, that's it.

Steve Baty  41:23  
Is it for us? Is it for academics? Is it for pastors? Is it for all of 

Jon Steele  41:28  
It’s for all of us. Dr. Emily Hill says that, well, I guess she's quoting somebody else, but she would say that we are all theologians. So like that. Okay. So Steve, I have I have to know in your opinion, based on this game, is my job at risk?

Steve Baty  41:42  
Not at all. Chat. GPT confuses me. Netflix, Jurassic Park, breath mints. What?

Jon Steele  41:47  
All I can say is, if you're listening, please help this podcast continue to be run by humans.

Steve Baty  41:56  
Keep the robots out.

Jon Steele  41:57  
That's right support After IV. Well, that was a fun diversion. Let's, let's jump back into our countdown here. Number five on our countdown here. This episode features an alumna who hasn't actually graduated yet. And that's not necessarily unusual. You know, we've spoken with a few people who who hadn't yet graduated. But this alumna is actually like years away from graduating. But she has a really unique story that we hadn't heard yet on After IV, she was finding herself in the middle of a school year, and found that she was just in a really unhealthy place emotionally relationally, spiritually, academically, just across the board, and she's put in this position where she has to choose, either gut it out and potentially put her health in danger, or stop and run the risk of not coming back after a gap year, and potentially looking like failure. Sure, one of the concerns that she voices, I think that our guests made a really brave decision, in that she decides to step away, she gets this invitation, she sends his God inviting her into a gap year. And and from there in the midst of that gap year and invitation into becoming a volunteer. So here's, here's Linda Lopez and Episode 87, from gap year to volunteer why failure should always be an option.

Linda Lopez  43:16  
So I needed to take a break. And I decided it was hard. It was hard because, you know, nobody wants to feel like a failure. Like, that's what I felt when I when I was thinking about I was like, Oh, well, if I take the break, everyone's gonna be looking at me judging me for not finishing in knowing that succeed at this, and 80% of the people just kept telling me, You're not going to come back, like a lot of students don't come back after they take a break from school. So I started praying and praying and asking God, if that was the right, the next move the next step in my life. And after, after lots of prayer, I decided that that was the right thing to do. And now that I'm here a year later, God has been so faithful. During this time, you know, that I've been trying to, to see what the Lord has for me. I just knew I had to join as a volunteer because that's what I was called for. And so I with no hesitation, I just I said I want to join, I want to help in any way that I can. I was like, I'm already here. I'm helping with the Bible studies worship or translating sometimes. And so I was like, I want to be able to say the SMR volunteer and I that way I can help maybe more. So I decided to apply for that position as a volunteer, and I'm here.

Jon Steele  44:45  
I mean, who does that Steve, who steps into a gap year and volunteers with InterVarsity?

Steve Baty  44:51  
I don't know and who plans chapters to I mean, she was like starting to plant chapters as well as a student as a volunteer like that's pretty wild story. So yeah, Who does that? Obviously Linda does. People, that's probably a pretty good resume right there. Right? You're in a small company of folks who have actually done something like that. Well done, Linda. 

Jon Steele  45:11  
Yeah, absolutely. Linda Linda's a champion. She's setting an example. I mean, I think and even just setting an example of like, no matter what situation you find yourself in, even if you would label it as failure from what you were shooting for God has places that he's ready to work in you and through you in that space. And I think that that's pretty exciting to get to hear that kind of news from somebody like, Linda, let's keep going here. No, I said at the beginning of this whole thing, that every single guest has been amazing and a huge honor to have on the show. I mean, I am not well known. We are not a famous podcast. So it takes a certain level of trust. To jump into something like this, some random guy sends you an email and says, Hey, would you be super vulnerable? Tell your story. Let me edit it and put it on these platforms that literally anyone in the world could listen to? Yeah, okay with you. Yeah. So, of course, yeah. It's kind of a big ask. So every every single alum who has said yes, has been an absolute blessing and a gift for sure. But this episode features an alum who I absolutely could not believe said, yes, I've felt out of my league, and basically every interview that I've done on this podcast, but this one felt like I was really punching above my weight. 

Steve Baty  46:27  
It didn't come across that way on the airwaves. sounded like you were shaking in your boots or anything? How would you… What did you wear that sweatshirt?

Jon Steele  46:32  
We could go back to the Zoom video and check it out. I probably wore something a bit nicer I can this guy. Yeah, no, not quite that, like that. So enjoy, as the President of InterVarsity gives a commission to all alumni in Episode 41, a visit from the President.

Tom Lin  46:50  
What comes to mind is Luke chapter 10, when Jesus sends the disciples out to buy to, and sends them to towns all over the place, places that he's going to be visiting places that he's present. And he already and he says a couple things that are key, you may remember this, and I'd encourage us to look at Luke 10. Go, I'm sending you out like lambs among wolves. So that's not exactly encouraging. I think it's challenging. But it's, it's a real Jesus knows what it's like to be out in the real world, so to speak, that we will feel like lambs among wolves. And that's what he's sending us out to. He knows that he knows that. And then he says, when he sends them out, he says, Don't take a purse or bag or sandals, don't greet anyone on the road. You know, he's basically saying, when you're out there, like lambs among wolves, all by yourself, depend on the Lord. You don't need a purse or a bag or sandals, just depend on Jesus just depend on the Lord, our dependency is on him. No matter what stage of life we're at, even when we're out of college, that same dependency is on the Lord. And then he focuses our purpose. This is the last thing I'll say, He gives them two commands, heal the sick, and proclaim the kingdom of God, heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God. That's our simple job. As we graduate from college, as we're an older alumni or younger alumni, and it's always been true for generations, and will be the rest of our lives, heal the sick, and proclaim the kingdom of God, caring about the overall healing of the people around us physical healing, but also the spiritual healing.

Jon Steele  48:25  
President Tom Lee and everybody. 

Steve Baty  48:28  
Yeah, sending you out amongst wolves. I enjoyed like a little laugh that you both had there. But yes, you know, what an encouragement to be able to hear from the leader of the movement of, you know, hey, we want to continue to bless you alumni. Yeah, make sure that you are flourishing in your face. As you follow Jesus out there. Almost 98.7% sure that Tom is the first home grown, so to speak, InterVarsity president okay, that has sort of risen through the ranks, you know, I believe every other president before him was sort of sought after or hired from outside the organization. So it's really encouraging to me like just to be led by someone like Tom, but to hear his story of like, how he's sort of been kind of at every level along the way, and sort of Yeah, how he's been in his present position. Now leading the movement, just from like a human standpoint, I really wished I could have worked with him at HP. I mean, just some of the stories he had of like, making his cubicle like raffle center or giving out doughnuts or right you know, his noontime prayer group, like, you kind of felt for him, like, I feels like he's doing this alone, like he's going out alone. And that's a great thing for an alumni to sort of test out on their own and figure out but at the same time, like just seems like it would have been fun to hang out with Tom and be his buddy and be in the cubicle next to him or something and just coming up with these office hijacks or things that you could do for fun and just creating a good environment and trying to lead people to Christ but also just like we're trying to create good culture here. Yeah, at HP. Like I wish I could have done that with Tom. I mean, that would have been a ton of fun. 

Jon Steele  49:58  
Obviously, we didn't hear them in the clip right there. But in that full episode, those were moments that I looked at him like cash, the things that we learned as students with InterVarsity, like through NSO, that can feel like these very contextualized. One off kind of moments of like, oh, yeah, like these games that we play with people on the quad to get the venue. We get to know them, they get comfortable, we invite them to come to the next thing and like, Okay, that's a that's a campus ministry thing. To hear Tom talk about that kind of stuff. I'm like, wow, those are skills that he took from NSO and used in his adult career after graduation. And I just thought that was really encouraging of like, the skills that we're imparting to students can be contextualized to this next phase of life. 

Steve Baty  50:44  
Yeah. And it's so important for I think, to hear someone like Tom, the president of the movement to say things like, find ways to continue living out the convictions that you had in college, even though the environment changes, after college, keep living out those things that you found important in your spiritual faith, your development and your disciplines. Yeah. You know, that's great to hear from the President.

Jon Steele  51:04  
Yes, absolutely. So much wisdom from Tom Lee and go back listen to that episode. You know, as with all of these episodes, you can find a link directly to it in the show notes, but if you haven't listened to that full episode, listen, you will be greatly encouraged. Thank you again, Tom, for for joining us for that episode. All right, Steve. Here we go. We're about to crack into our top three on this list. 

Steve Baty
First, wait, though. Hold on, hold on. 

Jon Steele
Okay,

Steve Baty  51:28  
100th episode! Big deal! Yeah, I like to go big. I brought a big old cake. I might have just spilled some frosting. 

Jon Steele
Well, we’ll eat the other half. 

Steve Baty
This is Italian cream cake. Brought for your 100th episode. We got to tear into this bad boy as we listen so that we can enjoy some cake. Sorry, I don't even candles but three Addy cake at the same time.

Jon Steele  51:53  
Well, thanks a lot, Steve. That's a really awesome surprise. Attribute some food? Well, it's nice to know that one of the two of us is good at celebrating. Yes, it is. I'm not known for my excitement or celebrations. 

Steve Baty  52:06  
It’s okay. I have enough for both of us. Right? 

Jon Steele  52:08  
No, this looks amazing. This is a decadent cake right here. thing of celebrations. Everybody. Don't worry, we're not going to force you to listen to us chew. Thank you again, Steve. While we continue to enjoy our cake here, let's jump into our top three. Let's do it. So there's a there's a couple of awards that I'd like to hand out for this episode right here. And for the guest, our guest, Betsy, in this episode, she definitely gets the smiley, honest guest award. I don't know if you could hear it coming across my word. She like just genuine smiles on the whole time the whole time. Exactly who you would think works at Disney and loves working at Disney? Yep. She wasn't just putting on a show. No, no, she seems super warm. Yeah, clearly her joyful, happy personality came through. I'm glad that you were able to hear that as well. That is 100% of the experience that I had. I think this episode also gets the award for longest title, or is really close to it. This episode is number 74. And this is what it's called rollercoasters, fairy tales and waiting in line when alumni life is a walk in the theme park. Yeah, it kind of sounds like one of them that chat GPT actually would have come up with in our game from before. Yeah, I can see that. I'm gonna enjoy another bite of cake while we listen to Betsy is episode here. Excellent. I'll join you and enjoy as Betsy shares what it's like to live out her faith as a Disney employee.

Betsy Bourne  53:42  
In fact, Jon, the church I go to, our main demographic and focus is Walt Disney World employees. 

Jon Steele  53:51  
Oh, that's so cool.

Betsy Bourne  53:52  
It has been life changing. For me. InterVarsity was such a great stepping stone to encourage me to continue to pursue my walk with the Lord as I graduated into find a true church home as I came down here was trying to find a church home. i One day saw on social media, just this invitation for cast members to come visit this church. As I arrived. It wasn't Disney focused. We don't think Disney songs. Sometimes some of the illustrations that our teaching pastors would use were because they're also seasonal or part time employees at Disney so they get the work. We're going through the to get the crazy hours. Some of our ministry events are just handing out thank you notes in the theme parks and in the resorts to help cast members know that they're seen as real people. It has been amazing to see that Disney almost as like a reverse mission trip because the world comes here. So it's neat to be in a place to get to be a gospel presence and gospel voice not only to my coworkers, but any guests that happened to be here just for a short amount of time.

Jon Steele  54:53  
That's really interesting. I mean, we're talking contextualized ministry here things that people can so closely I identify with because it's the world that they live in Disney cast member focused ministry so contextualized and meaningful that is super cool. 

Betsy Bourne  55:07  
We like to think of it is uncommon love. It's not just our friends bringing characters to life, it's the person handing you your french fries. It's the person asking you to not cross the street, because fireworks are about to go up. And they've probably been yelled at all day. So you might be the first person to look them in the eye and say, Thanks for keeping me safe. And so it's even just moments like that that can lead to maybe a moment of gospel truth being light, and salt.

Jon Steele  55:32  
So one of the things that stands out to me as I listened to Betsy talks about her church and the kind of ministry that they do, you know, we talked with Tom Lynn, that it seemed like he really used a lot of his the NSO skills and things like that in his job at HP. And it feels to me like Betsy is a walking example of what what contextualized ministry who looks like in life after graduation, that he or she is at this church that is very much focused on, we are reaching out to Disney reaching out to Disney employees, to people that work and eat and breathe Disney all the time. And it just felt like one of those like, here you go, somebody that's done Greek ministry, or BCM, wherever that that focus ministry might be that you are a part of there is a way to take those skills and to use them after you graduate. 

Steve Baty  56:21  
Yeah, I think her experience too, I don't know that I've heard any other guests list off as many groups like get involved in this or in this or in this, like just the things that she had off the top of her head, it seemed, yeah. For people to consider getting involved in like, I think I even heard her say architectural group, you know, like as an example. Yeah, she just seemed like she was full of practical ideas of like, here are a dozen different groups that you could get involved in and start to find community, you know, beyond college.

Jon Steele  56:49  
All right, Steve, we've nearly reached the top of our countdown here to almost there. So Second on our list is Nolan Groninger. He's a Greek IV alum from Purdue University, just graduated this past spring, this episode was sort of an experiment or was part two of an experiment that we wanted to, you know, we do a lot of conversations with alumni who have several years post graduation. And so you're kind of pulling on their memories of what what were your expectations, and then what actually happened. So they have just a different kind of perspective on those things, Nolan, we talked to him right before graduation saying like, what are you expecting, as you move into this with no real experience to then compare it to me said, so let's have that conversation in real time. And then a few months later, let's follow up and have the what actually happened conversation as its own episode. So this is that follow up conversation with Nolan, where he's going to share what he's been learning about interacting with God, as he comes up against confusion and difficulty in particular. And you know, there's, if you listen to Nolan's whole episode, there's a lot of stuff that's gone really well for him. But there's also been some places that he's been put that he feels kind of in over his head, it was interesting to get to walk through some of that with him as he was processing that experience in real time. 

Steve Baty  58:08  
I love the idea of getting a student who's about to graduate, and then follow up with them and to see all that's happened. I mean, it's a really interesting way to look at sort of freshness of becoming an alumni.

Jon Steele  58:18  
Yes, absolutely. So here is episode 93. But what actually happened five months post graduation with Nolan Groninger,

Nolan Groninger  58:27  
I think a lot of times we can get in the mindset, like, Lord, just lay out the red carpet, show me where you want me to go. But I feel like a lot of times when he doesn't do that, he just wants us to knock so that the door can be opened, or he wants us to ask so that we can receive our wants to seek it out. And so I've tried to take that approach that if the Lord is not giving me a straightforward answer, then I need to just put in work and effort and energy, you know, do my part so that he can open up opportunities. And so I have felt like as, as I'm putting in hard work and dedicating my time to what he has given me. I feel like he's blessed it and been able to see how he's, he's actually moving when it doesn't seem clear at first. And so there's a lot of days when I was thinking, Okay, I'm not qualified to be in this job. I'm not deserving to be in this job. I don't even know what I'm doing here. I have a lot of other easier paths, I kind of had to just hold on to the promises that God has given me throughout my life. And in this season, specifically, and I think that's kind of what has carried me through some of the challenging times is knowing that the Lord will deliver me out of it. So it's been really fun just to learn how, I guess not fun, but it's been a growth period to learn how to depend on the Lord each and every day.

Jon Steele  59:44  
So as I listened to Nolan, share those things, Steve, the term that comes to my mind that I think maybe sums up some of what he's talking about here is would be like impostor syndrome, these feelings of not being qualified, not deserving not being skilled. For a particular task at hand. And I mean, I think that that's a very common thing for us to experience after we graduate. 

Steve Baty  1:00:07  
Yeah, I think it was kind of interesting to think about the way Nolan went about his process and how grounded he seemed to be in it. And, you know, Betsy, number three, on our top 10 list, how she had kind of a, just a really wind, some sort of word about like, your first job out of college probably won't be your last, you're not going to break it, you know, sort of thing. And here, Nolan is kind of living into that, and figuring it out. But living into the apprehension and some of the anxiety, trying to figure out a new career and a place that he really isn't, you know, skilled or trained in, and what that looks like moving forward. I think, number three, and number two, they just, they kind of fit really nicely together.

Jon Steele  1:00:49  
I do really love his comments about holding on to God's promises in that clip that we just listened to, that we don't necessarily hear it here. But Nolan talks multiple times in this conversation about places where God has confirmed his calling or confirmed next steps for him. And yet, he still has these moments of wrestling and feeling inadequate, which is I mean, that's kind of encouraging to me of like, I can feel confident my calling and still have moments where I'm just floundering and like, Oh, what am I doing here? And so rather than quitting, or leaning into, like, really negative self talk, or something like man, I just stink at this, and I'm never gonna figure this out. And whatever, that instead Nolan leans into God's promises, the things that he's told him in the past. And, and those are the things that have kind of carried him through uncertain times in this season of life. Yeah, great conversations with Nolan this year, it was a lot of fun. And, you know, it's, it's always great to get to talk to somebody else from your hometown, especially when he didn't like in that first conversation that we had, I did not know that he was from Warsaw. So that was a huge surprise, like when you talked about with Corryn and hearing war road, and you're like, oh, okay, I'm there. I'm with you. Yeah. And, you know, to get to have that moment with Nolan was really cool. 

Steve, we've nearly conquered this top 10 list here. And we're gonna jump into our number one episode in just a second. Before we do that, I'm going to divert us one last time, because we have this announcement that we've been talking about for a while here. And, and before we jump in, I would I would love to be able to just actually tell people what it is that we have coming up in the very near future. Let me just like, paint a picture here a little bit three years ago, After IV was all about alumni stories. Now that's, that's what we set out to do is to tell alumni stories. And really over the last year or two, it's transitioned more to talking about skills for that first year after college. And we're going to keep leaning into that direction with After IV. Like you'll we'll always have stories that are being told and things like that, but but we're really going to lean into skills and things that we can impart to alumni as they make that initial step of transition, and help them work through that process. But we don't want to miss out on alumni stories, because they are really fantastic. So in January of 2024, we're going to be launching a brand new podcast, 

Steve Baty
Hey, that’s super exciting! 

Jon Steele
This podcast will be called InterVarsity World Changers. And we are going to be telling alumni stories, we live in a time where let's be honest, good news can be kind of hard to come by. But God is very much at work. He is building his kingdom. And He's inviting us to be a part of it. So starting in January, InterVarsity World Changers is going to highlight and celebrate stories of God's world changing work through alumni like you listeners out there. And our hope is that it encourages people and reminds them that God is indeed still at work in amazing ways. And that it helps each of us take a closer look at our own context and ask the question, How is God at work here around me? And how can I be a part of that with him that by hearing stories of other alumni who are partnering with God, like wow, I'm I'm an alum, just like them. So how is God working and moving around me? And how can I be a part of that with him. So I'm, I'm really excited for people to get to hear these stories, we're going to have a teaser trailer that's going to drop in just a couple of weeks here. And we have phenomenal guests that are lined up. We're going to drop those episodes in early January. And then we will continue releasing episodes moving forward from there. And it won't happen right away. But we're actually planning on starting to launch a video podcast along with this as well. So you'll actually be able to start tuning in and watching these interviews on YouTube in the near future. If you're excited about this kind of work. If you're excited about work that's being done for alumni like you and hearing these stories, then please check out the show notes. There's a giving link there for this brand new podcast if you'd like to help it get off the ground here in the early days. We would love to have you do that with us. Thanks a lot for that.

Steve Baty  1:04:56  
That's really exciting. So you're diving into the world of vodcasting. After IV is not going anywhere?

Jon Steele  1:05:02  
No, After IV is not going anywhere. It's continuing on. It's just we are continuing to kind of niche down into this skills and frameworks and things to help people transition well into this next phase of life after graduation. Should we bring it in for a landing here?

Steve Baty  1:05:19  
Let's do it. Let's do it. Number one,

Jon Steele  1:05:21  
Our number one episode of all time, here it is… A very exciting drumroll. Our number one episode from the last three years is none other than Anson, the rocket scientist from Episode 72. I'm a Rocket Man following Jesus as a NASA rocket scientist.

Anson Koch  1:05:45  
Yeah, my name is Anson and I first got connected with InterVarsity at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, go read go white, studied aerospace engineering. And there started working at NASA while I was in college through the pathways internship program, and I was able to then come on to work full time for NASA when I graduated.

Jon Steele  1:06:07  
Okay, so aerospace engineering and you work for NASA. So is it safe to say that you were like, literally a rocket scientist?

Anson Koch  1:06:13  
Yeah, yeah, you could say that.

Jon Steele  1:06:17  
That's amazing. I mean, because again, little old me who NASA is just, you know, Apollo 13. Level, that's what comes to my mind. When I think about NASA, you're actually like, in the thick of it? What's that experience been like for you for 10 years working with NASA?

Anson Koch  1:06:33  
It's been pretty wild. Like anything, it's got its ups and downs. But is it just sort of feeling like a normal job, you know, sometimes even looks like a normal job, you know, I go into a cubicle, and I run models all day and look at graphs. But the really cool part is just being part of a mission, where we're pushing the edge of what humanity is capable of doing. We're looking for new ways to send humans into space, we're looking for how can we answer some of the bigger pressing questions of science?

Jon Steele  1:07:04  
So I'm going to ask a question that maybe feels like I'm pitting the two against each other. And that's not my intention, you have pulled hard on the lever of science for a long time. And I think that there are ways that you are innately made to think and there are also ways that you are taught to think critically, scientifically, where is evidence, I mean, the work that you're doing right now, you said, you're like working through models and trajectories and graphs, before something is actually constructed, and a potential human being is strapped to it, you have to have evidence that this thing is going to work and that it's going to work consistently. Right. So it seems to me that the idea of evidence and certainty and being able to back up saying this is a good idea, we should move forward with this, I imagine that you in the community that you're a part of holds that with a special reverence. What does it been like for you navigating some of those big questions when a huge part of your life is built around gold standard scientific? Like, what is that like for you?

Anson Koch  1:08:07  
I think there's definitely points where there can be some tension. But then there's also points where science as a way of thinking is one of the many tools I have like in my toolbox. When it comes to like designing a rocket and propulsion system and everything, we absolutely need to use that tool and back things up with test results with data, make sure our models are anchored Well, in reality, have good peer review processes. Then when it comes to things in like more of the faith realm, I think I still bring a little bit of that to the table on that I do want to see different theological points or whatever backed up in some way with, if you will, the data of Scripture. I think that's one way I like to think about it. But then also kind of realizing that there are also moments where God's calling us to take steps in faith where we don't know everything, and we have to be able to trust His guidance. The big difference is that we can absolutely fully and completely trust God. And that kind of trust isn't always something that you can find when you start looking at the world of numbers and in hard data, because there's always uncertainty, your sensors are only so precise, even the best design, you've still got different uncertainties that are built in and that's part of the science is accounting for all those uncertainties. I think they both kind of inform each other in the sense that there definitely is that desire to have things backed up in some way. But the big differences when it comes to questions of faith, we've got God who, you know, we can put all our trust in Him and it's always going to turn out in the way that He intends it.

Steve Baty  1:09:50  
Anson the rocket scientist. Okay, excellent. No, that was helpful to hear from a rocket scientist. I think you know, just some of that head in the heart piece of getting to know who Got is on a heart level as well sort of have have to have this encounter with God can't just have all this knowledge about him, and probably helpful as well that you know somebody who does a lot of heavy thinking, like somebody who studies and does sort of the thinking that Anson probably does say that the Bible doesn't have to speak into every single thing. It doesn't have to answer every single question, how do I build a rocket that works in space? For example? Scripture didn't tell me, right?

Jon Steele  1:10:25  
Yeah, I appreciated his the posture that he had around scripture. I mean, they clearly very deeply rooted in Scripture and the promises about Jesus who he is like that that's what he falls back on of saying, like, you know, the, the data and the numbers only goes so far. But you know, we believe that Jesus is who He says He is. And, you know, that's our firm foundation. And at the same time, not asking the Bible to, as you, as you said, to speak into things that it was never made to speak into. I just felt like a really healthy position to take on Scripture. Yeah, for sure. And and somebody as smart as Hanson is to hear that from somebody like him, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, that feels like an encouraging affirmation. There was a great episode though. And some rocket scientist. Well, we've done it, Steve, here we are. 

Steve Baty  1:11:14  
100 episodes. Finished. Yes. This one's 100. 

Jon Steele  1:11:19  
Yeah. And people are just waiting. “Please wrap this up!”

Steve Baty  1:11:26  
I hope you haven’t lost a bunch of listeners. Sorry. I take blame for that.

Jon Steele  1:11:29  
No, no, this has been great. We've we've got 100 episodes in the bag. We've counted down the top 10. We've announced a new podcast. We've had some good laughs whether or not they end up on the air. Who knows. But you and I have had some good laughs doing this together. Steve, thanks a lot for joining me today. 

Steve Baty
Yeah, Jon, thanks for having me on. 

Jon Steele
Absolutely. Absolutely. Also want to say thanks one more time to anybody who's ever been a guest on the show in the last three years. So thankful for you saying yes to the invitations of being on here with me, thanks to anybody who wrote in or left a comment so that we could share that on this episode. And a very special thank you. It's all of you alumni listeners out there. It is a huge honor to get to be a part of this post graduation journey with you. Thanks for bringing us along. Everybody. We are back in January with some brand new episodes. I'm super excited about some of the topics that we're bringing your way as we really continue to lean into this idea of providing expert advice for navigating that first year after graduation. In the meantime, while we prep for the new podcast prep for the new year of After IV and take a little Christmas vacation, we will have some bonus episodes coming your way as we oftentimes do in the interim. Those will start dropping next week. Enjoy those. And once again, if you've been blessed by the work that we're doing here, please check out those giving links in the show notes and support After IV, InterVarsity World Changers. Thanks for tuning in. And I will see you in 2024 alumni. 

Steve Baty  1:12:56  
This one's for you alumni.

Podcast Outro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today, Alumni. If there was anything that you learned, really enjoyed, or that encouraged you from today's episode, would you send us a DM or tag us in a story? We'd love to hear about it. You can find us @afterivpod on Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven't already, take just a second to unlock your phone and subscribe to the podcast. If your platform lets you, leave us a rating and a review. And if you like what we're doing here, share us with your InterVarsity or other post-graduation friends. Thanks again for listening. And I will see you in the after, Alumni.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai