The Purity of Reality | Repentance For the Rest Of Us | Mark Swarner

Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast and Week 2 of our series, Beyond the Ballot. In this conversation, Peter Sherman and Matt Summers explore what our reactions reveal during an election season and how Jesus invites us to carry our convictions with a different posture. When our identity feels threatened, fear or grief can quickly turn into contempt. Together, we discuss how to move past defensive reactions, embrace a servant’s posture, and practice grace in our everyday conversations—from the family table to our friendships. Next Steps Looking to take your faith journey deeper? Here are some great next steps: Need Prayer or Have Questions? Text us at (650) 600-0402. Download this week’s sermon study guide:  Support Hope for Everyone Thank you for your generosity! Support Menlo Church’s mission to reach 3% of the Bay Area with the message of hope in Jesus. Learn more or give at: http://www.menlo.church/hope. Get Connected We’d love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out. Stay Connected with Menlo Church Kids (Preschool–Grade 5): https://menlo.church/kids Students (Grade 6–12): https://menlo.church/students Explore All Ministries: https://www.menlo.church/ministries  

The current cultural script on Christian political engagement is some version of be nicer, be humbler, be more curious, be more restrained. All of that is true, and almost none of it lands anymore because the room has heard it ten times. The sharper move for Matt is to reframe posture as diagnostic. The way you react to a headline tells you what is forming you. The instinct to caricature is not a personality trait. It is a sign of what you have been consuming. The habit of moral superiority is not a quirk. It is a spiritual condition. The appetite for contempt is not an attitude. It is the gospel of your feed working in you. Posture is not etiquette. Posture is the diagnostic that tells you what is forming your soul. James says be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Philippians says have the same mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who emptied himself. Matthew says blessed are the peacemakers. None of those are politeness instructions. They are formation instructions. The shape of your political reactions is the shape of your formation. Text Our Team (650) 600-0402 | Connect With Us

In this opening episode of our new series Beyond the Ballot, Phil EuBank and Matt Summers sit down to unpack Sunday’s message following Baptism Sunday. Rather than jumping straight into policy debates, voting guides, or party platforms, we are getting underneath why political disagreement feels so intensely personal. Why does a difference of opinion feel like someone is touching something deep inside us? And how do we care deeply about real-world issues—like housing, schools, and justice—without letting politics carry the heavy weight of our ultimate identity? In This Episode: The Stakes Are Real: How to hold onto the importance of penultimate issues without letting them quietly become ultimate things. Political Formation vs. Conviction: Examining how our daily media feeds shape our reflexes, anger, and fears. An Identity You Don’t Have to Defend: Exploring what changes when we realize a secure identity in Christ frees us to participate without needing the outcome to prove our worth. The Headline Practice: A simple, 60-second spiritual rhythm to pause, reflect, and pray before reacting to the next political news cycle. Next Steps Looking to take your faith journey deeper? Here are some great next steps: Need Prayer or Have Questions? Text us at (650) 600-0402. Download this week’s sermon study guide:  Support Hope for Everyone Thank you for your generosity! Support Menlo Church’s mission to reach 3% of the Bay Area with the message of hope in Jesus. Learn more or give at: http://www.menlo.church/hope. Get Connected We’d love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out. Stay Connected with Menlo Church Kids (Preschool–Grade 5): https://menlo.church/kids Students (Grade 6–12): https://menlo.church/students Explore All Ministries: https://www.menlo.church/ministries Follow Us on Social Media Instagram: @menlo.church Facebook: Menlo Church Website: http://www.menlo.church Musicbed Sync ID: (MB014RCECFXJCWL) Musicbed Sync ID: (MB01EKBUICB4NLC)

Notice what the feed has been forming in you. Most of us did not consciously choose our political reflexes. We absorbed them. The contempt for the other side. The certainty about what kind of person votes a certain way. The reflex to define ourselves by who we are against. None of that is formed by the gospel. It is formed by hours of consumption that no one was tracking. Then re-anchor. Identity in Christ is received, not achieved or defended. Colossians 3 says your life is hidden with Christ in God. Galatians 2 says I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 1 Peter 2 says you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Those are not slogans. They are the actual ground beneath the room. Before we talk about how to engage, we ground people in belonging. Text Our Team (650) 600-0402 | Connect With Us

On the series finale follow-up of Repentance for the Rest of Us, host Matt Summers sits down with Lead Pastor Phil EuBank to confront the exhausting distance between the person we are and the person we try to convince everyone else we are. Closing out the fourth week of our series under our year-long focus, Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, this conversation moves past polished filters and curated vulnerability to explore the liberating truth that God has never met the fake you. Together, Matt and Phil unpack Psalm 51, David’s unedited story of exposure and grace, and why managing multiple versions of ourselves costs us our peace, our joy, and our ability to be truly loved. Tune in as they break down: Admired vs. Known: The critical difference between genuine, wise privacy and carefully curating an "authentic" performance that attracts fans while leaving the real person feeling isolated. Truth in the Hidden Places: Why we can’t sanitize Psalm 51, and what David’s story reveals about moral blindness, abuse of power, and how exposure can actually be an expression of grace. Create, Don’t Renovate: Why David asks God for a new heart rather than an improved mask—and how to stop bringing God the answer we think He wants and give Him the honest one instead. Struggle Stories as Witness: How our weaknesses create hope where our successes only build admiration, and how to share our stories wisely without oversharing or centering ourselves. Beyond the Ballot Teaser: Why repentance is the essential spiritual posture to carry into election season, and how filtering other people into political caricatures degrades our own humanity. Grab your Reclaiming Journal, carry one question into every room this week—“Am I trying to be admired or known?”—and join us for the final conversation of a series that reframes repentance not as a weapon or a sentence, but as the daily, freedom-giving invitation to stop hiding and step into reality. Next Steps Looking to take your faith journey deeper? Here are some great next steps: Need Prayer or Have Questions? Text us at (650) 600-0402. Download this week’s sermon study guide:  Support Hope for Everyone Thank you for your generosity! Support Menlo Church’s mission to reach 3% of the Bay Area with the message of hope in Jesus. Learn more or give at: http://www.menlo.church/hope. Get Connected We’d love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out. Stay Connected with Menlo Church Kids (Preschool–Grade 5): https://menlo.church/kids Students (Grade 6–12): https://menlo.church/students Explore All Ministries: https://www.menlo.church/ministries Follow Us on Social Media Instagram: @menlo.church Facebook: Menlo Church Website: http://www.menlo.church Musicbed Sync ID: (MB014RCECFXJCWL) Musicbed Sync ID: (MB01EKBUICB4NLC)

The final step of living out our identity is dropping the mask. This week focuses on being a Thoughtful Witness—someone who doesn't act like they have it all together, but who points to the One who does. We bring hope to others when they see our authentic, repenting lives. Text Our Team (650) 600-0402 | Connect With Us

On this special follow-up episode, we're taking a break from our series to sit down with Lead Pastor Phil EuBank to discuss his message, Still. Set against the setting of Hope for Everyone, this conversation moves past campaign updates and tracking stats to reframe stewardship not as fundraising, but as the quiet formation of an unshakable, living faith. Together, Matt and Phil unpack what it actually means to stay faithful when the fruit doesn’t fit our forecast, exploring how to cultivate open-handed trust when our expectations don't match reality. Tune in as they break down: - Why nostalgia is a forecast built on dated data, and how longing for the past can blind us to what God is doing in the present. - The critical biblical order in Haggai 2, why God’s presence must always precede our performance, and grace must come before generosity. - How to shift the stewardship question from "What should I give?" to "What kind of person am I becoming?" - The four pastoral invitations: Begin, Come Back, Ask the Question, and Plant a Tree and how they meet us wherever we are without grading or pressure. - The "First and Best Week" practice and seven daily questions designed to transform financial anxiety into trust and freedom. Grab your journal, pick one question to sit with each day, and join us for an unhurried conversation on why stewardship isn't a transaction to complete it's a formational practice that sets us free. Next Steps Looking to take your faith journey deeper? Here are some great next steps: Need Prayer or Have Questions? Text us at (650) 600-0402. Download this week’s sermon study guide:  Support Hope for Everyone Thank you for your generosity! Support Menlo Church’s mission to reach 3% of the Bay Area with the message of hope in Jesus. Learn more or give at: http://www.menlo.church/hope. Get Connected We’d love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out. Stay Connected with Menlo Church Kids (Preschool–Grade 5): https://menlo.church/kids Students (Grade 6–12): https://menlo.church/students Explore All Ministries: https://www.menlo.church/ministries Follow Us on Social Media Instagram: @menlo.church Facebook: Menlo Church Website: http://www.menlo.church Musicbed Sync ID: (MB014RCECFXJCWL) Musicbed Sync ID: (MB01EKBUICB4NLC)

Hope for Everyone has always been asking the question underneath the question. Not what should I give, but what kind of person am I becoming? The campaign is the context. Formation is the point. The reason the gift matters is not because the church needs the money but because you are being formed every day by something, and stewardship is the practice that lets God speak into the one room of the house where the world has been doing the loudest catechism. Better him than them. Text Our Team (650) 600-0402 | Connect With Us

In this episode, Matt Summers sits down with Banda Health co-founders Steve Letchford and Wes Brown to hear the story behind their work in Kenya. Banda Health equips resource-constrained clinics with practical technology that helps frontline healthcare teams provide better care to some of the world’s most vulnerable patients. Their conversation explores the development of BandaGo, the realities facing local clinics, and the importance of building solutions alongside the people who use them. They also discuss how faith shapes Banda’s approach, Menlo’s growing partnership with the organization, and what can happen when people bring their professional skills into meaningful global service.

We spend so much energy trying to "measure up." Repentance is the relief of finally admitting we can't. This "purification" isn't about being scrubbed clean by our effort, but being made whole through our honesty. Text Our Team (650) 600-0402 | Connect With Us