Lunch on The Way

In this conversation, Nathaniel Baldock joins us as we discuss what AI is going to Christians and our world as we unreflectively adopt it as a tool when it should truly been seen as a pseudo-person.

Nathaniel Baldock is an AI strategist, consultant, speaker, and educator based in Tauranga, New Zealand. He helps churches, schools, and mission-driven organisations navigate AI with clarity, ethics, and practical implementation.

Visit his website --https://www.nathanielbaldock.com/

00:00 Teaser
00:52 Nathaniel's journey to AI consulting
04:30 What is AI?
10:09 AI's ethical problems
15:31 The dangers of Anthropic's Mythos
25:59 AI use in 2026.
30:20 AI's inauthenticity
41:00 Will AI erase our humanity?
48:15 Should churches use AI?
57:50 Does AI distort human relationships?
1:04:08 How churches should talk about AI

Lunch on The Way is a podcast that deeply discusses Christianity, Church, Culture, and Jesus.
Available on ALL podcast platforms https://lunchontheway.buzzsprout.com/share
Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

In this episode, Graeme and Joey sit down with Dr Clare Knowles to discuss the BEST and WORST Bible translations on the market.

Dr Clare Knowles is a translator for Bible Society New Zealand as a primary translator and teaches biblical hebrew at the University of Otago. She completed her PhD thesis, “Interpreting Isaiah from Isaiah: Intratextual Translation in Old Greek Isaiah”, at Otago in 2022.

Lunch on The Way is a podcast that deeply discusses Christianity, Church, Culture, and Jesus.
Available on ALL podcast platforms https://lunchontheway.buzzsprout.com/share
Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

In this conversation, Dr. Donald Wallenfang explains the philosophical style of phenomenology and how getting to universal reality beginning with experience is important for Christian knowledge of truth, but not totalising.

Dr. Wallenfang, OCDS, Emmanuel Mary of the Cross, is a Secular Discalced Carmelite and Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. He received his M.T.S. from St Norbert College and his Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago.

Wallenfang specializes in Catholic theology and philosophy, Carmelite spirituality, phenomenology and metaphysics. His research concentrates on the work of Edith Stein, Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, the Carmelite saints, and the New Evangelization. He teaches courses in philosophy, theology, lay ecclesial ministry, evangelization, and Catholic spirituality. His articles have appeared in Philosophy and Theology, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, The International Journal of Religion in Spirituality and Society, Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture, and Pacifica, as well as in other book compilations.

00:00 Introduction
02:46 is Catholicism Ecumenical?
09:10 Why philosophy is emotional
15:15 Where did Phenomenology come from?
26:10 Can Phenomenology reveal Christ?
37:45 Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Phenomenology
46:22 The tension of givenness and interpretation
56:14 Literal meaning vs Metaphorical meaning
1:07:17 Should churches discover new metaphors?
1:20:12 Phenomenology and Metaphysics need each other
Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

Dr. Andrew Root from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, joins us again to discuss his new book called "Baal and the gods of More: Rescuing Church Growth from Idolatry."

00:00 Introduction
02:34 how modern church growth is Baal worship
09:14 How yahweh and Baal are different
14:28 The human desire for security
16:03 Why church growth is burdensome
22:33 Techno optimism and political activism in church growth
29:18 Is our church growth methodology wrong?
35:10 The unsatisfying solution to church growth
41:23 The problem with money and church
44:22 Why critical realism for practical theology?

Lunch on The Way is a podcast that deeply discusses Christianity, Church, Culture, and Jesus.
Available on ALL podcast platforms https://lunchontheway.buzzsprout.com/share
Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

In this conversation, Joey sat down with Brad Haami and Sam Carpenter to discussion the Māori prophetic movement of the 19/20th centuries and how God communicates in the world through his created order.

00:00 Introduction
02:29 Māori 19/20th century prophets
13:11 Key Māori prophets and Ratana
25:16 The Spirituality of the Land
35:01 Ratana's Whales
44:11 Brad's Ministry and Butterflies
54:06 Myths and Dominions
1:01:21 A Contemporary Māori prophetic tradition
Bradford Haami is the current chair of Te Rūnanga o te Wānanga Amorangi - The Māori Council for Laidlaw College - and sits on the governing board of the college. He is a lecturer in biculturalism at Laidlaw College and holds a Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Theology. 
Between 2012 and 2016 Brad led a reconciliation movement with UK intercessors to all the battlefields of New Zealand. This led Brad to a reconciliation lectureship at the YWAM University at Kona, Hawaii in 2015. He has preached and taught on biculturalism and reconciliation at churches and faith communities throughout New Zealand for many years.  He has led Māori intercession teams to Mongolia, the Pacific and Israel since 2015. He is a Māori representative on the All Pacific Arise Council and is a foundation member of a Māori Christian Leaders Forum,Te Oko Hou (The New Bowl). 
Brad is an accomplished Māori author, journalist and lecturer with added experience in film and television media. He has produced exploratory works on mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), Māori history and more recently Māori biography. He self-published True Red; The Life of an ex-Mongrel Mob Gang Leader (2004), the story of Tūhoe Isaac and the radical shift in his life from a gang leader to a Christian. He also self-published Ka Mau Te Wehi: Taking Haka To The World, the biography of Māori performing arts doyens Bub and Nen Wehi, which won the 2013 Ngā Kupu Ora Best Māori Biography of the Year Award. In 2016 he published The River of the Waters of Life: A Biography of Ike Samuels, a Māori missionary to Papua New Guinea. His most recent works are: Urban Māori: The Second Great Migration (Oratia Media, 2018) and Bringing Culture Into Care (Huia Publishers, 2019). 
He has also written for critically acclaimed television productions and has acted as a consultant to numerous local and international drama, documentary and feature films. His services were crucial to the making of the acclaimed TV thriller series Mataku, the cinema film Tracker and the Māori film Mahana. He has also consulted as a Māori knowledge expert for churches, organisations and museums. He has been an advisor to The Māori Natural History and Moana Galleries at Auckland Museum and the acclaimed travelling Tohora: Whales Exhibition for Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. He was recently the Māori curator/expert on the acclaimed Te Taiao / Nature exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum. “My interest in storytelling is primarily based on the 'power of the narrative’. Whether in an oral, written, documentary or cinematic form, it has the capacity to convey a message that stimulates conversation and transforms hearts, minds and communities.”
Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.