Gold Digger Show: Finding God's Gold in Every Story

The Gold Digger Show is all about finding God's gold in every story. Episodes will focus on women's issues, theology, difficulties in relating to God, where the gold can be found in pain and what sharing our God-given gold looks like.

Counting the Cost 09/13/2024

Counting the Cost This week, Loren and Amber discuss the cost of following Christ, especially when one's cherished way of life might be at stake. Is it wrong to defend our rights as Americans or to fight to keep the privileges we've always enjoyed? Is it wrong to allow others to infringe on those rights and privileges? What makes us truly Christian and truly patriotic? As we dig deeper into Christian Nationalism and the Doctrine of Dominionism, we're finding some profound theological questions popping up, ones that challenge our notions of "right" and "wrong" when it comes to God, politics, and love of country. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/33042662

Christian Nationalism and the Doctrine of Dominionism (Take 2) 09/04/2024

Christian Nationalism and the Doctrine of Dominionism (Take 2) Welcome to Season 14 of the show in which recurring favorite, Loren Romeus, and I take another -- more informed, more loving, and fairer -- stab at the exploration of Christian nationalism and the doctrine of dominionism which is enjoying a resurgence in America. On today's episode, we define our terms and explain why we think this is a conversation worth having again. Our relationship to power, safety, and control informs how we see the world, God, and ourselves. And the way we see all of that informs the way we show up and how we influence. Join us as we dig a little deeper for the gold in this election cycle story. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/32899047

Honoring Others with Our Power 04/25/2024

Honoring Others with Our Power What happens when we use our power and authority to honor others, especially those on the margins? What is possible when we serve the "we" instead of the "I?" Join me in conversation today with Loren Romeus as we discuss stories in which we've been called to steward our power for the sake of those who have less power. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/30071423

How Does God Steward Power? 04/18/2024

How Does God Steward Power? It stands to reason that Christians would want to model their leadership styles/stewardship of power after the example of Jesus. Yet, the One who taught us to wash feet, to use our power in service of others, to sacrifice the "I" for the sake of the "we" is often disregarded in churches, Christian homes and communities. Why do Christians resist the example of Christ? What can we learn from God's own stewardship of power? Join me in conversation today with Loren Romeus as we explore these questions and more. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/30071363

Servant Leadership 04/11/2024

Servant Leadership We all agree that servant leadership is the kind of leadership style that values the goodness and well being of all people within an organization. It's the goal, the aspiration, and the gold standard of leadership styles. Yet, we rarely see it sustained. We most often default to styles of leadership which are not in service of all. Why is this? What is it about servant leadership that is so difficult for us to sustain in the real world? Join me in conversation with Loren Romeus as we explore these questions and more. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/30071303

What is the Purpose of Power? 04/04/2024

What is the Purpose of Power? God gave humans limited power -- over self, the earth, and one another. What is the purpose of this power? What did God have in mind for its use and what can we know about how God sees its misuse? Christian dominionism is a popular teaching, growing more popular as our nation is further polarized across a number of issues. Did God give us power so that we could extend God's power on the earth? If so, what does that look like and what does it NOT look like? Join me in conversation with Loren Romeus as we explore these questions and more. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/30071178

The God of Power 03/28/2024

The God of Power Join me today in conversation with a favorite guest, Loren Romeus, as we begin Season 13. This season is all about power/authority/dominion and how it intersects with American Christianity. What is the purpose of power? How does God steward power and provide an example for us? What is with the rise of Christian dominionism teachings and how do they fit in with the teachings of Christ? These are just a few of the questions we'll be exploring together as we try to make sense of our current cultural moment. On today's episode we introduce ourselves and tell the story of what sparked this conversation in the first place. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/30070883

Pain and the Plan 03/21/2024

Pain and the Plan Philosopher and theologian Cornel West posits that the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak. That resonates, doesn’t it? What is our suffering saying to us? What truth is it offering? Far be it from me to attempt to explain why things couldn’t have been different or how a good and omniscient God works with suffering. Theologians and philosophers and farmers and housewives have been pondering these questions since the dawn of time, and I have nothing novel to offer the debate on the problem of pain. However, what I’m learning is that, if we can risk allowing our suffering to speak, we just might discover how pain can be helpful to the plan of our individual and collective lives. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29976663

God and Sensuality 03/07/2024

God and Sensuality After decades of this self-abandonment in the name of holiness, I am disappointed with the results. I really thought that if I prayed enough, read my Bible enough, and worked on my marriage enough, I would be made healed and whole. When I survey the damage done by piling all this rock between me – all of me, including my beautiful body and my wild life force – and the Light that is Christ, I shudder. Like most folks schooled in this crazy mixture of modern, Western, Cartesian dualism and ancient Christianity, I feel disembodied. I feel separated from my sensuality, my fleshiness and, consequently, part of myself. When it comes to knowing and loving my sensuality, I am soul sick, all ‘trembling teeth and bloody hands.’ /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29976438

When Boundary Maintenance Fails 02/29/2024

When Boundary Maintenance Fails It’s disappointing to get to the middle of one’s life and realize that so much of our First Act was spent maintaining boundaries around things that simply don’t matter, isn’t it? Meanwhile, we never got around to maintaining the fences meant to protect our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s devastating to realize that we let the wolves have their way with those precious gifts, those fruits of the Holy Spirit, all too often. Let's explore the failure of boundary maintenance on today's episode /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29976268

The Crushing Disappointment of Middle Age 02/22/2024

The Crushing Disappointment of Middle Age I turn 43 in a few weeks and, I must admit, I’m feeling some kinda way about life. It’s widely known that middle age folk experience weirdness for about ten years between the ages of 30-ish and 50-ish. Mid-life crises have long been the go-to fodder for movies, books, songs, and TV series. Stereotypes abound – women scrambling for facial injections and men for sports cars. Everyone sadly grasping for the youth they can never recover and simultaneously dreading the downhill roll toward death that will characterize the rest of our lives. Yes, the picture America paints for mid-life is quite bleak, even if it is sometimes comical. But we don’t often get below the clichés to deal with what’s beneath this bleak picture, at least not as a collective people. We may do personal work, like finally beginning therapy or carving out space for a new hobby. We may even embrace physical aging and discipline ourselves to learn new things. These are all common aging practices we celebrate in our overly individualistic culture. Yet what we emphatically resist doing, as a society, is naming the elephant in the room. The word we seem afraid to speak out loud, but which also keeps us up at night, is the one thing we like to avoid recognizing together – disappointment. No one talks aloud about the crushing disappointment of mid-life. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29976083

The Bad News is Everything is Complicated 02/15/2024

The Bad News is Everything is Complicated Every day, we are bombarded with sensory input which, if we were “awake” to all of it, would render us incapacitated in a corner somewhere. Our brains do us a big favor by quickly sorting all our experiences into neat categories so we can efficiently navigate the information-pandemonium that is human existence. And the crazy part is that we’re not even aware our nifty brains are doing this at all! Unfortunately, the price we pay for this efficiency is binary bias, which is distorted thinking that reduces things on a spectrum down to two categories. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Or, if we want to take an example from the Bible, clean and unclean. I could go on, but you get it. We take concepts that are nuanced, complex, and multi-layered and we reduce them down so that we don’t have to do the heavy lifting of gathering all the information, listening to all sides, synthesizing opposing ideas, and formulating a comprehensive opinion. Join me on today's episode as we explore the value of complexifying everything. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29975903

Hell's Terror: How Advent Heals Our Image of God 12/22/2023

Hell's Terror: How Advent Heals Our Image of God Advent helps to heal our blurred and bungled image of God. Suddenly, we see a God who is the exact opposite of the image that Hell Lovers have conjured. Indeed, as Charles Spurgeon so powerfully reflected on the meaning of Advent: “God with us. It is hell’s terror. Satan trembles at the sound of it; his legions fly apace, the black-winged dragon of the pit quails before it. Let him come to you suddenly, and do you but whisper that word ‘God with us,’ back he falls, confounded and confused. Satan trembles when he hears that name, ‘God with us.’” Incredible imagery, and in stark contrast with the men quoted above. Advent is hell’s terror. The Gospel of Christ is hell’s terror. And no matter your viewpoint on hell, the meaning of these words echo with power. The image of God our forebears have handed down to us may, in significant ways, be broken, untrue, and harmful. The Hell Lovers on Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter may be loud, terrifying, and even confusing. But if we open our hands, eyes, ears, and hearts to receive the image of God we inherit through Advent, the confusion begins to evaporate like so much mist. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29204758

The Lowly Made Lovely: The Soul was Created to Feel Its Worth 12/15/2023

The Lowly Made Lovely: The Soul was Created to Feel Its Worth The truest thing about God and us is that God lifts up the lowly, nourishes the hungry, adopts the orphan, and goes back to find the lost. Because God loves us, we lowly are made lovely. The greatest malady this world suffers is our inability to comprehend the worth of the human soul. This is why we hate, hurt, reject, and ignore. It’s the source of our violence, our shame, and our shadowed evils. It’s why we deny God and seek our own self-interest. We’ve lost the wonder of a God who is so steadfast in love toward us that God comes to us, in us, and through us to heal us all and restore us to our rightful places in the Divine Dance of love. Today, in the holiness and beauty of Advent, I invite you to pray with me that God renew our minds to the stunning implications of the worth of our souls and what God’s plan for communing and indwelling means for us all. Who could you be if your life was firmly rooted in the soil of this kind of fertile love? Who could we be, all of us together, if we flowed in the freedom that comes from the Incarnation; that is, being fully seen, fully known, and comprehensively loved? /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/29098328

God-Bearers: The Offensive Advent Invitation 12/08/2023

God-Bearers: The Offensive Advent Invitation Like so much else in Christianity, Advent is offensive. Perhaps we’ve grown numb, over the span of millennia and from the re-telling of this narrative and from the commercialization of Christmas, to the shock of incarnational theology; but, today, let’s sit with Advent afresh and attend to the shattering implications. Because our paradigms must be shattered so that we can comprehend the truth, God came as a human baby through the body of a vulnerable woman. Because new wine cannot be poured into old wineskins, God devastated our cognitive categories and crossed every boundary. Because God wants Creation to birth God into the world in every conceivable way, in every single moment, in all possible circumstances, and in every particular soul, God has deemed us theotokos too. Because God is faithful to us, and to everything God has created ex amore, or out of love, this baffling salvation has come to us through the mysteries of a woman, a manger, a cross, and a tomb. Join me today in conversation about the offense of Advent and what it means for us all. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/28982068

God Says Their Names: What Four Unlikely Women Mean for Us All 11/29/2023

God Says Their Names: What Four Unlikely Women Mean for Us All With quaint creche Christmas scenes depicting Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus alongside shepherds, wisemen, and various farm animals, the raw and shocking hope of Advent is often reduced to sentimentality. We may quickly glance at the nativity scene on the church’s front lawn while narrowly making it to our Christmas Eve candlelight service, or we may conjure the familiar picture of baby Jesus in our minds while singing Silent Night, but the warm feelings this invokes aren’t in proportion to the paradigm-shattering message contained within the story of Advent. This Advent season, here on the show and at my Substack, The Golden Thread, we’ll be taking a different approach by exploring some of the darker themes that are often overlooked in our pre-packaged Christmastime lessons. Today our conversation partners will be an unlikely group of women who the gospel writer Matthew included in the genealogy of Jesus. Their names are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (the wife of Uriah), and their placement in the genealogical account of Jesus’ descent is unusual because they are all women of questionable repute. Biblical scholars, theologians, and everyday Bible readers have scratched their heads over why exactly Matthew would include women at all (which was not customary), much less four of “questionable repute,” in this genealogy which is supposed to be a matter of pride and critical importance in establishing Jesus’s title as “King of Israel?” Consider the dark and twisted nature of these women’s stories, which we will not gloss over today in our search for what’s real in this Advent story. Join me in conversation with these four women today. Subscribe to my substack at https://amberhjones.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=2d2xps /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/28853063

Gladness or Gratitude? 11/20/2023

Gladness or Gratitude? When we experience disappointment and fail to listen to what it’s speaking to us, we have a hard time getting to gratitude because we have often been equating gratitude with appreciation. Disappointment makes appreciation and gladness, or propositional gratitude, difficult to come by. However, when we do allow our disappointments to speak, we may experience authentic humility. And humility gives us brand new eyes and ears. It's key to the kind of gratitude that transforms. Doesn't that sound good this Thanksgiving? Less appreciation, and more humble and authentic gratitude? Join me on today's episode to dig around for the gold that can be found in seasons of disappointment. Subscribe to my Substack, The Golden Thread, where I'm writing a little deeper about this journey. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/28712513

Gratitude or Sunny Spin? 11/14/2023

Gratitude or Sunny Spin? 'Tis the season for gratitude lists and happy smiles, but perhaps this year it all just feels forced. Genuine gratitude is hard to come by when we're struggling through disappointment. But what if our disenchantments are an integral part of experiencing the kind of gratitude that transforms us? Join me on today's episode as we explore the power behind cutting through false optimism to get to the gold. If you want to subscribe to my weekly newseltter, The Golden Thread, you can do it here /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/28638148

Welcome to Season 12! 11/10/2023

Welcome to Season 12! Welcome to Season 12, Gold Digger! This holiday season, we will be exploring the connection between disappointment and gratitude, between light and shadow, and between pain and joy. Our world is experiencing tremendous upheaval and we're left wondering how to tend to our souls, and the souls of others, in times like this. That's what we'll be talking about all season long. Join me as we dig for God's gold in every beautiful, baffling story. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/28580173

The Golden Goodness of Friendship 07/31/2023

The Golden Goodness of Friendship Season 11 has been filled with golden goodness, as we've considered the topic of friendship deeply and from various angles. From opposite-gender friendship to soul friendship to lifelong friendship to life-saving friendship to friendship in marriage -- we covered the gamut! Join me for the last episode of this season as we pause to soak in all this goodness and reflect on what we've learned together. See you in the fall, Gold Digger! /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27606891

Friendship in Marriage 07/24/2023

Friendship in Marriage We hear a lot about keeping the romantic fires burning in marriage, or how to resolve conflict with your spouse, or how to speak the love language of the one you love. Rarely, though, do we hear conversations surrounding cultivating and maintaining friendship in marriage. Many people find the friendship within their marriages diminishes over time, as the cares and burdens of life and parenthood take their toll. Others realize, often years into the marriage, that they never established a firm foundation of friendship to begin with and now their spouse feels like an enemy or a threat. Join me in conversation with my husband of twenty-five years, Clayton Jones, as we discuss why marriage is often lacking in friendship and where to begin rebuilding friendship with your spouse. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27550815

Building Friendships That Stand the Test of Time 07/11/2023

Building Friendships That Stand the Test of Time Seasonal friendships are important. They provide mutual strength and encouragement for particular times and spaces of our lives. We rely on them for variety, fun, and networking. But lifelong friendships that stand the test of time are harder to come by and take a lot more work. Building these kinds of friendships requires adaptability, humility, selflessness, and creativity. Join me in conversation today with the woman I made the legal godmother of my children, the person who has been by my side through childbirths, adoptions, funerals, deathbeds, celebrations, and family reunions, Danielle Ramos. Together we discuss the secrets to our lifelong friendship, and how we've grown closer each year despite living far apart and having completely opposite personalities. Perhaps the gold God has been trying to give you in friendship is hidden in the most unexpected person. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27433635

Pain Points in Companionship 07/05/2023

Pain Points in Companionship True, soul-level friendship isn't all fun, joy, and fulfillment. Every relationship is tested at some point. When our friendships run into pain points, we arrive at a cross-roads of sorts. We can resolve to fight for the beauty and love we've experienced together, or we can avoid the pain by abandoning the relationship. When a relationship is unhealthy (or, of course, if it's abusive), walking away is the right choice. Yet, if the freindship has a foundation of love and is simply running into inevitable rough waters, we risk losing something essential by allowing temporary pain points to overshadow the good. Join me in conversation with my dear friend, Dr. Tiffanie Wilson, as we discuss the joys and challenges of companionship, and how moving thorugh our own pain points led to a deeper, and truer, friendship for us both. You can find Dr. Wilson online at /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27372084

Playful, Loving & Loyal: The Power of Community to Save Our Lives 06/27/2023

Playful, Loving & Loyal: The Power of Community to Save Our Lives In our ultra digitally-connected society, it's nevertheless common to be "ghosted" by fair-weather friends when the going gets tough. While we are constantly scrolling, clicking, and liking ourselves into believing we have rich communities, the truth is that many of us don't have a stable place to land when the worst happens in our lives. Joining me in conversation today is Dr. Lang Charters, who vulnerably shares how his playful, loving, and loyal community literally saved his life after a series of devestations threatened to take him down. What are the ingredients to creating this kind of life-giving, sustainable and sustaining community? What is essential to strengthening and maintaining the kinds of connections that help us give and receive life-saving help? We explore those questions and more on today's episode. To find Dr. Lang Charters online, visit his website or find him on socials @lightlovelang /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27295365

Spiritual Friends: Why We Need Them & How to Cultivate Them 06/19/2023

Spiritual Friends: Why We Need Them & How to Cultivate Them John O'Donahue famously introduced the Celtic term anam cara to the broader world in his book of wisdom thusly named. O'Donahue describes an anam cara as a soul friend, one in which we find recognition and belonging, cutting across all convention and category. These are the kinds of deep intimacies we have a hard time developing in this fast-paced world of surface-level connectivity. Spiritual friendship differs from other types of friendship, and it might just be what we need in our spiritual journey toward transformation. Today's episode is an interview with my anam cara, Jen Slongier. We talk about the special nature of our friendship, how we developed our relationship, and how we cultivate it. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27193050

Opposite Gender Friendship: Can (and should) It Be A Thing? 06/13/2023

Opposite Gender Friendship: Can (and should) It Be A Thing? Season 11 is all about friendship, and today's episode explores the topic of opposite-gender friendship. Can (and should) it be a thing? Christian communities sometimes erect elaborate rules, customs & courtesies around the interactions of men & women, with the idea that strict boundaries protect everyone. Is this perspective aligned with God's ideas about how men & women are intended to commune together in the Church? Join me in discussing these questions and more with my dear (opposite gender) friend, Loren Romeus. Together we explore the nature of our long-time friendship and how we navigate these issues. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27119772

It's Been Too Long, Gold Digger! Welcome to Season 11! 06/07/2023

It's Been Too Long, Gold Digger! Welcome to Season 11! After a year-long break, the Gold Digger Show is back and better than ever! This episode explains where we've been and where we're going in Season 11. The newly conferred Dr. Amber Hogan Jones is your host as we explore the topic of friendship from unique angles with diverse guests and interesting perspectives. Together we'll find God's gold in every story! /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/27074940

Desperation Isn't Always a Bad Thing 05/30/2022

Desperation Isn't Always a Bad Thing When it comes to transformation, desperation may just be the necessary ingredient missing in our efforts toward growth. Join me in conversation with Executive Director of the T & T Project, Loren Romeus, as we explore what we can learn from people who leverage having 'nothing left to lose' in their journey of inner transformation. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/23259200

Transformation Requires Belonging 05/20/2022

Transformation Requires Belonging When it comes to true and lasting inner transformation, context is critical. If we want to stay open to growth, trust and safety are necessary and those components are found in the context of belonging. Join me in transformational conversation with Loren Romeus, Executive Director of the T & T Project, a prison ministry focused on helping the incarcerated transform and transition into the healthiest and truest versions of themselves, as we discuss the role belonging plays in lasting inner change. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/23177573

Window of Tolerance 05/10/2022

Window of Tolerance Sometimes transformation requires discipline and, other times, it requires rest. On today's episode we discuss how transformation occurs within, and helps us maintain, our 'window of tolerance,' which is the sweet-spot for healthy and wholehearted living. /episode/index/show/golddiggershow/id/23048447

Gold Digger Show: Finding God's Gold in Every Story

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