Navigating faith with questions instead of answers.
We met on staff at a megachurch. Jacob was the college pastor; Sam was a ministry resident just starting to build a faith that wasn’t borrowed. College ministry tends to attract people like that — right at the edge of everything they’ve been handed, brave enough to hold it up to the light and ask is this actually mine? That kind of honesty is hard to be around and not catch.
Most people at that church couldn’t have told you where Portable 8B was. But on Sunday mornings, while thousands filled the auditorium, a few of us gathered there for conversations that couldn’t happen anywhere else. We called it Table Talk. Around that same time, Jacob started teaching through the Sermon on the Mount — and actually taking Jesus at his word began reshaping what all of us thought faithfulness looked like to begin with.
“It was like I’d been reading the sheet music all my life but had never heard the song.” — Bryant Russ
Eventually, Jacob clocked out of certainty and left his career as a pastor. Sam’s capacity for love outgrew his job description. We both moved on from that megachurch. The Sunday morning table dissolved. The friendship didn’t — and neither did the questions.
Table Talk is what happens when you stop asking who’s in and start asking who’s drawn in. Pull up a chair.
Jacob spent seven years in vocational ministry before following Jesus right out the door. These days he’s less interested in energizing the structures of Christianity and more interested in what a contemplative, grounded faith actually looks like — exploring the outer reaches of Christian spirituality with the curiosity of someone who’s got nothing to lose.
Sam grew up on the mission field, trained for ministry, and then watched the door close behind him. He’s the friend who asks the question you’ve been avoiding — gently, but he’s going to ask it. These days he’s finding the kingdom through a house church and a life that looks nothing like the plan, which is kind of the point.
Everyone starts with a quilt they didn’t make. Doctrines, assumptions, interpretations — handed down by the communities that formed us. Some patches hold. Some need pulling. The wisdom is knowing which is which.
We call this patchwork spirituality. Not a system. Not a theology. A posture — the willingness to sit with what you’ve inherited and let curiosity do what certainty never could.
Table Talk is a lab, not a lecture. We’re not here to admire the quilt or tear it apart — we’re here to get our hands on it, try new patterns, and see what holds. It’s a sacred space honest enough for us to do this quilting out loud.
We’re not trying to finish the quilt — we’re letting the quilting finish us.