Episodes

Episode 107: How The Baptist Guy Met The Holy Spirit In today’s episode of #MavericksAndMisfitsJeff shares two powerful accounts in his own story which God imparted to him in order tobring Jeff into a fuller experience and expression of what it means to be a Jesus-follower. These two encounters were separated by twelve years, but they worked together to free Jeff from religious bondage, denominational chains, and the fear of man. While these accounts are written of fully in Jeff’s book “Figurin...

Episode 106: Getting Free From The Fear Of Man Most of us prefer to be liked than disliked. We would rather experience acceptance than rejection. Normal and reasonable is the desire for us to fit into a larger community and to be warmly received, secured, loved, and affirmed within that community. There is not necessarily anything wrong with caring what people think of us. Being controlled by what people think of us is a different issue altogether. That corrosive activity in our hearts is attac...

Episode 105: Permission To Be & Do As God Says Well, this episode went quickly in an unexpected direction. While Jeff Lyle was planning to unpack some helpful verses on the fear of man, Holy Spirit appointed a different direction within the first two minutes of recording. In our present generation, a slimy ooze is hitting the church and contaminating our relationships, identity and mission. Sadly, fewer voices are rising up to give holy and dogmatic pushbackto this toxic atmosphere in the Ameri...

Episode 104: What Is Going On Inside Of You? There is a certain representation of Christianity that almost focuses exclusively focuses on our behavior. While the bible is clear on what it means to live outwardly in alignment with the heart of God and the ways of God, following Jesus by faith is not primarily about modifying our behavior. We are not a rules-driven people as the Church of Jesus Christ. Christian activity flows from Christian identity –and identity is internal. The spirit of relig...

Episode 103: Straight Talk About Sexual Appetites Any of you who are 45 years and older can remember a time when the American culture had some form of sexual boundaries that were (at least loosely) framed by Scripture. We all recognize those days are over and now there exists an entrenched demonic representation about what is permissible to give expression to human sexual appetites. Frankly, I’m not sure that anything is off-limits anymore. Perhaps the last realm that is not fully currently emb...

Episode 102: Navigating Relational Conflict With the culture around us remaining in a state of being perpetually inflamed, how do Christians recognize and respond to the conflicts that they themselves cannot avoid? The Bible actually hasmuch to say about Christians in conflict. We are taught that the enemy always seeks to exploit relational conflicts. Jesus prescribed clear instructions about Christians’ personal conflicts with one another. Paul strongly commands us to fight hard for unity when...

Episode 101: Wimpy, Whiny, & Headed For Trouble In American weddings the bride is typically delicate. She radiates a feminine beauty,and she is the focus of the entire wedding. Lace, flowers, stringed instruments, gently flickering candles...weddings are typically tender and delicate, and the bride is most sweet and precious element in the room.Not so, in the Kingdom. While His bride is beautiful and radiant, she is more of a warrior than a Cinderella. Or at least she is supposed to be.This epi...

Episode 100: Jesus As The Ultimate Maverick This milestone 100th episode reminds us of the WHY behind the Mavericks & Misfits podcast. Religion might very well be the foremost deterrent to the current advance of the Kingdom. It certainly was in the days of Jesus. One might well-argue that it was man’s religion that most inhibited the advance of the true Gospel during the days of the Apostles. Now, in the 21stCentury, the status-quo, shallow, narrow andlukewarm representation of the Church is un...

Episode 99: The Dangers Of Elevation Sometimes, God chooses to promote a young person. It is uncommon, but not unheard of. God looks throughout the earth and bypasses the older and seasoned candidates. He skips the halls of academia. He does not look toward the powerful and proven. In Certain moments, God lets His eyes rest upon a spiritually scrawny adolescent and declares that this is the person whom He will use. It can be a glorious thing to behold –when a young man or women is chosen by the...

Episode 98: Women In Ministry - That One Big Verse For nearly all who believe that Scripture forbids women in the Kingdom from preaching, teaching men and holding positions of authority and leadership, the go-to verse is 1 Timothy 2:12. On a surface reading, it is understandable how they might reach this conclusion. But what was the apostle Paul actually communicating in this chapter? What was he writing before he wrote verses 11 & 12? Was he really mandating a universal prohibition against all...

Episode 97: Women In Ministry - Exposing The Inconsistency This is the episode where we really dive down into the nitty-gritty of the hot-button bible verses which are always the ones most strongly used to deny that women can serve in places of authority in the Church. 1 Timothy 2:11-12, when taken alone from the rest of the bible, would certainly seem to prohibit women from preaching, teaching and leading in the Kingdom. But that is the issue: we cannot take these verses alone, divorcing them ...

Episode 96: Women In Ministry - End Of The Age Outpouring In our series of podcasts on Women in Ministry, we must take an in-depth look at a handful of very important bible passages. Two of those are fond in Joel 2 and Acts 2. These passages contain an undeniable description from both the Old and New Testaments concerning what God promised to do at the end of the age. Because we are presently living in that time period, it is crucial that we pay attention to how God describes what He himself wi...

Episode 95: Women in Ministry - The Big Picture So, where exactly do the daughters of God fit in New Testament Kingdom ministry? Does God welcome Christian women to do anything and everything that their brothers are assigned to do? What are we to make of the hot-button terms of egalitarian and complementarian? As Jeff begins to unpack this series of podcasts on the never-ending debate about women in ministry, he invites us to calm down, evict emotionalism on the topic and consider the big pictu...

After receiving a heartfelt email from a listener who felt completely stuck and unfulfilled in life, Jeff felt the need to talk about the three non-negotiable components we all need for the Christian life to make sense. This is what he calls the whole enchilada: identity, personality, and purpose. In this episode of Mavericks & Misfits, we hear from Jeff as a bit of a life-coach who exposes where so many of us go wrong as Jesus followers. To get started on knowing who you are in Christ, how you...

On a small handful of occasions in the Gospels, we are told that Jesus wept. We all know about Him weeping outside the tomb of Lazarus. Most people are not as familiar with the occasion when Jesus wept over an entire city. He literally lamented over them. Why did He do so? Because the people there missed the timing of God visiting them with Heaven’s very best offer. God offered them Jesus. And they said NO. In this episode of Mavericks & Misfits, Jeff releases a strong prophetic exhortation to ...

In this shortened episode, Jeff Lyle responds to a listener’s email asking Jeff’s views on women in ministry. The listener wants to know what to make of passages which seem to preclude women from leadership and teaching in the church. Jeff offers a very broad introduction to the topic as a lead-in to several episodes that will be released after this introductory podcast. Also, Jeff spotlight’s his wife, Amy’s, spiritual mothing & teaching ministry which recently launched. God’s daughters are act...

We hear the phrase “spirit of religion” quite frequently these days. Nobody has a clear-cut consensus on what this phrase actually defines. It is a bit of an unformed awareness that a person, a creed, a church or a movement is striving to assert something that appears like a Kingdom value, but actually is not. The spirit of religion is easy to see in those we differ with, but it is not always as quickly to recognized in ourselves or those with whom we run in God’s Kingdom. Jesus once encountered...

So, who is in charge of the church you attend? Where does the buck stop? Who is running the show? We know that Scripture validates human authority and leadership in the Church. There is consequently a human leader or group of human leaders who should be installed and recognized in every local church. But does the Bible teach that this singular human leader is the Pastor and that this person is to be responsible for everything. Vision-casting, preaching, winning the lost, discipling new converts,...

Karen Smith, President of Kineo Ministry Training Center declares, “You are the steward of your own edification.” She is 100% correct. No singular spiritual leader in a church or anywhere in the kingdom can bring you into fulness of knowing God. To be a true disciple of Jesus Christ requires initiative, and part of that initiative is a pursuit of spiritual growth through knowing Him and His written Word. A high appetite for Scripture will usually result in a higher elevation of spiritual growth ...

We are all familiar with the phrase “shooting yourself in the foot.” This phrase describes a self-inflicted wound that occurs through recklessness, foolishness or ignorance. It refers to some action that could have been avoided which causes us harm by our doing. Did you know that there is one clear activity described all throughout the Bible that warns us of wounds to our own soul when we do it? In this episode of Mavericks & Misfits, Jeff imports both humor and heat when dealing with the pande...

Do you think you are right most of the time? Well, if you are a committed follower of Jesus, then your answer should be YES. The only other possibility is that you believe that you are wrong most of the time, and that would not be an honest confession from anyone who is being led by Jesus in this life. Yet, do you know that it is common for Christians to be right in discussions, debates, politics, theology and issues of morality, but still be wrong in how they operate? It happens all the time, a...

An email from a listener sincerely asked Jeff, “Since I have the Holy Spirit, why do I have to obey the human leaders in my church?” More than just this one listener has wondered about this. Is it not risky to submit our spiritual lives to the leadership of someone else? If we are going to do so, what are the non-negotiables that must be found in that leader? What if I disagree with my leaders? Is the local church even a legitimate expression of modern-day Christianity? In this episode of Maver...

Would you agree that the expression of Christianity in America is less than awesome? When we survey the depth of commitment, the breadth of influence, the height of power in the American Church, what do we conclude? Honest observers would need to confess that we are coming up beneath the offer of God in all areas of what it means to be a representation of Jesus Christ in our generation. What is the primary issue that might be holding us back? In this episode of Mavericks & Misfits, Jeff passion...

There is no avoiding the reality that every Christian is called, equipped, and expected to serve God. We do this by serving people. God needs no service Himself. He commissions each of us to serve Him by serving other people. This service involves time, energy, money, commitment, and intentionality. But what do we do when serving God becomes wearisome? When ministry and servanthood become a burden and our minds, bodies and emotions hit a breaking point, what has happened? In this episode of Mav...