When we filed to trademark our logo with the government, we had to choose between ‘ministerial services’ and ‘personal life coaching.’ Frankly, we don’t know the difference.

We are integrationists (that is, we think life doesn’t fit into tidy compartments). We use various tools to communicate to our audiences of all different ages: apologetics, theology, history, cultural analysis, ethics, the arts, imagination, philosophy, literature, writing, everyday real life, and relationships.

We have a hard time separating these into compartments when it comes right down to building a soul. So we don’t separate them. We use them all as much as we can. And with our education, background, and experience, it only makes sense.

If you ask us if we are history people or philosophy people or arts people, we’ll just say, “Yes.” We’re sure you’ll understand.

Apologetics, traditionally, has simply meant "to defend the faith." And while we are well-versed and prepared for that, we also know that Apologetics is far broader.

It is an excuse for people to be integrated with life, to employ their minds as well as their hearts, and to be just as passionate about their thoughts as they are about their feelings. Because in its broadest sense Apologetics is defending the Christian faith, apologetics can be demonstrated by just about anything that is good, true, and beautiful.

We believe encouraging people to be emotionally healthy and honest with their defects of character is a strong apologetic. We believe gardening to the Glory of God is an apologetic. We believe using our imaginations to seek after and illustrate truth is an apologetic (as C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and G. K. Chesterton taught us). We believe using solid and reasonable tools (like context, genre, and authorial intention) to interpret the Scripture is an apologetic.

So, you see, apologetics is far and wide. It is thought as well as felt. It is lived as well as spoken. The Christian life, in general, is the apologetic life. It is a life of the soul and the body. We are showing others what God is like which, as image bearers, is one of the reasons why we are here.

The older term is discipleship.  But since that word has either lost its relevent meaning or has been distorted, a more descriptive word has been employed by scholars in the field: spiritual formation.

It is the forming the soul.

Its goal is to have a healthy soul.

Hear Henri Nouwen from The Way of the Heart:

What else is the goal of theological education than to bring us closer to the Lord our God so that we may be more faithful to the great commandment to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves? Seminaries and divinity schools must lead theology students into an ever-growing communion with God, with each other, and with their fellow human beings. Theological education is meant to form our whole person toward and increasing conformity with the mind of Christ so that our way of prayer and our way of believing will be one. (bold added for emphasis)

In short, our believing and our living should match.

Soul formation is always happening for good or bad, whether we are concious of it or not. All sorts of things shape our souls, like television and music, our families, our friendships, and our own habits. The question is whether our soul is being formed in the right direction.

The proper goal of every human is to be appropriately human™. It is to become what we were made to become. When this happens all good things fall into place, including loving God and loving others.

This is not done by a mere act of the will, for no will is strong enough to sustain it.

It is not done by hoping that we will believe it is so, for no beliefs are changed without intentionally working on them with study.

It is not done by conjuring sincere emotions through earnestness.

It is only done by employing the tools we have been given and seeking the appopriate end to which God points us. We know we are heading in the right direction when we can honestly say we're tasting inner-freedom to choose the good, that we are able to love even people who we'd rather resent, and when we want to offer the good life to others.

Because some people need a more tangible representation of what we do, we want to include some titles of talks we’ve given in the past. Of course, sometimes we redo talks (if they are important ones for the occasion) and always adding new ones. Here is a sampling to give you an idea of titles that we talk about.

Here at Soulation, we believe an effective life thrives from a healthy community.

There are many full-time itinerant Christian speakers these days. They make a living traveling from airport to airport, hotel to hotel, conference to conference, inspiring others and equipping people in building God’s Kingdom.

In both our experience and observation, our vision for Soulation would be lacking if we do not foster a healthy community. Our message of Soulation — to have a better soul — falls short of “practicing what we preach” if we allow our itinerary to take priority over a healthy soul.

For that reason...

We believe that while we want to maximize our voices in the world, we want to care for our own souls at home.

We believe traveling should be kept in balance with having a healthy family (a balancing act that requires continual maintenance).

We believe regularly learning from fresh and healthy teaching is also vital to our own growth. (Our Church, Our University Community, Our Online Community)

We believe accountability to our community for both our ideas and our integrity is worth a slower itinerant schedule.

In short, our point of view is that if we sacrifice the health of our souls or those of our family, we will be unable to serve you with integrity and healthy souls. It is out of, not in spite of, a healthy community that we are able to be effective to the world. This is our commitment and our pledge to God, our family, and those to whom we share.