Who are Mark Batterson and Jordan Raynor? And what’s this show all about?
Welcome to the Redeem the Day podcast! In this 7-episode podcast, authors MARK BATTERSON (Win the Day) and JORDAN RAYNOR (Redeeming Your Time) unpack the theology, theory, and tactics you need to be purposeful, present, and wildly productive. Here's a bit more about each host.
JORDAN RAYNOR
Jordan Raynor helps Christians respond to the radical, biblical truth that their work matters for eternity. He does this through his bestselling books (The Creator in You, Redeeming Your Time, Master of One, and Called to Create), podcast (The Call to Mastery), and weekly devotional (The Word Before Work)—content that has served millions of Christ-followers in every country on earth. In addition to his writing, Jordan serves as the Executive Chairman of Threshold 360, a venture-backed tech startup which Jordan previously ran as CEO following a string of successful ventures of his own. Jordan has twice been selected as a Google Fellow and served in The White House under President George W. Bush. A sixth-generation Floridian, Jordan lives in Tampa with his wife and their three young daughters. The Raynors are proud members of The Church at Odessa.
MARK BATTERSON
Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. One church with multiple locations, NCC owns and operates Ebenezers Coffeehouse, The Miracle Theatre, and the DC Dream Center. NCC is currently developing a city block into The Capital Turnaround—the 100,000 sf space will include an event venue, child development center, mixed-use marketplace, and co-working space. Mark holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Regent University and is the New York Times best-selling author of twenty books including, The Circle Maker, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Wild Goose Chase, Play the Man, Whisper, and recently released Win the Day. Mark and his wife Lora have three children and live on Capitol Hill.
Hey there and welcome to the Redeem the Day Podcast, a seven-episode limited series that will unpack the theology, theory, and tactics you need to be purposeful, present, and wildly productive. How's that for good churchy alliteration there? Three Ts, three Ps. Nailed it.
Hey, before I tell you more about what to expect from the show, allow me to introduce myself and my co-host for this podcast, Mark Batterson. My name is Jordan Raynor. I'm a serial tech entrepreneur and national bestselling author based in beautiful Tampa, Florida. My mission in life is to help Christians connect the gospel to their work, to why they work, to what they do, and how they do it. I live out that mission through a bunch of different pieces of content; my books, devotionals, a bunch of different podcasts. I'm 35 years old. I'm married to Kara. We've been married for about 12 years now. We have three little girls, Ellison who's seven, Kate who's five, and Emery who just turned two.
My co-host for the Redeem the Day Podcast needs little to no introduction at all. His name is Mark Batterson and he's the lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. You probably know him from some of his mega bestselling books like The Circle Maker, Chase the Lion, and In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. Mark is married to Laura, and they too have three kids but are a bit further down that road than my own children. If you guys are interested to learn more about my bio and Mark’s, you can find full bios right here in the show notes for this episode.
So why are Mark and I teaming up to do this podcast, Redeem the Day? Last year, I had Mark as a guest on to my own podcast, The Call to Mastery, when Mark was promoting his new book, Win the Day. We stopped recording, and we got off air, and I was like, “Hey, I'm publishing a book with the exact same publisher, with the exact same yellow on the cover, on largely the same topic. It's a book called Redeeming Your Time.” Mark was like, “We should do something together,” and so here we are, Redeem the Day, this beautiful, I guess, amalgamation of Mark's book title, Win the Day, and my own book, Redeeming Your Time.
I love that every time I say the name of the show, PS, it makes me think of Newsies seizing the day. If you’re a Newsies fan, hit me up. Let me know. Podcasting is a lonely business. So what can you expect from the seven episodes in this podcast? Mark and I have basically taken some of the best content from our books, especially the areas of greatest compliment and overlap, and just decided to do a really quick 20-ish minute deep dive into a few of those topics.
So in the short episodes, you're going to learn a lot. Here a few things you're going to learn. Number one, you're going to learn what exactly Mark’s and my quiet times look like every day. You'll learn how to deliberately practice silence so that you can think and be creative, prioritize your to-do list and listen to God's voice. You're going to learn how C.S. Lewis was able to write his top eight books in just six years. You'll learn how to be at peace, ignoring incoming messages and texts for a few hours at a time. We're going to tell you what Sabbath looks like for Mark as a pastor and me as an entrepreneur with young kids. We're going to share some practical questions that you can ask to get better at saying no to requests for your time. Then finally, we're going to round this whole thing out, talking about how we can tell the difference between life-giving busyness and soul-sucking hurry.
That's just a glimpse of where we're going. There's so much more we're going to unpack here. But first up, we've got to start with the foundation, how the gospel of Jesus Christ is paradoxically our ultimate source of both rest and ambition. That's episode number one, which is available right now. Mark and I will see you there.