Heart the Mission is a podcast for pastors and church leaders navigating the challenges of ministry. Each episode offers practical coaching, honest conversations, and encouragement for the journey.
The Real Reason You Were Called To Plant Here | Heart To Mission
▶️ Connect with Heart To Mission: https://hearttomission.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT HEART TO MISSION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Heart To Mission exists to develop leaders who finish well: pastors, planters, and everyday people carrying real weight. We have honest conversations with leaders who have lived through the highs and lows of real life. Confessing sin is a vital part of spiritual health. Learn how the church cares for its leaders and maintains accountability. This discussion focuses...
10 Oct 2026
The Danger of a Church Mission Statement You Can't Live Out | Heart To Mission
▶️ Connect with Heart To Mission: https://hearttomission.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT HEART TO MISSION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Heart To Mission exists to develop leaders who finish well: pastors, planters, and everyday people carrying real weight. We have honest conversations with leaders who have lived through the highs and lows of real life. Confessing sin is a vital part of spiritual health. Learn how the church cares for its leaders and maintains accountability. This discussion focuses...
10 Oct 2026
Josh Bradley: Why I Left Everything for the Mission | Heart To Mission
▶️ Connect with Heart To Mission: https://hearttomission.com ▶️ Check out Upsate Church HERE: https://fbsimpsonville.org/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👥 ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Josh Bradley is a Husband, Father, and Pastor as well as normally Host of the Heart To Mission Podcast and runs Heart To Mission as it's Founder! He believes in people bringing out the best in their calling through clear vision and planning! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT HEART TO MISSION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Heart ...
10 Oct 2026
Why Identity Comes Before Impact... | Heart To Mission
▶️ Connect with Heart To Mission: https://hearttomission.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT HEART TO MISSION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Heart To Mission exists to develop leaders who finish well: pastors, planters, and everyday people carrying real weight. We have honest conversations with leaders who have lived through the highs and lows of real life. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 The Danger of Borrowed Identities 1:20 Lessons from the Patriarchs 3:59 Closing the Gap Bet...
3 Sept 2026
Episode 13 - Brian Owens - How to Keep Going When Life Gets Too Hard... | Heart To Mission
Brian Owens was called to ministry at 14, then spent 14 years in the banking world watching every church door close and every business door open. He couldn't make sense of it until he landed at Upstate Church in 2009 and realized God had been building the exact skills the job would require. Then in August of 2021, after a hard bout with COVID and a run of medication that left his wife Sherry saying she knew her thoughts weren't true but couldn't stop them, Brian lost her to suicide. He walks ...
3 Sept 2026
Episode 12: Dustin Dozier - Pastors Are Losing the Battle for Attendance (Here's Why) | Heart To Mission
Dustin Dover didn't grow up in church. He was a skater punk in Acworth, Georgia, angry and picking fights, until a group of kids offered him a seat at lunch his freshman year and a lock in with free pizza turned into the gospel landing for the first time. Two years later his parents' marriage fell apart and his dad ended up in jail, and it was that same community that held him together. Now he's a teaching pastor at Upstate Church, leads connections across all ten campuses, and just wrote The...
3 Sept 2026
Episode 11: Shama Mrema on Being Fired From Church and Finding his Calling | Heart To Mission
Shama Mrema was born in Tanzania, raised in Alabama, and moved back to Africa at eleven when his parents planted a church. At eighteen his dad dropped him off in Greenville with a used Jetta, one suitcase, and a crisp $100 bill. Then he got the student pastor job he had pointed his whole life toward, and it lasted seven months. Shama tells Josh about the legal pad of questions that ended his ministry career, delivering pizza in the same town where former students opened the door and asked "We...
8 Jul 2026
Episode 10: Brad Phillips - The Highest Peaks and Lowest Lows of Church Planting | Heart To Mission
Connect with Heart To Mission: https://hearttomission.com Check out Brad and Studio 101: https://studio101recording.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 - Intro 3:00 - Brad's Music Career 11:17 - Family Continues to Grow 17:03 - The Family Band 23:01 Planting in Woodruff 30:12 - Rapid Church Growth and the Issues that follow 36:00 - Reaching the Unreached 44:12 - Planting Roots in the Community 56:30 - The Breakdown of Element Church 1:09:06 - Brad Turning The Page on...
6 Jul 2026
Bridget Trammell's Journey Through Divorce, Addiction, and Calling
▶️ Connect with Heart To Mission: https://hearttomission.com ▶️ Check Out Bridget's Book "Trigger Warning" HERE: https://amzn.to/4w3j5Un ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 - Intro 2:20 - Bridget's Book! 9:17 - Traveling and Singing Family 21:24 - The "Dream" 36:38 - Help for Those Seeking It... 40:48 - How will you respond? 1:05:20 - Leaving and Growing 1:09:20 - Becoming a Woman CEO 1:16:00 - Meeting Her New Husband 1:27:15 - Recognizing and Handling Triggers 1:45:44 -...
8 Jun 2026
Episode 8- Walt Tanner: Going After the 60%: Walt Tanner on Planting a Church for the City
Be the church, not just a church service. When Walt Tanner and Chris Barrineau moved into a Fountain Inn garage apartment on 08/08/08 — newborn in tow, both jobs left behind, house sold, no insurance, in the teeth of the Great Recession — people told them nobody wanted another church. Walt's answer became the heartbeat of everything that followed: "40% of the people love the churches here. There's 60% that'll never go there — and we're going after those 60." Seventeen years later, that convic...
26 May 2026
Episode 7- Chad Merrell: I Should Not Be a Pastor
Chad Merrell should not be a pastor. He was a 22-year-old warehouse supervisor married to a full-blown opiate addict. He found his 3-year-old son locked out in ankle-deep snow, in a diaper, while his wife watched from the window upstairs. He lost his driver's license. He drank himself into oblivion every weekend his kids weren't with him. He was the guy in your church you'd quietly wish would stop showing up. Then his pastor and his dad called him within 16 hours of each other and told him ...
14 Apr 2026
Episode 6- Dwight Easler: Loss, Identity, and Leading Through the Unthinkable
What do mission and identity look like when grief has taken everything from you? In this episode I sit down with pastor and AMS leader Dwight Easler, who lost his son Benji in a tragic accident. We talk about the overwhelming weight of that loss, what it does to a leader's sense of calling, and how Dwight has continued to show up faithfully in ministry in the middle of his own devastation. This is not a how-to episode. It is a testimony, and it is one worth hearing. If this conversation reso...
18 Mar 2026
Episode 2- Will Gunter: The Power of Leading from Your True Identity
So many leaders are burning out, driven by unsustainable momentum instead of a clear, God-given mission. The problem often starts with leading from a "borrowed identity." This episode is the solution. In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Will Gunter to discuss the most important foundation for any Christian leader: Personal Identity. We explore the "BURDEN" of leading from a place of validation-seeking or "shoulds" and how to find the "MISSION CLARITY" that comes from authentic, ...
18 Mar 2026
Episode 5 - Adam Spurlock: Faith, Responsibility, and the Day Everything Changed
Adam didn’t get a pause button. In this episode, Adam shares what it looked like to lose his father and keep leading anyway. While his family grieved, he stepped into a new reality overnight, carrying the weight of pastoral leadership and the responsibility of becoming the patriarch in his family. This is a conversation for the leader who is still showing up while life is falling apart. In this episode, we talk about: • What grief does to your focus, energy, and leadership decisions • How ...
18 Mar 2026
Episode 4 - Pat Gillen: Church Planting, Burnout, and the Identity No One Talks About
This isn’t a highlight reel. It’s an honest conversation about ministry, identity, burnout, leadership, and what happens when calling costs more than you expected. Pat Gillen shares the real story behind church planting, team failure, resilience, family pressure, and learning to trust God when success disappears. No hype. No formulas. Just lived experience and hard-earned wisdom. If you’re leading, pastoring, planting, or wondering who you are when the work falls apart—this one’s for you.
18 Mar 2026
Episode 3 — Hank Parker: Pressure, Identity & the Stories Leaders Never Tell
In this powerful conversation, Hank Parker opens up about the pressures leaders carry, the hidden weight of expectations, and how easily identity can get tangled in performance. This is not the side of Hank you see on TV or in the outdoor world. This is the honest, unfiltered version—the man behind the accomplishments, the trophies, and the public persona. If you’ve ever felt like you had to keep it together, stay strong, or perform your way into acceptance…this conversation is going to hit ...
13 Mar 2026
Episode 1- Charlie Swain: Calling, Crisis, and Clarity | Heart the Mission Podcast
Josh Bradley talks with Charlie Swain about life, leadership, and finding clarity when things don’t go as planned. From heartbreak to hope, Charlie’s story shows what it means to keep leading when the path gets hard.
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