You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, Dan is joined by Dr. Shalee Stearns, Associate Professor of Theology at the Seattle

School to continue our series on Advent by discussing the theme of preparation.

Looking at the life of John the Baptist, Dan and Chalee invite us to consider what it means to prepare for our Lord's arrival.

I have the privilege of being with a dear friend and colleague.

Shaliyhawin's, who I get to teach multiple classes with, but also I get to talk with about the

preparation that's involved in our arrival on December 25th. So Shaliyah, first and foremost,

thank you for joining us on this conversation of what does it mean to prepare for the Lord's arrival?

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Tell me, what's it mean for you to think about preparation?

We've already, obviously, done a little conversation.

So we're going to eventually wander into preparation is all about John the Baptist.

Yeah, well, especially the preparation for Jesus.

It's funny, when I think about preparation, when we think about Advent, one of the things

that I realize is that there's so much that happens within our culture that preparation

means you have to go and consume a lot of things.

You have to drink a lot of pumpkin spice lattes.

You know, you have to...

If you're supporting Starbucks as we do.

Yes, yes.

And, but there's very little conversation, even in our churches, around what does it mean to actually hold back a little bit? What does it mean to actually

abstain or to set aside things for the sake of somebody else? We talk about buying

...