Hi friends, happy 2017. Welcome to our first episode of our third season of the That

Sounds Fun podcast. I'm your host Annie F. Downs. I'm so so glad to be here and glad

to see you here. I hope you had a great Christmas and a really, really fun new year. We are

kicking off a new season of the show with lots of fun interviews coming and and what's

on all of our minds. I think right now is the election and the inauguration and the

end of President Obama's time as our president and the start of President-elect Trump's time

and where things have been and where things are going and what happens now. And it's

hard to find a trusted voice for me in politics, but luckily in the last couple years I have

gotten to be friends with Michael Ware and his wife Melissa. Michael and Melissa I met

through Gabe and Rebecca Lyons through the Q conference and they are just super fun,

to be around wonderful people and he is way into politics. He's like the guy to listen

to if you ask me. He is Twitter, his Instagram, his Facebook, all of it. It just really leads

you towards some good information, good articles to read and a lot of really good wisdom from

a faith-based man in the world of politics. He worked for President Obama in his first

term in office and now works doing more faith, culture and politics kinds of things. So

Michael has a new book coming out actually this week called Reclaiming Hope and it is really

an excellent read and I think you're going to really enjoy it. And also I just kind of

wanted to sit down and talk to Michael about like what politics looks like and how does

faith meet that and how did he get in this spot where President Obama asked him to help

run the faith initiatives through the White House and the answers really, really interesting

that I actually never know and I think it is something that we can all kind of think

through in our own lives of how you end up where you are. So here is my interview with

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