Hey friends and welcome to the happy hour with Jamie Ivy podcast. I'm your host Jamie and I'm so glad you're here.

Each week on this show, I invite a friend to join me and we chat about the big things in life, the little things in life and everything in between.

Hey friends and happy last Wednesday of September. Today's a great happy hour episode for you. I'm your host Jamie and I'm really glad that you're here today. I really am.

Today on the show, I sit down with Skyjatani and we talk about so many fabulous things. I found Sky when I started listening to the podcast at a host with Phil Vischer called The Holy Post. If you've followed me on Instagram at all, you know this is one of my favorite things I've discovered in the past year.

Well Sky is the co-host here. Like I said, he's also written some incredible books including What Did Jesus Was Serious that I read this summer and they also just released What Did Jesus Was Serious About Prayer.

In today's show, we talk about how much proximity changes things and how important it is for us to learn how to have civil conversations with people who think differently than us. This is hard for all of us and Sky and I dive into that. We also talk about how crucial discipleship is in the church and why homogeneous communities causes to miss out on the ways that God can change us through other people.

Before we get to my conversation with Sky, I want to remind you that we are less than a week, less than a week, six days out from my new book releasing and it's a book just for kids. It's for ages 2 to 6 and it's called God made you to be you.

You can get it wherever books are sold. I would love it if you guys picked up one of these for some young person in your life, whether that's your own child, a niece, nephew, a grandchild, maybe for your nursery, your church, or your preschool down the street from your house.

I know that every kid that reads this book is going to love it because it has some really great treats and it about how God made us to be people who have a purpose.

It's about a cactus named Sammy and he goes on a journey with all of his friends and I just adore it so much. It comes out next Tuesday, but you can get it wherever books are sold.

All right, friends. Here's my conversation with Sky, Jatani.

Sky, welcome to the happy hour. Hi, it's great to be with you. This is super exciting to have you on. So I told you before we start recording, I was going to rave about you for just a second. So you guys over the past maybe year, I've been listening to the Holyposts and I don't remember how I found it, but I stumbled upon it.

And what I'm about to say, I hope you take us a compliment at the beginning, I was like, there's this banter and all these things. And I'm like, do I really want to I love the Holypost so much. It is my favorite podcast right now. You do the best interviews at the end. And so I'm so grateful to have found you a year ago.

Well, thanks. You're kind of a newcomer. I'm a new cover. I know I went back and I'm like, you guys have been doing this forever. When did you guys start?

We started in 2012. That is, I mean, people tell me that I started my show in 2014. And so there's been this huge boom you've seen it. And so I always say when people like, oh my gosh, you're on the front of it. And I'm like, listen, there were people before me, just so you know, but podcasts hit a boom in 15 and 16 and I was just glad to be here already.

Yeah, we were like the old men of podcasts world, at least the Christian podcast world because we didn't engage or begin because we had any strategy and mind or had foresight that this was going to become a huge thing. But there we were.

There you were.

Okay, we'll introduce yourself. And then I have a lot of questions about your podcast as well. So tell everybody what you do.

It depends what day it is. I suppose you do a lot. I do know that.

I am a writer. I do a lot of writing. I write a daily devotional, which is grown to become a significant part of my work. I've written a number of books.

Before that, I was an editor at Christianity today for their magazine for pastors called Leadership Journal. And while I was there, and before I was there, I was also a local church pastor.

I am still technically ordained and licensed as a pastor. I went to seminary. That's quarter of my background and training, but it's certainly gone in unexpected directions since then.

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