Hello and welcome to the John Mark Horma Teachings podcast.

My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host.

Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space and it's wonderful to have you with us.

We're continuing our series in prayer with a teaching from Josh Porter.

Josh is the pastor of teaching

and creative vision at VanCity Church in Vancouver, Washington, while also being an author, several

books, a musician and a podcaster. You can learn more about Josh's teaching, writing,

and music, and more at his website, Joshuaoshua s.porter.com.

This week, Josh explores the practice of imaginative prayer.

He makes the case that our brains don't process relationships through data alone.

We need images, experiences and encounters,

and he walks through how we can use our God-given imagination to meet Jesus in ways that are deeply formational. Here's Josh.

If we've yet to meet, my name is Josh, and like Bethany was saying accurately, after years at

Bridgetown, some of them as a pastor, myself, my wife, a team of folks, planted a like-minded church in downtown Vancouver called

Van City. So often I'll run into, you know, one or two of you in a grocery store or something

like that, and people ask, how is Vancouver? It's quite a broad question. Unfortunately, my

perspective of Vancouver is decidedly narrow. I'm not the mayor. I don't

have a deep familiarity with everything going on, so forgive me if the question rattles me from

time to time. Just so you know. Now, like you guys, we have been working our way just the same

through the practices of Jesus, learning

what it means to be with Jesus, to become like Jesus, and to do the things that Jesus did.

So John Mark asked if I'd come and hang out with you guys and talk about something called

...