As we near the close of the year, Dan and Becky Allender are continuing a podcast tradition: sitting down to reflect on their experiences and inviting you, our listeners, to join them in this meaningful practice.

Dan and Becky share their own reflections—what they’ve learned, what they’re grieving, and what they’re celebrating—as they prepare to transition into a new season.

They’ve also shared a few practical ways you can reflect on your year:

• Scroll through your photo gallery. Notice the moments that brought you joy, growth, or even challenge.

• Review your calendar. Whether you logged your events in a digital calendar or on paper, look back on events and milestones from each month. Do you notice any themes?
  
  Choose five words. If you could describe your year in just five words, what would they be?

We hope you’ll take a moment as we close out the year to pause, reflect, and dream for what’s to come.

With Christmas just around the corner, it’s easy to get lost in the comforts of gifts, gatherings, and familiar holiday carols. Yet in today’s podcast, Dan and Rachael remind us that the true celebration of Christmas means embracing the profound disruption Jesus brought to the world—a call to love, bless, and challenge the status quo, even in a world often defined by hatred and division.

This conversation invites us to see Christmas as more than a season of comfort. It’s a time of transformation, calling us to step into the work of love, justice, and restoration.

Merry Christmas from all of us here at the Allender Center! We’ll take a short break on the podcast next week, and will return on December 27th with a year-end reflection from Dan and Becky Allender.

As we continue through the season of Advent, this week's episode of the Allender Center Podcast invites you to linger in the profound mystery of light and darkness found in John 1. 

Dan and Rachael reflect on the richness of this passage, offering insights into the paradox of the light that reveals all yet remains unseen by many.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5)

Through their conversation, Dan and Rachael explore 

• why arrogance and dogmatism can obscure even the brightest of truths,

• how Jesus, the true light, shattered societal and religious expectations of power and hierarchy, and 

• what it means to embody vulnerability and hope in a world steeped in exploitation and suffering.

With honesty and humility, they wrestle with the ways we — individually and collectively — can miss the light of Christ in our midst. Yet, we’re also reminded of the profound hope of the Word made flesh, dwelling among us still.