In this episode, Damon Garcia joins us to explore the pressure of trying to find — and faithfully follow — God’s plan for your life. Growing up in a Pentecostal and charismatic church culture, Damon was taught that God had a specific calling for each person, and that missing it could mean missing the life you were meant to live. Damon reflects on the anxiety, striving, and self-surveillance that this way of thinking can create, as well as his own complicated journey into ministry and eventual departure from evangelicalism.
As the conversation unfolds, the lens widens beyond church culture to ask what happens when one version of calling collapses, only for another to take its place. From hustle culture and monetised gifts to the pressure to “become somebody”, Damon reflects on the ways capitalism shapes our understanding of purpose, success, and worth. Along the way, he offers a gentler alternative: a vision of “small, simple callings” rooted less in grand destiny and more in presence, grace, creativity, and the ordinary life in front of us.
Following the interview Nomad hosts Tim and Joy reflect on growing up in Pentecostal and charismatic church cultures where “calling” shaped everything from identity and relationships to work, status, and major life decisions. Together they explore the anxiety of trying to discern God’s plan, the hierarchies hidden within church culture, and the ways privilege, power, and gender shaped those callings
Interview starts at 12m 24s
SOCIALS
BOOKS
The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus
RESOURCES MENTIONED
How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century – Erik Olin Wright
Wild Mercy Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics – Mirabai Starr
QUOTES
“Success is not a substitute for healing.”
“There isn’t some supernatural director in some other realm judging whether I’m on the right path or the wrong path.”
“You already are valuable, lovable, worthy of community, exactly as you are.”