The fifth season of The Disrupters podcast launches on October 16 with a discussion between host Kaitlyn Schiess and her first guest, Tyler Burns, president of The Witness. Together they will begin to explore this season’s central question: What does it mean to disrupt ourselves in a meaningful way?

Seasons one and two of The Disrupters podcast, hosted by Esau McCaulley, asked the question, What does it mean to disrupt the church? Seasons three and four, hosted by Nancy Wang Yuen, asked the question, What does it mean to disrupt culture? For the fifth season, Schiess will explore the ways that Christians can prepare themselves—spiritually, emotionally, and relationally—to faithfully disrupt the church and the world. Pastors, scholars, activists, and therapists will share their own experiences of formation and transformation to educate and inspire listeners who seek lasting change, both within themselves and in their communities.

The Disrupters season five guests are: 

October 16

Tyler Burns is a pastor, speaker, writer, and podcaster. He currently serves as the president of The Witness, an organization founded to educate, encourage, and empower Black Christians to be free in soul and in body. He also cohosts the organization’s flagship podcast Pass the Mic.

October 23

Aundi Kolber is a licensed professional counselor and bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Try Softer as well as her new book Strong like Water. As a survivor of trauma, Aundi brings hard-won knowledge about the work of change, the power of redemption, and the beauty of experiencing God with us in our pain.

October 30

Russell Moore is Christianity Today’s editor in chief and the director of the Public Theology Project. An ordained Baptist minister, Moore served previously as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and, before that, as the chief academic officer and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also taught theology and ethics. Moore also hosts the weekly podcast The Russell Moore Show and is cohost of Christianity Today’s weekly news and analysis podcast, The Bulletin.

November 6

Walter Kim is the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He previously served as a pastor at Boston’s historic Park Street Church and at churches in Vancouver, Canada, and Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as a campus chaplain at Yale University. He preaches, writes, and engages in collaborative leadership to connect the Bible to the intellectual and cultural issues of the day. He serves on the boards of Christianity Today and World Relief and consults with a wide range of organizations.

November 13

Shannan Martin, author of Start with Hello, The Ministry of Ordinary Places, and Falling Free, is a speaker and writer who found her voice in the country and her story in the city. She also works as a cook at The Window, a local nonprofit dedicated to feeding its community. Martin is currently running for a seat on the city council in her hometown of Goshen, Indiana, as she desires to love her neighbors through local political activism.

November 20

Luke Bretherton is Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Research Professor of Moral and Political Theology and senior fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. His most recent book is titled Christ and the Common Life. He also hosts the Listen, Organize, Act! podcast, which focuses on the history and contemporary practice of democratic organizing and the role religion plays in forms of grassroots, democratic politics.

November 27

Amy Williams, a youth ministry veteran, ministers to teens involved in gangs and those lost in the criminal justice system with a key strategy of life-on-life mentoring. As a certified gang intervention specialist, she heard God’s call to move into a Latino gang neighborhood in Chicago’s Humboldt Park community to be a “Hope Dealer” doing street outreach and walking life with young people on her block. Amy is project coordinator at New Life Centers, bringing in restorative justice programming to youth at juvenile prisons.

December 4

Michael Wear is the founder, president, and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution based in the nation’s capital with the mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. For well over a decade, he has served as a trusted resource and adviser for a range of civic leaders on matters of faith and public life, including as a White House and presidential campaign staffer. Michael is a leading voice on building a healthy civic pluralism in twenty-first-century America.

December 11

Mark Charles is coauthor of Unsettling Truths. He was also a 2020 Independent candidate for the office of President of the United States. His vision is to build a nation where “We the People” truly means #AllThePeople. Charles is one of the leading authorities on the 15th-century’s Doctrine of Discovery and its influence on US history and its intersection with modern-day society.

December 18

Kathryn A. Freeman is a leader, writer, and speaker at the intersection of faith, justice, and culture. She has served as the director of public policy for the Texas Baptists Christian Life Commission. She also worked as the press secretary to two Texas-elected officials and a policy attorney for two nonprofits focused on issues affecting low-income families. Kathryn is one half of the podcast Melanated Faith, which is a conversation about race, faith, and culture from the perspective of two Black Christian women.

The Disrupters podcast will be available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcast distributors.