A podcast episode graphic for "Take the Next Step with Amy Julia Becker" featuring a portrait of Adrian Wood. Bold yellow text boxes read: When Special Education Works with Adrian Wood. The bottom right corner shows a smaller image of the podcast cover with Penny, who has Down syndrome, walking with Amy Julia on a dirt path.
Many aspects of school life can feel really bleak for students with disabilities and their families. I talked with Adrian Wood this week about how parents can imagine and help build school environments that are positive, collaborative, and genuinely supportive for their children. ⬇️
04.02.2026 17:33 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
When Ordering Pizza Changes the Story
From churches to classrooms, simple acts can reshape communities. {Plus two things I'm pondering connected to Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and The Pitt.}
Small, simple offerings can cascade into real change, real relationships, and real beauty. It turns out, as our family discovered, ordering pizza is one of those simple offerings that can cascaded into beauty and real relationships.
open.substack.com/pub/amyjulia...
04.02.2026 11:31 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
We all long to be somewhere we’re truly welcome—known, loved, needed, and cared for. The questions in the Belonging Audit help churches (and any community) explore:
• How welcome is communicated
• How people know they matter
• How belonging is built in everyday practices
Download the free resource:
03.02.2026 18:37 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
“You know you belong when a group says, ‘We aren’t us without you.’”
02.02.2026 15:05 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 1
Years ago, Professor Erik Carter surveyed families who longed to belong within church communities. He found that belonging doesn’t require special programs or separate spaces.
31.01.2026 19:56 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
God gives us the ability to envision a good future that is not based on a fantasy, but is based on the reality of love rather than destruction.
31.01.2026 15:06 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Amy Julia smiles toward the camera while speaking into a white microphone in a home office with bookshelves behind her. In the lower right corner, a graphic shows the podcast cover for “Take the Next Step with Amy Julia Becker,” featuring Amy Julia and her daughter Penny walking outdoors.
My podcast for families experiencing disability is back! Weekly episodes drop beginning Feb 4. These episodes, produced in partnership with Hope Heals, will include:
🎙️When special education works
🎙️How to build a thriving marriage
🎙️Practical guidance for caregivers
1/
30.01.2026 17:21 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Culture Care, not Culture War - Amy Julia Becker
Makoto Fujimura explores how art, imagination, and wonder can restore hope, love, and culture in a fractured world through his book Art Is.
"And if we don't do that, we will use our imagination to worry, to create conspiracy theories, to create all sorts of false universe. And that may become real as well."
- Makoto Fujimura 2/2
amyjuliabecker.com/culture-care...
30.01.2026 14:44 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
"In America, we are struggling with 'What does freedom mean? Who is our neighbor?' [Answers to those questions] are an act of imagination. Out of the imagination of Jesus, we are able to talk about love, talk about beauty, talk about art, talk about healing." 1/
30.01.2026 14:44 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The ‘R-Word’ Returns, Dismaying Those Who Fought to Oust It
"For decades now, the “R-word” has been regarded as a slur against people with intellectual disabilities—a word to be avoided. Yet it has had a striking resurgence, in part because people in high-profile positions of power & influence have chosen to resurrect it, often with an air of defiance." 2/2
29.01.2026 16:27 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I wish there wasn’t more to share about the resurgence of the r-word, but here it is again. We can use language to lift people up or to put people down. Whatever you think about the r-word, using it does not lift anyone up. 1/
29.01.2026 16:27 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 1
“Culture Care, not Culture War with Makoto Fujimura” is live now on Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker🎙️S9 E9
amyjuliabecker.com/culture-care...
29.01.2026 12:05 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
"Culture at large is not a battlefield, but it is a garden to steward. There has to be tilling. There has to be slowness to that act of caring. It takes a while for tree to grow. What do we plant today so future generation can enjoy the branches and the fruit?" - Makoto Fujimura ⬇️
29.01.2026 12:05 — 👍 22 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 1
The Sentence Every Human Longs to Hear
“We aren’t us without you.” {Plus a documentary worth your time and a free resource}
We all need to know that we have a place and a people where our presence is more than just welcome, where we matter to one another.
open.substack.com/pub/amyjulia...
28.01.2026 11:51 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Photo credit: Windrider Productions. Podcast graphic for Reimagining the Good Life, Season 9 Episode 9. Makoto Fujimura poses for an indoor portrait with text overlay that reads: “Culture Care, not Culture War with Makoto Fujimura.” Near the bottom is a small thumbnail of host Amy Julia Becker and the show’s logo.
Our culture feels like a battlefield these days, but what if it’s actually a garden we’ve forgotten how to tend? Artist and author @iamfujimura.bsky.social shares how art, wonder, and imagination can restore our capacity to love, hope, and tend culture with care. I needed this conversation today!
27.01.2026 16:57 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
When Penny was born, we saw a genetic counselor who told me that most doctors had high IQs & such tremendous ambition that they couldn’t understand how a parent could welcome a child with Down syndrome. I assumed most doctors would see my daughter as an unfixable problem. My assumptions were wrong.
26.01.2026 21:51 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
From Deficit to Delight: Changing the Disability Narrative - Amy Julia Becker
Heather Avis and Amy Julia Becker explore how choosing delight can transform disability, family life, and advocacy.
"I think we should be biased toward one another as humans, [biased] to assume goodness, to assume love, to assume relationship, to be curious, to lean into love instead of fear." We all carry biases. I want mine to lean toward love. amyjuliabecker.com/disability-a...
23.01.2026 14:51 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
amyjuliabecker.substack.com/i/185205914/...
22.01.2026 16:49 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
a printed copy of the Time essay "Autistic Barbie Doesn't Represent Me. She Shouldn't Have to." The paper is on white, plank board desk next to a white coffee mug
Mattel has released a series of Barbies with disabilities and health conditions—most recently autistic Barbie. When Mattel created a Barbie with Down syndrome, there were people online who mocked that decision. I wrote a response to the online ridicule, which I linked in this week’s newsletter.⬇️
22.01.2026 16:49 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
I said, “Your honesty and your sense of humor,” but those felt like paltry efforts to say:
“The whole of you. YOU make me smile, over and over again.”
21.01.2026 16:41 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
VP at BioLogos
Host of Language of God podcast
Author of "The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith" (HarperOne, 2024)
Writes Stump Speeches at: jimstump.substack.com
associate professor of theology, Wheaton College | priest-theologian, Christ Our Advocate | author, IVP, Fortress, Cascade | Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God: https://www.ivpress.com/households-of-faith
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Westminster John Knox Press publishes progressive books covering the spectrum of religious thought, from resources for academics, preachers, and churchgoers, to books for seekers and questioners.
www.wjkbooks.com
Chaplain, PhD Christian Worship
Author: Suffering, Soul Care & Community: The Place of Lament in Corporate Worship. (Wipf & Stock, 2023), musician, teacher.
I enjoy nature, birds, music, poetry.
Publisher of thoughtful Christian books for the university, the church, and the world since 1947. See also @ivpacademic.bsky.social.
More coming soon!
Writer challenging the myths that shape religion and politics. Uncovering uncomfortable truths from the Bible to the ballot box.
Books. Justice. Cats. And occasional silliness.
I'm hard to pin down, though people keep trying. Allergic to conspiracy theories. I care about truth, beauty, and goodness. I hate mocking and oppression. I block trolls.
Film Director - 10 Days in a Madhouse (Christopher Lambert) Tomorrow's Today, (Kelly LeBrock), War of the World's The True Story, The Wilde Girls (Cali Scolari, Lydia Pearl Pentz, Teddy Smith) in theaters 2025, Annie Oakley, If You Only Knew.
Husband, Father, Catholic Parishioner. Also a Carpenter. Anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist (but I repeat myself).
Email: brad@alsoacarpenter.com
An apprentice of Jesus; an advocate for the hurting, a listener, a learner, a loyal friend.
NYT bestselling author of How to Walk Into A Room • Spiritual Director • Host of The Next Right Thing + The Quiet Collection app
neighbor . localist . professor . author . he/they
Professor/Chair, Calvin University English Department. Co-Director, Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Founding Co-Editor, Pedagogy (Duke UPress). Author, Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape Our Faith (IVP, 2023)
Ph.D. and Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor. Slytherin. Enneagram 3W4. Backing the Pack in South Jersey.
I work for @CNN.com. Michigan native. @Calvin_Uni grad. Recovering math major. Christian. ENTJ. #1 fan of @ABC, @AP and @WOODTV. #nooxfordcomma
Psychological Scientist, Author, and host of PRX podcast "How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality." Studying the Science of Emotion, Morality, & Religion. Words frequently in NYT, WSJ, etc. https://davedesteno.com https://www.howgodworks.org
national political correspondent at Christianity Today | egg enthusiast
tips? signal: harvestprude.09 or hprude@christianitytoday.com
