Low In The Water Podcast
Low in the Water invites you into thoughtful conversations where we attempt to quiet ourselves before God and allow simplicity and beauty to do their work. Each week, we reflect on a text from The Common Lectionary, nurtured along by original music from Michigan-IO. And we always conclude with our favorite part: the benediction, prayed over you, over all of us.
On a monthly basis, Mandy Smith and Winn Collier join Nathan Hoff for a wide-ranging conversation, including your questions (send them to [email protected]).
We hope that these few minutes will be a time to breathe more slowly, think more deeply, and rest in the goodness of friendship and the wonder of God.
Quiet
Our latest guest, a common loon, arrived this winter unannounced and bringing gifts – filling hearts and home with beauty: wild, elusive, sleek, low in the water, this contemplative loon is an icon for living present but detached. I rarely see him fly but he can fly. This loon dives, dives long and deep. No mere surface bird, he goes for the depths. When he dives I think he prays, searching deep waters for what keeps him and us alive, grace and quiet, buoyant with Presence.
From Holy Luck
By Eugene Peterson
Meet the Podcast Team
Podcast Host
Nathan Hoff
Nathan Hoff was born at San Pedro Hospital, two blocks from where he now lives. He has lived in Seattle (where he graduated from High School, then college at Trinity Lutheran College formerly Lutheran Bible Institute), Dubuque, the Texas panhandle, Peterson (MN-269 population), Minneapolis/St Paul (where he graduated from Luther Seminary in 2002), Portland, Stavanger (Norway), Orange County, and boomeranged back to San Pedro when he received a call to serve as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in 2005.
In 2019, in the same parish, Nathan and a small group of friends, began a Benedictine-inspired neo-monastic community of young adults that share a rule of life and a rhythm of prayer called the Theta Community. Participating in the first Holy Presence cohort (2021-2024) at the Eugene Peterson Center at Western Theological Seminary was restorative and reinvigorating to Nathan’s pastoral vocation. Nathan is married to Joy and they have four kids named Christian (married to Molly), Annika, Samuel, and Peter.
Nathan’s writing can be found at: nathanhoff.substack.com or trinitysanpedro.org/nathanhoff
Musician & Producer
Jonathan Gabhart
Jonathan Gabhart is a musician and pastor from Holland, MI. He is married to Anna and shares the joy of raising two children together. Jonathan grew up amid the corn fields of Iowa, but came to Michigan as a student at Hope College where he studied vocal music. He then studied at Western Theological Seminary, graduating in 2015. Since then he has served as the Pastor of Worship Arts at Pillar Church. He journeyed with the Peterson Center in the Holy Presence Doctor of Ministry cohort from 2021-2024. And participates in other local arts endeavors with Cardiphonia, Bellwether Arts, and a rag-tag folk music group called Michigan-IO.
Music and Production Reflections:
All the music has been originally composed and recorded for this podcast by the band Michigan-IO, a group of musicians in Holland, MI. The music has been written and produced to give a sense of spaciousness, mostly with acoustic instruments, and you may even notice the space of the world around us through field recordings and found sounds that evoke the “wild, elusive, and sleek” (from “Quiet” by Eugene Peterson) beauty we are all seeking.
Andrea Taphorn
Andrea Taphorn is a Lutheran pastor. She has been married to her husband Brodie, who is also a Lutheran pastor, for 27 years. Together, they pastor a congregation in Sulphur Springs, Ohio, St. Paul Lutheran Church. They have three kids: Abby, Carolyn and Silas. She is passionate about shepherding people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Brian Keepers
Brian Keepers has been an ordained pastor in the Reformed Church in America for nearly 24 years. He has served three different congregations in west Michigan and northwest Iowa. Brian graduated from Northwestern College in Orange City, IA with a B.A. in Humanities, and then received his M.Div. from Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI. In 2017, he completed his Doctor of Ministry program at Western Seminary.
Brian is a pastor at his core, and he loves the integration of theology, leadership, and the pastoral life. He and his wife Tammy have been married 25 years and have two daughters and one granddaughter.
Dave Wollan
Dave Wollan is a pastor at Faith Lutheran in Hutchinson, MN, husband to Andrea, and father of four awesome kids. He received his Doctor of Ministry from the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination.
Dave loves being a part of the church, good coffee conversations, and the Minnesota Vikings.
Eric Peterson
Eric Peterson is the founding pastor of Colbert Presbyterian Church near Spokane, Washington where he has served since 1997. He is married to Elizabeth with whom he delights in their six children and four grandchildren.
Mandy Smith
Mandy Smith is the pastor of St Lucia Uniting Church in Brisbane, Australia, and a DMin cohort leader at The Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination. Mandy is an artist and the author of Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God, The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry, and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith Beyond the Baggage of Western Culture.
Mandy and her husband Jamie, a New Testament professor, live in their parsonage where the teapot is always warm. Learn more at: www.TheWayIsTheWay.org.
Winn Collier
Winn Collier is an Episcopal priest and the founding pastor of All Souls in Charlottesville, Virginia. His teaching centers on pastoral theology, connecting the ancient streams of Christian wisdom to the grit and wonders of the parish. He’s also drawn to the intersections of sacramental theology, iconography, theology of place, and the writing craft. Winn holds a PhD. from the University of Virginia in Religion & Literature, where he explored the sacramental vision of Wendell Berry’s fiction.
Winn and his wife Miska (a spiritual director and yoga teacher) have two sons. You may read more of Winn’s work on his Substack or view more information on his writing site.