meghan larissa good
Meghan Larissa Good is lead pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church (Phoenix, Arizona) and author of Divine Gravity: Sparking a Movement to Recover a Better Christian Story.
With over fifteen years of experience as a local pastor and speaker to diverse Christian groups, Meghan has extensive on-the-ground insight into questions of faith that people are asking. Her first book, The Bible Unwrapped: Making Sense of Scripture Today, addressed common questions that twenty-first century readers bring to the Bible and introduced what it means to interpret through the lens of Jesus. The Bible Unwrapped was named one of Outreach Magazine’s Resources of the Year (2019).
Meghan’s latest book Divine Gravity: Sparking a Movement to Recover a Better Christian Story explores contemporary distortions in how the Christian story is told that have left many people adrift or deconstructing their faith and suggests how a recentering of theology on Jesus can revitalize the Christian movement for generations to come.
Meghan has a B.A. from Gordon College, an MDiv from Duke Divinity, and a DMin from Portland Seminary, where she was the first recipient of the Frederick Buechner Award for Excellence in Preaching.
In addition to her work for the local church, Meghan serves as theology chair for Jesus Collective, an organization working to unite, equip, and amplify a movement toward a more hopeful Jesus-centered Christianity. Meghan is also Faculty of Record for Teaching Leadership in the Doctor of Ministry program at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.
Meghan is a frequent speaker and workshop leader around such topics as biblical hermeneutics, contemporary preaching, and the peacemaking role of the church in an age of polarization.
a more personal note
I’ve been told my superpower is making complex things simple (still waiting for Marvel to option rights to ‘Simplicity Woman.’) I once planned to become a full-time academic, but along the way I discovered a passion for making important ideas accessible to everyone. I write and speak on serious topics, but I’m known for my flare for storytelling and quirky sense of humor. [Aside: the most frequent comments I receive on my first book, The Bible Unwrapped— (1) “I laughed a lot,” (2) “You’re weird,” (3) “Thank God (really) the chapters were short.”]
I work as a pastor, teacher, and writer, but I think of my true vocation as that of professional matchmaker. My call is to introduce people to the God revealed in Jesus, highlight this God’s dazzling qualities, then get out of the way and let the sparks fly.
I love science and philosophy and nerdy policy podcasts. I believe a person can think deeply and be a Christian. I’m comfortable with questions, uncertainty, and mystery. I also believe in a God who is near and engaged with the world—who speaks, who acts, who is available for personal interaction. What I hope you’ll find in me is a person who takes seriously the life of the mind but who also believes that many deep truths are accessible not just through intellectual abstraction but through embodied practice and spiritual encounter.
I believe that many people today are making their way through the world with a profound wound in their image of God that will only be healed through direct encounter with Jesus. I’m convinced this journey of healing is one of the core works of God in our time. As our image of God is transformed by Jesus, I believe we are set free to experience deeper transformation in our own humanity. This in turn is the grace we will bring to the transformation of the world. This conviction is what gets me up in the morning and is at the heart of all my work.
As a local pastor, I feel keenly aware what a difficult moment this is in the life of the Christian church. Leaders and institutions have failed many people. Changes in cultural norms, developments in technology and in science raise questions that press on faith from many sides at once. Many wonder if the Jesus movement that started more than two thousand years ago is still plausible or relevant. I firmly believe that it is and that in fact God’s Spirit is at work in this time of great disruption to draw the Christian movement back into greater alignment with its founder. My prayer is that what emerges from this time of seismic change is a community recentered on Jesus and equipped by the Spirit to embody hope for the isolation, anxiety, polarization, and existential despair that are key pain-points of our time.
But enough of the heavy stuff for now. For those who enjoy the more personal details, I live in Phoenix, Arizona with a roommate and a prized dinosaur bone. I can frequently be found roaming the dusty anthills Phoenicians call mountains (at least, when they don’t look too snaky), reading all the books on volcanos in the children’s section of library, and fantasizing about my dream job of being the first pastor sent to Mars. I’m currently reading through a list 20 most popular fantasy novels of all time and nearing the end of my quest to visit all 50 U.S. states.
I consider myself to have some of the most amazing friends—on multiple continents—that anyone has ever been blessed with. And I’d love to count you as one of them. Just please, and I’m serious about this, don’t ever ask me to play kickball.