Is Christian dating actually broken… or are we just doing it wrong?

Lecrae sits down with B. Simone, Toni Collier, Chaz Smith, and Matthew Hudson for an honest, hilarious, and surprisingly vulnerable conversation about modern dating, singleness, sex, celibacy, standards, leadership, healing, and what it really looks like to pursue relationships God's way.

From waiting until marriage and dating after divorce to unrealistic expectations and learning how to be content while single, nothing is off the table.

Whether you're dating, waiting, healing, or wondering if your person is even out there, this conversation is for you.

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Tim Keller was Lecrae's Michael Jordan. Ten years of sermons, a shared reading list with Kendrick Lamar, and a friendship that started with him shaking like "a stripper in church on Sunday." Then 2016 happened, and Lecrae stopped listening to any theologian who looked like Keller.

In week two of his series on the men who shaped his theology, Lecrae gets brutally honest about Doctor Timothy Keller: the missionary sermon that rewired how he saw the city, the years of silence during his own "disorientation," and the moment he came back around to find Keller had been standing in the gap the whole time. He talks about writing a book together, watching Keller invest in Bronx pastors most reformed circles ignored, and the small paperback — The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness — that became a spiritual anchor. And he tells the story of a breakdown in Mexico, a copy of Prodigal Prophet, and an actual whale outside his window.

This one is personal, complicated, and honest about a man Lecrae calls one of the great Western Christian thinkers — flaws included.

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Chapters:

00:00 The theologian who made him nervous like a fan meeting Jordan

03:05 Picking up where the Piper conversation left off

05:00 The father wound behind every theological hero

08:28 A friend named Miguel and the sermon that changed everything

10:13 Trained to be missionaries, not just pastors

10:31 The oil spill metaphor that reshaped his view of the city

16:40 2016 and the year he went quiet

20:51 Why he stopped listening to every white theologian

23:39 Coming back around and catching wind of what he'd missed

27:28 The panel, the book, and the wisdom he didn't expect

28:42 Why he thinks history will remember Keller like C.S. Lewis

34:55 The thin book he makes every artist he signs read

36:18 A breakdown in Mexico, a book about Jonah, and a whale outside the window

41:01 What's coming next: Mark Driscoll

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"I made an idol out of John Piper." Lecrae doesn't say that lightly. For years, John Piper shaped the way he read the Bible, understood God, wrote music, and approached ministry. His sermons became the soundtrack to an entire season of Lecrae's life. When he finally met Piper, after meeting celebrities, athletes, and presidents, no one left him more starstruck. But admiration has a way of becoming something else.

In this episode, Lecrae opens up about growing up without a father. He shares why he was unknowingly looking for affirmation from older spiritual leaders. He reflects on how John Piper became the father figure he didn't realize he was searching for, and explains what happened when racial tension, church hurt, and life experience forced him to reevaluate everything he once accepted without question.

Lecrae also shares how his view of Piper has changed over the years, why he believes gratitude and critique can coexist, and what it looks like to honor the people God used in your life without expecting them to carry what only Jesus can.

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From the time he was 7 years old, his dad told him: people like you and want to hear what you have to say. Judah Smith spent the next four decades finding out what that actually meant — and what it cost. He became one of the most recognizable preachers in America. Known as Bieber's pastor. Called America's sexiest pastor. Put on the Mount Rushmore of celebrity pastors. And now, sitting across from Lecrae, he says the scariest thing he's ever admitted out loud: his critics might be right about him. In this episode, Judah opens up about growing up 7th generation in a preaching family with real darkness in its history, the moment he realized he'd been preaching about a Jesus he wasn't sure he actually knew, what happened with Mark Driscoll, the spiritual father who asked to get paid, the friends who disappeared when his circumstances changed, and why he's giving the rest of his life to the 50% of Americans who say they'll never step foot in a church. He also announces a Netflix deal live on camera. Nobody in the room knew it was coming.

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Dr. Anita Phillips spent 27 years married, went through a divorce, and still woke up the next day believing God is good. That's not a talking point. That's a testimony.

In this conversation, the NYT bestselling author of The Garden Within, trauma therapist, and lead pastor joins Lecrae for one of the most wide-ranging, deeply personal episodes of The Deep End yet.

They go everywhere. From her unlikely journey starting as a math and physics major, to why she'd rather have a spiritually open Hollywood than a religiously closed church. From why anxiety is actually a scarcity mindset, to the moment she was told in her PhD program that she was "misusing the Bible." From a deep breakdown of why the five stages of grief were never designed for survivors, to what it actually looks like to heal when you have every tool and still hit the floor.

Dr. Anita doesn't just bring frameworks. She brings receipts from her own life.

This one goes deep.

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_____

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Some of what you've said about me is right. I want to say which parts, specifically.

When Reach Records partnered with Phillip Anthony Mitchell and 2819 Church, it cracked something open — years of assumptions, questions, and criticisms about Lecrae that people had been carrying quietly suddenly got loud. So instead of guessing what people were thinking, he asked. Voice memos. Real questions. No prepared statements.

In this episode, Lecrae listens and responds in real time — to the secular collab criticism, the Cross Movement distance, the Reformed theology departure, the Warnock rally confusion, the people who think his music got watered down, and the Christians who've been watching him for 23 years wondering which direction he's really headed.

He also speaks directly to the people who are done with church but still craving community — and to anyone who's ever felt like they just can't win on either side.

No PR answer. No saving face. Just an honest one.

Topics covered:

• Why the 2819 partnership brought everything to the surface
• Secular collabs: missionary or compromiser?
• Why he stepped back from Reformed theology circles
• Cross Movement, the Ambassadors, and the bitterness he had to own
• Growing up in public without a roadmap
• "Die for the Party" and what it costs to be rebuked by the church
• Mental health stigma in the church
• For the 24-year-old stuck between the 9-to-5 and the dream
• A public apology — and what he'd do differently

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She grew up in one of the most famous families in American sports — and somehow didn't fully realize it until Deion's Hall of Fame weekend.

Deondra Sanders sits down with Lecrae to talk about growing up as Primetime's daughter, losing herself in a relationship, navigating a high-risk pregnancy, postpartum depression, a very public breakup, and what it actually looks like to rebuild when the whole world is watching.

She gets honest about the moment she got angry with God. About choosing to come back anyway.

Deondra Sanders is the eldest daughter of NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders. An entrepreneur, philanthropist, and athlete manager, she's built her own lane far from the spotlight — until life pulled her into the middle of it.

In this episode, Deondra and Lecrae cover:

• Growing up as Deion's daughter and not realizing what that meant until she was 21
• How a privileged childhood quietly killed her ambition
• Losing herself in a relationship — and having to forgive herself for it
• The pregnancy her family didn't take well, and why her dad surprised her
• Postpartum depression: what nobody tells you, and what it actually felt like
• The public fallout — what she wishes she'd done differently, and why she responded the way she did
• Getting angry at God for giving her the blessing she prayed for the wrong way
• Where she is now, and why she knows she's moving in the right direction

KB has been one of the most theologically sharp voices in Christian hip hop for over two decades. In this episode, he finally says what he's never said publicly — about his relationship with Lecrae, the tension inside 116, and the years it took to get to the other side of it.

This one goes deep.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How KB came to faith at 16 through a bootleg mixtape
• The Flavor Fest moment that connected KB and Lecrae for the first time
• What KB was carrying inside 116 that Lecrae didn't know about
• The counseling session KB needed before he could tour with Lecrae
• The South by Southwest text that nearly fractured the movement
• Why KB felt Lecrae was over-indexing his mainstream reach
• The tearful reconciliation — and what it took to get there
• KB on reformed theology, race, and navigating Black identity in evangelical spaces
• Why KB says the new generation of Christian artists is getting the victory without the cross
• Contentment as a superpower — and why suffering is how you get it
• KB's new album This Cannot Be Sold and what's next

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Two days before this conversation, Sarah Jakes Roberts fractured her neck in three places jumping on a trampoline with her daughter.

Touré Roberts still showed up.

In this episode, Touré sits down with Lecrae hours after learning his wife wouldn't need emergency surgery — still processing the fear, still breaking down twice a day, still on a book tour. What he shares is raw, unfiltered, and completely different from anything you've seen from him on a stage.

They go deep on what it's really like to build a life and a ministry with Sarah, how Bishop Jakes' famous first question changed everything, and what Touré's new book Knowing: The Journey to Certainty in an Uncertain World has to say about finding clarity when everything around you is loud and uncertain.

Plus: the bullet that moved in his chest at 16, why he almost walked away from business to follow God, and the tension between being the man behind a rising force and knowing exactly who you are. _

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Tim Ross has been canceled. Accused of being in the Illuminati. Called out online. Lost a business partnership he thought God ordained. Watched a spiritual father go to prison. And somehow, he's the most unbothered man in the room. In this episode, Lecrae sits down with his blood relative and the founder of The Basement podcast for one of the most honest conversations the show has ever had. From surviving sexual abuse in Inglewood to stepping down from a 30-year pastoral career, from processing Robert Morris to writing a book his therapist says is worth two years of counseling — Tim Ross holds nothing back.

Tim's upbringing in Inglewood and how Gen X shaped his entire worldview. The "stripper pastor" controversy explained in his own words. Why he believes Jesus on the cross is the ultimate strip. 30 years of ministry and why he left his congregation. Processing Robert Morris's confession as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Why visiting a man in prison is not the same as excusing what he did. The B-Side record label, why it ended, and the lesson about money that isn't confirmation from God. His new book and why you won't finish it if you're not ready to face yourself. Why online Christian culture is off-mission. What the critics of the church actually get right.

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Avery Austin Jr. — known online as GodLogic — has 500K+ subscribers and streams apologetics debates live three times a week. He grew up as a preacher's kid in Lancaster, California. Got ordained at 20. Got stumped by a Jehovah's Witness at a community college. And decided the whole church needed to get equipped.

In this episode of The Deep End, Lecrae plays TikTok devil's advocate — throwing Islam's best arguments, Hebrew Israelite talking points, and the problem of evil at GodLogic live. He answers every single one.

They also go deep on: what happens to the souls you never hear from again, the gap between intellectual certainty and real faith, and what GodLogic prays for after every stream.

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_______________________________________________

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