Menlo Church Podcasts

In this episode, Matt Summers sits down with Banda Health co-founders Steve Letchford and Wes Brown to hear the story behind their work in Kenya. Banda Health equips resource-constrained clinics with practical technology that helps frontline healthcare teams provide better care to some of the world’s most vulnerable patients.

Their conversation explores the development of BandaGo, the realities facing local clinics, and the importance of building solutions alongside the people who use them. They also discuss how faith shapes Banda’s approach, Menlo’s growing partnership with the organization, and what can happen when people bring their...

We spend so much energy trying to "measure up." Repentance is the relief of finally admitting we can't. This "purification" isn't about being scrubbed clean by our effort, but being made whole through our honesty.

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We often think God waits for us to fix ourselves before He is kind. Romans 2:4 flips the script: His kindness is the reason we are able to change. This shifts us from the "Pressure" of the law to the "Purpose" of grace.

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On Week 1 of Repentance for the Rest of Us, hosts Matt Summers and Phil EuBank sit down with guest speaker and author Dr. Vince Vitale to confront a word most of us spend our lives avoiding: repentance. Kicking off our new series under our year-long focus, Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, this conversation moves past clinical definitions to reframing repentance not as punishment or shame, but as the daily exhale of a living faith.

Together, Matt, Phil, and Vince dismantle the corporate project-management approach to apology and explore what it actually costs to step into horizontal, present-tense...

In this special episode of Menlo Midweek, Senior Pastor Phil EuBank sits down with Elder Nominees Kwadwo Bediako and Bryant Barr. Together, they discuss personal faith journeys, the shift from inherited belief to personal conviction, and what it means to lead as an "undivided follower of Jesus" in the Bay Area. Tune in to hear their hearts for the church, their call to Session, and their vision for shepherding the Menlo Church community.

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To believe in Jesus is to trust His direction. If we say we trust Him but keep walking the opposite way, we don't truly believe. This week focuses on the "Undivided Follower"—aligning our feet with our confession.

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Episode Description:
On Week 4, the finale of What is a Follower of The Way?, host Matt Summers and pastor Phil EuBank sit down to confront an uncomfortable reality: the illusion of control. Building on our year of Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, this final conversation moves from the "junk drawer" to the "spray bottle"—a simple illustration that shifts our perspective on life, time, and stewardship. Phil and Matt unpack James 4 and 5, exploring why we so often try to edit ourselves into the hero of our own stories and how we can stop treating our lives as possessions to...

James closes with a warning to the arrogant planner and the hoarder of wealth. He calls our life a "vapor" (mist). The "Sacrificial Developer" understands that because time is short, we must invest in the future—not just build our own empires. We look at patience in suffering and the power of prayer. We move from asking "How can I accumulate?" to "How can I develop others before my mist evaporates?"

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Episode Description:
On Week 3 of our series through James, Pastor Phil EuBank swaps chairs to sit down with Matt Summers to ask a grounding question: What do your words reveal about the "junk drawer" of your life?

Continuing our year dedicated to Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, Phil and Matt unpack what it means to build atmospheres with our words in the fast-paced, highly verbal culture of the Bay Area. Together, they explore the tension between our carefully crafted outward communication and the underlying spiritual formation that actually fuels our daily reactions.

This conversation...

James 3 is the most famous passage on the tongue. In an era of hot takes, cancel culture, and digital outrage, the "Thoughtful Witness" is rare. James describes the tongue as a "restless evil." A follower of Jesus is marked not just by what they say, but by what they refuse to say. We will contrast "Earthly Wisdom" (envy, selfish ambition) with "Wisdom from Above" (pure, peace-loving, considerate).

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Episode Description: Fresh off Vision Sunday and the launch of our new series through James, host Matt Summers sits down with Pastor Phil EuBank to ask a grounding question: What is your life actually becoming? Moving from last series’ focus on researched faith to a year dedicated to reclaimed faith, Matt and Phil unpack what it means to follow Jesus in the real pace, devices, habits, and demands of Bay Area life. Together, they explore the life of James—someone who had extreme proximity to Jesus yet almost missed Him—and wrestle with the tension between spiritual formation and modern...

James 2 attacks the sin of partiality—treating the rich better than the poor. In our context, this is "networking" vs. "friendship." We tend to be "hurried" with people who can't help us and "unhurried" with people who can advance us. James says this is incompatible with the Way. A true friend creates space for the marginalized, the awkward, and the person who can offer nothing in return. This is "Reclaiming the Table."

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Description

Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! Following Vision Sunday at Menlo Church, host Matt Summers sits down with Phil EuBank to launch our new year-long journey: Reclaiming the Way of Jesus.

In this episode, we dive into Week 1 of our study in James (The Mirror) to unpack what it actually means to be an Undivided Follower in a culture designed to fragment our focus, schedules, and devotion. From shifting from a "researched faith" to a "reclaimed faith" to exploring why James shifted from Jesus' skeptical brother to His servant, Matt and Phil map out...

James opens with a punch: "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." In the Bay Area, we are experts at fragmentation—we have a "work self," a "home self," and a "church self." But a Follower of the Way seeks integration. James compares the Word to a mirror; it shows us who we really are. The tragedy is looking at the mirror, seeing the mess, and walking away without changing.

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In this series finale of the Menlo Midweek Podcast, Matt Summers and Phil EuBank wrap up seven weeks of exploring the world’s major worldviews by turning their focus directly toward the heart of Christianity: the Gospel. Reflecting on the journey from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Catholicism, and Agnosticism, this episode draws a stark line between every human transaction, where we try to perform, prove, or bribe our way to God and the true Gospel, where God reverses direction and gives us a way home. Matt and Phil unpack how religion acts as humanity’s attempt to climb back to E...

Get to know two familiar faces stepping into new leadership roles at Menlo Church! Our Lead Pastor Phil sits down with Tommy, the new San Mateo Campus Pastor, and Brett, the new Mountain View Campus Pastor, to discuss their journeys, family life, and heart for their respective communities. From fun icebreakers to behind-the-scenes stories of their transitions within Menlo, Tommy and Brett share the unique personalities of their campuses, their deepest hopes and prayers for the coming year, and how you can get plugged in. We know you'll enjoy this one.

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In every other worldview, you are the one working. In the Gospel, God is the one who worked. Today, you can stop striving and start trusting.

We wrap up the series by looking at the final words of Jesus on the Cross: "It is finished." We revisit every religion we’ve studied and see how Jesus is the final answer to every human "Do."

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In this week's episode, Phil EuBank sits down with Matt Summers to dive into Sunday’s message on irreligion, agnosticism, and the widespread assumption that "good people are fine." They explore the cultural default of the Bay Area, where many people don't claim a formal religion but instead live out a form of secular humanism or moralistic therapeutic deism, hoping their good intentions and decent behavior will ultimately be enough.

Phil shares a deeply moving story about pastoring through tragic loss and contrasts the world's transactional thinking with Jesus’s encounter with the rich young ruler in Mark...

Culture tells us to just be a good person. In this message, Lead Pastor Phil EuBank addresses the most popular "religion" today—the belief that as long as we're better than the person next door, we're fine.

When faith becomes a matter of moral comparison, we realize "good" is a moving target. Looking at Matthew 7, we see why "good works" are no substitute for a relationship with Jesus. Christianity isn't about bad people becoming good, but about dead people coming to life—and Jesus doesn't just want your "goodness"; He wants your heart.

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In this week's episode, Phil EuBank sits down with Matt Summers to dive into Sunday’s message, The System of Merit. Framing Roman Catholicism as our theological parent in the Christian family tree, they explore how a system built on human merit, sacraments, and tradition can subtly turn faith into a tollbooth or a self-funded spiritual insurance policy.

Together, Phil and Matt discuss the core contrasts of the Protestant Reformation, specifically Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) and salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Drawing from Phil's childhood friendship with a local priest named Father Michael, they highlight th...

Catholicism tells us to maintain our salvation through merit. In this message, Lead Pastor Phil EuBank examines the sacramental system and the idea that we must “stay” in a state of grace through our own participation and penance.

When faith becomes a system of "maintaining" our status, we lose the joy of our salvation. Instead, we build our lives on the Rock of Christ's finished work, recognizing that the sacraments aren't ways we earn grace, but ways we celebrate the grace already finished on the Cross.

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In this week's episode, host Peter Sherman sits down with Spiritual Formation Pastor Matt Summers to unpack Sunday’s message, The Ladder of Modern Prophets. In the LDS system, salvation is often framed as a partnership where we provide maximum effort and God provides the supplement. But striving to follow laws, ordinances, and temple works to achieve exaltation creates an exhausting, moving finish line. It leaves us trapped in the anxiety of never knowing if we have done enough to qualify for God's presence.

Together, Peter and Matt explore the contrast offered by the gospel. Grace is no...

What if grace isn't a reward for climbing a religious ladder, but a gift that meets you right at the bottom?

Pastor of Spiritual Formation Matt Summers continues our Let’s Be Honest series by exploring the theology of the Latter-day Saints Church and the idea of grace after all we can do. In a system where salvation is treated as a partnership of human effort and divine supplement, it is easy to get trapped in the anxiety of never knowing if you have done enough. While modern prophets offer frameworks to reach godhood, Christianity points to a...

We are continuing our summer series, Let’s Be Honest, a thoughtful, humble exploration of what it means to navigate faith, culture, and big intellectual questions today. This week, host Matt Summers sits down with Brett Koerten for an honest, deeply respectful look at Buddhism. Instead of relying on easy stereotypes, they start with a deeply human question we all face: why life feels unstable and why even the good things in this world never seem to last.

Using the metaphor of two glasses—one empty, one full—they explore how different paths approach this universal ache. While...

Buddhism identifies suffering as the core human problem and offers the Eightfold Path as the solution. It is a religion of radical self-effort and "emptying" oneself to find peace. This week, we compare the "work" of self-liberation with the "rest" of the Gospel.

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We are kicking off week two of our summer series, Let’s Be Honest, a thoughtful, humble exploration of what it truly means to navigate faith, culture, and big intellectual questions in today's world. Host Matt Summers sits down with Menlo Church Lead Pastor Phil EuBank to take an honest, respectful look at Islam. Together, they discuss the critical importance of engaging with other worldviews on their own terms—seeking to understand the strongest, most intelligent form of what another faith actually teaches rather than knocking down weak, uncharitable caricatures. Phil pulls back the curtain on his own inbox to s...

Islam means "submission," and it offers a clear path of five pillars to please God. But even the most devout lives in uncertainty—will my good deeds outweigh my bad? We explore the exhausting nature of trying to earn the favor of a distant Master.

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Welcome to the Menlo Midweek Podcast!

We are kicking off a brand new summer series called Let’s Be Honest, a thoughtful, humble exploration of what it truly means to navigate faith, culture, and big intellectual questions in today's world. Host Matt Summers sits down with Menlo Church Lead Pastor Phil EuBank to lay the groundwork for this series. Together, they tackle how to hold honesty and conviction together, ensuring we can explore what Christianity teaches without becoming dismissive, simplistic, or unfair toward other world views. Phil even shares a deeply personal look into his own story, opening up ab...

Many people believe that if they just follow the "rules" (The Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule), they will be right with God. We look at the rich history of Judaism and the 613 laws intended to guide God's people. However, the Law was never meant to be a ladder to heaven; it was meant to be a mirror showing us we can't get there on our own. 

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Father’s Day in the church can often feel like a strange, high-stakes tension—usually landing somewhere between a heavy guilt trip and a shallow Hallmark greeting card. In this Father's Day episode, Matt Summers and Tommy Lum sit down to unpack a weekend message that intentionally tried to be neither. Instead, the conversation centers on Joseph, perhaps the quietest major character in the entire New Testament, and how his life offers us an incredibly honest, generous, and grounding picture of what faithful presence actually looks like in our lives today.

The discussion dives into the powerful, coun...

The most faithful people in the room are often the ones nobody's talking about. Joseph shows us that strength doesn't require volume; it requires presence, obedience, and the willingness to play a long game you'll never see completed.

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We have reached the finale of our Glitch series, a month-long conversation about what it truly means to be human in a machine world. After exploring awe, agency, and identity, host Matt Summers sits down with teaching pastor Phil EuBank to tackle the final, most vulnerable layer of this cultural moment: intimacy. Reflecting on the real-time feedback from the Menlo Church lobby over the last few weeks, Matt and Phil unpack how living in a hyper-optimized, digital environment has quietly exposed a profound undercurrent of loneliness and exhaustion in our community.

This episode dives deep into the...

The ultimate result of the machine world is isolation. We are connected to everyone but known by no one. The series concludes by inviting people to "Go Offline" to find a real connection. We move from "Self-Optimization" to "Community Formation." Jesus invites us into the "unforced rhythms of grace," a pace of life that feels like a glitch to the world but feels like home to the soul.

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Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! We are in Week 3 of our series, "GLITCH: Being Human in a Machine World." This week, host Matt Summers and Phil EuBank are joined by a special guest: Paul, co-founder of Faith Work and Tech.

In an episode titled "Hardware Crash," the three of them dive into the very real, physical nature of burnout. Living and working in the Bay Area, it’s incredibly easy to operate as if we are just a "brain in a jar," ignoring our hardware (our physical bodies) to constantly serve our software (our productivity, ca...

Burnout is what happens when biology rebels against technology. We ignore our hardware (bodies) to serve the software (productivity). We revisit Elijah under the broom tree, a prophet who crashed hard. God didn’t send a software update; He sent a nap and a snack. We will address trauma, the body keeping the score, and the "High Tech / Deep Touch" reality that we need physical restoration, not just spiritual ideas.

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Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, host Brett Koerton sits down with Phil EuBank to dive into Week 2 of our GLITCH series. In an episode titled "Infinite Loop," they tackle the exhausting reality of anxiety and why relying on our intellect to solve our emotional struggles often leaves us stuck buffering.

In the Silicon Valley, we naturally prize "processing power," leading us to believe we can logic our way out of fear. But as Brett and Phil discuss, you simply can’t out-think a broken feeling.

📍 In This Episode:
The Buffering Mind...

Anxiety is the mind stuck in a buffering loop. In the Valley, we prize "processing power," so we try to logic our way out of fear. But the peace of God isn't a logical conclusion; it's a spiritual download. We will look at the neurology of the "looping thought" and Paul’s command to "renew the mind." This is about moving from "Algorithm" (predictive anxiety) to "Spirit" (present peace).

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Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, hosts Matt Summers and Phil EuBank kick off our brand-new series, "GLITCH: Being Human in a Machine World," with an episode titled "Fatal Error." Living in the Bay Area, we are surrounded by a culture that demands constant optimization—from our schedules to our sleep to our diets. Yet, despite having all the right "life hacks," anxiety is at an all-time high. Why? Because we are trying to run an infinite soul on a finite operating system, and we are crashing. This episode is an invitation to stop debugging your li...

We live split lives: The Optimized Self (Avatar) vs. The Exhausted Self (Soul). We treat our emotions like "bugs" in the code, things to be patched or ignored. Your glitch isn't a mistake; it's a dashboard light. It’s your soul screaming that the system is incompatible with your design. God doesn't want to fix your Avatar; He wants to resurrect the Real You buried under the optimization.

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Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, host Matt Summers and Phil EuBank sit down to reflect on a truly special standalone weekend across our campuses: Baptism Weekend. Whether faith feels deeply familiar to you, totally unfamiliar, or honestly a little complicated right now, we hope this conversation meets you right where you are.

We’re diving deeper into the weekend message, looking at baptism not just as a church tradition or a religious box to check, but through the epic biblical story of Joshua 3 and 4. Israel is standing on the edge of a promise, fa...