Plain Values Podcast

Marlin had never shot a deer before. His friend took him hunting for another chance at his luck. They were talking, laughing, and rattling some antlers to try to lure the deer in.

They must have been doing more talking than hunting for they didn’t even notice when they had brought in a nice shooter buck. They only noticed when Marlin finally laughed a little too loud and the buck took notice of them. The buck spooked and ran away, and Marlin missed another chance at a nice buck.

Marlin reflects on this story an...

A tech company is scanning millions of old, rare books and then destroying them in the name of technological advancement.

What happens when we destroy real things and replace them with digital versions? We will never again know the originals.

Marlin shares of his love of books and the libraries that hold them. The Library of Congress is the biggest library in the world with 164 million items preserved in its walls.

Marlin hopes to walk amongst those pages one day and would love to know which of his listeners have already...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin continues his conversation with Larry from Pure Gift of God. What began as a simple fundraising and mentoring effort in 2013 has grown into something far deeper… therapy services, TBRI training, family support groups, and practical help for adoptive and foster families who refuse to walk alone.

Larry shares how the hard parts of adoption rarely end when the paperwork is signed. Ongoing struggles surface, and Pure Gift responded by building a therapy center and bringing in trusted practitioners.

Larry explains how trauma rewires a child’s brai...

On Wednesday, July 22, 2026, friends and neighbors gathered at Plain Values HQ in Winesburg for an intimate house concert with singer-songwriter Chris Slaten, known as “Son of Laughter.”

The evening was intentionally small and cozy, the kind of night where the music feels personal and the stories land deeply. Chris filled the space with thoughtful, theologically rich songs that explore faith, redemption, longing, and the quiet beauty found in everyday life. 

With coffee and homemade treats ready, and the Black Willow food truck serving before the doors opened at 6:00, the room settled into the kind of sh...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin sits down with Chris Slaten (better known as Son of Laughter) a Chattanooga musician, English literature teacher, husband to Lindsay, and father of three. What unfolds is a rich, unhurried conversation about art, grace, storytelling, and the quiet work of faithfulness.

Chris traces the origin of his stage name to Sally Lloyd-Jones’s Jesus Storybook Bible and the story of Isaac: the child born in spite of his parents’ cynical laughter, a pattern that runs throughout Scripture of God creating beauty and new life out of human doub...

Have you ever heard the phrase “no two snowflakes are alike”?

Marlin shares the fascinating story of Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, a self-educated farmer from Jericho, Vermont.

In 1885, Bentley became the first person to successfully photograph a single snow crystal. He went on to take thousands of photographs of individual snowflakes and never found two that were exactly the same.

His work was published in magazines and universities around the world, and he became known as Snowflake Bentley.

Marlin wonders: What beautiful things can we discover if we slow down and take...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast… 

Some stories remind us that humble beginnings and faithful stewardship can lead to extraordinary places.

Ernie Hershberger grew up the oldest of eight in Walnut Creek, Ohio. His dad was a mechanic, and Ernie followed him into the shop, learning the craft of building from raw lumber. 

In 1990, he and his wife Barb took a leap and opened a small furniture store in what used to be a chicken house in Mount Hope.

In 1976, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis declared an Adoption Week to promote awareness of the need for fostering and adoption. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan expanded it nationally.

Marlin reflects on Reagan’s powerful words from that time, which still ring true today:

“Families have always stood at the center of our society… At a time when many fear that the family is in decline, it is fitting that we give special recognition to those who are rebuilding families by promoting adoption.”

Reagan emphasized that more children with permanent homes mean fewer children with per...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin finishes his conversation with Kevin Hewitt, a longtime foster-care worker whose decades of walking alongside families have given him a deep well of stories… and an even deeper trust in God’s redemptive power.

Kevin’s point is simple and profound: we often measure foster care (and life) by short timelines. God sees the long arc. He can redeem what looks impossible.

The conversation turned personal as Kevin admits his own ongoing struggle to rest in God’s love rather than constantly measuring himself as a winner o...

Marlin and his daughter Adelaide were sitting on a bench watching the birds when a tiny gnat started buzzing around.

Adelaide, who has Down syndrome, suddenly stopped talking and with every ounce of her being looked at her dad with huge eyes and said, “Oh, daddy, bee!”

Marlin lives for those sweet, simple moments.

Life is full of big questions and struggles… feeling unworthy, comparing ourselves to others, wondering if we measure up, carrying guilt and shame.

But real joy often comes in the small, authentic moments: sitting with a friend, sharin...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, host Marlin Miller sits down with Roc Baker to trace a life forged in West Virginia hills, Ohio oil fields, and deep family roots. 

From his father’s hard-earned lessons in the tool-dressing days to raising six boys, Roc shares the gritty, grounded wisdom that shaped him.

The talk flows naturally into the healing power of art. Roc recounts painting hospital walls and panels with patients, from a stroke survivor who suddenly spoke again to a troubled teen in Greece who softened with every brushstroke. The...

Marlin reflects on the powerful imagery Jesus used when talking about the shepherd and his sheep.

He recently became a shepherd himself, and he’s seen firsthand how sheep know their shepherd’s voice. When the shepherd calls, the whole flock comes running.

Jesus told the story of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go after the one that is lost. Marlin notes how easy it is to read that passage without truly grasping the weight of it.

Leaving 99 sheep is a lot. It’s risky. But the shepherd cares so dee...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, host Marlin Miller sits down with Conrad Fisher, musician, producer, and founder of Ragamuffin Hall studio, for a rich conversation about creativity, faith, family, and the tension between art and conservative culture.

Conrad shares his upbringing in a conservative Mennonite church where his parents, despite the setting, encouraged his musical gifts from a young age. His dad even bought him recording equipment when he was 14, allowing him space to develop his talent.

He moved to Tennessee on New Year’s Day 2018 to sharpen his songwriting and eventually bu...

A friend shared a powerful story with Marlin.

He told him about a soldier-turned-missionary who was recruiting people to join him in one of the hardest, most dangerous places imaginable.

When some expressed hesitation, the missionary looked at them and said, “Oh, I get it. You’re afraid to die.”

Needless to say, they went.

Marlin reflects on how that bold response hits home. Most of us have a thousand and one reasons to play it safe, to protect ourselves and our families from harm.

Yet there’s also a d...

In this deeply personal episode of the Plain Values Podcast, John Moody joins Marlin to share his remarkable story of redemption, resilience, and resistance.

John grew up in Youngstown, Ohio during the devastating collapse of the Rust Belt. His family was shattered by divorce, alcoholism, and hardship. As a latchkey kid, life was chaotic. When his mother was diagnosed with cancer during his junior year of high school, everything changed. 

A dedicated guidance counselor, Mrs. Leone, saw potential in John and fought tirelessly to get him accepted into the University Scholars program at Youngstown S...

Grief is the price of love.

That line, shared from the pulpit at a funeral, made Marlin pause and reflect.

It caused him to consider how often we hold back from deep relationships out of fear of getting hurt.

We were built for genuine connection, Marlin reminds us. Yet most of our daily interactions stay surface-level (“I’m fine,” “Everything’s great”) because going deeper means risking vulnerability and exposing our true selves.

But the few people who ask “How are you?” and truly mean it, who create a safe, judgment-f...

In this moving episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin sits down with Josh Troyer to share his remarkable journey of faith, resilience, and finding true identity in Christ.

Born with proximal femoral focal deficiency, Josh was missing his right femur bone. At just two years old, he underwent rotationplasty, a radical surgery in which doctors amputated his leg at the hip, rotated it 180 degrees, and reattached it so his foot could function as a knee joint. At four, he endured another painful surgery with an Ilizarov device to lengthen his bones, a process that involved...

When Marlin and his brother were boys, they lived for the dirt pile… the “strip mine” in their mother’s garden.

Armed with toy Caterpillar dozers and loaders, they dug huge holes and built towering piles of dirt. To them, those small mounds were massive and larger than life.

Their dad would sometimes take them to real strip mines where they got to ride in ginormous equipment. It was genuinely larger than life.

Marlin reflects on how our concept of work is changing so dramatically today. Many call work a bummer...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast, Marlin sits down with Dawn and Carson of Soda Farm to discuss their 20+ year journey of homesteading, natural health, and standing firm in their convictions.

What began as a small beekeeping and herbal honey operation at Mockingbird Meadows evolved into functional sodas and a commitment to real food made from God’s creation. Dawn explains her deep concern that many believers focus on spiritual health while ignoring how the food and substances we consume literally build our physical bodies, and how man-made, processed ingredients can harden us...

Marlin will never forget the first time he saw homeless people.

He was 20 or 21, skating under a bridge in Portland, Oregon with his brother. Across the way were a handful of men with everything they owned in shopping carts. It was a scary and sad scene, one that left young Marlin feeling uncertain.

Should he do something? Should he stay away? Should he be scared?

Even today, he admits he doesn’t have all the answers.

But he knows this: God created a beautiful system where He lo...

In this deeply moving episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin Miller sits down for the second time with Aaron and Katie Ficker, who share their powerful journey of missionary life in Guatemala, profound loss, adoption, and God’s unwavering faithfulness through it all.

Aaron and Katie moved to Guatemala as newlyweds, where Aaron helped build an aviation program and Katie worked as a nurse. They built a life serving others through medical clinics, a nursing school, and community outreach. But their path included immense hardship: a high-risk twin pregnancy that ended in the loss of th...

The concept of hospitality is simple on the surface: invite people over, share a meal, and talk.

But Marlin believes it goes much deeper.

Our Creator has placed within us a profound desire to truly know others and to be known ourselves.

A tiny lady many years ago, known for her incredible gift of hospitality, once told Marlin and his wife a story. She had hosted two families, and as they were leaving, she overheard one husband ask his wife: “Have you ever experienced anything like that?”

We all long for that...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin Miller sits down with John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture. John shares his remarkable journey from a young boy observing plants on his family’s produce farm in Ohio to leading a global regenerative agriculture movement that now spans over 5 million acres.

John explains how close observation of plant health led him to foundational discoveries about plant immunity. Through nutritional balance and microbiome management, he has seen plants achieve 100% resistance to diseases and insects, results that challenge conventional thinking. He describes the Plant Health Pyramid and ho...

In a village in India, a mother was told by her own family to take her deformed baby boy to the trash heap and leave him there to die.

The little boy, they said, would never walk properly.

But this mother couldn’t do it. She brought him back.

Enraged, her family kicked her out. She was now on her own.

Then she met a man who shared the gospel with her. She got saved and began reading the Scriptures. She learned about the Great Physician, the Healer.

Every da...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin Miller sits down with longtime broadcaster Mark Zimmerman to explore his journey from growing up in Northeast Ohio to a rich career in radio and storytelling.

Mark spent his early years in Cleveland Heights before moving at age six to Geauga County in Amish country. At Bowling Green State University, he became the university mascot Freddie Falcon his junior year, an experience that taught him perseverance, work ethic, and leadership. He co-created the popular “Insomniac Half Hour” radio show, which grew into a live hour-long production, helping launch his...

We’ve been printing and mailing Plain Values for a long time using the postal system… and Marlin loves it.

It’s expensive, but it’s great.

In this charming Minute with Marlin, he shares a fascinating bit of postal history: the system began in 1775, before the Revolutionary War. Back then, the recipient paid the one-penny postage, not the sender. There was also an 11-pound weight limit.

People took full advantage of that limit in creative (and sometimes hilarious) ways— including documented cases of parents mailing their children to grandparents!

These shor...

In this episode of the Plain Values Podcast, Marlin Miller sits down with Jed Johnson, founder of Wide Awake International, to hear how God led one ordinary family from Alaska to the front lines of caring for boys with disabilities in Ukraine.

Jed grew up as a pastor’s kid in Alaska. When he was six, his father suffered a devastating double stroke. Life changed dramatically.  The strong, adventurous dad became someone who had to relearn almost everything. The family moved to Montana, faced financial hardship, and leaned deeply on faith. Those early years taught Jed resilience, com...

In 1929, at the very beginning of the Great Depression, a man named Albert Brumley sat down in the northwest corner of Arkansas and wrote a song called “I’ll Fly Away.”

It wasn’t published until 1932, but that simple hymn has since become the most recorded gospel song in history.

Brumley went on to write over 800 songs, yet “I’ll Fly Away” remains one of the most beloved of all time.

Marlin shares that it is easily one of his top one or two favorite hymns. When his time comes to fly h...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast… Sophia Eng shares her family’s journey from Vietnamese refugee roots to a thriving 40-acre regenerative homestead in East Tennessee. 

With a military husband and two daughters, Sophia’s parents (boat people who fled Saigon) lived with them, creating a multi-generational home rich in tradition, work ethic, and faith.

When lockdowns hit California in 2020, Sophia’s intuition (shaped by her parents’ stories of curfews and uncertainty) told her it was time to leave. They sold everything, loaded their animals (including three $300 egg-laying hens bought in a...

There are seasons when life brings deep, hard things … the loss of a spouse, the burial of a child, a long-term disability, or seasons of uncertainty and anxiety where God feels distant and silent.

In this moving episode, Marlin shares the power of an old hymn written by William Cowper in 1779, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” The lyrics speak straight to the heart:

“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform…

Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.”

Marlin reminds us that even when we cannot se...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast …

Some people build businesses. Others build lives that point to something greater.

In this powerful conversation, Derek and Lisa Guyer share the raw, beautiful story of their journey; from financial brokenness and a tiny two-bedroom home with six kids in one room, to owning and transforming Kentucky Lumber into a place of integrity, character, and genuine care.

Derek openly talks about the early failures, the lessons learned from his parents, and the deliberate choice to create a company culture where employees feel safe, cu...

Marlin has always loved the simple, sensory pleasure of holding a real book or magazine; the feel of the paper, the weight in his hands. 

In this episode, he reflects on how rare and precious books once were in the Middle Ages, when monks painstakingly copied them by hand. Then Gutenberg’s printing press changed everything by giving “wings to truth.”

He beautifully connects this to God’s own design: trees become paper, language becomes Scripture, and the written word allows divine truth to spread across generations.

These short, heartfelt Minutes with Marlin de...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast …

Some stories remind us that God still does the impossible.

On a seemingly normal Monday morning in 2013, Becky Mast collapsed at home. Within minutes she had no heartbeat. For the next 35 minutes she received no oxygen to her brain. She was clinically dead.

What followed was a cascade of miracles.

Paramedics worked on her relentlessly. After six shocks and heroic CPR, her heart finally restarted. Doctors at multiple hospitals gave grim prognoses, massive brain damage was expected. They prepared Jimmy for th...

As a young boy, Marlin watched a powerful storm roll through with tornadoes touching down nearby. 

A funnel cloud spun just 100 yards behind their house, hovering above the treetops. While the rest of the family took shelter in the basement, his dad stood outside, calmly watching in awe of nature’s raw power.

Marlin was terrified, yet deeply moved by his father’s fearless wonder. That moment stayed with him.

These short, heartfelt Minutes with Marlin deliver quick moments of wisdom, faith, humility, and encouragement—perfect for busy homestead days when we...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast, Marlin sits down with his good friend Larry Yoder for a conversation about God’s incredible redeeming grace.

Larry shares his remarkable journey of growing up Amish, leaving the church as a teenager, and spiraling into a life of heavy drug use, partying, and bad choices. From smoking weed at 11 to nearly overdosing multiple times, Larry openly talks about how he was searching for something to fill the void but kept running from the very thing he needed most: Jesus.

Then came the turning point. Si...

It was a bitterly cold December day in 2016 (just 5 or 10 degrees) when Marlin, his brother, and a friend headed north to fly fish for steelhead. Marlin had years of experience and was excited to show off a little.

But pride has a way of humbling us. While demonstrating how it’s done, Marlin stepped in a deep hole and fell face-first upstream. His waders instantly filled with freezing river water. Soaked, freezing, and embarrassed, he had to trudge back to the truck while his brother and friend enjoyed a great day catching fish.

Ma...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast, Marlin sits down with his longtime friend and former pastor, Marlin Beachy, for a raw and honest conversation about life, ministry, and the unimaginable pain of losing a child.

Marlin shares his journey from growing up Amish, leaving the church at age eight after his father’s powerful conversion, to pastoring in Alaska for 30 years. But at the heart of this episode is the heartbreaking story of losing their son Ryan in a tragic motorcycle accident when a moose stepped into his path. Marlin doesn’t sugarcoat the shoc...

Things don’t always go according to plan.

In this very first Minute with Marlin episode, Marlin Miller shares a memorable winter day when he and Lisa were trying to take their family to a little cabin for a much-needed getaway. What they didn’t plan on was waking up to a foot and a half of beautiful but heavy, powdery snow.

After getting the tractor stuck while trying to clear the steep driveway, Marlin hooked a chain to their Subaru Outback to pull it out… only to bury the car as well...

In this episode of The Plain Values Podcast, Marlin sits down with his longtime friend and neighbor, Jerry Miller.

Jerry shares his life on the family farm in Holmes County, 173 acres that have been in his wife Gloria’s family since the late 1800s. He talks about raising five boys and now enjoying five grandchildren, milking 60–70 Jersey cows, and operating a certified organic, grass-fed dairy.

The conversation turns to the deep grief Jerry’s family has walked through. Jerry was the youngest of 11 children when his father died by suicid...