The Leader’s Cut with Preston Morrison

What would it look like to be so close to God that your own kids notice before anyone else does?

Most of us treat intimacy with God like a discipline to maintain, something we fit in before the real work starts. Theo Koulianos flips that order. Before God ever gave Adam a job, He asked him to walk with Him. Everything else, the calling, the ministry, the family, is a byproduct of that walk, not a substitute for it.

In this episode, Preston Morrison sits down with Theo Koulianos, husband, father, and co-leader with his wife Rachel of a ministry to marriages and families.

Theo shares how a Greek Orthodox upbringing and a Holy Spirit who discipled him when no one else could built a foundation of first love, and how a knock on a dinner table changed his definition of success.

In this episode:

Shut The Door: the Matthew 6 picture God gave Preston about just how intimate the secret place is meant to be

Walk Before Work: why “tend and keep the garden” was never the first thing God asked of man

Grieve Or Please: Theo’s childlike test for every decision, and why it’s simpler than we make it

Rabbi To Messiah: the transformation that only ever happens in private

The Most Holy Piece Of Furniture: hint, it’s not the pulpit

Raising Priests: why Theo stopped trying to raise good kids & focuses on this instead

Get The Canvas: the field God is calling Theo’s family to, and why it’s never about just you

Intimacy with God isn’t a step toward your purpose, it is the purpose. The breakthrough you’re looking for is relational before it is ever occupational.

Have you ever lost something you never let yourself grieve?

Most of us think grief belongs at a funeral. But some of the deepest losses we carry are over a place we had to leave, a season that ended, or something we thought we’d have by now. And when grief has nowhere to go, it doesn’t disappear. It gets stored up, and it comes out somewhere else down the line.

In this episode, Preston sits down with his best friend Tim Ross for a tender, honest conversation about what it looks like to grieve in a Godly way. Tim opens up about the four years he begged God to let him move back to California, and about losing his dad just days before his book tour began. Preston names the lie so many of us live under, “I have to be strong for my family,” and what it quietly teaches the people watching us.

In this episode:

Person, Place, Or Thing: why some of the deepest grief we experience is over a place

“I’m Fine”: the crashed car trying to enter the Indy 500 on two flat tires

Grief Isn’t Just Tears: what lament is, and why the Church rarely teaches it

Grief And Pride: how refusing to grieve can be a way of refusing to admit how much it meant

Grief Brings Its Own Friends: why you were never meant to mourn alone

Jesus Wept: He knew He was about to raise Lazarus, and He cried first

Grief isn’t weakness, and maturity doesn’t mean moving on as fast as you can. The God who is near to the brokenhearted isn’t asking you to fix it today. He’s asking you to bring Him your broken heart.

You don’t have to be a hero. Pretending it didn’t hurt always creates more hurt. Give it to Him today.

What's your part when God starts moving?

Most of us think the answer is a plan. Lonnell Williams has the plan: he's the Executive Pastor of 2819 Church, the strategist in the room and sharpened in corporate America. And he'll tell you the plan isn't what's doing it.

In this conversation, Preston sits down with Lonnell to talk about what it looks like to steward something only God can build, what it costs the people closest to it, and why consecration doesn't earn what God is doing; it just keeps you from getting in the way.

In this episode:

Spirit Over Strategy — the assimilation plan, the graphics, and the man who got saved in the parking lot before he ever walked in

Clean Hands & A Pure Heart — why Psalm 24 is the foundation of everything 2819 does

Thinner Oxygen — the higher the Lord takes you up the mountain, the harder it gets to breathe

Chipped Bricks & Bent Nails — what it's like to be misunderstood by the people you love most

Anything, Everything, or Nothing at All — the philosophy Lonnell picked up at 22

The Cloud Moves — why the more comfortable you get with God's curveballs, the more you'll see Him move

If My People Will Pray — the story behind filling AT&T Stadium with nothing but prayer

Jesus is building. We're stewarding. And the only way to stay in step with Him, pray.

Isolation isn't an assignment God gives. It's a choice we make, and it's costing you more than you think. You were never meant to carry the call of God by yourself. So why are you still trying?

If you're carrying something heavy right now — a calling, a family, a business, a season you can't see the end of — and you've convinced yourself it's just supposed to be you and the Lord, this episode is for you

Preston walks through what going it alone really reveals about us, what it quietly costs, and how to start leaning on the people God has already put around you. He speaks from experience, including the 40 days he shut everyone out and the two years it took to recover.

In this episode…

How to tell if you're isolating. 

What carrying it alone will cost you and the people around you.

Who God has placed in your life for the storm you're in right now.

What letting others in will cost you, and why it's worth the price.

How the right people will grow you, strengthen you, and make you wiser.

The one thing Preston has learned God always responds to when you need SERIOUS help.

If you've been white-knuckling the call by yourself, this one's for you.

You weren't designed to carry this alone. So stop trying.

What would you give up to keep God close?

Preston has walked with Cody Carnes and Kari Jobe Carnes for more than 25 years, going back to the early youth ministry days. In this conversation, the three of them sit down to talk about Psalm 24, what it means to have clean hands and a pure heart, and what it has costs to protect that.

Cody and Kari describe purity of heart as something closer to a garden, tended every day, one small weed at a time, because once you've felt God in the room, you never want to feel Him leave it. They're also honest that it costs you. The higher He takes you, the more it's going to cost.

In this episode:

Pure In Heart: the plaque on Kari's childhood wall, and the CD her dad felt from the kitchen

God's Going To Ask You For Something: the decision Cody made the summer before his senior year

When God Leaves The Room: what Cody calls one of the scariest things he's ever felt

You're Not The Gardener: who actually tends the garden of your heart

Walking The Other Direction: how Kari got comfortable with the price of saying no to the crowd

The 10-to-1 Ratio: Cody's caution to Gen Z about where they get their revelation

The Staring Day: what God is doing when He says nothing at all

Purity of heart is not a rulebook, and it isn't something you settle once. It's a daily yes to keeping Him close, even when that means being hidden, misunderstood, or walking the other way while everyone else heads toward the lights. Cody and Kari have been paying that price for decades, and they'd tell you the same thing Preston does: blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

So keep climbing the hill.