This Joy That I Have: Embodiment, Resistance, and the Life-Giving Way with Lisa Yebuah

In this episode of The Academy Podcast, host Shalom Agtarap sits down with pastor and Academy #44 faculty member Lisa Yebuah to explore joy, embodiment, imagination, and what it means to become fully alive in a world that can so often pull us toward fear and despair.

Drawing from her experience as an Academy faculty member and the wisdom of the Black church tradition, Lisa reflects on the practices and people who have shaped her spiritual life. She shares how silence, prayer, ancestral wisdom, music, and the rhythms of The Academy have helped her become “human sized”—more attentive to her own limits and more open to the presence and movement of God.

Lisa also explores joy as more than happiness or escape. Joy can be a source of spiritual resilience, a form of resistance, and an oasis that sustains us in the midst of suffering. Alongside embodied spiritual practice and imagination, joy helps us envision a world beyond the one we have been given and cultivate lives that bend toward wholeness, liberation, and abundant life.

Together, Shalom and Lisa reflect on contemplation and action, the wisdom of church mothers, becoming friends with our bodies, and the practices that sustain us when the world feels overwhelming. Their conversation offers an invitation to begin spiritual formation not by asking what more we need to do, but by imagining who God is calling us to become—and trusting that God is already at work.

Reverend Lisa Yebuah currently serves as the Lead Pastor of the Southeast Raleigh Table, a United Methodist worshipping community located near downtown Raleigh. She’s a 1999 graduate of Wofford College and a 2004 graduate of Duke University Divinity School. What fuels her life in ministry is seeing people become their whole selves, and in turn, witnessing people live like and believe that the world can be collectively marked by liberation.

Reverend Yebuah is deeply invested in her local community, and works alongside organizations engaged in advocacy for affordable housing, a living wage, access to mental wellness resources, and equity in public education. Most would describe Lisa as a glutton for joy, a lover of people and the enneagram, a self-professed party-starter, and a biscuit connoisseur. She also admits to having a slight obsession with “Abbott Elementary” and “The Office,” and hopes that one day 90’s R&B becomes required listening.

Lisa will join Academy #44 during session seven in 2028, teaching on Spiritual Leadership in Local Faith Communities.

Show Notes

Episode tracks: “Far Side of the Sea,” “Versailles,” and “Fearless” by Amy Stroup, used with permission.

Audio editing and production by Tim Savage.

A special thanks to the staff of The Upper Room, the Academy team, and everyone who helps bring this podcast to life.

For more information and resources, visit academy.upperroom.org/resources

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The next Two-Year Academy begins October 26, 2026. Learn more about Two-Year Academy #44 and apply here. If you missed our discernment session, hear directly from Academy leaders as they share insights, answer questions, and offer space for reflection and discernment.

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