In this episode of The Return, hosts Dustin Maddox and Jordan Mattox sit down with pastor and author Zach Lambert, founder of Restore Austin, for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about faith after deconstruction.
Together, they explore one of the central questions facing modern Christianity: What comes after faith falls apart? While deconstruction has become a familiar cultural phenomenon, reconstruction often feels uncertain, personal, and difficult to name. Zach offers a pastoral and deeply practical framework for understanding faith as an ongoing process — construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction — helping listeners imagine what rebuilding belief can actually look like.
The conversation moves from personal stories and pastoral experience to larger theological questions about biblical interpretation, church community, trauma, and spiritual healing. Zach discusses harmful ways Scripture has historically been used — through literalism, moralism, apocalyptic fear, and hierarchy — and proposes healthier approaches rooted in Jesus, community, and human flourishing. Along the way, the hosts reflect on parenting through doubt, navigating progressive and evangelical spaces, and how churches can remain hospitable without losing their center.
More than anything, this episode offers hope: reconstruction is not a formula or ideological destination, but a relational journey shaped by compassion, curiosity, and courage.
Whether you’re questioning, rebuilding, or walking alongside someone who is, this conversation provides language — and imagination — for what a return to faith might look like.
