Ruck the Way

Gabe Smith and Chris Furr
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Self-Improvement

Ruck the Way is a podcast about the sacred work that happens when you put one foot in front of the other. Hosts Gabe (a former Army infantry officer turned coach) and Chris (a Scotland-based guide, coach, and ministry leader) have spent the last decade walking ancient paths together across continents—discovering that pilgrimage is a physical journey for a spiritual purpose, and that something real gets unlocked “on the way.” Each episode feels like the kind of honest conversation you only have while walking beside someone: stories, faith, healing, and the weight we all carry—what’s in your rucksack. We’ll explore “thin spaces” and “moments of reckoning,” talk about the brain science behind why walking helps us process (yes, really), and share guest stories of struggle, joy, and transformation. Our tagline says it best: Let the walk do the work. So slow down to the “three-miles-an-hour life,” and come ruck with us.

  1. 1d ago

    #39: Every Shepherd Needs a Shepherd

    UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage On the Trail This Episode Some friendships are for a reason. Some are for a season. A rare few are for life. This week Gabe sits down with one of his: Chris Payne, senior pastor of New City Church in Charlotte, Air Force chaplain, and a friend of thirty-eight years. Chris Furr, who has walked with Chris Payne for a quarter century himself, joins from Edinburgh. Gabe joins from a Chick-fil-A somewhere in the middle of Georgia. It is that kind of episode. What starts as a conversation about chicken sandwiches becomes something much deeper. Chris Payne tells the story of how his family came to faith through a neighbor's living room, why twenty-eight years of pastoral ministry have taught him that the road to empathy runs through suffering, and how the four words on the back of his sweatshirt (belonging, truth, identity, purpose) name what an anxious world is actually longing for. Along the way, he offers a picture of friendship that will stick with you: running your finger around the rim of a wine glass, waiting to feel the chip. That is how you find the place in another person's heart where the gospel needs to be applied. And that is how you become the friend most men are waiting to find. Keep Walking With Us Ruck the Way is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit walking alongside men on the road to becoming who God made them to be. If this episode met you somewhere on the trail, here is how to keep going: Walk with us in person. Learn about upcoming pilgrimages at rucktheway.com. Get Trail Notes. Our newsletter brings the conversation to your inbox between episodes. Sign up at rucktheway.com. Share this one. Chris said it plainly: do not assume your pastor has friends. Send this episode to a pastor, or to the friend who has known you longest. Help us keep walking. Ruck the Way is its own 501(c)(3). Your tax-deductible gift at rucktheway.com funds the podcast and the pilgrimages.

  2. Aug 31

    #38: Out of Isolation, Into Brotherhood with Joe Dunphy | Ruck The Way Podcasts

    On the Trail This Episode Joe Dunphy has spent fifteen years as an active-duty Army infantry officer, checking every box the world hands ambitious men: Ranger School, the Ranger Regiment, real estate success, a growing family. And somewhere along that trail he stopped and realized how far ahead of the pack he had run, and how alone he was when he got there. In this conversation, Joe walks us through the story work that changed how he sees his whole life, from a boy who wanted to fish alone on the pier while his brothers played in the surf, to a young man who wrecked a motorcycle into a bus in the middle of Honduras with twenty dollars in his pocket, to a husband and father who got a phone call from an old friend asking a question he could not answer: who is Jesus, and why do you care about him? That question became a Saturday morning gathering of three men. Today it is Forge Tribe, a Christ-centered brotherhood of more than 150 men meeting in small fire teams across five continents, learning to walk out of isolation and into brotherhood together. This one is honest, vulnerable, and full of the kind of truth men rarely say out loud. What's in Your Rucksack Why the lion out front on the savannah, strong and well-fed, is also the loneliest animal on the plain How a bus wreck in Copan Ruinas, Honduras became one of the clearest signs that Joe was never actually alone The difference between camaraderie and brotherhood, and why the Army is great at one and starved for the other Why men will jump out of an airplane before they will tell the truth about their soul What the Crucible and the Ascent actually ask of a man for 40 days, and why the commitment works How this work lands at home, restoring men as the priests of their households References & Resources Forge Tribe, a Christ-centered brotherhood for men: www.forgetribe.me The Crucible, Forge Tribe's 40-day formation journey of Scripture, prayer, fasting, and weekly fire team gatherings The Ascent, Forge Tribe's free 40-day journey through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), walked in fire teams of 3 to 5 men: September 14 through October 23, 2026 Watch: Forge Tribe, Joe's Story (youtu.be/6uOxk_35lgs) and An Invitation to Forge Tribe (youtu.be/ebnITq_R-8U) Forge Tribe on Instagram: @forge_tribe Ruck the Way pilgrimages, Trail Notes, and more: www.rucktheway.com

  3. Aug 24

    #37: FAIL more, WALK further with Nick Kalenichenko

    UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage Most of us would have waited it out. Nick built the thing he was missing. In this conversation, Gabe and Chris sit down with a twenty-five-year-old statistician turned double entrepreneur. Nick is co-founder and CTO of Alyra Technology, an AI consultancy helping middle-market companies cut through the hype and find real, measurable impact. He is also co-founder and board chair of Kingdom Kickbacks, a 501(c)(3) that began as a group chat between friends and now runs monthly socials, worship nights, and service projects that connect young Christians across Charlotte to one another and to the nonprofits serving their city. But this episode is not really about AI, and it is not really about nonprofits. It is about a recovering perfectionist who decided that failure is the point — that curiosity outruns credentials, that the twenties are for learning rather than arriving, and that the only safe place to set your identity is in the One who cannot be taken from you. If you are twenty-five and trying to figure out what to become, or forty-five and raising someone who is, lace up. This one is worth the miles. REFERENCES & RESOURCES • Kingdom Kickbacks: kingdomkickbacks.com — Nick's 501(c)(3) making Christian community accessible to young adults in Charlotte through social events, worship nights, and service • Alyra Technology: alyratechnology.com — the AI and automation consultancy Nick co-founded with Will Varnum • Will Varnum: willvarnum.com — Nick's co-founder, who writes weekly on entrepreneurship, AI, and building from scratch • RJ Caswell: a previous guest on this show, RJ helps nonprofits find structure and clarity for their future. He was instrumental in shaping Kingdom Kickbacks' board. • Mission Charlotte: the Charlotte organization that walked Kingdom Kickbacks through board structure and their first fundraising campaign • Chris Bruno: our very first guest, whose framework for the developmental stages of a man's life gave us the language for the "warrior" season Nick is walking through right now • University of Virginia: Nick studied statistics and earned his master's in data science through a three-plus-one program • Ernst & Young: where Nick spent two years leading early AI initiatives for Fortune 500 clients before going out on his own • Further reading: thecharlotteledger.com — The Charlotte Ledger's feature on how Kingdom Kickbacks began Connect with Nick: • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nickkalenichenko — the best place to follow his work and reach him directly • Alyra Technology: alyratechnology.com • Kingdom Kickbacks: kingdomkickbacks.com — and @kingdomkickbacks on Instagram Know more about our cause: rucktheway.com Subscribe to our Podcast: youtube.com/@RucktheWay Meet the founders: rucktheway.com/about

  4. Aug 17

    #36: RUCK RELOADED: The History & Mystery of Celtic Christianity

    Ruck Reloaded! We look back into the deep history and spiritual mystery behind the ancient pilgrimage routes of Scotland and Northern England. Exploring the roots of Celtic Christianity, they trace how early missionary movements spread from Ireland across Western Europe through figures like St. Patrick, St. Columba, St. Oswald, and St. Cuthbert. The hosts discuss the unique, missional nature of Celtic monastics—who embraced relational hospitality, wilderness retreat, and living in rhythm with nature—and contrast their journey with modern life. Uncovering the sacred significance of Holy Island (Lindisfarne) and St. Cuthbert's Way, Gabe and Chris invite listeners to reflect on stepping back from control, embracing physical discomfort, and discovering spiritual renewal through pilgrimage. Compelling Moments: 00:00 | Introduction to Rock the Way and the Passion for History 01:31 | Chris’s Life as a Collector of Interesting Things 02:23 | Amplifying the Hiking Experience Through Ancient Stories 03:46 | Saint Patrick and the Explosion of Christianity in Ireland 05:44 | Understanding the Concept of Missional Communities 09:13 | The Hardcore Faith of Monks in Coracles 11:40 | The Era of Anglo-Saxons and the Worship of Norse Gods 13:21 | King Oswald: The "Return of the King" and Tolkien's Inspiration 17:23 | The Battle of Heavenfield and the Dedication to Christ 19:47 | Saint Aiden’s Challenge: Spreading the Gospel with Gentleness Know more about our cause: rucktheway.com Subscribe to our Podcast: youtube.com/@RucktheWay Meet the founders: rucktheway.com/about

  5. Aug 10

    #35: LOUD DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE LEADING: RJ CASWELL ON QUIET INFLUENCE

    UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage ON THE TRAIL THIS EPISODE The last time Gabe, Chris, and RJ Caswell were in the same room, it was a Charlotte brewery, a pint, and a conversation nobody wanted to end. This episode is what happened when they finally decided to hit record. RJ has covered a lot of ground. A master's in counseling. Eight years pouring into teenagers as a school counselor. A nonprofit counseling practice he founded from scratch, bylaws and all. Twelve years as executive pastor of a large multi-site church — the one job he was certain wasn't for him, and the one where he learned to lead a six-and-a-half-million-dollar organization. Now he leads Mission Charlotte, equipping nonprofit and ministry leaders across the region. Different rooms, different titles, one constant: RJ has spent his whole life figuring out people. Chris names it best late in the conversation — a golden thread of relationship running through every single mile. What makes this one worth your walk is how generously RJ tells it. He talks about the mentor he wishes he'd had, and how that gap became the reason he now says yes to coffee with twenty-somethings all over Charlotte. He talks about learning that purpose and a paycheck were never meant to be rivals. He names the word he's still working out — loyalty — and what it looks like to aim a strength well. He tells about a season of unemployment when he connected three other people to jobs, and says he'd do it again tomorrow. And he lets us in on the quiet joy of finding himself, in midlife, baking bread at the kitchen counter because he wanted to make something he could hold in his hands. If you've ever suspected that the gift you give away most freely is the one you're worst at using for yourself, lace up. This walk is for you. Worth adding to your pack • Give and Take, Adam Grant — the research behind what RJ lives instinctively, including the trap of the giver who never asks. • Working Identity, Herminia Ibarra — on midlife career transition, and why you act your way into a new identity rather than think your way in. • How to Know a Person, David Brooks — seeing others as a learnable craft, not a personality trait. • Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves — a practical on-ramp to the self-awareness RJ calls pivotal. • Halftime, Bob Buford — the classic on moving from success to significance in the second half. Connect with RJ • LinkedIn (the best place to reach him) — linkedin.com/in/rj-caswell-704 • Mission Charlotte — missioncharlotte.org • Faith Driven Jobs — faithdrivenjob.com

  6. Aug 3

    #34: Madeline Smith : who are you becoming?

    There wasn’t a day when I remember being better. But there was a day when I remember checking on him, and he was almost too light to feel.” — Madeline, on the slow lifting of depression On the Trail This Episode Some conversations you prepare for. This one, Gabe has been walking toward for nineteen years. In part two of our Daughters series, Gabe welcomes his daughter Madeline to the trail — a Gen Z college student, certified personal trainer, brand-new podcast host, and a young woman who has already packed and unpacked her life more times than most of us will in a lifetime. Born in South Carolina, raised barefoot in South Africa, uprooted at eleven, and now finding her own footing after her first year away from home, Madeline has thought hard about what it means to belong somewhere. Her answer reframes the whole question. Home, she says, was never the house. It was the people. And if that’s true, then every goodbye is less an ending than a handing-off — you carry what you became with them into whatever comes next. But this is not a tidy conversation. Madeline walks us into the hardest stretch of her story: the three-month gap between one life ending and the next beginning, when depression and anxiety arrived before she had names for either, and a thought she never asked for showed up on a back road in South Carolina. What happened next — a father pulling the car over, taking her hands, and refusing to let the lie stand — is one of the most quietly holy moments we’ve had on this show. Chris turns the microphone toward Gabe mid-episode to ask what it’s like to hear your daughter tell that story back to you. What follows is a father and daughter on the same path, walking at the same pace, for a little while in front of all of us. There is also levity: a rental car meeting a South African curb, an AI-generated Father’s Day card featuring strangers as family, and a party trick nobody saw coming. A NOTE FOR FELLOW TRAVELERS This episode includes an honest discussion of anxiety, depression, and a passing thought of self-harm experienced in childhood. It is handled with care and hope, but please listen when you have the room for it. If any part of your own story is close to the surface right now, you don’t have to walk it alone — in the U.S. you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any hour of any day.

  7. Jul 27

    #33: Daughters, Part One: Foraging the Journey with Maren Furr

    “We long for security and to feel like we are on fully stable ground… but that is what God calls us to — to trust him. And it's not trust if you know at all times where you're stepping.” — Maren Furr On the Trail This Episode This summer, both of our households have adult daughters home from university — so we're walking a two-part series simply called Daughters. In Part One, Chris sits down (about thirty feet away) with his daughter Maren Furr, a newly minted twenty-one-year-old and theology student at the University of Edinburgh. Maren has lived a whole pilgrimage already: born in North Carolina, a childhood in France, tween years back in the States, and now teenage and university years in Scotland. That road has left her with what she calls a “split heart” — always slightly longing for the place she isn't — and a rare gift for seeing the world from more than one angle. The conversation finds its shape in an unexpected place: foraging. Maren has taken up gathering elderflower, dandelions, and (cautiously) mushrooms from the forest near home, and it becomes the episode's living metaphor — for a season of life spent out in the world discovering what's nourishing and what's poisonous, working hard for small harvests, and learning that abundance isn't always better. From there the trail winds through studying theology at a secular university, becoming okay with not knowing, embracing mystery as an act of trust, art as a balm for a wrestling mind, and what it looked like for her parents to raise third-culture kids with room to struggle and space to become. What's in Your Rucksack Why “where are you from?” is the hardest question a third-culture kid can be asked — and how a split heart becomes a gift What foraging in a Scottish forest taught Maren about slow work, small harvests, and the beauty of toil What happens to your faith when you study theology at a big secular university — and why Maren says it's the best thing that could happen to it Life isn't a line, it's a spiral: why coming back around to the same struggles is normal — and holy A father-daughter exchange on raising kids across three cultures, letting them struggle, and keeping your eye on thirty, not eighteen Maren's current favorites: burned CDs, Celtic animation, elf monologues, and a second run at The Lord of the Rings Keep Walking With Us Walk with us in person: explore upcoming pilgrimages at rucktheway.com Trail Notes: subscribe to our newsletter at rucktheway.com for reflections between episodes Share the trail: if this conversation walked with you, pass it along to a friend — especially a parent of a young adult or a student wrestling with big questions Support the journey: Ruck the Way is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift at rucktheway.com keeps these conversations on the trail.

  8. Jul 23

    #32: Attached: How the First Miles of Your Story Shape Every Relationship

    UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage On the Trail This Episode Long before any of us could speak, we were asking three questions: Is someone going to come? Do I matter? Am I safe? In this episode, Gabe and Chris open up attachment theory — the well-researched framework describing how the answers we received in our earliest years wired the way we connect, trust, withdraw, and love for the rest of the journey. This isn’t pop psychology, and it isn’t finger-pointing at our parents. It’s understanding — the kind that makes forgiveness possible and healing real. Gabe and Chris walk through secure attachment and the three insecure styles (anxious, avoidant, and disorganized), get honest about which ones show up in their own stories, and explore why your attachment style shapes not only your marriage and your friendships, but the way you see and experience God Himself. The trail ends where hope lives: awareness, story work, empathetic witnesses, and the ultimate attuned Listener who sets His face toward us. What’s in Your Rucksack The three unconscious questions every infant asks — and how the answers get wired into your brain before you can speak Why roughly half of us carry insecure attachment into adulthood — and why that number appears to be dropping “Good enough parenting”: the surprisingly gracious research on attunement and repair that lowers the bar for every parent listening Anxious, avoidant, disorganized: which patterns Gabe and Chris each recognize in their own stories — and why naming yours isn’t a life sentence Why anxiously attached people so often marry avoidantly attached people — and the push-and-pull that follows How your attachment style shapes the bosses you chase, the burdens you place on others, and the way you picture God Mirror neurons, narrative therapy, and why healing that was broken in relationship can only be rebuilt in relationship TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Introduction: Diving into Attachment Theory 03:17 - What is Attachment Theory? The Core Unconscious Questions 05:00 - Secure Attachment and the Power of "Good Enough" Parenting 17:58 - Anxious & Ambivalent Attachment: Fearing Abandonment and Seeking Reassurance 25:39 - Avoidant Attachment: Independence, Minimizing Needs, and Latchkey Roots 37:12 - Disorganized Attachment: Navigating Relational Harm & Trauma 41:31 - How Attachment Styles Shape Our View and Experience of God 44:22 - Practical Steps to Healing: Relational Narrative & Story Work 48:20 - Neuroplasticity, Mirror Neurons, and Inviting Christ into Memory Work 55:11 - Pilgrimage as an Attuned Space: Letting the Walk and Listening Do the Work Keep Walking With Us Walk with us in person: explore upcoming pilgrimages at rucktheway.com Subscribe to Trail Notes, our newsletter, for reflections between episodes If this episode touched something in you, share it with a friend who needs to hear that healing is possible Ruck the Way is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit — your tax-deductible gift at rucktheway.com keeps these conversations on the trail Let the walk do the work.

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5
out of 5
13 Ratings

About

Ruck the Way is a podcast about the sacred work that happens when you put one foot in front of the other. Hosts Gabe (a former Army infantry officer turned coach) and Chris (a Scotland-based guide, coach, and ministry leader) have spent the last decade walking ancient paths together across continents—discovering that pilgrimage is a physical journey for a spiritual purpose, and that something real gets unlocked “on the way.” Each episode feels like the kind of honest conversation you only have while walking beside someone: stories, faith, healing, and the weight we all carry—what’s in your rucksack. We’ll explore “thin spaces” and “moments of reckoning,” talk about the brain science behind why walking helps us process (yes, really), and share guest stories of struggle, joy, and transformation. Our tagline says it best: Let the walk do the work. So slow down to the “three-miles-an-hour life,” and come ruck with us.

Information

  • Creator
    Gabe Smith and Chris Furr
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    39
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Gabe Smith and Chris Furr

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