February 2025: Tyler Merritt’s This Changes Everything

About this sermon

Cancer is a tough topic—difficult to talk about, isolating, and life-altering. For Tyler Merritt, a beloved voice in the JHBC community, facing mortality brought a new perspective on life and how we live it. In this episode, Tyler sits down with Jen Hatmaker to discuss This Changes Everything, his heartfelt and humorous love letter to life following his recent battle with cancer. With his signature wit, pop culture references, and musical theater nods (plus a carefully curated playlist), Tyler blends candid stories of his invasive surgery and treatment with playful asides—like a five-page play about his appendix and Taylor Swift-inspired subtitles. In this episode: • The emotional and humorous storytelling behind This Changes Everything • Using humor to navigate fear and uncertainty • How to support loved ones facing cancer • A lighthearted debate on whether words like “lovers” and “making love” are officially outdated Thought-Provoking Quotes: "Because of the way your book is written, in real time and with such urgency, I think 100 people out of 100 will go straight to their phones after finishing the book and Google ‘is Tyler Merritt still alive?’” – Jen Hatmaker "I found out pretty quickly that I was using a lot of humor to cover my fear. Even in the worst possible scenarios, even though I was sometimes walking with death, it felt like, if I looked around, there was humor.” – Tyler Merritt "For people in the horrible cancer club, if something in your life has created change in your everyday or made things scary, you’re not alone. You’re blessed to still be here and breathing.” – Tyler Merritt Resources Mentioned in This Episode: This Changes Everything: A Surprisingly Funny Story About Race, Cancer, Faith, and Other Things We Don’t Talk About by Tyler Merritt - https://amzn.to/3Clgwa2 Jen Hatmaker Book Club - https://bit.ly/40KOQ7U I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America by Tyler Merritt - https://amzn.to/4hjiPcC Publisher’s Weekly synopsis - https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781546006961 A Door Made for Me by Tyler Merritt - https://amzn.to/4hvCkPn Cujo - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085382/ Annie - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083564/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_2_nm_6_in_0_q_annie Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - https://amzn.to/4gdEbqG Train - Drops of Jupiter - https://open.spotify.com/track/2hKdd3qO7cWr2Jo0Bcs0MA Blackberry Farms - https://www.blackberryfarm.com/ This Changes Everything playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0jFoCxX22lzohvdd2tLfkQ Sandi Patti - https://www.sandipatty.com/ Taylor Swift - https://www.taylorswift.com/ Prince - https://www.prince.com/ RENT - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294870/ AUDIOBOOK: This Changes Everything: A Surprisingly Funny Story About Race, Cancer, Faith, and Other Things We Don't Talk About by Tyler Merritt - https://amzn.to/3Cm1YHa Book People (Austin) - https://www.bookpeople.com/ Parnassus Books (Nashville) - https://www.parnassusbooks.net/ Guest’s Links: Tyler’s website - https://thetylermerrittproject.com/ Tyler’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetylermerrittproject/ Tyler’s Twitter - https://x.com/ttmproject Tyler’s Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thetylermerrittproject Tyler’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPB48_JfK-VMnYQPTYyMX5Q Connect with Jen! Jen’s website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker Jen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker The For the Love Podcast is presented by Audacy.