After decades of having these conversations in the counseling room and side by side over coffee with friends, we were compelled this year to create a podcast resource to inspire, equip, and train you to use your everyday conversations to connect others to the love of Christ.
Because we learn better together, we want to encourage you to gather and discuss the podcast. Simply sign up for our emails to receive 3 conversation starting questions, visuals, and handouts for each episode.
S9 Ep. 3 / Trauma: Walking with Others
How can we avoid being miserable comforters? As we encourage sufferers towards comfort and change, we must recognize our past failures and our current shortcomings. As we humbly understand our own limits, we can begin to embrace a biblical framework for suffering and sin and support others to find hope and healing.
S9 Ep. 2 / Trauma: Two Types
The field of trauma is complex and uncomfortable. As Christians, how do we sift through many assumptions and opinions to approach trauma with a biblical framework? We hope this episode encourages you to wrestle with the realities of our suffering stories in the now and the not yet and to look forward with hope to the coming restoration.
S9 Ep. 1 / Introduction to Trauma
In Season 9, we’re tackling the topic of trauma. Episode 1 lays the foundation for our discussion through defining trauma and placing a biblical view of trauma within the Grand Narrative and creation desires. While God does encourage us to remember and process our pain, He also points us to the hope we have in His salvation and His love.
S8 Ep. 6 / The Good News for Sinners: Gospel Waltz (Love)
We wrap up our discussion of the Gospel Waltz with “Love.” Our Father’s forgiveness and the knowledge of His character should drive us to action and to heart change. Even as we continue to fail or struggle with sin in our weakness, He continues to forgive and pick us up again.
S8 Ep. 5 / The Good News for Sinners: Gospel Waltz (Believe)
When we can look at our failures as the way by which God will draw us back to His heart and recognize we can’t defeat sin by our own power, our sin becomes a catalyst for greater worship and transformation.
S8 Ep. 4 / The Good News for Sinners: Gospel Waltz (Confess)
We often consider our own fear or shame when we think about repentance, but God intends repentance as a gift to bring us back into relationship with Him. Though we will daily struggle with sin, and sometimes succumb to our corrupted desires, our Father offers forgiveness, love, and hope through repentance.
S8 Ep. 3 / The Capture of the Heart
Often, when we recognize sinful desires, we believe we need to kill our desires. However, God intends for us to live richly in this world He created, and He blessed us with desires. When sin corrupts the desires He intended for good, we must practice beholding on Him and His Word as we fight the sin in our lives. Our hearts will reflect who and what we behold, and our desires will follow.
S8 Ep. 2 / The Heart of the Problem is the Problem of the Heart
In this broken world, sin constantly tempts our hearts with fear, bitterness, anger, grief, and much more. But our Father offers hope as we behold Him. When we know God through heart knowledge instead of head knowledge, we’re able to encounter Him deeply as He transforms and renews our hearts.
S8 Ep. 1 / Ten Reasons Why We MUST Talk about Sin!
In season 8, we discuss the Sacred Struggle as we break down sin, our responsibility, and the journey to transformation. In episode 1, we describe the many ways sin affects our lives. In the midst of sin in our world, God’s Word reminds us that He has won the battle against sin, and one day, He will restore our fallen world.
S7 Ep. 6 / Telling One Woman’s Story with Lauren Duncan
Our friend and artist, Lauren Duncan, joins the podcast to share her infertility journey. Through this season of suffering, Lauren turned to art as an outlet to express her emotions and meditate on the promises of God. Her story reminds us of God’s faithfulness and encourages us to daily orient ourselves to our God and look forward to His coming restoration.
S7 Ep. 5 / You Have a Story (Part 2)
Our stories are filled with struggle and painful moments, but they also demonstrate God’s faithfulness and His grace. As we view our stories in light of the Grand Narrative, we can find hope and healing for ourselves. We’re then better equipped to help others through their own difficult seasons.
S7 Ep. 5 / You Have a Story (Part 1)
The Enemy wants our shame, our hurt, and our fear to isolate us from one another. When we find a God-filled community we can trust, we can together reach for hope and healing despite the brokenness and suffering we’ve experienced.
S7 Ep. 4 / Competing Stories
Where other counterfeit stories have failed, God’s great story gives us hope and peace for final restoration.
S7 Ep. 3 / Your Story and God’s Story
By looking backwards, we can recognize that He has walked alongside us and carried us through every part of our story. As He has been faithful in the past, He will be faithful to bring us to final restoration.
S7 Ep. 2 / The Bible as One Story with Adam Coppock
As we face the weight of sin in our own stories, we may be tempted to lose faith in God’s foreshadowed restoration. The Grand Narrative reminds us to look beyond our present struggles to God’s greater plans.
S7 Ep. 1 / Counseling is Story Work
What makes a good story? If we think of our favorite stories, we’ll start to notice a pattern. Many of these books or movies present the journey of a hero with a redemptive arc because God has hardwired a love for this kind of tale into our hearts.
S6 Ep. 6 / Ginger Jacks: Help When Someone Has Lost a Child
Our guest and dear friend on this episode, Ginger Jacks, lost her 17-year-old daughter in a car wreck back in 2010 when we all shared daily life together with our teenage kids. Our desire is that as she shares her story, that you would find hope and help if you have lost or child or know someone who has... or even are in your own season of grief for other reasons.
S6 Ep. 5 / Peggy Bruning: Help When You Love an Addict
Drug use and abuse is a growing epidemic. And every struggler has a loved one. The grief of watching someone self-destruct can be agonizing. What are some of the things that can lead someone down a path of addiction? And what are some of the things that can truly help them?
S6 Ep. 4 / Andrew Dealy: Help When You or Someone You Know is Suicidal
Our guest Andrew Dealy has a family history of five generations back of completed suicides, including losing his own father. When dark thoughts come, Andrew doesn’t take them lightly. With compassion and clarity, he helps us learn the difference between suicidal thoughts and intent, risk factors, and what to do if someone discloses they are thinking of ending their own life.
S6 Ep. 3 / Chris Torchia: Help When Your Child Reveals Gender and Sexual Identity Struggles
A lot of Christian parents haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about gender and sexuality issues. Our special guest this episode, Chris Torchia, reminds us that we do have the freedom to lean into the nuance and the messiness of real life relationships and helps us have some tools and language to be able to do so.