Episodes
Friends? This podcast thing we do began as an act of obedience to God's prompting two years ago.
We. Had. No. Idea. How. Much. it would bless us and others. No clue.
Listening back to clips together got us feeling all the podcast feels again: Mostly, we felt the desire to fall on our faces and worship God who is knitting together this gorgeous thing called the Body of Christ.
God is on the move, dear siblings in Christ. God is moving in and through the Church, and He wants to move even more through those whose hearts are fully submitted to Him (2 Chronicles 16:9).
Tune in with us as we re...
A recent survey says that 90 percent of clergy believe it is their responsibility to speak on important social issues, but the top two issues they feel unequipped to speak on are LGBT+ and same-sex marriage.
We need help.
Thankfully, there are pastors like Bruce B. Miller who are willing to lead us as we lead others.
In addition to walking us through beginning steps we can take as a church to better engage conversations around sexuality and LGBT+, we explore questions such as:
What if the staff/elders/deacons aren't united? Can we be on different pages theologically?
Do we have to do a ser...
One in two women and one in four men have encountered sexual trauma. The enemy's attempts to shred humanity through sexuality is pervasive, but those of us who have encountered sexual assault are not hopeless.
Author and teacher, Dr. Dan Allender, guides us through this hope-filled terrain utilizing decades of experience and research in the field of sexual trauma. He unpacks answers to questions like:
Why is shame linked to sexuality, and why is contempt often linked to shame?
Why and how do repressed memories resurface?
How can we engage painful past memories without pushing "eject" on our...
Lament. We've talked about it. We love it. Let's dig deeper than we ever have into it on this episode.
If we don't lament, what kind of people will we be?
Is there a line of honesty with God we shouldn't cross?
How do we really do it?
Pastor and author, Mark Vroegop, guides us through these questions and more with wisdom that can only come from someone who has suffered much, and has found his way out of the darkness by singing the minor key tune of lament.
Hear his story and practical care for our souls during today's conversation.
//: Highlights:
"People who know how to lament are com...
She has a huge platform: Hundreds of thousands of followers, millions of books sold, and many Christians are at least familiar with the name "Ann Voskamp." And yet when Ann writes, speaks, and engages social media, she does not hide behind the numbers. She writes grittily, authentically, and with boldness.
How is this possible? How can someone with such a great impact on the world maintain such a humble, vulnerable, and others-focused life?
We explore these questions as we engage Ann on living an authentic life. We talk the cost, the gifts, and the practical how-tos. (And of course, because...
Matt and Laurie are doing an impossible thing (writing a book together?!) about their "impossible" marriage.
Hear a little bit more about the start of their adventure!
Everything we do—good, evil, neutral—speaks to our longing for heaven. World-renowned teacher of Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and bestselling author, Christopher West, leans into this longing and unpacks it with outrageous wisdom and tenderness.
This is one we are all going to be going back and listening to several times. It is that rich.
(And don't worry: Those of you who want some of that goofball action, we make sure to talk about rats dying in Wendy's grease buckets. Yep.)
//: Highlights:
"Here’s the whole Bible in five words: ‘God wants to marry us.’” --Christopher West
...
This is the story of a man who experienced attractions toward other men from a young age, found football, found God, found the Air Force (and excelled), and as a ministry leader came to grips with his same-gender attractions--now as a married-to-a-woman man.
God helped this man, Mike Rosebush, remove shame about his attractions, but people and circumstances placed him in conversion therapy. A major part of conversion therapy is seeking to make people change from gay to straight. It did not work.
However, as a licensed psychologist, Mike found himself in a position of counseling others who h...
The crew is back together!
Laurie, Matt, and Producer Steve dive into their first-ever Q & D (Question & Discussion) podcast. Together, they explore areas they have wanted to dive into more deeply including:
More of Matt's story of when he felt so purposeless he decided to end his life in junior high (and then launched into a coping mechanism of pornography addiction)
Some of our angst about left/right polarity and clinging to our "rights" as Christians
How parents who are fighting with their LGBT+ kids can seek deep relationship with one another
How false forgiveness has been used to sile...
{Week 10 Core Need is the need for purpose: filled with a sense of profoundly mattering.}
Unless we are feeling severely depressed, every human intrinsically feels this need to matter, to have purpose, and to make a mark on the world. Sometimes, this purpose-need gets redirected from receiving our marching orders from Jesus to staring at marriage: It will complete me.
Let's bust that whole thing apart with "Breaking the Marriage Idol" author, Kutter Callaway. We also explore your responses to what you grew up with as a paradigm for marriage (was singleness an option?), dig into the need to...
{Week 9 Core Need is the need to be unique: delightfully special.}
We've explored the need to be included (belong), but how does that interplay with our good need to be unique?
We talk through this balance with foster and adoptive parents, Brett and Janelle Beimers. Their decision to adopt and foster models Christ's desire for radical inclusion (belonging), but they still need to cultivate each of their children's unique sense of self. How do they do that? What are the challenges to engaging both needs simultaneously--while also balancing the unique path of foster and adoptive life?
We expl...
How can we lovingly engage a world that opposes what we believe?
What is Laurie's ongoing practice to engage pushback?
One word: Lament. Laurie Krieg will walk you through the why's and how to's of what should be every Christian's ongoing practice of "venting to the only One who can do something about your pain."
{Week 8 Core Need is the need to be safe: Unafraid; trusting everything is under control.}
Many of us struggle with anxiety and fear. (Most of us? All of us?) We could shame ourselves. ("Why am I still wrestling with this!? I should know I'm safe!") But instead of shaming ourselves, why don't we look below the fear to the good need driving that fear: the need to be safe?
We unpack this good need to be safe with author and award-winning musician, Michael Card. Through the lens of safety, we explore God's character--His inexpressible hesed or lovingkindness and His invitation to rail on His c...
{Week 7 Core Need is the need to be seen: Noticed inside and out.}
This episode has two gripping stories: One is of a pastor named John Wilson who, at a young age, recognized his attractions to his same gender. Burying the secret led him to hospitalization due to the chronic stress. Slowly, carefully, he came out to trusted friends, and found some freedom as he daily surrendered himself to Christ.
But then he moved far away, started working in a church, and the secret threatened to bury him again in shame. He needed to come out again, but the person with whom he most needed to share was bot...
{Week 6 Core Need is the need to be included: Wanted in this group, team, or partnership; belonging}
It seems as if the good need God put into us before the Fall to belong or be included goes hand-in-hand with authenticity. To belong--truly belong--we must be willing to get real. But how many of us feel we are scoring 100% at the relational authenticity level? Social media tells us we have hundreds or thousands of friends, but do we really belong? This is what our guest, Ethan Renoe, calls the "new lonely," and he wrote a book with the same title: The New Lonely: Intimacy in the Age of Isol...
{Week 5 Core Need is the need for love: Unconditionally accepted}
All you need is love. It's a nice song, but what about the actual experience of love? How can we feel it deeply before we see Jesus face-to-face?
Author and speaker, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, guides us to a deeper experience of God's love that is not tethered to our circumstances (death of siblings, death of spouses, or a deep wrestling with the reality of prayer), but is richly intertwined to the alive and active Holy Spirit in us.
We also play a game called, "Love Song or Worship Song?" and somehow learn a deep lesson based ...
{Week 4 Core Need is the need for rest: Re-centered and reset in mind, body, spirit; includes having fun}
Why is it that it seems whoever is the busiest is winning at life? If you are stressed, busy, but magically not anxious, you hold a higher status?
We talk about this with Adam Mabry, whose wife laughed at him when he told her he was asked to write a book on rest. This pastor, teacher, and author of the book, "The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops," was able to write the book after experiencing what it was like to live a life without rest, and watching it lead t...
{Week 3 Core Need is the need to be affirmed: Overwhelmingly approved of.}
Do you ever wrestle with knowing God wants you to share the gifts He gave you with the world, but not knowing how much you should "market" yourself? Shouldn't the Holy Spirit just do that for us?
We do wrestle with this, so we brought in bestselling author and speaker, Shannon Popkin, who co-wrote the book, Influence: Building a Platform to Elevates Jesus (Not Me).
We explore this conversation in the context of the Core Need to be affirmed. How do we allow God to affirm us while navigating the murky waters of speakin...
{Week 2 Core Need is the need to be desired: Specially chosen--no pretense necessary.}
The idea of mixed-orientation marriages (where one spouse is straight and the other is not) can make people scratch their heads saying, "How does that work?" Today, through the lens of the Core Need to be desired, mixed-orientation couple, Ty and Rachel Wyss, get real about their marriage, their need to be desired, and leave us--married and single--with wise, God-given wisdom to walk well. This is another sacred story you don't want to miss.
The group also talks how we can express needs without being "nee...
{Week 1 Core Need is the need to be nurtured: Cared for; held.}
It's time to dive deeply into Core Needs. What are they? They are good needs God put into us for things like belonging, purpose, affirmation, and to be seen and desired. The Fall threw a wrench in our once-natural ability to get them perfectly met by God and supported by people, however, and now we have natural inclinations to get these good needs met in ways that don't satisfy us and don't glorify God. (That natural inclination is known as our sin nature.) Our default is now idolatry.
Eden Invitation co-founders, Anna Carter a...
Author, speaker, and professor, Dr. Christopher Yuan, brings his authentic self and expertise to the podcast microphone today.
In addition to hearing his story, we explore our favorite names of God (with you listeners), expand on the reasons why it is beneficial to the church that there are more conversations around sexuality and gender in the world, and explore the questions,
"Is God gender fluid?"
"Why don't you identify as gay?"
and "How do you confront the lonely life?"
It's another real life conversation on the HIMH Podcast.
//: Highlights:
"We talk about the world having safe spac...
Failure makes you feel like . . . a failure. Should it? Should we celebrate some failures instead?
Today we talk to Chad Bird, speaker, podcaster, and author of Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life.
We will cover seven of those nine "essential failures." Three of which are:
1. The failure to believe in ourselves or, "The good news that God doesn’t believe in you"
2. The failure to follow our hearts or "Go home heart, you’re drunk"
3. The failure to find our soulmate or "Love will not sustain your marriage"
We also continue a bit of the shame talk (hearing f...
"I think I am afraid of being in *God’s* presence. The thing is I am afraid to be in *my* presence. I am afraid to look at and have God see me as I see me . . . I am sure that when I look up again He will have left the rom. And shockingly, He does not." --Curt Thompson, M.D.
Let's dive right back into the shame conversation with Dr. Curt Thompson, and explore how shame began and how we can practically combat it.
//: Highlights:
"God—even in His pursuit—He is not going to shame us. He is not going to twist my arm. He is not going to shame me for not having my shame cleaned up well enough. ...
Shame affects all of us--even if we don't know how to name it. It often drapes us in a vague feeling of being covered in a wet blanket. It speaks, "I am worth less. I must hide. There is something wrong with me."
How can we address it neurologically, spiritually, and practically? We brought in the big guns to answer all three shame categories today: Dr. Curt Thompson, MD, author of one of our favorite books, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves.
This and next week's conversation are not ones to miss. They impacted us all deeply.
//: Highlights:
"The gospel--...
Peek between the cracks of the podcast to hear updates on our words for the year ("Do you feel like God gave you that word?"), look forward to our words for 2019, and hear us encourage each other unplanned.
As we reflect on this year of pain and growth, we may even shed a couple tears between our laughs. (Of course we do. :) ) We love you, guys. Thanks for being a major joyful part of our year.
It's almost the new year, and many of us are thinking about doing something to jumpstart positive choices next year. But what about today?
Sharon Garlough Brown, author of the Sensible Shoes series, walks (ha) us through the basics and depth of spiritual disciplines. We cover things like, "Are spiritual disciplines for the hyper-spiritual, Enneagram 4, flower children?" "Does lament have to be so depressing?" and "What can we do today--what one step can we take?"
We also play a pretty hilarious game of "Finish that Christmas Carol." We'd love for you to join us.
//: Highlights:
"That’s w...
At HIMH we sometimes call ourselves "gospel addicts," but what is an addict? Author, psychologist, and addiction expert, Dr. Gregory Jantz, breaks down some of the attributes and questions we may have for ourselves or our friends on how to take steps away from the following addictions:
Alcohol
Food (eating too much or little)
Work
Sex/pornography
Relationships
TV/Netflix
Social Media
Because we can't help ourselves, we dive into the Die Hard debate (Christmas movie or nah?), and play a game called, "Top Toy or Misfit?" (Players have to guess which toy is a top seller this year, and which...
Fruit of knowing the Good News is believing that God loves kids.
He cares about their souls, he cares about their spirits, and he cares about their bodies.
That is the focus of this episode: How can we protect our children, our nieces and nephews, and our friends' kids from childhood sexual abuse? How can we do it in a way that is not "shamey"?
We explore it today with experts and authors of the important kids' book, 'God Made All of Me,' Justin and Lindsey Holcomb. (We also play a silly "Is this a Hallmark Movie or a Shmallmark Movie" game, and it turns out they are experts there, too.)
...
Let's take it back to the basics and then broaden to the more complex: What does LGBTQIA mean (and why doesn't the term "homosexuals" cover it)? Where can parents take their mix of emotions when their kid comes out? Is there even a right and wrong when it comes to the gender conversation?
We are tackling some big and basic questions related to pastors, parents, and therapists today, and who better to navigate with us than Christian expert in the field, Dr. Mark Yarhouse?
Mark is Professor of Psychology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, and has published over 80 peer-reviewed journal a...
Heyyyy! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the United States! Happy "we are thankful for you all" if you are not in the States. In this 8-minute special we debate whether or not you put the stuffing in the turkey.
(Answer: Find Alton brown's killer recipe on the link below for turkey SANS STUFFING. Throwaway turkeys are welcome for such goodness.)
We also get a lil' bit serious on what we are thankful for. Get it here, kids. That Link: (At the bottom of the last episode): https://www.himhministries.com/blog/episode-59-a-tiny-living-act-of-obedience