Autism Spectrum in Marriage
Breaking Bread Podcast
When a spouse is on the autistic spectrum, marriages can experience unique challenges. Communication and understanding will likely be impacted. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer speaks to these unique challenges and provides a roadmap to flourishing. Show notes: When communication is significantly strained in marriage, neuro-diversity may be present. Often, in these marriages, the amount, frequency, intensity and duration of these struggles are higher when compared to neuro-typical marriages. A neuro-typical marriage is a marriage where both spouses learn, process information,...
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Doubt in Decision Making
Breaking Bread Podcast
What if I choose the wrong option? What if a better option comes a long? These are a few of the questions that plague decision makers. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Ted Witzig Jr. discuss the angst that can accompany decision making. While we desire to have certainty about future outcomes, it remains elusive. Yet, there is a certainty that the believer has, and it can make all the difference. Show notes: Decisional Stress can be understood in three...
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The Gift of Repentance
Breaking Bread Podcast
Change, when it is for the better, always accompanies healthy human growth. When it comes to emotional, relational and spiritual change, repentance is an apt feature to discuss. After all, repentance means changing your mind. On this episode of Breaking Bread, Chad Leman and Brian Sutter shed light on both the “why” and “how” of repentance. Show Notes: Repentance in three movements. Movement 1: God’s goodness. Romans 2 says God’s goodness leads us to repentance. His work, his grace,...
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Discipleship in the Middle Years
Breaking Bread Podcast
Show notes: Growing into Christlikeness is not a linear process. Yet the historic Christian church has identified three movements that we revisit with increasing depth. Purification: This refers to growing in increasing moral excellence. Illumination: This refers to growing in increasing understanding of truth. Communion: This refers to growing in increasing fellowship with God. These provide a helpful “map” for understanding the invitation before us to grow in Christ-likeness. In the middle...
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Praying Like the Disciples
Breaking Bread Podcast
Christ knew what he was doing when he gave his disciples what we have come to call “The Lord’s Prayer.” It is beautiful to the ear. Rhythmic to the tongue. Simple to remember and loaded with power. In this episode, Joe Leman highlights this beauty and power and helps us see the hope of human transformation that is instore for any who would take up the prayer and pray it.
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How to Have Stress-Reducing Conversations
Breaking Bread Podcast
Stress is a very real part of our lives. How we manage stress can have healthy or unhealthy consequences. Fortunately, one tool we should be using to soothe stress in one another is stress-reducing conversations. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer, Craig Stickling, and Brian Sutter explain how to have these purposeful conversations. Show notes: What is stress-related conversation? A conversation that has at its purpose the intention of soothing the emotions in a stress heightened...
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Accepting Relational Influence
Breaking Bread Podcast
Healthy relationships require that we are open to being influenced. After all, what is a relationship if it doesn’t include give and take. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer explains what both research and experience has taught him about the importance of accepting influence in relationships. Show notes: What does accepting relational influence mean? Allowing those we are in relationship with to shape and impact our...
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3 Habits for Our Kids
Breaking Bread Podcast
Parenting has its eye towards producing future adults. One powerful adult forming tool is instilling good habits in our kids. A well parented habit can pay dividends in the long run by building the muscle memory to do what otherwise would not be natural. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter examples this by suggesting three habits that will produce very welcome attributes in our children as adults. Show notes: Healthy habits can help grow and mature our children. And yet, to do this, the habit needs to grow and...
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One Tip for Human Growth
Breaking Bread Podcast
We all have room for growth. Yet sometimes our progress gets stalled, and we get discouraged. This discouragement might be because we are measuring the wrong thing. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr. helps correct this mistake and teaches us to measure from the bottom-up. Show notes: Measuring human growth can be tricky. We often evaluate our progress by measuring from one of three perspectives: From top-down: This happens when we measure the gap between who we are and who we want to ideally be. For...
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Aging with Intention
Breaking Bread Podcast
To be human is to age. To age well is to transition. To transition well is to adapt. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ron Messner and Lori Wiegand encourage us to be intentional in the aging process. In so doing, we find abundance of life where scarcity may have been assumed. Show notes: Finding abundance instead of scarcity in the last third of life is a function of intentionality, acceptance, and adaptation. Intentionality: Making healthy choices. Having needed conversations. ...
info_outlineSpiritual disciplines are ancient. Yet they are growing in popularity with our contemporary Christian culture. What are common cautions that should accompany our wise application of spiritual disciplines? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Isaac Funk helps us understand four cautions: legalism, agency, syncretism and mysticism.
Show Notes:
Spiritual disciplines are those practices we habitually do in the body that form us into Christlikeness. Reading the Word, silence, solitude, fasting, tithing, fellowship are just a few of many. Many spiritual disciplines are classic. Practices employed by Christ and faithful believers for thousands of years.
Understanding the “shadow” of a thing is important for wise and healthy use. We want to have this circumspect understanding of spiritual disciplines. Without it, we can fall into ditches that are unhelpful. Consider four trappings to be thoughtful about.
- Legalism: Legalism is an unhealthy relationship with performance. At its worst, dependence on performance erroneously replaces faith in Christ.
- We need to remember the following…
- Spiritual disciplines are not our morality.
- Spiritual disciplines are not our performance.
- Spiritual disciplines are not our forgiveness.
- Spiritual disciplines do not secure merit with God.
- We need to remember the following…
- Agency: When employing spiritual disciplines, we can become confused with who is at the source of the effort. Is it us? Is it God?
- We need to remember the following:
- We do not control our spiritual growth; rather we make ourselves available to God through the practices to be formed by him.
- God is the first source behind any practice.
- We need to remember the following:
- Syncretism: Syncretism is the blending or merging of different religious beliefs and practices. Many different religious faiths, as well as atheism, share bodily practices that on the outside look the same.
- We need to remember the following:
- Many bodily disciplines will benefit human beings regardless of walk of life or religious beliefs. However, these are not uniquely Christian unless we are employing them to grow in Christ likeness.
- We need to remember the following:
- Mysticism: By mysticism, we mean experiencing God in ways that transcend ordinary sensory perception and intellectual understanding. If applied unhealthily, the believer can develop errant ideas about God that are steeped in individual experience.
- We need to remember the following:
- Our discipleship experience with God should never contradict the Bible.
- Be accountable to the larger Christian community. Include other people in your discipleship journey with Christ.
- We need to remember the following: