PODCASTS

Tag: #familylife

Inside Out – Are you a Parenting-centered couple, or a Couple-centered couple? – 09/06/23

Inside Out – Are you a Parenting-centered couple, or a Couple-centered couple? – 09/06/23

Parents can be tempted to make the children the family’s highest priority. But giving our children the best of our time and attention is not actually what’s best for them, according to Dr. Greg Smalley.  

Smalley is an author and speaker who serves as vice president of Marriage at Focus on the Family. He says that your children benefit when you make your marriage the priority.    

“When our marriage is healthy, everybody wins,” Smalley says. 

Giving the marriage priority status means taking the time to stay up to date on your spouse’s hopes and feelings.  “We have to continually be rediscovering our spouse,” he says. 

It also means making a habit of talking through the times you hurt each other along the way.   “We have to repair when we have arguments and when we have conflict and when we hurt each other,” Smalley says. “We’ve got to be willing to repair.” 

Everyone in a family benefits when spouses commit to the work of deepening their marriage.  “I think if couples are pursuing each other, keeping current and re-discovering each other and then repairing when those conflicts happen, man, those two things alone are going to take us so far as far as staying connected in our marriage,” he says. 

Learn more about Dr. Greg Smalley here and here.

Family Life Interview: Comedian Jeff Allen – part 3 – 09/05/23

Family Life Interview: Comedian Jeff Allen – part 3 – 09/05/23

Comedian Jeff Allen has been on the stand-up comedy circuit — with great success — across four decades.

His struggles with addiction and his search for meaning found resolution, when a comedian friend asked about his faith. Allen went on a long process which eventually led to his conversion to Christianity. In an extended Family Life Interview — and in a new book he authored — Allen talks about how Jesus has brought peace and blessing to his life.

This is the 3rd of three segments of Mark Webster’s extended conversation with the comedian credited whose clean, family-oriented routines often riff on the theme or the phrase  “Happy wife…Happy life.”

Click this link for more of Jeff’s comedy highlights.

 

 

Hear the full Family Life Interview with Jeff Allen:

From the News Podcasts page, you can listen, download, share or subscribe to any of your favorite Family Life features, podcasts, the Noon Report, and the 5 O’Clock Report.

 

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Staycation Destinations – a Labor Day Weekend Special

Staycation Destinations – a Labor Day Weekend Special

It’s “Staycation Destinations” on Family Life!

Each Friday afternoon, our Noon Report took you to a unique location in the Family Life listening area. Our goals were to find a variety of places which connect with a variety of interests, fairly close to home, and fairly affordable — whether for a day trip or a longer journey.

 

Click here {https://familyliferadio.blubrry.net/?s=staycation} to hear extended versions of these conversations, take a “radio tour” of other stops along our 2023 journeys, or scroll back into previous summers as Family Life took you to many, many other unique and intriguing places in New York and Pennsylvania.

(Use the older posts and newer posts links at the bottom of the page so you can scroll through more of these Staycation Destinations features across the years. You also can enter a specific item or location in the search bar.)

Kids Corner: Cheaters Never Prosper

Kids Corner: Cheaters Never Prosper

If you’ve played a game, you know how frustrating it is when someone cheats. You may have even been tempted to cheat yourself! As Christians, we are supposed to honest, but what do we do when the people around us aren’t?

Bible Verses: Philippians 1:9, Romans 12:2, Thessalonians 5:21, Matthew 5:44, Matthew 10:16, Psalm 37:21, and Romans 12:20

Staycation – Museum of Play – Rochester – 09/01/23

Staycation – Museum of Play – Rochester – 09/01/23

“Staycation Destinations” on Family Life

The Strong Museum of Play opened a generation ago (in 1982) and unites multiple generations with the delights– and the necessity! — of play. Rochester native Margaret Woodbury Strong (starting in her childhood) became a prolific collector of dolls, toys and many other household items. Her legacy now brings hundreds of thousands of guests to the Museum of Play, where people of all ages can see and interact with games, electronics, and playthings from across the decades.

This summer marked the opening of a major expansion of The Strong, with 90 thousand new square feet, expanding exhibit space and a welcome area, plus a new outdoor interactive play area. Shane Rhinewald gives us details about what is new. He also describes the history and development of the museum, offers suggestions of what do see, and tells about diverse range of guests. He also talks about why play is so important, plus how strongly people hold memories of their games and toys.

[ Greg Gillispie closes out this feature with a preview — and your invitation — for one last half-hour journey of the summer. On Labor Day, Family Life relieves many of our radio road trips from our summer Fridays. We will give you highlights from our 2023 Staycation Destinations, plus add in one brand new stop you haven’t heard yet. Join us for our Labor Day Staycation Special, online and on the air, Monday September 4 at 12 Noon. ]

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Side Trip Suggestion: The “Smallest Church in New York” … and quite possibly the World

Each weekend, we also add a note and a picture from another unique spot in the Family Life Listening area, for you to know about — and perhaps decide to visit.

It doesn’t matter which search engine you use, it won’t take long until the Internet tells you that dozens of various U.S. states claim to host “the smallest church building in the world”. However, one in Oneida, New York, might be more diminutive that a lot of others that advertise itself as such.Plus the World Record Academy does give this one the official status as “the world’s smallest (non-denominational) church.”

In addition to its comparative size Cross Island Chapel has a lot of uniqueness going for it. It sits on a platform in the middle of the lake. Even with only two seats, the chapel is put to use as a holy space fairly frequently. With internal dimensions of 51 inches by 81 inches, there is room for a groom and a bride and a clergyperson. If this ever becomes your “destination wedding” setting, your friends can join you there. They may have to watch and listen from a collection of boats floating outside.

 

Faith Under Fire – The New Academic Year at Christian and Secular Colleges – 08/31/23

Faith Under Fire – The New Academic Year at Christian and Secular Colleges – 08/31/23

“Faith Under Fire”

A new academic year begins, and the president of a Christian university in the Family Life listening area offers insights into a trend he sees: some students are moving away from traditional colleges whose curricula, faculty and motivations differ from what some families see as their own academic and social priorities. Houghton University‘s President Wayne Lewis says the 24-hour news cycle and the reach of social media has given young people and their parents more information about how students are accepted and supported in their college experience. Dr. Lewis says students should not feel ostracized if they hold positions which differ from those of their professors. At his school, he says administrators strive to assure that students feel welcome at a Biblically-centered university, wherever that student may be on the conservative-moderate-liberal spectrum.

Also in this conversation with news producer Greg Gillispie, the president offers a bright and optimistic picture of today’s college students — and the energy and faith of young Christian adults.

You can hear (or download) our previous interview on similar topics with President Lewis last semester on our News Podcasts page.

Dr. Wayne Lewis became president of Houghton University two years ago and is a strong spokesperson for the gospel and for Christian higher education. You can read his blog and hear other conversations with him here and here.

Family Life Interview – Election Integrity – 08/30/23

Family Life Interview – Election Integrity – 08/30/23

A Christian law firm is suing the state of California for violating its own election laws. At issue is the inability to track whether mail-in ballots are actually cast by the voters who are legally allowed to cast a ballot.

Mariah Gondeiro is an attorney with Advocates for Faith and Freedom, which has already won one judgment from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After a California judge ruled that the citizens group The Election Integrity Project was submitting simple “garden variety” voting irregularities, their lawyers have again appealed to the Ninth Circuit. The Election Integrity Project claims to have well over 1,000 signed affidavits proving violation of vote-counting laws over the past ten years in California alone.

Gondeiro gives Family Life News the concerns the Project has over ballot handling, an update on the lawsuit, and her take on why people in every state should be active in the push for election integrity.

The Election Integrity Project has now trained 20,000 Californians to be official poll watchers for 2024.

Family Life Interview – Christian comedian Jeff Allen – part 2 – 08/29/23

Family Life Interview – Christian comedian Jeff Allen – part 2 – 08/29/23

Comedian Jeff Allen‘s comedy videos have amassed 400 million views online. The humor on stage was accompanied by desperation and a search for meaning and value in the rest of his life.

In this second segment of our conversation, the 40-year veteran performer tells of the sadness and desperation which led to his Christian conversion.

 

Here are some of Jeff’s comedy highlights: 

Listen for more from Jeff Allen this coming Tuesday, September 5, during the Family Life Noon Report, on our live stream and on the radio.

The full conversation with Family Life’s Mark Webster is here for listening, downloading or sharing.

Hear the full Family Life Interview with Jeff Allen:

From our News Podcasts page, you can listen, download, share or subscribe to any of your favorite Family Life features, podcasts, the Noon Report, and the 5 O’Clock Report.

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