PODCASTS

Tag: #friendship
Inside Out – Being a Good Neighbor – 10/23/24

Inside Out – Being a Good Neighbor – 10/23/24

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:28 — 32.2MB)

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Being a Good Neighbor

The “Inside Out” Podcast from Family Life News

Americans feel detached and isolated. Pastor Doug Hankins believes we have a neighborliness problem. On this edition of Inside Out, Hankins talks about Jesus’ call to be good neighbors, the topic of his The Gospel Coalition article “Benefits of Being a Good Neighbor.”

 

Americans feel detached and isolated. Pastor Doug Hankins believes we’re suffering from a lack of neighborliness, and Christians are just the people to solve it. But it won’t be easy.

“Neighborliness is costly,” Hankins says. “There’s no shortcut around it. Part of the reason neighborliness is like the fifth level blackbelt of being a Christian is because of the difficulty of it.”

Hankins is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Winter Park, Florida. He authored the Gospel Coalition article “Benefits of Being a Good Neighbor.”

“I think the way Jesus understood being a neighbor was loving the people who are near you. If there are people around you, there is–if you’re a believer in Christ–a responsibility to consider these people as your neighbors and to ask the Lord ‘what must I do to care for them well?’”.

If you are ready follow Jesus into loving your neighbors–connecting intentionally, compassionately, and regularly with the people around you–Hankins suggests starting with a list. “Think about everybody you interact with: friends, neighbors, co-workers. Write their names on a list. Put it somewhere where you see it regularly and just pray for them.”

But don’t stop there. Ask friends for help.

“I think accountability is going to help. If you’ve got some Christian friends around you, just going to them saying, ‘I think the Lord might be calling me to step up my game in terms of loving my neighbors, could you just pray with me and bring it up once a month and just hold me accountable to this?’”

Hankins believes that not only will God show you who to love, He may overwhelm you with opportunities. “He’s going to bring us probably more than we can handle, but He can handle it. And so, we’ll get to love those people well.”

You can read Doug Hankins’s article “Benefits of Being a Good Neighbor” from The Gospel Coalition website here.

(TGC also published his first-person account of being at the “Asbury Awakening“, the college-centered revival which happened in 2023.)

 

 

#insideout
Inside Out – Making Friends, Being a Friend, at Church – 9/11/24

Inside Out – Making Friends, Being a Friend, at Church – 9/11/24

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:27 — 19.9MB)

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The “Inside Out” podcast, from Family Life

Making friends at church can be hard, but it’s both important and possible, and we can grow in the process.

 We want to find community at church, but it can be hard.

One of the challenges, according to writer and blogger Paige Pippin, is that many of us show up on Sundays already exhausted. “Getting to church can feel weirdly taxing at times,” she says. “And maybe it’s our personality–maybe we’re more introverted. Maybe we’re in a very hectic season. Maybe we’re getting our gaggle of young children to church. Or, maybe it’s genuinely heavy or life-altering circumstances, like a sickness or disability. So we show up to church and we already feel tired.”

Pippin’s the author of The Gospel Coalition article Help! I Want to Make Friends at Church. Pippin says that in addition to feeling spent when we arrive, we often feel uncertain.

“How do I engage?” Pippin asks. “This feels risky and out of control. Perhaps I’m believing others don’t want to be approached, or maybe it’s too much work, or maybe I believe the lie that it just doesn’t really matter.”

Our reasons for hesitating may be heart-felt, but the opportunity in front of us is a great one.

“We, as believers, are ambassadors of the Gospel, and we have this rich opportunity in front of us,” she says. “Accepting that means I have an opportunity to pray for my attitude–my openness–to others before I even enter the sanctuary. And maybe even to start leaving more margin in my coming and going on Sunday morning.”

Pippin encourages us not only to seek out friendships, but to seek them out with Christians who are different from us. We’ll likely grow deeper as disciples–and more amazed with God.  “Our awe for Him should be expanding as we see Him work in people who think differently than us, or who have walked different roads than us. God is that big, and He’s that able.”

None of this is easy. But God supplies everything we need for His Church to be unified.

“We, as Christians, have a leg up on friendship, because of the Spirit in us,” she says. “This should give us great confidence in pursuing other Christians. Because we know that this is what the Lord has and so we know that it’s not up to us to muster this strength, or to manufacture chemistry. The Lord wants it. He will show us how.”

 

Join us for our 14-minute conversation by listening to the podcast.

You can also read Paige Pippin’s article “Help! I Want to Make Friends at Church”.

Paige Pippin is a Christian author, blogger. and stay-at-home mom.

Inside Out with Martha Manikas-Foster is one of the Wednesday news features on the air and online. Hear it during our Noon Report, 5 O’Clock Report, and our “Family Life News” podcast feeds.

#InsideOut

 

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God uses long-lasting friendships – Inside Out feature – 4/24/24

God uses long-lasting friendships – Inside Out feature – 4/24/24

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:33 — 20.0MB)

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God Uses Long-Lasting Friendships

“Inside Out” with Martha Manikas-Foster

We need long-lasting friendships. But political divisions, our self-reliance, and the failure to prioritize time with friends all work against sustained relationships.  

“Intimacy, trust, and vulnerability–which at least to me are all really important factors in friendships—take time. Like years,” says photographer, marriage coach, and author Dorothy Littell Greco. “And that’s not to say that you can’t go deep quickly with someone that you recently met, but I think having friends for a long time—and I’m talking about like decades—is qualitatively different.”

“I think probably most of us could recount seasons in our life where friends just really come alongside of us and give us what we need in order to make it through day to day.”

Greco discusses how we are created to need friendship, and how even when our relationships encounter rocky terrain the challenge can grow us in ways few other things can. “It teaches us how to love, it teaches us how to forgive,” she says, “so there’s something about that forging deeper into friendship that I think allows us to grow up and to grow into people who are more like Jesus. And, at least for me, that’s what it’s all about.”

Greco believes that one way we can keep friendships growing, even during divisive times, is by standing alongside our friends at pivotal moments in their lives. “Showing up is really, really important, right? Showing up for those milestone events—their babies getting christened, or they’re having an engagement party, or somebody’s father died,” Greco says. “So us being present, saying, ‘We value you more than whatever else it is that we could do in that time.’”

 Another important way to keep friendships growing is by facing issues head-on. “Those moments when differences surface, all of us, pretty much, have the tendency to just kind of withdraw. But rather than using that as an excuse to pull back, is saying, ‘Well, this could allow us to go deeper with each other,’” she says. “So not backing away from conflict.” 

 Greco also suggests taking the leap and being authentically yourself with each other. 

 “Choosing to say, ‘This person, I really like the conversations we’ve had, I’m going to take a risk with them and be a little bit more vulnerable.’” 

 

Dorothy Littell Greco has written on the importance of friendship and how marriages can flourish. She is the author of Marriage in the Middle, Making Marriage Beautiful, and Start Strong.

“Inside Out” is one of our Wednesday News Features on Family Life’s Noon Report and in your Family Life News podcast feed.
Real Answers – Making Friends – 3/20/24

Real Answers – Making Friends – 3/20/24

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:33 — 7.6MB)

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“Real Answers” about: making friends

In an age of social media, online connections, and political divisiveness, it can be hard to find a good friend. The same challenge is also true of being a good friend.

Our “Real Answers” commentator Christopher Anderson offers perspectives and advice on why adult friendship are so valuable, as well as steps to maintain friendships.

 

Christopher Anderson is a licensed professional counselor who works with clients through his private practice in the Southern Tier region of New York.  “Real Answers” is one of our Wednesday News Features on Family Life. It airs during the Noon Report on air and online, and a podcast version is available 24/7/365 (or 366) from the Family Life website.

3/20/24

 
Inside Out – Gen Z Needs Friends – 3/13/24

Inside Out – Gen Z Needs Friends – 3/13/24

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:17 — 10.0MB)

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Gen Z is Looking for Friends

Gen Z has a reputation for being tech-addicted and anti-social, but it makes sense that many are looking for friends.

“We were designed by God to experience Him when we’re in fellowship with other believers—believers of all ages,” says Kirsten Franze, author of The Gospel Coalition article “Gen Z is Looking for Friends.”

“This age group can experience a lot of change and emotional instability due to the way they’re developing, and so it’s really hard, and they’re eager for a wise, non-parental figure to care enough to listen to their challenges and offer encouragement,” she says.

 “This kind of relationship fills a need for wise guidance in life that they really do want, but maybe there are some things that are hard to discuss with their parents,” she adds.

 The opportunities are there, but if you’re older than Generation Z it can feel intimidating to reach out to teens and twenty-somethings when it looks like you have little in common.

 “Pray about and consider who God has placed in the regular routines of your life, because they’re there for a reason, right? Remember their names, say hi to them on Sunday or wherever you see them regularly,” Franze says. “Ask them questions, like how their exam went, how sports are going, how developing friendships is going in their freshman year of college. Find out what’s important to them—like what makes them light up—and just take an interest in it, because they’ll be surprised that someone even cares enough to ask.”

 

Learn more about being friends with someone in GenZ by listening to our 7-minute podcast.

Read the article that inspired the podcast here.

Read more of Kirsten Franze’s work here.
111 Rise Up: You Just Knew

111 Rise Up: You Just Knew

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:18 — 19.6MB)

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Sometimes two people meet, and they just know there’s a deeper connection. Steve and Tim are talking about those friendships that just seem different.

Then: There are strong feelings about mixing cereals. Wait till you meet Stacey.

Rise Up is a morning radio show hosted by Steve, Terese & Tim, on Family Life, a network of stations across New York and Pennsylvania. Our podcast is a weekly conversation designed to help you think, laugh, and keep your eyes on Jesus. If you haven’t already, subscribe today, so you don’t miss a single episode! Listen online and find out more about our show at familylife.org.   

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