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Tag: #insideout

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Inside Out – “Elder Isolation” -7/24/24

Inside Out – “Elder Isolation” -7/24/24

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“Elder Isolation”

Family Life’s “Inside Out” News Feature

Nearly a quarter of adults 65 and older are socially isolated. In today’s Inside Out podcast, author and speaker Jen Pollock Michel talks about some of the causes of elder isolation, and encourages Christians to help prevent elderly friends and loved ones from feeling alone.   

Martha talks with Jen Pollock Michel about elder isolation

Nearly a quarter of adults 65 and older are socially isolated, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And social isolation, studies show, increases the risk of hospitalization and a host of serious health conditions, including dementia and depression. “I think there are a lot of reasons why older people get isolated, and one thing I’ve really grown to appreciate is just how devastating it is,” says author and speaker Jen Pollock Michel, whose family moved to live closer to her aging mother.

Michel points to a number of reasons elderly people can grow isolated. Michel’s mother, for instance, became more isolated when her husband’s Parkinson’s Disease made it difficult for the couple to leave their apartment. Others find that the inability to drive isolates them, especially when there’s no accessible public transportation to fill in the gap. People can also withdraw socially when hearing or memory loss make it hard to participate in conversation.

“All of these capacities that enable us to get out of our house, or maybe invite people into our homes–when those diminish, isolation follows” Michel says.

Michel offers encouragement to those who care for and regularly visit the elderly people in their lives.  “It is good work,” she says. “And I think if you know it’s good, you know it’s valuable, and most importantly, you know it’s God-honoring, then that provides the motivation that you need to keep doing it when it’s hard. And you have to lay hold of that.”

 And it can be hard. So Michel suggests that caregivers ask for help. “Getting a network of support, I think, is one thing that I would say, because you can’t do everything all alone,” she says. “I allow myself to just be very human in the task. Depending on God as much as I can. You know, abiding in Christ—the foundation of the Christian life.”

God is the stamina giver and also the model. When we spend time with someone who has been isolated, we are imitating Jesus.  “God clothed Himself with flesh and took up the loving act of presence,” she reminds us. “That’s where we discover God’s heart for us and live out of His love for other people.”

Learn more about Jen Pollock Michel at JenPollockMichel.com.

 

“Inside Out” — and all of Family Life’s podcasts and features are available — to download, share or subscribe. Visit FamilyLife.org/newspodcasts.  You can also hear them during the Family Life Noon Report on the air and streaming online.

 
Inside Out: Be Present and Active — We “worship”, we don’t “attend worship” — 5/22/24

Inside Out: Be Present and Active — We “worship”, we don’t “attend worship” — 5/22/24

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“Inside Out” : Come Ready to Worship

Ever find you’ve gotten to church, but your mind is someplace else?

“We want to urge people: get your heart and your mind ready before worship so that you can be spiritually engaged when you get there,” says the Rev. Alex Mark. He’s the senior pastor of First Scots Presbyterian Church of America in Beaufort, South Carolina.

He encourages us to focus on the privilege we have when we gather to worship God. “The most fundamental thing we need to realize is how important worship really is,” he says. “Our worship today is actually even more awesome than what they saw at Sinai. Because instead of having Moses as worship leader, we have Jesus. Instead of being kept at a distance, we are commanded to draw near.”

 

Mark is the author of The Gospel Coalition article “Ready for Church: 5 Ways to Be Present in Worship.” Family Life’s Martha Manikas-Foster talks with the pastor about actively engaging in worshiping God.

Foundational to our worship is remembering who deserves our focus.  “We are meeting with the living God. We are being led in worship by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is with us. And then I think the practical things flow from that. That’s one of the things sin does—it just distorts our whole worldview. We become more concerned with whether we’re satisfied than whether God is glorified,” he says.

 “The goal of worship isn’t to worship in a way that costs us nothing,” he adds. “Worship should cost us, because it’s a display from our hearts to the world of the incredible value and worth of God.

 He suggests several ways we can engage spiritually while at church. 

“We want to fight distraction,” he says. “My attention span has to be an offering to God. I want to give it to Him. Sing heartily in worship. I am tone deaf and musically illiterate. It is not a good combination. It’s not the quality of our voices that make our worship acceptable to God. It’s what Jesus has done for us.”

 He also points out that we can only apply the lessons of a sermon when we’ve listened to it.

 “Engage with the sermon. You know, Satan doesn’t mind us being under the Word, as long as we’re not paying attention to it. And so we’ve got the duty to really listen carefully to the ministry of the Word and then make it our goal for the week to put our preacher’s words into action.”

 The Rev. Alex Mark reminds us that worship isn’t always led from the front of the church. It includes supporting and cheering on others in the pews. 

 “One of the reasons we gather together is to encourage each other,” he reminds us. “Encouraging each other, I think, really means we’re intentional to care for one another’s souls, and to make it our purpose to help one another love and savor Jesus Christ more.”

 

Listen to our 17-minute conversation in this Family Life Inside Out podcast.

Read the article that inspired this conversation on the Gospel Coalition website
Inside Out: What do people mean when they say “Christian Nationalism”? – 6/26/24

Inside Out: What do people mean when they say “Christian Nationalism”? – 6/26/24

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What do people mean when they say “Christian Nationalism”?

 

Christian nationalism is in the news, but what is it?

Nationalism is different from feeling patriotic or making sure to vote every November. Part of what defines nationalism in general is its goal to reserve privileges for only one group in a country that has many groups. Christian nationalism, to be specific, aims for the government to privilege Christians.

Dr. Paul D. Miller believes Christian nationalism is a danger to the Church. That’s because it makes a Christian’s citizenship in a country a higher priority than a Christian’s citizenship in God’s Kingdom.

“If we start to orient our hearts towards America as if it were an ultimate thing, well, that’s actually idolatry, and we misunderstand the entire Gospel, as if the Gospel is all about making America great. And that’s just not why Jesus came,” Miller says. “He said very clearly, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world.’ I’m grateful for America, but it’s really important that I don’t confuse America for Jesus’ Kingdom.”

He believes that Christian nationalism not only threatens the Church, but also our democracy.

“It is a danger, I think, in a more mild sense of being in tension with the principles of liberty and equality for all citizens, Christian and non-Christian alike.”

And while not all Christian nationalists are violent, some are. Those waving Christian symbols and calling on God as they broke into the nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021 are an example of the movement’s violent minority. “That kind of mixing of religious rhetoric with a violent assault on the citadel of democracy is, I think, clearly dangerous for American democracy,” Miller says. “Again, that’s a small minority, but it is there, let’s not ignore it.”

 Miller wants the Church to be aware of the danger of Christian nationalism, even as he points out that it’s not the only threat.

 “This is part of a much bigger conversation. While we’ve talked about the dangers on the Right, there’s dangers on the Left as well.”

– – –

Dr. Paul D. Miller is Martha’s guest for this Inside Out discussion on Christian nationalism. Dr. Miller is a former member of the National Security Council staff who has served as an intelligence analyst for the CIA and as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. Currently Dr. Miller is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Georgetown University. Read a more detailed biography of Dr. Paul D. Miller discover more about his book The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with Christian Nationalism.
Inside Out: Christian Accountability and/or Cancel Culture – 6/12/24

Inside Out: Christian Accountability and/or Cancel Culture – 6/12/24

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Cancel Culture

A Christ-centered vantage point, from the “Inside Out” podcast

In a culture without agreed-upon standards, people across the faith and political spectrum sometimes hold others accountable by “cancelling” them. Christian attorney and apologist Abdu Murray believes the impulse to correct a wrong is natural and biblical.

“What Cancel Culture has become is the–I think a quite biblical–act of holding people accountable, but run amok,” he says. According to Murray, Cancel Culture and Christian accountability have different goals.  “Cancel Culture is public erasure. There’s almost nothing redemptive in it. It’s an act that looks a lot more like revenge than it looks like accountability.”

Murray is the founder of  Embrace the Truth, a non-profit dedicated to Christian apologetics and evangelism. He reminds us that when you feel that the wrongs of others should be addressed, cancelling is not the only choice.

“If you refuse to cancel them,” he says, “you can still hold them accountable.”

We need to know our motivation: do we want wrongdoers to take responsibility and repent, or do we want to ruin them?

“We always have to think redemptively,” Murray says. “How can this be redeemed? A good friend of mine once said this, ‘that I always want to make it easier for someone to sincerely apologize rather than harder.’ And sometimes Cancel Culture makes it harder for someone to sincerely apologize.”

Cancelling, of course, goes both ways, and it is possible that you could be cancelled and feel that it is because of your faith in Jesus Christ.

“The phrase that’s been repeated many, many times: ‘You can’t always control your reputation, but you can control your character.’ And as painful as it can be to be rejected, the real issue is: are we looking to Jesus to say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’?”

 

 

Learn about Abdu Murray and Embrace the Truth here.

Learn about his books here.
What churches get wrong, and how churches can help – 5/08/24

What churches get wrong, and how churches can help – 5/08/24

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Churches Can Help in the Pornography Crisis

Sam Black joins Martha Manikas-Foster for this “Inside Out” podcast on successful ways churches are helping those ensnared by pornography. Black is the author of The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong about Pornography and How to Fix It.

 A lot of Christians use pornography. 

 “Two-thirds of the men in the Church — and a third of women in the church — say they have an ongoing struggle with pornography,” reports Sam Black, who has walked his own journey to healing. He is the author of The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong about Pornography and How to Fix It.

 He says that churches that default to a purity talk to fight pornography need a better plan.

 “They already know they need to be pure,” he says. “They just can’t seem to get the gorilla off their back.”

 The way that people who struggle with pornography find hope is in community, Black says. They need brothers and sisters, in a safe environment within distinct parameters, to come alongside them on the walk to freedom. “What I want to encourage you with is, through a safe place and a safe process, living in freedom is absolutely possible,” he says. “You need to press into it to get it.”

 But because pornography is tenacious, you won’t solve it alone.

 “With this encouragement, I also have to offer some caution: you don’t find freedom on your own,” he says. “Trying harder and leaning on your willpower and your resolve never lasts. You must involve others. And that’s why we have the Body of Christ.”

 

 

 

A free chapter of Sam Black’s book is available for download.

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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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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.
Inside Out – Hope for Widows – 3/27/24

Inside Out – Hope for Widows – 3/27/24

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Hope for Widows (and their friends)

“I rest in who God is to get me though my day. And that, I think, is what the hope for widows is.”  — Marilyn Nutter

 Twenty-eight hundred women a day are widowed in the US. For those women, everything changes. 

 “A widow has not only lost her husband, but she has lost the life that she knew,” says Marilyn Nutter. “And life looks dramatically different.”

 Nutter knows there are better and worse ways to comfort the widows in our lives. A widow herself since 2011, her new book is Hope for Widows: Reflections on Mourning, Living, and Change.

 “If we can’t say something that can be encouraging and not judgmental, then just be present,” Nutter says. “Put your arm around that person.”

 While more than half of the women in the US over the age of 75 are widows, the average age a woman becomes a widow is 59 years old. No matter the age, there’s grief, loneliness, anger, and disappointment.

 “I don’t think we can ever prepare emotionally for losing your spouse,” Nutter says. But there are some nuts-and-bolts things people with a living spouse can do now to make life more manageable if they’re widowed someday. We can learn, right now, the essential tasks our spouses usually shoulder, whether it’s changing the household air filters, paying the bills, or making travel arrangements. 

 “You need to be prepared, practically,” Nutter says. “It’s still not going to be easy. But if you can have some practical things in place, that would make it more manageable when your body is exhausted, and your brain can’t think.”

 Randy Nutter died while on the couple’s cross-country Christmas visit to their children. Through Marilyn Nutter’s loneliness and discouragement, she hung onto God and who she knew Him to be. She knows that God is not only her hope, but the hope for widows. 

 “God is faithful to keep His promises. He hasn’t made a promise that He hasn’t kept. And so, when I think of hope, I think of hope as a person. Biblical hope rests in who God is and who He says He is. And that is where I have found Him to be faithful.”

 We invite you to listen to our 16-minute podcast.

 Learn more about Marilyn Nutter here.

 

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

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

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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.
Parenting: Taking the Long View – Inside Out – 2/28/24

Parenting: Taking the Long View – Inside Out – 2/28/24

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Parenting: Taking the Long View

We want to raise our children well. Because of that, we look for instructions. That was true for parent and educational consultant Laura Spaulding.

 “It seemed to be that there was always just a right way presented to you, and some of it came from the Christian culture, and some of it came from the neighborhood, and some of it came from TV,” she says.

 Spaulding is the author of a January 2024 Gospel Coalition article titled Taking the Long View Revolutionized My Parenting.

Christian parents hold on to Proverbs 22:6, where we’re instructed to “train up a child in the way he should go,” so that, “when he is old, he will not depart from it. Taking that verse apart and recognizing what it really is saying: it is saying, ‘Start them this way, and it finishes this way.’ Like all the middle is so unique to each person,” she says.

 Two decades into her parenting journey, Spaulding believes she’s developed some perspective.

 “The chief end of parenting is not getting kids into perfect colleges so that they can find the perfect job and marry the perfect spouse, so that they could turn around and have perfect kids of their own,” she says. “The chief end of parenting, just like the chief end of life, is perfection for all eternity.”

Gospel Coalition

 That’s the kind of perfection that doesn’t come from formulas. It comes from Christ. “The ‘perfection for all eternity’ comes at the end of the race. At the end of the journey. And so our job as parents is to prepare our kids for a journey. It is to get them started.”

Get to know your children well, she says, and parent them accordingly. “Put the parenting books away and instead study the child in your arms,” she says, “really paying attention to what are their unique gifts and limitations. What motivates them. What stresses them out. What lights them up.”

 Proverbs 22:6, Spaulding says, is a gracious invitation for taking a long view on the development of our children. “Use what you learn about them to help them know themselves, to help them know and relate to their Creator, to help prepare them for the good works that God has prepared in advance for them to do.

Join us for our 18-minute conversation by listening to the podcast.

 

Read the article that inspired this conversation here.

Read Laura Spaulding’s other writing here.

 

 
Inside Out – Thorns – Faithfully handling disappointment – 2/14/24

Inside Out – Thorns – Faithfully handling disappointment – 2/14/24

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The Gift of Thorns

“We have to very careful to distinguish between ‘did God let me down?’ or ‘did my expectations of God let me down?’

 

What if not getting what we want is one of God’s great gifts?

“God knows what is good for us when we don’t,” says the Rev. Dr. A. J. Swoboda. “To ultimately assume God’s desires for us are the best desires, and believing that, is our first step in being followers of Christ.”

“I have grown the most in my spiritual journey with Jesus in places where I have not gotten everything I want. And what I’m trying to say is, I don’t grow in the great times. I grow in the times when I’m mad that I didn’t get what I want God to do,” Swoboda says.

 

When we find that we’re disappointed or angry with God, it’s important to figure out what God has promised us.  “We have to very careful to distinguish between ‘did God let me down?’ or ‘did my expectations of God let me down?’ We’ve got to be cautious to not assume that God and our expectations about God are the same exact thing,” he says.

It is actually a gift, Swoboda says, to not get what we want.

“Jesus lived a life of willingly giving up everything He wanted. In fact, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he pleads with the Father to not die on the cross. Yet he submits Himself to what the Father wants over what His flesh and emotions wanted. And so I think life is in those places in our life. I think the thorns are a gift. I don’t think they’re a problem, I think they’re a gift.”

“At least in our world, unless you embrace the thorn, you won’t ever receive the rose. And that with every thorn there is a rose. We tend to focus on the thorn, and we forget the rose.”

Hear much more from A. J. Swoboda by listening to our 15-minute podcast.

 

 

Swoboda is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and World Christianity at Bushnell University in Eugene, Oregon. He also leads a Doctor of Ministry program at Friends University. His new book is The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War for our Wants. Learn more about A. J. Swoboda here.

“The Gift of Thorns” also is available as a Bible study series for individuals and groups.

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