The question before every human being is not if they have pain, but rather, what they do with the pain that they have. Some people make peace with their pain. Unfortunately, many do not. In this Breaking Bread two-part series, Brian Sutter and Kaleb Beyer help us understand what making peace with pain means, why it is important and how to do it.
One of the pains of parenting is watching your children make poor choices. What should we do when there is not much we can do? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter and Craig Stickling speak to the do’s and don’ts of parenting through these challenges.
Show Notes:
So your child made the wrong decision. Remember this Mom and Dad:
Hang in there with them.
Protect your relationship with them.
Have a posture of grace with them.
Be learners together.
Allow natural consequences to teach.
Help them learn from their decisions.
Speak truth in love.
Don’t over personalize their decision.
Lean on the larger community to speak truth into their life.
Give it time.
Trust in prayer.
Spiritual 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.
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.
This episode of Breaking Bread, Fred Witzig and Erica Steffen give us a history lesson. Not a history lesson about our past. But a lesson about how to capture our past into history. Oral history is the means for getting this done. Fred and Erica will both explain how to carry out this collection of history as well as cast a vision for our participation in a larger Elder Teaching Resource effort.
Hope exists. Depression is not a life sentence. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Ted Witzig Jr. chart the course for walking through depression to the other side.
Show notes:
There are different kinds of depression. Treatments can vary. However, the path through depression typically has three benchmarks. The first is changing behavior. The second is a shift in thinking. The third is an improved mood.
1. Behavior activation:
· Physical activity: moving the body.
· Social interaction: engaging with people.
· Meaningful activities: engage in small, doable things in a consistent manner to develop a sense of competency.
2. Engage thinking through counseling:
· Challenge negative self-talk through healthy truth based in Scripture.
· Medicine (in some cases) can be beneficial in helping the mind think well and engage the therapeutic treatment.
3. Positive mood shifts follow improved thinking.
Depression is real and prevalent. Many live in the felt reality that the skies are cloudy, and no sun exists behind them. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Ted Witzig Jr. speak to the realities of depression - what it is, what it feels like, and what effect it has on living.
Show notes:
What it is:
Clinical depression is a mental condition that flags five of the following nine symptoms:
· Sad or depressed mood.
· Loss of interest in things once appreciated.
· Weight loss or weight gain.
· Sleep loss or sleep gain.
· Agitated and “keyed up” or sluggish and “slowed .down”.
· Loss of energy and motivation.
· Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt.
· Decreased concentration.
· Wanting to die.
What it feels like:
· Depression feels like driving with the brake on. Everything is more difficult. Joy is snuffed out of life. Stressors overwhelm resources. The sky is grey, with no hope of clouds parting. If they did part, no sun exists beyond them anyhow.
What effect it has on living:
· Depression tends to a spiraling downward. Natural reactions to depression tend toward being unhelpful rather than helpful. Depression tends toward isolation and isolation tends towards a further depressed state. Hopelessness tends toward inactivity and inactivity tends toward failure to meet work deadlines. Depression exasperates itself.
How can helpers help?
· Help people reverse the downward spiral with small incremental steps in the positive direction. Do this, not by giving orders but by coming along side hurting individuals.
While we might lean more towards left or right brain thinking, we use them both. In fact, it is important we do. And we can. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr., Brian Sutter, Kaleb Beyer and Kathy Knochel help us understand how important it is that we connect with people with both halves of our brain.
Two halves make a whole. This is true for everything. But it is uniquely true for our brains. Each half, the left and the right, bring a wholeness that without either one, we are much less than half. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr., Brian Sutter, Kaleb Beyer and Kathy Knochel help us better understand the vast wonder of our created brains and give us a vision for healthy functioning that uses whole brain living.
Show notes:
The left brain (hemisphere) is understood to be the seat of rational logic. It excels in language, math and science.
The right brain (hemisphere) is understood to be the seat of emotional perception. It excels in music, art and fantasy.
It is common that people tend toward one side over the other. That is, they view the world, engage in relationships and respond to their environments by leading with one side of the brain over the other.
Whole brain living is seeking to understand the value that each brain hemisphere brings.
It is possible to grow in our ability to use whole brain thinking. In fact, whole brain living will aid connection in our relationships, understanding of other people, processing our environments and the worship of God.