Looking for the Real God

Christy shares her frustrations with yet another public Christian leader being accused of sexual and spiritual abuse. She talks about how as our evangelical world falls apart, people's faith is left in ashes. Christy talks about the new Hope Retreats that she is starting to host, and shares things she was thinking about during her own quiet reflecting during the recent retreat. She rants about the high-control, high-demand atmosphe...

In today's episode Christy leads us into a uncomfortable examination of our own hearts. Following up last week's episode on social media versus real life, Christy explores our desire to be right, have an opinion, and judge others as wrong. Sometimes we even judge God as being wrong when he doesn't line up with our opinions. Reading from Ezekiel 33 and Ephesians 4, Christy encourages herself and her listeners to seek for humility, b...

Christy contemplates her own experience stepping back from social media the past few months. She shares how she has been intentionally living her real life and thinking about the things and people in it rather than spending spare moments creating content intended to make people like and comment. She has noticed more peace, less fear and insecurity, and more contentment since stepping back. Christy wonders what would happen if more ...

Christy digs into the difference between fear and worry or anxiety. She takes a look at the many ways we project fear into our future through worry, or choose to fear things that are different rather than learn more about them and get to know people who are not like us. Christy encourages her listeners to live in the present moment with God, remind themselves of truth, and be bold to explore differences. Fear makes us easily contro...

Christy continues her series on the mess within our modern church by retelling one of Jesus' parables from Matthew chapter 13. The familiar story of the wheat and the weeds, or the wheat and the tares, becomes fresh and new as Christy explores the type of weeds that Jesus was talking about. What do these weeds have to do with the junk that seems to continually happen in church or the bad leaders who just continue to stay? Listen an...

Welcome back! Christy starts Season 9 by talking about what she calls the "megachurch mentality" and relating it to the story of the Tower of Babel. As Christy breaks down the story of Babel she ties it together with what happened to the early church at Pentecost. Both stories involve a group of people gathering together with one mind. Both have a point in time when there are a variety of languages suddenly spoken. And both ultimat...

Christy contemplates the goal of Bill Gothard's IBLP cult as expressed on Shiny Happy People: world domination. She remembers feeling like that was the goal back in the day--to take over the world one person, church, and city at a time--so that everyone could experience God's blessings and personal success.

Now she is concerned that perhaps they succeeded more than she ever realized. Fundamental ideology seems to be creeping into m...

Christy connects some dots between the teachings of Bill Gothard, founder of IBLP--the Christian cult exposed on Amazon's new documentary Shiny Happy People and Evangelical Christianity. Gothard's teachings on authority (power), obedience (oppression and suppression) and gossip (truth telling) were pretty extreme. But have those teachings trickled into mainstream evangelical Christianity? Or are these things that we broken people n...

Christy talks about the new documentary series out on Amazon Prime called Shiny Happy People. The series exposes the cult she grew up in (IBLP) along with its leader, Bill Gothard. The series was harder to watch then Christy thought it would be. It brought up feelings and memories that she wasn't expecting. But Christy is also grateful that the truth is being exposed. Gothard's teachings have infiltrated the mainstream church, home...

On Pentecost Sunday, Christy explores the Holy Spirit. She wonders why He gets less attention than the other members of the Trinity and is often either ignored or manipulated. Christy reads pieces of her new book, Religious Rebels, coming out June 15th and shares the ways she has encountered the Holy Spirit over the years and just begun to recognize Him.

Christy also shares parts of an article that talk about early Celtic Christian...

This episode was originally planned for Mother's Day, but in the uploading process, Christy accidentally uploaded the wrong audio. So we are trying again this week. Knowing we have a mothering God isn't just something we need on mother's day. It's something we need every day!

Christy acknowledges the pain that many people feel on Mother's Day from loss, heartache, disappointment, and frustration because of our mothers and children,...

As Christy prepares to launch her book, Religious Rebels, she is thinking about the things we might need to rebel against these days. Growing up. rebellion was "as the sin of witchcraft" and highly discouraged and/or condemned. But when you squash rebellion, you also squash questions, exploration, and people seeking for truth.

Christy contemplates the ways Christian industries like the music industry and publishing industry have be...

Christy comments on a podcast episode she listened to with Russell Moore and David Platt. As much as she appreciates David Platt's heart for people to be genuine Christians and live lives that please God, she's always felt hesitant about his approach. 

It is so easy for us as humans to get caught up in religion--in doing things for God, or to please God, or to get something from God. We cannot do enough. No one can give us enough "...

Christy explores what can happen when we don't actively reject lies we once believed. During her cult days, Christy taught children's seminars that coincided with Bill Gothard's Basic Seminars for adults. While unboxing some old memory albums, Christy realized that the church she recently attended for the last five years was the same church that hosted Gothard's seminar in 2000. After doing some digging, Christy was unable to find ...

Since Christy is on vacation, she is posting some of her favorite episodes over the years from the Easter season. 

Christy takes time to ponder her love for Jesus and her awe of His death and resurrection. With passion and emotion Christy invites her listeners to lay aside their ideas of God and look at the person of Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh. She celebrates the core of historical orthodox Christianity — the fact that Go...

Since Christy is on vacation, she is posting some of her favorite episodes over the years from the Easter season. 

Christy looks at the last Passover Jesus celebrated with His disciples. Jesus did not fit the Jews' idea of the Messiah even though the entire Passover meal pointed to Him. Where as humans seek for money, power, and fame, Jesus sought humility, obscurity, poverty, and servanthood. He was not who we expected God to be. ...

Christy explores the reasons we humans seem to be so quick to fall for false teaching, false prophets, and cults. This world is broken and we feel it. False teachers and cults often promise a short cut to fix the brokenness. They offer identity and purpose. They promise a sense of control. But all the offers and promises are based on lies and can't really satisfy.

Christy encourages her listeners to learn to slog on the muddy trail...