Hole in My Heart Podcast

{Week 7 Core Need is the need to be seen: Noticed inside and out.} This episode has two gripping stories: One is of a pastor named John who, at a young age, recognized his attractions to his same gender. Burying the secret led him to hospitalization due to the chronic stress. Slowly, carefully, he came out to trusted friends, and found some freedom as he daily surrendered himself to Christ. But then he moved far away, started working in a church, and the secret threatened to bury him again in shame. He needed to come out again, but the person with whom he most needed to share was both his pastor and his boss. What would he say? Would he lose his job? Would this pastor/boss see him and love him as God does? Enter the second story of John's boss and lead pastor, Jeff: Years before this conversation with John, God had begun to prepare Jeff's heart and his mind to receive John's story. Had God not set the stage, Jeff said he would have fired John after he came forward with his attractions toward men--even though John was surrendering his version of broken sexuality to the Lordship of Christ every day (as we are all called to do). How did God radically change Jeff's heart? How did John find the courage to share? How did the entire church practically engage this conversation as a result? Listen and find yourself at the foot of the cross with us in awe of the gospel's good news for everyone every day. P.S. Today's after-show bloopers? Matt accidentally got slipped into live Christian radio to thousands of people while we did a mic check--and during this mic check he pretended to be an NPR host. (Shake our red-faced heads.) Highlights: "That fear of coming out was powerful, but it was not as powerful as the pain of being hidden." --John Wilson "He didn't pull any punches... 'I'm gay' [he said.] Four years ago? I probably would have fired him on the spot just thinking that by him saying, 'I'm gay' he meant, 'I'm pursuing gay sex or a same sex romantic relationship.' But praise God instead of assuming--because God had done so much work in my heart--I learned to actually ask questions." --Jeff Maness "In the 15 months since I told Pastor Jeff and brought this piece of myself into the light, the darkness and the mold and the sin and the dankness that was around has gone away . . . I have experienced such an increased amount of holiness and sanctification in my life because of the ability to be seen. I have legitimate accountability now because I can be honest with people." --John Wilson "This has held a mirror up to our whole congregation--a mirror that needs to be held up to the big "C" Church. Have we lost people? Yes, we have lost a few. ... [But] we are going to stand on what we believe is the truth, we are going to offer what we believe is the radical grace of Jesus, and we are going to present to everyone this gospel message of all of us are called to die. And if that means we have some death in the process ourselves? Then that is the cost for us in this . . . It's time. It's time for the Church to speak into this boldly." --Jeff Maness Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-to-be-seen-with-jeff-maness-and-john-wilson/

{Week 6 Core Need is the need to be included: Wanted in this group, team, or partnership; belonging} It seems as if the good need God put into us before the Fall to belong or be included goes hand-in-hand with authenticity. To belong--truly belong--we must be willing to get real. But how many of us feel we are scoring 100% at the relational authenticity level? Social media tells us we have hundreds or thousands of friends, but do we really belong? This is what our guest, Ethan Renoe, calls the "new lonely," and he wrote a book with the same title: The New Lonely: Intimacy in the Age of Isolation. Ethan and the guys (Laurie is out sick!) explore how we try to solve our loneliness problem through wanderlust, pornography, and Ethan's viral, overnight fame. (Do you remember the video of the guy running shirtless in the rain?) The guys also play a Goofball Island game where they have to insert the moral of the story into some classic youth group entertainment. ​Thanks for hanging out with us--it helps take off some of the edge of universal problem of loneliness. Highlights: ​"I realized I was in a really unhealthy pattern where I would show up to a place and I'd be this really mysterious, cool, traveler guy, and before anyone could get to know me, I would leave." --Ethan Renoe "Lonely people will often try to get rid of the loneliness by drowning it out. It's still going to be there when you're alone and it's quiet." --Ethan Renoe "I realized that I was trying to pour from an empty cup. I was filling that void with false digital relationships with women on the internet. There was moment where I realized I can be real with people. I can say when I have a bad day, when I'm feeling excluded, and people can respond to how I'm feeling . . . People can get to know the real me." --Ethan Renoe Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-to-be-included-with-ethan-renoe/

{Week 5 Core Need is the need for love: Unconditionally accepted} All you need is love. It's a nice song, but what about the actual experience of love? How can we feel it deeply before we see Jesus face-to-face? Author and speaker, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, guides us to a deeper experience of God's love that is not tethered to our circumstances (death of siblings, death of spouses, or a deep wrestling with the reality of prayer), but is richly intertwined to the alive and active Holy Spirit in us. ​We also play a game called, "Love Song or Worship Song?" and somehow learn a deep lesson based on how goofy we look while dolphin watching. Highlights: "You are never going to be able to get love in the way exactly that you want to, but you can give love. When you give love not for the purpose of making someone love you, but for the purpose of expressing the Jesus who lives in you, you are going to find that fulfilling." --Jennifer Kennedy Dean ​"Prayer is more than sandwiching words between, 'Dear God' and 'Amen.' There is a whole aspect of prayer that is going on directly from your heart to God's that might not even have words on it yet." --Jennifer Kennedy Dean Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-to-be-loved-with-jennifer-kennedy-dean/

{Week 4 Core Need is the need for rest: Re-centered and reset in mind, body, spirit; includes having fun} Why is it that it seems whoever is the busiest is winning at life? If you are stressed, busy, but magically not anxious, you hold a higher status? We talk about this with Adam Mabry, whose wife laughed at him when he told her he was asked to write a book on rest. This pastor, teacher, and author of the book, "The Art of Rest: Faith to Hit Pause in a World that Never Stops," was able to write the book after experiencing what it was like to live a life without rest, and watching it lead to total breakdown. We explore this story, practical ways to combat the "I'm better because I'm busier" game, and why being a pastor who exegetes Romans while on a unicorn might be the best way to do church. ;) Highlights: "I broke. I have this vivid memory of it being 1 or 2 in the morning, and I am painting baseboards, crying, cursing, angry, praying mess, and that was the beginning of, 'Hm, I don’t think I can achieve my way out of this.' I hit the dark pretty hard for six or nine months. The practice of rest was acknowledging that there is a God in heaven and a sovereign ruler of the universe, and His name is not my name.” --Adam Mabry "As an achiever, Jesus achieved par excellence . . . In three years he achieved redemption of the cosmos. In three years I barely got a Master's degree . . . [Jesus] got a lot done and did it more restfully than most of us." --Adam Mabry "If the Church of Jesus Christ is made up of anxiety-driven, restless people, it doesn’t say a lot about a gospel of grace that is very good." --Adam Mabry Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-for-rest-with-adam-mabry/

{Week 3 Core Need is the need to be affirmed: Overwhelmingly approved of.} Do you ever wrestle with knowing God wants you to share the gifts He gave you with the world, but not knowing how much you should "market" yourself? Shouldn't the Holy Spirit just do that for us? We do wrestle with this, so we brought in bestselling author and speaker, Shannon Popkin, who co-wrote the book, Influence: Building a Platform to Elevates Jesus (Not Me). We explore this conversation in the context of the Core Need to be affirmed. How do we allow God to affirm us while navigating the murky waters of speaking the message He gave us? Put on your lifejackets because we are going to dive in. We also play another ridiculous game called "Spin This" (where Steve, Matt, and Shannon have to affirm everyone from Winnie the Pooh to Han Solo). Thanks for playing and hanging with us. Highlights: "There is such a connection between my message and me that it's really hard not to get 'my message' caught up in it being 'all about me.'" --Shannon Popkin "We are positioned there in this elevated state not so people can say, 'Look at me!' . . . We are positioned there to serve." --Shannon Popkin Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-to-be-affirmed/

{Week 2 Core Need is the need to be desired: Specially chosen--no pretense necessary.} The idea of mixed-orientation marriages (where one spouse is straight and the other is not) can make people scratch their heads saying, "How does that work?" Today, through the lens of the Core Need to be desired, mixed-orientation couple, Ty and Rachel Wyss, get real about their marriage, their need to be desired, and leave us--married and single--with wise, God-given wisdom to walk well. This is another sacred story you don't want to miss. The group also talks how we can express needs without being "needy," Love Languages (with feedback from you all!), and, as always, how the gospel was and is good news. Thanks for joining us! Highlights: "The need to be desired manifested for me . . . in the desire to be somebody's best friend, somebody's everything, somebody's first choice." --Rachel Wyss "Wanting my wife or wanting my friends to desire me--it's so easy to attach the word 'needy' to it . . . When I realize I'm feeling shame for a need, I remember God has wired it into me. If He has wired it into me, then I get to start blessing that need." --Ty Wyss Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-to-be-desired/

{Week 1 Core Need is the need to be nurtured: Cared for; held.} It's time to dive deeply into Core Needs. What are they? They are good needs God put into us for things like belonging, purpose, affirmation, and to be seen and desired. The Fall threw a wrench in our once-natural ability to get them perfectly met by God and supported by people, however, and now we have natural inclinations to get these good needs met in ways that don't satisfy us and don't glorify God. (That natural inclination is known as our sin nature.) Our default is now idolatry. Eden Invitation co-founders, Anna Carter and Shannon Ochoa, launch our 10-week series on Core Needs by talking about the need for nurture. These ministry leaders guide us beautifully through wrestling with how we see nurture develop throughout our life, and how we can look to our friends to support this nurture need without slipping into co-dependence. We also talk tattoos, donuts, and "getting in the freaking car" for a worship sesh. Join us on a journey of the soul. Highlights: "One of my continual lessons is spiritual childhood: As we age, nurture looks differently. But I am always a child of my heavenly Father." --Anna Carter “At the end of the day it’s an invitation: To love and be loved . . . There’s not a sense of dependence or your friends completing you, but we must be comfortable in naming it: 'In order for me to lean into the Lord more easily, I want to invite you to walk with me.’” --Shannon Ochoa “By confessing to another person my own need, my own vulnerability, and my own woundedness, I am providing them with an opportunity to help me live the Christian life. I am providing them an opportunity to be a disciples—to imitate Jesus.”--Anna Carter Do the Next Thing: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/the-need-for-nurture/

Author, speaker, and professor, Dr. Christopher Yuan, brings his authentic self and expertise to the podcast microphone today. In addition to hearing his story, we explore our favorite names of God (with you listeners), expand on the reasons why it is beneficial to the church that there are more conversations around sexuality and gender in the world, and explore the questions, "Is God gender fluid?" "Why don't you identify as gay?" and "How do you confront the lonely life?" It's another real life conversation on the HIMH Podcast. Highlights: "We talk about the world having safe spaces. I wonder: Should not the church be the safest place in the world? Are we safe? I think we have a lot of ways to grow and learn. But, we don't just want to be safe. We want to be safe and redemptive." --Christopher Yuan "I looked and I studied for friendship [in the Bible], and I didn't find much, unfortunately . . . David and Jonathan are never called friends once. But they are called brothers."--Christopher Yuan "We really need to begin living as the church. As family. Yes, we have our blood relatives, but honestly? That is temporary. Marriage is temporary. The only true eternal relationship that we will carry on to heaven are those bound by the blood of Christ." --Christopher Yuan For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/holy-sexuality-and-the-gospel/

Failure makes you feel like . . . a failure. Should it? Should we celebrate some failures instead? Today we talk from Chad Bird, speaker, podcaster, and author of Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life. We will cover seven of those nine "essential failures." Three of which are: 1. The failure to believe in ourselves or, "The good news that God doesn’t believe in you" 2. The failure to follow our hearts or "Go home heart, you’re drunk" 3. The failure to find our soulmate or "Love will not sustain your marriage" We also continue a bit of the shame talk (hearing from you listeners!), and play a Bible trivia game utilizing Matt Krieg's Bible trivia book from the 90s and the minds of all the nerds on the podcast. Chad is real and really helpful. You're welcome to join us at the table. Highlights: "God is a beatitude kind of God. He calls something 'blessed' that the world would often call 'cursed.'" --Chad Bird "Its no wonder if the kids wonder if God hates them, because a lot of what we experience in life make us feel like there is somebody above us, and we are on his hit list . . . The more we can focus God's love for us and everything that entails, that's really what the kids and the adults need to hear over and over." --Chad Bird "The more time we spend being formed but the Jerusalem of the church, the safer we will be in the Babylon of the world."--Chad Bird For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/7-essential-failures-of-a-faithful-life/

"I think I am afraid of being in *God’s* presence. The thing is I am afraid to be in *my* presence. I am afraid to look at and have God see me as I see me . . . I am sure that when I look up again He will have left the rom. And shockingly, He does not." --Curt Thompson, M.D. Let's dive right back into the shame conversation with Dr. Curt Thompson, and explore how shame began and how we can practically combat it. Highlights: "God—even in His pursuit—He is not going to shame us. He is not going to twist my arm. He is not going to shame me for not having my shame cleaned up well enough. He is going to relentlessly pursue me."—Curt Thompson "The healing of shame is not just a way for us to not longer feel bad about ourselves. It’s a way to re-commission us to do the work of goodness and beauty that God has had for us since before the creation of the world." —Curt Thompson For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/exploring-our-souls-of-shame-part-2/

Shame affects all of us--even if we don't know how to name it. It often drapes us in a vague feeling of being covered in a wet blanket. It speaks, "I am worth less. I must hide. There is something wrong with me." How can we address it neurologically, spiritually, and practically? We brought in the big guns to answer all three shame categories today: Dr. Curt Thompson, MD, author of one of our favorite books, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves. This and next week's conversation are not ones to miss. They impacted us all deeply. Highlights: "The gospel--if it is good news--does not begin with 'I am more sinful than I believe.' It begins, in fact, with 'I am more loved than I can imagine.' It is in that space of being loved incessantly, relentlessly, that we become aware just how sinful we are." --Dr. Curt Thompson, M.D. ​"It is not difficult for us to register [shame] in catastrophic events (bullying, sexual and physical abuse, or some kind of public humiliation). The thing is, as far as our real life is concerned, the vast majority of how these [shame] events actually occur is in the privacy of our own minds. It is the dozens of times when we say to ourselves 'I should have done this. I should have done that. I'm not good enough at this. I'm not good enough at that.' . . . It's these micro-moments that turn into a death of a thousand cuts." --Dr. Curt Thompson, M.D. For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/exploring-our-souls-of-shame-part-1/

Peek between the cracks of the podcast to hear updates on our words for the year ("Do you feel like God gave you that word?"), look forward to our words for 2019, and hear us encourage each other unplanned. As we reflect on this year of pain and growth, we may even shed a couple tears between our laughs. (Of course we do. :) ) We love you, guys. Thanks for being a major joyful part of our year.

It's almost the new year, and many of us are thinking about doing something to jumpstart positive choices next year. But what about today? Sharon Garlough Brown, author of the Sensible Shoes series, walks (ha) us through the basics and depth of spiritual disciplines. We cover things like, "Are spiritual disciplines for the hyper-spiritual, Enneagram 4, flower children?" "Does lament have to be so depressing?" and "What can we do today--what one step can we take?" We also play a pretty hilarious game of "Finish that Christmas Carol." We'd love for you to join us. Highlights: "That’s what lament is: It’s crawling up into the lap of God, saying the hard things, and knowing that God holds us in those things.” --Sharon Garlough Brown "A spiritual discipline is a grace discipline. I don’t have the power to make myself more like Jesus, but I can practice things that will help me be more attentive . . . and responsive to His call.” --Sharon Garlough Brown For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/jump-starting-spiritual-disciplines/

At HIMH we sometimes call ourselves "gospel addicts," but what is an addict? Author, psychologist, and addiction expert, Dr. Gregory Jantz, breaks down some of the attributes and questions we may have for ourselves or our friends on how to take steps away from the following addictions: ​ Alcohol Food (eating too much or little) Work Sex/pornography Relationships TV/Netflix Social Media Because we can't help ourselves, we dive into the Die Hard debate (Christmas movie or nah?), and play a game called, "Top Toy or Misfit?" (Players have to guess which toy is a top seller this year, and which one was dubbed a danger.) Come play and learn with us. Highlights: "A relapse handled properly is all about recovery--because we are learning from it." --Dr. Gregory Jantz "[We must look in the] mirror and say, 'If I keep doing this, what is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to those I love?" --Dr. Gregory Jantz For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/lets-admit-it-were-all-addicts/

Fruit of knowing the Good News is believing that God loves kids. He cares about their souls, he cares about their spirits, and he cares about their bodies. That is the focus of this episode: How can we protect our children, our nieces and nephews, and our friends' kids from childhood sexual abuse? How can we do it in a way that is not "shamey"? We explore it today with experts and authors of the important kids' book, 'God Made All of Me,' Justin and Lindsey Holcomb. (We also play a silly "Is this a Hallmark Movie or a Shmallmark Movie" game, and it turns out they are experts there, too.) Highlights: "We need to start talking young because 1 out of 5 kids will be victims of childhood sexual abuse before their 18th birthday."--Justin Holcomb "[If you talk about body protection with kids] it builds a trust so that if something happens, if they are exposed to something . . . they are going know, 'Mom and Dad know about this. They talked to me about this. They are safe and understand this.'" --Lindsey Holcomb "We are all about swimming safety, bicycle safety, wearing your helmet, getting in your your car seat, and wearing your seat belt. Add this to that: This is body safety. This is prevention and awareness. Lump it into that category, and feel empowered in your role as their advocate." --Lindsey Holcomb For More: https://lauriekrieg.com/podcast/keeping-the-kids-safe/