Simply Stories Podcast

I'm excited to start this holy week off with this sweet and encouraging episode with Will and Courtney Kassner. Will and Courtney are the writers and creators behind Crew & Co. which is their ministry and shop full of products to invite beauty into the lives of families and make Scripture a practical part of their daily lives. Recently, they released their first children's book called When the Wor...

Taylor Turkington is an author, Bible teacher, teacher of Bible teachers. She is is passionate about training women to interpret and teach the Bible informally or formally through her ministry Bible Equipping. She has a love for the word of God that is so life giving and it pours out onto the pages of her book Trembling Faith: How a Distressed Prophet Equips Us to Trust God in a Chaotic World. Its...

Dr. Jessica Peck is a professor, nurse practitioner, author, and mama who has written a book called Behind Closed Doors: A Guide to Help Parents and Teens Navigate Through Life's Toughest Issues , and it is precisely that. It's an incredible resource that talks about what Jessica sees in her office with parents and kids and teens of varying ages as well as in her own home. We are going to talk abo...

Irene Rollins is the author of the book Reframe Your Shame: Experience Freedom from What Holds You Back. In her book and in our conversation today, Irene shares her story of adolescent addiction to alcohol that consumed her life and rewired her brain chemistry until she found herself in college, tired and desperate for life, which she found in a relationship with Jesus, and the love of a wonderful...

On the podcast today, I have the absolutely amazing Sara Billups. Our show's format is very conversational and I love it that way. Truthfully I was so impressed, curious and moved by Sara's book Orphaned Believers: How a Generation of Christian Exiles Can Find the Way Home that this episode is a little more like a conversations with friends over dinner. It ebbs and weaves and then starts one way a...

Blake Guichet, better known as the Girl Named Blake, is the host of the Confessions of a Crappy Christian Podcast, and the author of her book with a similar title, Confessions of a Crappy Christian Real-Life Talk About All the Things Christians Aren't Sure We're Supposed to Say and Why They Matter to God. Blake shares a little bit of her story of growing up at war with herself because she felt lik...

I am so delighted to share with you my conversation with author, Christian communicator and teacher Wendy Speake. In this episode, she shares with me her journey of God calling her into a life of using her words for His glory and honing her craft as a storyteller, God meeting her as she mothers her 4 boys, rubbing elbows with others in the trenches, and it is such an encouraging word. Wendy is pas...

Rachelle Starr is the founder of Scarlet Hope, which is a ministry designed to share the hope of Jesus with women in the adult entertainment industry. She is also the author of Outrageous Obedience: Answering God's Call to Shine in the Darkest Places. The month of January is sex trafficking awareness month. Rachelle knows firsthand from her work with Scarlet Hope, spending the last 15 years loving...

Welcome back to the Simply Stories Podcast! I'm thrilled to be back with new episodes and heading into season 4 with author and educator Danielle Hitchen of Catechesis Books. Danielle is passionate about sharing her love of church history and the tools we have at our fingertips by way of the church calendar in order to offer encouragement and connection with God and with one another in every seaso...

Today we are wrapping up our all things fiction series with my conversation with new author Sara Brunsvold. In this conversation Sara shares about her turbulent faith journey of when she was younger and the role older women who were further along in their faith played in helping speak to her heart and help her to know who the Lord truly is.  As she began to find her footing in various seasons, a s...

Today I have the honor of sharing my conversation with the one and the only Tracie Peterson. Tracie has been a staple in Christian historical fiction for 30 years. She is often called the queen of historical fiction romance, authoring 130 books over her career, all of them overflowing with incredible historical details that transport the reader into various parts of and times of the U.S., and her...

Today I get to share with you my conversation with the absolutely lovely Betsy St. Amant. Betsy is a Christian fiction author who shares her story of growing up into the storyteller she loved being as a child, and the Lord meeting her in her heartbreak over her divorce, becoming a very young single Mom, the challenge and the redemption of writing novels saturated with romance while going through a...

Autumn Lytle is a debut author who has written a truly fantastic novel that is interwoven with her personal story of battling an eating disorder. It is called All That Fills Us , and it is the incredible journey of a woman with anorexia and how the Lord used a cross-country journey to save her life. Autumn shares her story with me about when things began to shift in her mind and exercise, obsessin...

This one is for all my fellow Mamas that are trying to make their way through summer, walking out the exhausting seasons with their kids of any age, or just is so angry at the various things surrounding them in this broken world their anger or grief is overflowing into their parenting or marriages or other familial relationships. Today I get to share with you my conversation with Natalie Hixson wh...

Today I get to share my beautiful conversation with Anjuli Paschal. Anjuli is an author who exquisitely and intentionally shares in her books and online about her journey of coming undone and being put back together by God's love. She serves alongside her pastor husband, she's a mother of five children whose ages range from 4-15, and today we talk about things like wrestling with reentry emotional...

Today I am SO excited to share with you my conversation with David Thomas. David is an author, a speaker, and a counselor at Daystar Counseling in Nashville, TN. In this conversation, David shares such incredible wisdom, and insight based on his experience as a father of three, and twenty-five years of walking with and working with kids that have come in and out of his office. In all of his work,...

Today I have the honor of welcoming back Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. Sarah and Beth are authors, speakers, and the hosts of the podcast "Pantsuit Politics." You'll get to hear from Sarah and Beth about the origins of the podcast, how it began back in 2015 as a bipartisan conversation about politics, and the nuances that could be found in these discussions. As you can imagine, after the...

Michelle Ami Reyes is a woman of many talents. She is an author, a speaker, a minister, a scholar in residence, a racial justice activist, a wife, a Mom, and one of my absolute favorite people to talk to about learning to engage in scripture and conversations about race and culture, and God's vast heart for all image-bearers in His Kingdom. Her most recent book, The Race-Wise Family: Ten Postures...

Today, I have an incredibly special conversation to share with you. Lisa Appelo is a writer, speaker, Bible study teacher, and homeschooling Mom of 7. As a young couple, Lisa and her husband had a vision of how they thought their life would unfold, and the Lord redirected those plans a number of times. One of the biggest things they never saw coming was that her husband, and high school sweetheart...

Today I have the pleasure of sharing my conversation with the absolutely amazing Ann Swindell. Ann is a woman who overflows with the love of God, and a desire to use her words for His glory, and to encourage others to do the same. This is the second time I've gotten to have Ann on the podcast, but literally, every time I encounter Ann in life, I feel like I glean something new about the Lord, and...

Today I'm hanging out with the absolutely amazing Jennifer Taylor Wagner. Jennifer was relentlessly bullied for her weight as a child, and then as an adult experienced incredible life change when she lost over 300 pounds. However, even after achieving such an amazing goal, she found that getting her body to a smaller size was not what fulfilled her life. She began to do some hard inner work and re...

Dr. Michael Andrews is an electrical engineer turned minister and teacher! He's also the author of The Influential Christian: Learning to Lead from the Heart. This episode feels like the perfect place to pick up just after Easter but is also a timeless message for anyone who is trying to press into what it means to live a life on purpose for Christ.  What does it really mean to be an "influencer?"...

Today I get to share with you my conversation with Amber Albee Swenson. Amber is a wife, a Mom, a Bible Study author and teacher of the Word. She deeply wants to help other people know the Word of God, to help them know and love God more,  and she wants to try and make God's Word practical and applicable for people no matter what season they're in. Amber shared with me where God has moved in her l...

Today, it's my honor to invite you to join us for an incredibly unique and fascinating conversation with Dr. Amy-Jill Levine. Dr. Levine is an academic, an educator, and an author who is invested in Christians finding the Jewish context of their own story and helping them see where anti-Jewish messages exist in the world. Then, with her fellow Jews she desires to help them see that the New Testame...

Today I have the absolute pleasure of sharing my conversation with Bible teacher and author Elizabeth Woodson. Elizabeth is a beam of sunshine and hope, and the light of Christ just radiates from her smile and her passion for people knowing and loving Jesus. She shares with me her journey into full time ministry, first on various church staffs such as leading singles ministry at Dr. Tony Evans' ch...