Being Human with Steve Cuss

When Zach Meerkreebs finished preaching at a university chapel service February 8, 2023, he texted his wife to say he felt like his sermon hadn’t gone well at all. Four hours later, he wept into a voice memo, asking her to load up their kids and head his way as soon as possible. What we now know as The Asbury Outpouring was beginning. Meerkreebs, a pastor and author, describes what it’s like to be...

Every human has three core relationships: to themselves, to others, and to God. Within those relationships, there are four dynamics that can infect them: assumptions, reactivity, predictable recurring patterns, and attempted solutions.  Listen in as Steve and Lisa Cuss start a conversation that explores these relationships and dynamics throughout 2025. The couple provides a high-level overview of...

Whether our holidays are snowy or sunny—as they are for Steve Cuss as he records from Perth, Australia—the same thing is true: Christmas is a time to remember God’s nearness to us. Steve looks to the text of Luke 2, exploring Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and their quest for a place to stay. He describes the meaning behind the Greek word philoxenia (“love of the stranger”) and the Hebrew...

When the American version of The Office premiered on NBC in 2005, its all-star cast charged right through the fourth wall and looked the audience in the eye. The show’s unique style and cringeworthy stories didn’t just put a new kind of television on display—they explored anxiety in the workplace and relationships in a fresh, often embarrassment-fraught way. As Steve Cuss and his son Andrew talk a...

What do a high schooler’s senior year and the offices of a high-fashion magazine have in common? Stress. During a discussion of The Devil Wears Prada, Steve Cuss and his college-bound daughter, Kaylee Cuss, talk about the anxiety on display in the iconic Meryl Streep film. The two talk about how Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly, may be the one in charge, but she’s arguably also the most anxiou...

When Joy Allmond was fresh out of college, she struggled to find a professional role in her field. She decided to make the most of her young, single years and became a flight attendant. The Lord used that experience to broaden her perspective—especially when she staffed one of the first flights to take to the skies after September 11, 2001. Now, Allmond is the executive editor of Christianity Toda...

As the Thanksgiving holiday draws near in the US, Steve and Lisa Cuss reflect on the importance of gratitude. They talk about intentionally prioritizing the activities, people, and places that help us feel alive. Steve shares how keeping a Life Giving List has helped him through challenging faith seasons, and Lisa gives some practical examples for cultivating thankfulness in everyday life.  Steve...

How can Christians know if they are managing their relationships in a healthy way? What does it look like to treat people with mental health disorders lovingly and respectfully? When should parents of young adults speak up, and when should they let their children learn on their own? These are the types of inquiries that you, listeners of Being Human, have shared with us. Listen as the Cusses answe...

Being fully seen and fully known can feel, in a word, terrifying. And yet, that’s exactly what our souls crave—and exactly what God designed for us to experience.  From the Sheep Meadow of New York City’s Central Park, Steve Cuss explores the idea of being entirely ourselves. He considers the two protective extremes that often keep people from being fully human: pretense and pretending. Cuss walks...

Five years ago, Barrett Harkins walked Spain’s Camino de Santiago—an ancient Christian pilgrimage walked by over 500,000 people each year—for a friend’s birthday. Somewhere along the path, he called his wife and asked what she thought about moving there.  Now a missionary in Santiago, where he works with pilgrims on the path and at a hostel, Harkins and Steve Cuss walk the path together. They talk...

Chuck DeGroat’s name has become somewhat synonymous with work on narcissism in the church. But as he and Steve Cuss discuss, DeGroat is devoted to shining a light on wholeheartedness and internal integration.   DeGroat and Cuss talk about anxiety—specifically around dying—and the way that age often brings with it a concern for one’s legacy. They talk about experiencing pain through work in church...

Brandi Wilson was happily raising her three sons with her pastor husband—that is, until he decided to leave their marriage, their family, and the church they had invested in for years.  Close friends and leadership coaches Brandi Wilson and Lori Wilhite share how they weathered Wilson’s devastating loss together. They talk about the particular struggles of being a pastor’s wife and the heartbreak...

Beth Moore is sure of one thing: In God, nothing is wasted.  On this episode, Cuss and Moore talk about the trauma and trials she has faced, including her experience of being abused as a child, leaving the Southern Baptist Convention after devoting much of her life to it, and walking alongside her husband, Keith, as he navigates bipolar disorder. They discuss how Moore decided to share more of the...

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately sensed anxiety between two people? Or maybe you’ve entered into a challenging conversation and have barely been able to hear it over the thunder of your heartbeat. Perhaps you’ve received a “we need to talk” text and felt your stomach drop with dread.  These types of experiences—and reactions to them—are common, yet we often lack the tools to name o...

Why would a loving God send people to hell? When you hear the word apologetics, that’s likely the type of question that comes to mind. But Lisa Fields, one of the world’s most sought-after Christian apologists and the author of When Faith Disappoints, says there are often much more personal inquiries beneath those intellectual inquiries.  In this episode, Fields and Cuss talk about pastors’ kids,...

Around 250,000 people walk some portion of the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile network of ancient pilgrim routes in Spain, each year. In 2016, Brian and Peri Zahnd became two of those people, and it’s marked their lives ever since. On this episode, host Steve Cuss talks with the Zahnds about the ways that the pilgrimage shaped their perspectives on life and faith. The three discuss pastoring, polit...

Humility isn’t just deferring to the desires of others. It’s also standing up for the weak.  So says Dennis Edwards, vice president for church relations and dean of the seminary at North Park University, on this episode of Being Human. Cuss and Edwards talk about how Edwards’s many experiences of being the only Black man in the room have shaped him and his perspective. They talk about thoughtful a...

The Bear is a show about cooking, kitchens, and Chicago. But for anyone who has watched more than an episode or two, it’s clear there’s more to the story. On this special episode of Being Human, host Steve Cuss looks at seven core themes in the hit FX show The Bear. Through the lens of systems theory and anxiety theory, Cuss considers the false needs and beliefs revealed in the show’s characters....

On this episode of Being Human, host Steve Cuss welcomes Alan Briggs, the founder of Stay Forth, a coaching organization that focuses on leader health and sustainable impact. Briggs’s latest book, AntiBurnout, empowers readers to avoid the perils of burnout and offers practical ways to measure one’s own health and well-being.  Cuss and Briggs discuss the back-to-school anxiety that so many familie...

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The Sermon on the Mount is beautiful. It’s also hard. On this episode of Being Human, host Steve Cuss welcomes his friend, the pastor and author Rich Villodas. The two discuss Villodas’ new book, The Narrow Path, which focuses on the Matthew text. Villodas and Cuss discuss false needs, the longing for the good life, and what it means that God only dwells in reality. Resources mentioned during this...

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” So says Paul in Romans 7, and so, it seems, says the character of Riley in Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2. On a special episode of Being Human, host Steve Cuss and his wife, therapist Lisa Cuss, explore what the film has to say about being human. They talk about the film in terms of the internal family syste...

There are different kinds of anxiety, but there is one type of anxiety that always feels real in the moment when it is not. Unlike acute anxiety which is always based on a real threat, like when you have to swerve to avoid a car, chronic anxiety is always based on a false threat. Like making everyone happy, or doing it perfectly every time or always needing to be there for others.  In this episode...

Are you on your own conscious list of relationships? If not, this episode is for you. Host Steve Cuss is joined by his wife, Lisa, to chat about putting yourself on your conscious list of relationships, responding to your inner critic, and three simple ways to diffuse anxiety in any situation. Steve and Lisa discuss the Enneagram, opportunities for individual and collective growth, and how connect...

Love isn’t meant to be conditional, especially when it comes to our understanding of how God loves us. But this episode’s guest—pastor, author, and podcaster Luke Norsworthy—says we’re far too normalized to the idea that love is contingent upon how we practice our faith, obey, and function in general. On this episode, Norsworthy and Cuss talk about whether or not the phrase “unconditional love” is...