Clemenz With a ”Z” Podcast

In this episode of Clemenz With a “Z,” I’m joined by Dena Schusterman.  Dena is an educator, writer, mother of eight, and Chabad emissary in Atlanta. Her memoir, Stories Carry: A Memoir , began as an effort to preserve her father’s stories and grew into a layered account of her own family, faith, and the traditions and experiences passed between generations. We talk about telling stories honestly,...

In this episode, I reflect on a moment of recognition: while talking with Audra, who grew up Mormon, I heard echoes of my own experience growing up in the International Churches of Christ. Our stories aren’t identical, but we recognized familiar patterns, certainty, fear, and learning to distrust ourselves. I explore why it can feel like an exhale to be understood without having to explain or prov...

I’ve been away from the podcast for a little while, but I’m back now, and I’m glad to return with this conversation. In this episode of We Were In a Cult?, I sit down with Kristin, a fellow Kingdom Kid whose experience growing up in the ICOC differed from mine in some meaningful ways. She describes a childhood understanding of God as a best friend and parents who encouraged her to trust her gut, t...

In this episode, I sit down with Audra Phelps to talk about growing up in a strict Mormon household, the ten-year journey that eventually led her out of the church, and the difficult work of discovering who she was after leaving. We explore how high-control religious systems can teach us to distrust our own questions, surrender our decision-making to outside authority, and follow a prescribed life...

Sometimes the most meaningful shifts don't happen while we're reading a book or sitting in therapy, they happen while scrolling Instagram... or watching Toy Story 5 with our kids. In this episode, I share how an Instagram reel about fatherhood challenged me, why I couldn't stop thinking about it, and how an unexpected night at the movies helped me discover the other half of the story. This isn't j...

Every Father's Day, I hear some version of the same message: be stronger, lead better, protect more, carry the weight. And if I'm honest, those sermons usually leave me feeling less encouraged and more afraid. Afraid of getting it wrong. Afraid of not being enough. In this episode, I explore a different vision of fatherhood through one of Jesus' most famous parables. Looking at the story we often...

Music is, at its most basic level, just vibrations moving through the air. A guitar string vibrates, sound waves travel through oxygen molecules, and our brains somehow turn those vibrations into an experience. Yet that explanation never feels like enough. A song can make us cry, transport us back in time, or help us survive a difficult season of life. In this episode of Clemenz With a "Z", I expl...

A few days ago, my son climbed into the backseat after school holding a small Jesus figurine. He turned it over in his hands for a few quiet minutes, and then, completely out of nowhere asked me: "Why did Jesus die?" I laughed. Then I felt the weight of it. Because for a lot of us who grew up in evangelical or high-control religious spaces, that question was never simple. It carried fear, guilt, a...

I've ended every episode of Clemenz With a 'Z' with the same line for years:  'thanks for being a part of this messy middle with me.' It became such a reflex that I stopped asking myself what I actually meant by it. This episode is my honest answer. And if you've ever left a system, a church, a belief structure, a tribe and found yourself wondering why you can't seem to land anywhere clean, this o...

This episode of Clemenz With a “Z” started with a story that honestly stopped me in my tracks: a pastor introducing another pastor from the pulpit by mocking his rental car as “a little gay.” But the deeper I sat with it, the more I realized this wasn’t really about a Prius, or even one awkward church moment. It was about the systems so many men have been raised inside, systems that teach us to fe...

This episode started as a Substack article I wrote after receiving a text message that hit something deeper in me than I expected. What began as a reflection on reconstruction and deconstruction slowly became something bigger, a conversation about fear, belonging, external validation, nervous systems, and what it means to rebuild a spiritual life on your own terms after leaving a high-control envi...

Most of us were quietly trained to hand the Bible over to the experts, to sit in the pew, absorb the sermon, and trust that the people with the seminary degrees had it figured out. But here's the thing: the tools for reading any text responsibly aren't locked inside a degree program. They're the same six questions we hand to eight-year-olds in language arts class:  who, what, when, where, why, and...

There's a pattern worth naming, one that shows up in sermons, in bestselling books, and honestly, in the way most of us consume content every day. We take something small: a verse, a phrase, a post, a moment, and we build something enormous on top of it. In this episode, I'm looking at a popular men's ministry framework that anchors itself in a single line from First Corinthians "act like men" and...

What's up y'all?  In this episode of “We Were In a Cult?” I was able to speak with sisters Sarah and Lauren, who were both raised inside the ICOC. Growing up in the same home, under the same beliefs and expectations, you might assume their experiences would be identical, but they weren’t. In this episode, we explore what it means to inherit a system rather than choose it, how language and identity...

There’s a moment most of us have experienced; standing in a parking lot, deciding whether to return a shopping cart or leave it behind. It’s small. Almost forgettable. But the more I’ve paid attention to those moments, the more I’ve realized they might reveal something deeper about how we move through the world. In this episode, I start with a simple observation in a grocery store parking lot and...

This is an episode I recorded about two years ago, and revisiting it now, I realized something, I was already asking questions back then that I’m still wrestling with today. Questions about power, about leadership, and about what it actually means to follow Jesus. In this episode, I explore the moment often called the “Triumphal Entry,” but through a different lens: not as a celebration, but as a...

In this episode, I sit with a passage from Thomas Merton that I can’t seem to shake and the uncomfortable realization it stirred in me: I don’t think I trust happiness that comes easily. We live in a world built on chasing more growth, more clarity, more success, and I’m right there in it. But what if the peace we’re looking for isn’t something we achieve, but something we don’t trust? I unpack th...

In this episode of We Were in a Cult?, I sit down with Katja, who shares her experience of being introduced to the ICOC in Germany, not as someone born into it, but as someone searching. As a young mother trying to find her footing in life and faith, she was met in a moment where community, clarity, and certainty felt both needed and welcome. What unfolds is an honest and thoughtful conversation a...

I went to a church back in December because it reminded me of something. Growing up in the ICOC, we had what were called Special Missions contributions, big Sundays centered around giving, sacrifice, and faith. So when I heard about a “Legacy Offering,” I was curious. Not cynical. Curious. I wanted to see what it would stir up in me. What I didn’t expect was how much my body would remember. From t...

Every generation inherits something from the one before it, wisdom that helped people survive and wounds that shaped how they saw the world. In this episode, I reflect on a quote from philosopher John Dewey: “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” What begins as a thought about education opens into a deeper conversation about parenting, faith, and personal...

In this episode on Clemenz With a "Z", I reflect on the doctrine of original sin and the story we tell children about who they are at their core. Beginning with a quote from the book "Original Sin Is a Lie" and moving through Genesis, Romans 7, and even a scene from Harry Potter, I am wrestling with the difference between capacity and essence between being capable of harm and being defined by it. ...

In this episode, Higher Ways?, I wrestle with a question that’s been quietly sitting with me for a long time: What if some of what we call “deep theology” is simply human logic dressed up as divine wisdom? From heaven and hell to reward and punishment, from obedience to atonement, I explore the framework many of us inherited and ask whether love really needs a threat to function. Drawing from my o...

In this episode of Clemenz With a “Z,” I reflect on what happens on the other side of healing. We talk a lot about wounds and unraveling, about leaving and deconstructing, about anger and survival. But what about integration? What about the quiet phase where you’re no longer bleeding yet you’re not who you used to be either? Through the metaphor of physical scars and the unseen marks we carry in o...

On this episode of Clemenz With a “Z,” I’m stepping outside my usual conversations about church and control and into something that’s been quietly sitting with me for years: the way we define success for our kids. Every June, neighborhoods fill with yard signs celebrating college commitments, and I can’t help but ask, where are the yard signs for future carpenters? In this episode, I reflect on my...

In this episode of We Were In a Cult?, I sit down with Stef, a fellow “Kingdom kid” who grew up inside the ICOC to explore what it was like to be born into a system where church wasn’t just something you attended, but the entire framework for how you understood God, authority, obedience, and belonging. This conversation isn’t about sensationalism or tearing people down. It’s about memory. It’s abo...