Freely Given

In this unusual episode, recorded in Gretchen's basement, getting interrupted by children too often, Gretchen and Katie talk about parenting. With 10 kids between them, they still don't feel qualified to offer any how-to instructions on raising children. So instead, they wrestle through understanding the purpose of the law and gospel when it comes to the ups and downs of parenting, and pointing yo...

Gretchen and Katie, two women who are married with kids, sit around and talk about singleness. They unpack the false idea that it is in marriage that we find our sanctification and fulfilled Christian life. God has used marriage to sanctify us. But our sanctification isn't found in marriage. It's found in Christ. With all the focus on marriage and families in churches, they talk about some ways we...

In this episode, Katie and Gretchen talk about how law and gospel distinctions affect relationships we have at church and in ministry. It is often the first place where we substitute practical theology for things that appear more practical like guilt and manipulation in order to make a ministry "work."  Church relationships can be full of good intentions, but when we miss the practical (and patien...

In the final episode on the 3 parts of friendship, Gretchen and Katie talk about what it means to bear one another burdens. It starts with a lot of humility and ends with us continually being realigned to tangible truth when our circumstances start to crush us. While many of us like to be the one to rush to help and "be the savior" in a situation, it's almost harder to be the one asking for help w...

In our series on how law and gospel distinctions effect relationships, we are in part 2 of our conversation on friendships. This episode focuses on healthy expectations of people, as well as our own insecurities going into friendships. We take some passages from Galatians, and talk about what freedom in friendships looks like, when it is rooted in Christ. Resources mentioned in this episode: CLB F...

Gretchen and Katie are starting a new series on how law and gospel theology effects relationships. Starting with friendships, they go through some of the challenges of making friends, keeping friends, and the importance of vulnerability. They also discuss cancel culture, boundaries, and difference between pointing people to the Savior, and abiding in Christ, as opposed to constantly trying to be t...

Discipleship as a spiritual discipline can be a means of hearing the gospel repeated like a wave washing over you, bringing to mind the reality of God's faithfulness consistently. However, it is often intimidating for believers of all walks of life, because we don't know what we should say, or how to orchestrate the spiritual life of another person. Authentic discipleship involves the love of Chri...

Meditation is part of what C.S. Lewis calls the "baptism of the imagination." In Christ, we belong to him, all the parts of us--even our brain. In this episode we talk about both rational and imaginative sides of meditating on God's word. It isn't about emptying our thoughts, but courageously thinking those thoughts, asking the questions, sitting in wonder, and wrestling with theology that we worr...

Sometimes the guilt in us manifests itself in different ways. Whether it's a weight or sadness, anger or venting, blame or defensiveness, we see it in ourselves and we see it in our relationships. As believers, we live under the redemption of Christ, and yet this consistent guilt in our real life undermines this redemption in a way that makes us wonder if our redemption is just theoretical, or ins...

When we approach the Bible from a hyper-individualistic viewpoint, the burden to be in it daily is on our individual shoulders, the burden to interpret and understand it is all on our individual shoulders, and we can end up sitting down to what can appear at first glance to be an enormous to-do list we cannot live up to--an activity to dread. It's the "just read it and then do it" method. In reali...

Whether it is the awkwardness of praying aloud in a group, starting a prayer journal and then forgetting about it, using prewritten prayers, or having notecards, we often feel like we aren't that good or consistent in prayer. Katie and Gretchen talk about the ups and downs of their prayer lives, and how failure is not possible when the weight and responsibility is on the Holy Spirit's shoulders. W...

Today Gretchen and Katie talk about the spiritual discipline of rest. We look both at the command, and the gift aspect of it, the challenges, and what's at the core of our resistance to it.   Support 1517

In this episode, Katie and Gretchen get sidetracked and talk about food and the routines of farm life. That's mainly because eating is something we love to do every day. They address questions like: when are liturgies helpful, and when are they harmful? What is the purpose of liturgies? They also address the problem of a life where routines and schedules are constantly interrupted in changing, how...

What "should" daily devotions look like for a Christian? How much is considered enough? What are they for? Who are they for? Gretchen and Katie talk about their wrestling with these questions. Screwtape Letters Grace Upon Grace 1517 donate  

It's easier to wrap our heads around independently performing for God, rather than understanding that as we were under the law, dying because it was to heavy for us, we couldn't hold it, Christ set us free, completed the law on our behalf, and gave us his Spirit to hold us up and help us.  Hebrews 12:2 says "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." He is the justifier. He...

In this episode Gretchen and Katie start at the beginning. In this episode they each share a bit about their faith, and why the law and gospel mean so much to them. They also share about how spiritual disciplines look like in their own lives, with kids, jobs, and constant interruptions. Support 1517 Facebook Twitter Register for Here We Still Stand  2020  

Welcome to Freely Given, hosted by Gretchen Ronnevik and Katie Koplin. What we really want to talk about is freedom in Christ because honestly, there's a lot of "how to be the 'best or strongest Christian' out there.  We want to share how grace isn't just our means of salvation, but something that carries us through everyday life--and gives us freedom. We are going to talk about life in Christ, an...