Inside Out - Family Life News

#InsideOut   Church hurt is a deep hurt, like betrayal.   “There’s these layers and these waves of pain that come, not only from the direct wound from being sinned against, but the fact that it’s not addressed, and in the end you end up really losing your community. And you’re in a place of, honestly, deep despair and confusion,” says church counseling...

#InsideOut In a world of competing messages, how do we distinguish God’s voice? Book author, former pastor, and freelance writer Ezra Byer shares with Martha the three filters he uses to discern if what he’s hearing is coming from God. He and his wife Janan are the founders of The MondayChristian.com, which uses the tag line Turning Sunday Belief Into Monday Action.

#InsideOut When it comes to financial confidence, we’ve got a gender gap: women, on the whole, feel less certain about money matters. Today’s Inside Out guest believes that our general sense of confidence grows when we know that we are valued by God, and that confidence can lead to financial confidence and financial wisdom. We need the right budgeting tools, of course, but Bethany Frym...

#InsideOut Pornography is predatory, increasingly more violent, and focused on getting into the hands of girls as well as boys. It’s accessible, anonymous, affordable, and addictive. Today on Family Life’s Inside Out, Martha talks with author Kristen Jenson about the dangers and some of the long-term effects of pornography. Jenson shares strategies that can help parents give their daug...

#InsideOut Almost every other adult 18 and older is single, according to the most recent US Census numbers. So here’s the question: if you’re married, how are you connecting with the singles in your life?   Writer and Inside Out guest Melissa Huston wants the married among us to keep in mind that our single friends are not lacking. But they may feel isolated.   “You may...

#InsideOut Reports of a surge of interest in the Gospel circulated immediately after the September 2025 murder of Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. But a January 2026 study from the Cultural Research Center shows that this increased interest in Jesus Christ has not translated into more people living with a biblical worldview.   “We’ve heard about Bible sales, church attendan...

#InsideOut Abortions in the United States had been increasing for four years when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022. Even with states adding abortion regulations in the years since the Dobbs decision, abortions continue to increase.      The Gospel Coalition’s senior writer and the faith-and-work editor Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra joins Inside Out to talk about som...

#InsideOut When we disagree with people, Inside Out guest Patrick Payton says that as followers of Jesus we must disagree in ways that honor the image of God in the other person. Our culture encourages us to react with outrage, but Payton says that if we believe that God loved the world enough to send his Son, we need to ask ourselves, “am I more broken for their lost condition than I am ang...

#InsideOut Biblical counselor Kathryn Weber joins Inside Out to talk about how anxiety, long-term, can actually hurt us physically as well as emotionally. But followers of Jesus Christ can move toward quieting our souls by paying attention to what we feed our imaginations. Weber is the author of the 2025 Gospel Coalition article “How a Redeemed Imagination Frees Us from Anxiety’s Power...

#InsideOut The world has changed since Christianity Today published author and speaker Jen Pollock Michel’s January 2020 article, “Love Your Neighbor in the New Year: Answer Their Emails and Texts.” Listen to what she’s thinking in 2026 about how we can be good neighbors in a digital world.   ###        

#InsideOut It’s the new year. And even if you don’t make resolutions, many of us find January a great time to start fresh, grow in a new direction, or add energy to what we say we prioritize.   To commemorate this start to the new year, Pastor Dave Stone joins me on Family Life’s Inside Out. We talk about moving into the new year with gratitude, even when difficulties from t...

Inside Out/Blog TOPIC: Gifts that Point to the Giver Broadcast/podcast date: December 17, 2025     #InsideOut Elmhurst, IL, pastor and writer Brandon Cooper believes that what and how we give at Christmas can point children to the very “giver of good gifts” we celebrate.   Because we want Christmas to be God-focused, “the question we want to be asking ourselves as...

#InsideOut We want mass shootings to end. So what stands in the way of the American Church taking the lead in a conversation about guns and gun deaths?   Gospel Coalition writer, podcaster, and Canadian Pastor Paul Carter believes that the conversation is difficult for Americans because, unlike in other countries, gun ownership is  woven into American identity. And the conversation about...

#InsideOut As more people appear to be “cutting off” their parents when the relationship grows difficult, Martha Manikas-Foster talks with Vancouver, Washington counseling director—and Rochester native—Dr. Beth Claes about how Christians might negotiate dysfunctional relationships while still honoring their faither and mother.   Claes is counseling director for Vancouv...

Inside Out/Summary In this Family Life Inside Out conversation, evangelist and Christian apologist Abdu Murray and host Martha Manikas-Foster discuss reasons for mass shootings, ways Christians can reach across divides, and benefits of both prayer and good thoughts in the wake of tragedy. Murray is the founder of the organization  Embrace the Truth   and author of numerous books includin...

God can and does use strangers and even enemies to teach us, says professor and pastor Dr. AJ Swoboda, and he encourages us to grow as believers who are teachable. Swoboda’s new book is titled A Teachable Spirit: The Virtue of Learning from Strangers, Enemies, and Absolutely Anyone. ###     Inside Out/Blog TOPIC: Learning from Enemies Broadcast date: October 22, 2025 #InsideOut God...

On this edition of Family Life’s Inside Out, Martha Manikas-Foster talks with author Michelle Van Loon who suggests that it’s time to downsize the Evangelical Church so that it more closely resembles the Body Jesus called it to be.    Van Loon’s newest book is titled Downsizing: Letting Go of Evangelicalism’s Nonessentials.   ###     Inside Out/Blog...

On this edition of Inside Out, Martha Manikas Foster talks with author Michelle Van Loon who suggests that it's time to downsize the evangelical church so it more closely resembles the Body Jesus called it to be.

We live in a contentious culture. Author Alexandra Hudson believes it’s up to each of us to reclaim Christian civility by treating each other with the respect we owe and are owed as creations in God’s image. Hudson’s call is to something deeper than being polite--she’s calling us to acknowledge each other’s value even when we disagree.   Hudson worked for the Dep...

When we’re lonely, we not only feel terrible, but our health suffers. Loneliness has been connected with a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. In 2023 the former Surgeon General of the United States compared the health impact of loneliness to the physical impact of smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. We spoke with Glenn Lutjens ( Lutch-en...

Church scandals and political infighting are rocking the American Church. Theologian, pastor, musician, and author Glenn Packiam believes we can find unity and correction the same way the early church did—by using the Nicene Creed as a guide. Packiam’s new book is What’s a Christian, Anyway? Finding Our Way in an Age of Confusion and Corruption.

One way to look at how the US influences other countries is to look at how it uses power—both hard power and soft power.   “We can attempt to use military power to get countries to do what we want, or we can also use economic power to get countries to do what we want,” says Dr. Peter Meilaender. “So things like tariffs or sanctions would be thought of usually as hard p...

A special news feature from Family Life focusing on how God changes us from the inside, out. Americans feel detached and Isolated. Florida pastor Doug Hankins believes we have a neighborliness problem.  On this edition of Inside Out, Hankins talks with Martha about Jesus' call to be good neighbors, the topic of the Gospel Coalition article "Benefits of Being a Good Neighbor". 

The number of ways we receive news has multiplied, and it can be difficult to know what's true.  But there are ways to sift through the stories - and the sources - to get closer to a balanced view of what's happening in the world. "The one thing having many different sources has done, is it gives us lots of different voices, and different points of view, and sometimes points of view that you...

Current hurdles for Christian ministries which resettle legal refugees The Inside Out podcast with Martha Manikas-Foster  Government funding for refugee resettlement in the US has stopped for at least 90 days. This leaves America’s often faith-based resettlement agencies like World Relief scrambling to make up for the money the government contributes as a partner in the resettlement pro...