Life Over Coffee

Shows Main Idea – PTSD is the DSM’s way of describing a tragic event in someone’s life. Something awful happens, and you carry the weight of that thing for years or decades, often resulting in triggers as those horrific moments flood and manage the mind. Did you know there is a biblical process for overcoming these devastating things that happen to us? Show Notes: https://lifeovercoffee.com/podcas...

A wife can be a husband’s most significant asset or his greatest liability. Most of us know this because people who live with each other affect those in the home—for good or evil. However, I wonder how many wives have thought through how much of an asset she is to their husbands by coming alongside them to complement, advise, share her wisdom, and disciple him, even while being submitted to them....

How honest can you be with your spouse? Is your marriage vulnerable, safe, and robust enough to communicate honestly? Are you free from critique and condemnation, releasing you to talk transparently with your mate? How much have things changed since dating, when communication was not as cumbersome, constricted, or convoluted? Perhaps speaking freely in your marriage has become more challenging as...

Shows Main Idea – Maybe somebody has hurt you. Perhaps you can make as strong a case against that person who hurt you as I did against my mean father. According to my godless calculating, my dad was a worse sinner than me. At some level of my awareness, I knew I was sinful, but it was easy to compare tit for tat, and when I did that, I could hold on to my anger while playing the victim card. It’s...

What makes Life Over Coffee different from other training organizations? Before moving on, will you “pause the tape” to answer my question? See how well you understand our purpose—what we are about, or if we need to improve how we communicate our purpose to you and the general public. Of all the acronyms (e.g., ABC, AACC, ACBC, CCEF, etc.), what makes us different from them? Read Here: https://lif...

No book can help your unique husband to become a better husband like you can. Sure, there are a zillion books, and we have the Bible, too. But when it comes to a wife’s role in helping her husband mature in Christ, she is his most effective means of grace to transformation. A man’s wife has a unique position to help a unique man grow into a unique representation of Jesus Christ. Of course, these i...

Welcome to our Introduction to Biblical Counseling training, a ten-part series. The goal is to teach you the practical aspects of being a biblical counselor. I prefer the word discipleship, being a disciple-maker is a calling for all Christians. These two labels are interchangeable, though biblical counseling is a sub-discipline that fits into the grander purposes of discipleship. Our culture and...

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” The wisdom of Proverbs teaches how we will eat the fruit of our words, whether our words are good or bad. This truth can be particularly biting for the wife with a husband who does not fulfill God’s mandate to lead her well. Her temptation is to be critical. She needs God’s grace to help her live a submitte...

What is the consistent spiritual direction of your home? Who is leading the family in that direction? Who is following the leader of your home? There is only one correct answer to these questions: the Lord must lead the family, and everyone else should follow Him according to the Bible’s hierarchy. If the home is set up in any other order, there will be dysfunction. No exceptions. Read Here: https...

Shows Main Idea – Listening to someone to understand them does not mean we have to accept their views or follow their perspectives. We listen to people to learn from them to understand and help them. If we do not know them well, we cannot help them. How can we listen to people who believe differently from us but not allow them to convince us of their views or follow their ideology? Show Notes: htt...

The Christian life is beautifully simple, yet profoundly deep. God has not hidden the path of transformation from His children, nor has He left us to stumble in darkness as we grow up into Christ. His Word gives clarity, structure, and hope. If change required brilliance, personality, or rare gifting, only the strong would ever mature. But because change requires humility and a teachable heart, ev...

If you know someone who is not changing, do not despair. There is a way to help them. I'm not suggesting they will change even if you did everything perfectly, but there is a process for transformation that every Christian should know. I will break down those dynamics of change for you—the essential elements to lead someone into Christlike transformation. I hope the Lord will use these thoughts as...

Shows Main Idea – Is bringing a baby into our evil world right? Where is the line between God’s sovereignty and personal responsibility? We live in a broken world that is full of evil. Every future parent knows that when they bring a baby into the world, the child struggles with brokenness and fallenness while tempted and affected by our corrupted culture. Where is the balance? How are we to think...

Before you go any further, pause for a moment and take a small test of the heart. Think about the person you most want to see change. Picture them—their face, their habits, the conversation that always leaves you heavy. What happens inside you when you think about them? Do you sigh with compassion or tighten with frustration? Are you patient, or are you quietly simmering, waiting for them to “fina...

Sometimes, when people hear the term biblical counseling, they think about a two-tier system within Christianity: those who can counsel and those who cannot. When I talk to some Christians about biblical counseling, they step back mentally while disqualifying themselves by saying, “I can’t do that.” For them, biblical counseling connotes a two-tier structure of competency or something for professi...

Shows Main Idea – How are we to think about parental discipline? Should we spank our children? What if we had a bad experience with our parents; how are we to respond to our children? What does the Bible say about correction, obedience, and the purposes of child discipline? This episode answers all those questions plus many more, giving you a solid foundation and direction on this vital topic. Sho...

In any discipleship situation, the discipler’s theology must inform their discipleship process. Theology and application act as guardrails to keep the counseling process moving in the right direction while avoiding the inevitable hazards that inferior theology and deficient applications cause. Maintaining this type of counseling equilibrium has several benefits, such as keeping the discipler from...

Every person who comes to you does not always fully invest themselves in being free from their problems. I’m not suggesting they are insincere. I’m speaking to the complexity of some issues and the accompanying heart entanglements that have become part of a person’s life for so long that the habituation’s strength is more powerful than the motivation to change. Just because they share their troubl...

Shows Main Idea – I sat down with Mark Grant to discuss his experience as he went through our Mastermind training program. Mark was our first student and graduate of our training. He later became one of our supervisors, teaching our students. Mark finished the coursework in fifteen months, which was the quickest anyone had completed the course. Most of our students finish within 24 and 36 months....

Your friend comes to you with a secret sin. You are his accountability partner, and he asks you to keep his sin secret. How would you respond to him? Is it okay to pledge confidentiality or have an expectation of it? Does confidentiality have value in the context of confession? Are there instances where we should tell others about a transgression, even if the guilty party is against it? What bibli...

Shows Main Idea – Each local church has visitors, regular attendees, non-engaged members, and engaged members. In many of these churches, the visitors, attendees, and non-engaged members are more numerous than those doing the ministry's work. When this happens, the church's infrastructure—leaders—is weaker than those who expect care from the church. You'll also find that those who expect more care...

Most Christians assume the greatest danger in life is something “out there”—a cultural trend, a new ideology, a relational crisis, or a personal trial that catches them off guard. But the Bible is unambiguous: the most dangerous threat is in here—the slow, subtle formation of a hard heart. You can know God, love God, walk with God, read the Bible, attend church, and still drift into a state of inn...

Are you more concerned about what God thinks about your sin or what others think about your sin? How you answer this question will determine the quality of your life and the way you interact with your friends. If you're more concerned about God's view of you, there will be a desire to live openly and honestly before Him and others. However, if the opinions of others have more control over you, the...

God did not create all friends equally. You have some friends you want in your inner circle because they are biblically mature and reciprocating. Perhaps there are others that you must keep at arm's length because they are tedious and require more work to maintain. This second group is unidirectional friends—acquaintances who cannot speak into your life, making it a one-way street: you always serv...

Shows Main Idea – I had the sex talk with our son when he was 12. I took him to the beach for a few days to discuss the most intimate relational dynamic between a man and a woman. One of our Mastermind students asked if I would share a few details about how I went about it, similar to Lucia’s talk with our daughters. What we did is only one way to have this vital talk, and I trust these ideas and...