Ripple-Effect Faith with Twyla Franz

Okay, Lord, I get it. My stubborn insistence that I never need help is the opposite of koinonia. Koinonia is a lighter way to live. An easier way to breathe. It takes the shape of rest–right in the middle of writing a book. Looks like a yes to relationship-building, which is wired in all of us, by God's design.  Every time you link arms, share a burden, trust a friend with your confession, unite i...

When we read primarily to check a box, it's only a matter of time before we check out. If we read out of guilt or obligation, we approach the Word already bored. If we expect the words to go over our head, we'll forget God promises us wisdom if we'll only ask (James 1:5). And if we give up before we get started, we'll never give the Word a chance to become our lifeline in crisis, our won't-miss rh...

What if we could make the new year better than the last? If we could guarantee that God's goodness–up close and unmissable–would overshadow the trials? If we could see, threaded through the seams of our stories, the through-line that makes everything make sense?   Links mentioned: Stuff I'd Only Tell God   by Jennifer Dukes Lee. Songs I Play on Repeat playlist (in the resource library ). Apple and...

For every weary soul needing a bit of light, a scrap of real hope, a simple Christmas prayer. For every taxed mama and bustling grandma. Every newlywed and fresh divorcee. Every grieving heart. Every family scrambling to make Christmas happen.  Wherever these words find you, and whatever heaviness fills the room, I pray for gritty, overflowing hope. I pray that the tender nearness of Jesus meets y...

As I step back to see where I've gone wrong, I see three potential pitfalls where you might be stuck as well. Links mentioned: Get a list of 200 missional word-of-the-year ideas HERE . Get the word-of-the-year month reflection sheets  HERE . To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up  HERE. Read the written version of this episode  HERE .

Ann Voskamp says korban boils down to closeness: Sacrifice in Hebrew is  korban,  which literally means an approach, a moving closer. Sacrifice is not losing something  but moving closer to Someone. Korban isn't so much about loss as it is about proximity to Jesus. And to draw closer to Christ I must let rest all I try to do on my own strength. Links mentioned: To get a short, doable tip in your i...

We slow-baked gratitude into our DNA for this. This! So that we might make space for awed worship, genuine praise, honest adoration. Links mentioned: To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up HERE. Read the written version of this episode  HERE .

It's almost Thanksgiving, and maybe this year you're just trying to make it through. Trying to smile through the "fixings" and the feasting while something feels empty inside.  Maybe everything is right on the surface but stress is eating at your inner calm. Or you're grieving a shift, an unwelcome season, a spot empty around your table. Perhaps the budget simply can't cover the holiday spread you...

An accessible life is permeable.  God can get in. God can ripple out through us.  A no-place-off-limits openness to God welcomes the tender work through which He frees and heals us. Trust gives God permission to inhabit. He enters where He's invited, never barging through barricades in our hearts, but knocking with patience and persistence.  Openness in our relationships allows the work God is doi...

But what if we've tried to keep gratitude too quiet? What if it gets buried in the lines of our journals? What if gratitude is looking for a way to ripple beyond us–spilling over like uncontained laughter? Links mentioned: The Spill-Over Gratitude Challenge To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up  HERE. Read the written version of this ep...

But what if we've tried to keep gratitude too quiet? What if it gets buried in the lines of our journals? What if gratitude is looking for a way to ripple beyond us–spilling over like uncontained laughter? Links mentioned: The Spill-Over Gratitude Challenge To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up  HERE. Read the written version of this ep...

Reversing the hurry of the holidays sounds lovely, but let's get practical. Without a plan, I get swept into the busyness of the holiday season. I don't linger. I squeeze in more and move faster and connect less. You too? Links mentioned: The Spill-Over Gratitude Challenge The Greatest Gift : Unlocking the Full Love Story of Christimas by Ann Voskamp Merry and Bright : Rediscover the Hope, Peace,...

You might find yourself in a similar situation, caught between what you think you  should be able to do, and what you can, at this moment, achieve. Between the voice in your head that says slowing down is shameful and the kind tone you'd use to encourage anyone besides yourself. So until you have the courage to tell this to yourself, here is permission to break pace. Do solid B work. Set a boundar...

Perhaps the biggest threat to thriving is apathy.    Have you found this to be true? Stop reading your Bible and your hunger for it dissipates. Stop listing gratitude and it's harder to find gift in the hard. Stop praising God and fear settles in. Stop praying and God feels farther away. Stop investing in your marriage and it begins to fray. Stop your workout rhythm and it's difficult to pick it b...

We enter autumn a bit unsteady. Feeling behind but also needing soul stillness. Burning candles as we grasp for inner peace. So for both you and I, here are ten fall-back-on truths to anchor us this autumn season.   Links mentioned: To get a short, doable tip in your inbox every week to help you get to know your neighbors, sign up  HERE. Read the written version of this episode  HERE.

That longing you can't silence for community–to know and be known–is neither superficial or selfish. It's the evidence of God's heart for you.  Belonging wasn't your idea first. It was His. Before the first created man had breath in his lungs, God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit existed in perfect community. As Jennie Allen says, "Our God has been relational forever. It means that He created u...

We're hearing ripples of revival. Seeing fresh hunger for God in unexpected places. Feeling the stirring within our own souls. God is on the move, as always. But we're noticing it now. The cracks in our culture—the very things that deeply grieve us—let the light of Christ in. Light is always brightest when the dark is darkest. And isn't it like God to bring uncontainable hope alongside the hard-to...

I see it in your eyes that can't mask the tiredness, hear it in the cracks in your voice, feel it with you in the hurried steps and anxious scrolling: life feels fractured. Unsteady. At times, unfathomable.  We quiet our questions, assuming God sees coming redemption before we can glimpse it. But we can't hush the disquiet in our souls. Is there a way to thrive no matter what life throws our way?...

Grace is a trust equation: our nothing plus God's everything equals ripple-effect redemption.  God's grace, according to my friend Jennifer Sakata–and host of Living the Grace Life Podcast –"is that forward movement that restores connection and rebuilds relationships." How perfectly this line summarizes 2 Corinthians 5:19! It is central to our good news that  God was in the Anointed making things...

An others-first mentality seems rare these days. Maybe that's why "charity of the heart," as Paul describes it, always makes my gratitude list (1 Cor. 8:1). Life can feel like a race in slow motion, where making space for someone else comes at a cost. But you and I get to be the sort of people who normalize uncommon rhythms–like noticing the people in front of us, getting to know our neighbors, an...

To the one doing the work while someone else gets promoted. To the one diligently practicing, who hasn't been picked yet. To the one quietly faithful, serving in selfless and unseen ways.  To the one holding up the team but never getting credit for it.  To the one behind the brilliant ideas, the one always building others up, and the one quick to assume responsibility but not the praise. To the ma...

The very lives we live fit like iridescent shapes into the kaleidoscope of God's plan for this wonderful, aching earth. We bump up against each other as life jostles us. It may feel at times like friction. But look through the kaleidoscope and you'll see the stunning picture we create together. We're a colorful assortment of polygons differentiated by shape and shade. And all this difference, toge...

The very lives we live fit like iridescent shapes into the kaleidoscope of God's plan for this wonderful, aching earth. We bump up against each other as life jostles us. It may feel at times like friction. But look through the kaleidoscope and you'll see the stunning picture we create together. We're a colorful assortment of polygons differentiated by shape and shade. And all this difference, toge...

It makes all the difference, doesn't it, whether we're running away from or towards something?   One feels like friction, the other like invitation.  One feels like failure licking at our heels, the other like movement itself is a win.    I slow to a walk beneath the cloudless sky, pondering a question: When have I been the one running  from  something?   From a decision I didn't want to make. Fro...

Can we talk about how to stop hiding where it feels safe and cozy and predictable? Because maybe what makes you "come alive," as Howard Thurman famously wrote, is somewhere beyond the line of where risk meets comfort.   Links mentioned: To learn more about Enneagram 8s–including what we appreciate most about you, how you can use your strengths to mirror God's grace to your neighbors, and (for the...