Set Apart Podcast

This week Leslie launches her new series, Most Asked Questions, with a poignant look at a question that many of us have grappled with - why hasn't God answered my prayer? In this episode, Leslie shares five key reasons why it may seem that God is not hearing or answering our prayers. This message is a refreshing reminder of what true prayer is and offers rich encouragement to anyone who is looking...

Leslie finishes her Navigating Modern Christianity series this week with a soul-stirring reminder about the importance of making Jesus our North Star. Christianity, in a nutshell, is all about a Person - the Person of Jesus Christ. As Leslie shares in this episode, anything in our spiritual lives that shifts our focus away from Jesus and His Great-Cross Work is off-center and a distraction from th...

Leslie continues her Navigating Modern Christianity series with the second part of her message on Overcoming Mediocrity. While it's easy to point the finger at the apathy we see in the Church at large, God often wants change to begin within us. In this powerful episode, Leslie offers two practical ways to let God have his way in our lives, become an example of vibrant Christianity, and inspire oth...

Leslie continues her series on Navigating Modern Christianity with a powerful episode on overcoming mediocrity in our spiritual lives. In modern Christianity, we are facing a crossroads between comfortable mediocrity and radical devotion to Jesus. As spiritual apathy becomes the norm, Leslie challenges us to grapple with the questions:  how far are we willing to go in our devotion to Jes...

Leslie continues her Navigating Modern Christianity series with a powerful and timely message about how to honorably handle weakness in other believers and in the Church as a whole. Our human tendency is to expose weakness in others and draw attention to it. But when we allow God to overwhelm us with His supernatural, victorious love toward His Body, our entire perspective changes. That’...

Leslie continues her Navigating Modern Christianity series with a message about how to heal from legalism and respond to rules-based Christianity in a healthy way. If you have personally been hurt or oppressed by legalism, this episode will help you break free from rules and discover the freedom of the abiding life in Christ. Leslie also shares several practical keys for responding to legalistic C...

Leslie continues her Navigating Modern Christianity series with Part Two of her message on keys to a healthy Christian community. In this episode, Leslie unpacks five principles that hallmark a truly healthy and Christ-centered community. These principles are invaluable to building a community that is Biblically-based, outward-focused, edifying, prayer-oriented and Christ-centered. This episode wi...

Leslie continues her series on Navigating Modern Christianity with this practical and eye-opening message on Keys to Healthy Community. Community is a trendy concept in the modern Church, but there are many unhealthy versions of community among today's believers. In this episode, Leslie unpacks several warning signs of unhealthy community and contrasts them with the key Biblical principles that un...

Leslie continues her series on Navigating Modern Christianity by looking at the dangers of blending post-modern thinking into our Christianity. Mushy “Christian” messages have become common: messages that imply we can never be certain about what the Bible really means, and that there is no such thing as absolute Truth. As Leslie reminds us, if our feet do not remain planted firmly upon the solid r...

This week Leslie continues her series on Navigating Modern Christianity with this poignant episode on the dangers of spiritual pride. As we seek to stand boldly for the Truth amid an apathetic and compromised Church, it is vital that we do so in the love and nature of Christ. As Leslie reminds us, it is all too easy to confuse godly discernment with a prideful and critical spirit. This message hel...

Leslie continues her new series on Navigating Modern Christianity with this important episode on recognizing subtle lies that have crept into the Church. As Leslie shares in this week's episode, whenever new thoughts or messages are presented to us, we must learn to weigh them against the Word of God. Before we nod along with other Christians’ ideas, we must stop and ask some key questions.&n...

Leslie continues her new series on Navigating Modern Christianity with this powerful message on the "missing piece" in modern Christianity - Christ in us, the hope of glory. Instead of accepting defeat and mediocrity as normal, God can enable us to experience the amazing victory of a supernaturally transformed life - exchanging failure for faith and darkness for light. As Oswald Chambers once...

Leslie kicks off a new series this week called Navigating Modern Christianity . Her first episode, Gaining God's Heart for the Modern Church , tackles the concerns many of us have when we see the apathy, compromise, church splits, off-base doctrine, and discord that is so prevalent in the Church today. How should we respond when we see the widespread compromise in the lives of today's Christians?...

Leslie wraps up her Historical Mentors series with this episode that highlights powerful and life-impacting statements from set-apart women in history. These statements flow from the spiritual journeys of women who fought the good fight of faith and wrestled for God's victory. Leslie shares how these words have personally impacted her own life, and offers key spiritual take-aways that we can glean...

This week Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with an inspiring look at what it means to finish well. Near the end of his life Paul said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Tim 4:7) But in modern Christianity, it has become normal to allow spiritual passion to fade as age and the cares of life begin to take their toll. In this episode, Le...

Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with a powerful look at the lives of three unique couples: Brother Andrew and his wife Corry, Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, and Don and Carol Richardson. All of these men and women had different callings on their lives, but they all had one thing in common - unreserved devotion to Christ. Leslie highlights key moments from each of their stories and of...

This week Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with four powerful true stories from the lives of Corrie ten Boom, Darlene Diebler, Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor. These four women each showcased specific attributes of God's grace in their lives that can still apply to us today: humility, faith beyond emotion, sacrificial love and supernatural courage. Though these women all had very dif...

This week in the Historical Mentors series Leslie offers Biblical perspective on responding to human weakness in our spiritual mentors. While it's easy to put our Christian heroes on a pedestal, it's critical that we remember that none of them were perfect and all of them had struggles and made mistakes. Instead of focusing primarily on the people we admire, we can redirect our focus toward God's...

Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with an episode highlighting the amazing life of Esther Ahn Kim. Esther's story shows the power of suffering well for Christ, counting the cost of following Him, and relying on His strength in the midst of our weakness. As Leslie shares in this inspiring episode, this world needs more women like Esther Ahn Kim — young women who unreservedly take up th...

Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with highlights from Gladys Aylward's amazing missionary life. At eighteen, Gladys encountered Christ and began to gain a burden for the lost around the world — especially the millions of people in China who had never heard the Gospel. It was completely impractical — even impossible — for a girl like Gladys to become a missionary to China. But she had...

This week Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series by highlighting three poignant truths from Elisabeth Elliot's life and ministry. Leslie was first impacted by Elisabeth during her teen years, and continues to be impacted by this amazing woman's example, even as an adult. In this episode, Leslie describes Elisabeth's commitment to applying the Gospel to every facet of her daily life, her wi...

Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with a powerful look at the example of Betsie ten Boom. “Spiritualized chaos” is what defines much of modern Christianity. Betsie had every reason - circumstantially speaking - to let frustration, anger, defeat, depression, and chaos rule in her soul and in her outward environment. Yet she chose a different pattern - God’s pattern. Bets...

This week Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with a refreshing and inspiring look at the life of Lilias Trotter, a remarkable and talented woman who gave up both wealth and fame in order to pour out her life to the unreached in Algeria. Lilias's example illustrates the beauty and fulfillment that comes from laying down the "good" in order to surrender to God's very best. Her life is a...

This week Leslie continues her Historical Mentors series with an inspiring look at the life of Catherine Booth, the co-founder of the Salvation Army. All through her life, Catherine kept her spiritual fire aflame against incredible odds. Her example reminds us that we have no excuses for accepting mediocrity in our Christian walk. Catherine's amazing journey urges us to “leave it all on the field”...

This is the second episode in Leslie's series entitled My Historical Mentors , featuring spiritual lessons from the life of Biddy Chambers - the wife of Oswald Chambers. Biddy's humble and self-sacrificing example points us to God's pattern for "taking the lowest place". Without her tireless and faithful service, the beloved Christian devotional My Utmost His Highest would never have been created...