The Allender Center Podcast

  Dan shares his post-reunion reflections, marveling about how returning to specific faces, names, and places of our lives can offer a taste of restoration.

Dan and John discuss how delight in and desire for beauty can shape the way that we engage trauma and brokenness.

John and Dan discuss the meaning and importance of beauty through the lens of the theology of Jonathan Edwards.

Dan wrestles with that ambivalence as he and his wife, Becky, prepare to return to Ohio for their 45th high school reunion.  

On this week’s podcast, Dan sits down for a conversation with Susan Cunningham, a therapist, poet, and facilitator with The Allender Center.

Dan engages four remaining questions that he often hears from people interested in working with their own stories, particularly through one of our Story Workshops .

  This week, Dan discusses the fear that so many of us hold about confronting the stories of our past.

  How do I trust my memory? What if the way I remember an event is not what really happened? It’s a legitimate question, even a kind and righteous question, says Dan, rooted in a desire to know and tell the truth.

On this week’s podcast, Dan begins a new series about the beauty and power of living, telling, and hearing meaningful stories.

This week, Dan continues his disussion on endings by examining something most of us are all too familiar with: endings that have gone terribly wrong.

Dan concludes this series on endings by inviting us beyond procrastination and sabotage in an effort to learn to end well. This is a process of acknowledging the sacrifices we have made and the work we have accomplished, as well as the grace and gifts that have allowed us to reach this point.

On this week’s podcast, Dan continues a series on endings by discussing the role of sabotage—the moment when celebration gives way to indulgence and we sabotage our ability to enjoy our endings, potentially undoing everything we have just accomplished.

Dan begins a new series about endings—how we handle them, avoid them, sabotage them, grieve them, and celebrate them.

On this week’s podcast, Dan discusses how we are all invited to carry the burdens of others, even if we don’t feel like we have anything to offer.

This week, Dan continues the series on trauma care in Galatians 6 by addressing how we can help carry those who are harmed by the sins of others.

On this week’s podcast, Dan begins a new series, based on Galatians 6, about trauma care and the effect that it has on you, the person engaging the trauma. For the next three weeks, Dan will address how to help restore those who are struggling with the effects of their own sin, how to help carry those affected by the sins of others, and how to own your own life in the process of helping other peop...

  This week’s podcast marks the conclusion of a series on trauma care in the local church. In Part One , Dan discussed the crucial idea that we all—not just trained professionals—need to be aware of the reality and effects of trauma for people in our communities. In Part Two , he reflected on the particular types of trauma that form in the context of marriage. This week, Dan talks about the realit...

This week, Dan addresses the particular types of trauma that form in the context of marriage, including trauma that comes after death, divorce, and the betrayal of domestic violence.

  On this week’s podcast, Dan introduces a series on the role of trauma in the context of the local church. He offers three overall categories for trauma, arguing that it is far more widespread than many acknowledge, then discusses the body’s telltale responses to traumatic events. What would it look like for our churches to exist as communities of priests, prophets, kings, and queens who are awar...

  Dan invites us to see and to name the beauty in our lives, the parts of our stories that reflect the light and goodness of God. Knowing and telling our stories means finding the beauty and inviting others to share it. And we cannot talk about this without talking about worship, which is our response—in awe and gratitude—to the beauty and goodness of God.

  On this week’s podcast, we are continuing our preview of the material explored in our To Be Told conferences. Dan discusses the necessity of looking at the wounds in our lives—the places in which we have experienced shame, loneliness, and betrayal. Evil entices us and hardens our hearts, naming us as orphans, strangers, and widows. But we are called to so much more.

For the next three weeks on the podcast, while Dan is on the road, we are excited to offer a preview of the material explored in our To Be Told conferences. In this week’s audio, Dan discusses the idea that God is the author of your life’s story, and we are all called to enter our stories in a way that reflects the character of God and reveals the nature of the Gospel.

Dr. Dan Allender talks about his hopes for his sabbatical and the imporatnace of Sabbath.