The Daily Ripples Podcast

Some of us walked in with our minds slammed shut, locked, bolted from the inside. Pastor Mike opens up about the angry atheist he used to be — and the one question from a coworker that cracked the door. In this solo episode, Mike traces how openness changed everything: the church that made the news for opening its doors to its Muslim neighbors, the place where an angry, locked-up atheist found his...

Faith isn't static. The faith you have today shouldn't be the faith you had when you walked in the door — and if it is, something's gone untended. In this episode, Pastor Mike and Corey explore how faith starts as small as a mustard seed and grows through experience, trust, and willingness. Mike shares how 13-plus years of relying on his higher power has changed his faith into something stronger,...

June 14 - Steady in the Storm Anybody can stay calm when life is easy. The real test is what you do when everything goes sideways at once — and whether the tools you've learned actually hold. In this episode, Corey and Pastor Mike unpack how recovery becomes a design for living that works in rough going (Big Book p. 15). Corey shares the 12 spiritual principles of the steps he recites on his morni...

Saying sorry isn't the same as making amends. Real recovery is proven over time, not in a single conversation — and for many of us, "living amends" was just a way to avoid the harder work. In this episode, Pastor Mike and Corey get honest about Step 9 — the difference between a genuine living amends and using that phrase as an escape hatch from direct, face-to-face accountability. Corey breaks dow...

You don't call your sponsor looking for wisdom. You call looking for the secret manipulation code. At least that's what Corey was doing — and his sponsor sent him the St. Francis prayer instead. Today Corey goes solo for day two, and he gets into what real partnership actually costs: humility, honesty, and the willingness to stop playing every scenario out in your head and just be present for the...

It's easy to be spiritual in public. The hard part is being that person at home, where nobody's watching and the yard needs cutting. Today Corey goes solo while Pastor Mike is out, and he gets quiet and honest about where the real work happens — not in the meeting rooms, not in the public spaces, but in the kitchen, with the dishes, with your son talking about chores, with your significant other s...

Impatience narrows everything. The road you can see, the options you can imagine, the grace you can extend — all of it shrinks the moment frustration takes over. Today Corey and Pastor Mike dig into what it actually looks like to pause before reacting, and Corey walks through pages 84 through 87 of the Big Book like a road map — watch, ask, discuss, make amends, turn your thoughts to someone you c...

Happy birthday, Mom. Today Pastor Mike opens by dedicating the episode to his mother — and it turns out the ripple couldn't be more fitting for the occasion. Living this day. Not yesterday, not tomorrow — today. Mike gets personal about the early days of recovery: double housing payments, a divorce, bankruptcy proceedings, and people in the rooms telling him to just take it one day at a time. Whic...

One hundred episodes. One day at a time, one ripple at a time — Pastor Mike and Corey made it to 100, and they're not taking a day off. Today's devotional is about openness to change, and it couldn't land on a more fitting day. Corey reframes the ripple in a way that sticks: it's not just about what needs to change — it's about what needs to be unblocked. Because if something stands between you an...

99 problems and a day off ain't one. Today Pastor Mike and Corey mark episode 99 with a ripple that connects three things that rarely get put in the same sentence: desires, perseverance, and hope. Mike opens up about a sermon series he's launching today on the book of Romans, and lands on Romans 5:4-5 — perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. Which means hope isn't a starting...

Progress doesn't require perfection. It requires showing up. Today Mike and Corey are back together — and Corey opens with something quietly honest: he hasn't kept a note card in his pocket all week, because things have been going pretty well. And that right there is the trap. When everything's bad, he's watching himself. When everything's good, he gets a little relaxed. Mike ties it to Philippian...

Resistance is a funny thing. It doesn't always look like defiance — sometimes it just looks like showing up with the wrong printout. Today Pastor Mike, Corey, and Kevin close out Kevin's first run on the podcast by digging into what it actually means to stop insisting on your own way. Mike traces it all the way back to March 13, 2013 — the day he stopped drinking — and how he never would have admi...

Awareness isn't enough. Kevin found that out the hard way — five years in the program, still holding back, still thinking he could manage it on his own. Then he went back out. Today Corey and Kevin dig into what it actually means to be willing, not just aware — and why changing the external circumstances never works as long as the internal point of view stays the same. Corey lands on a line that s...

Larry's opening advice? Watch Frozen and learn to sing that song. He's not wrong. Today Pastor Mike is joined by Larry and a surprise guest — the aforementioned Aaron Dennis, fellow United Methodist pastor and the friend whose toddler inspired yesterday's walking analogy. Three pastors around the table, and every one of them has had to learn the hard way that control is a crutch. Aaron opens up ab...

You don't need to see the whole journey. You just need to see the next point of light. Today Pastor Mike and Larry are back together, and they land on one of the most comforting images in the episode — a toddler learning to walk, not by being called toward someone, but by feeling two steady fingers behind them as they take each step. That's what trust in God actually feels like most of the time. N...

You can't think your way into a new way of acting. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking. Today Pastor Mike welcomes back his pastor friend Larry for a conversation about what it actually means to have your mind renewed — and it turns out it's less about changing what's in your head and more about what's in your heart. Larry lands on a line worth sitting with: prayer is surrender, an...

You don't get to sit in the back and wait for people to come to you. Today Corey, Pastor Mike, and Kevin close out May with one of Corey's most fired-up moments yet — and it's well earned. Serving others isn't a bonus feature of the program. It's the whole point. The immunity is in the work with another person, not in the meetings, not in the socializing, not in the cool conversations. Kevin refle...

  Activity and action — they sound the same, but they're not. One keeps you busy. The other keeps you useful. Today Pastor Mike, Corey, and Kevin are back together, and they dig into what it actually means to stay focused on what matters rather than just staying busy. Mike gets personal about the season when he was juggling a city manager role and a pastorate simultaneously — and how the Holy Spir...

We love you until you can love yourself. It's one of those phrases you hear in the rooms so often it can start to sound like wallpaper — until someone unpacks what it actually means. Today Corey and Pastor Mike welcome Kevin, a friend from their home group, for a conversation about what unconditional love looks like when it's not just a concept. Kevin lands it plainly: before the program, if you w...

You would not have picked most of the people God put in your life. This episode is about what happens when you stop trying to. Judgment creates distance. Acceptance creates connection. The way I view others shapes the kind of world I live in. Corey opens with curiosity as the antidote to judgment — not agreeing with everyone, but getting interested in why they see things the way they do. When he g...

Guilt can guide you or trap you. This episode is about the difference — and what the ego has to do with both. Guilt can either guide me or trap me. When it leads me to change, it serves a purpose. When it lingers without action, it becomes a burden I was never meant to carry. Mike opens with Romans 8:1 — no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus — and the God he grew up with, who couldn't...

There is no waste in God's economy. This episode holds that phrase up to the light and asks what it actually demands of you. Failure is not the end of growth. Often it is the place where deeper understanding begins. What feels like a step backward can become a step upward. Corey gets a text mid-episode, his son graduated elementary school today. His son's grandmother sent it. There was a night whe...

Gratitude that stays inside isn't gratitude yet. This episode is about what happens when it gets hands and feet. Gratitude is more than remembering. It is responding. What I am thankful for should shape how I live today. Corey opens with the person not yet in the room. He and Bill have been building their new meeting — structure, format, what kind of group it should be. Bill was on the fence about...

Misery is often self-made. This episode is Mike, Corey, and Cristi asking the old Methodist question — how is it with your soul? — and actually answering it. Misery is often self-made. When I cling to old patterns, pride, or control, I create the very weight I carry. God's desire is not to burden me, but to lead me into life. Corey takes three minutes to say his soul is good — which Mike clocks ou...

Outward calm is its own kind of hiding. This episode is Mike and Cristi working through what it actually means to guard your heart when life shakes everything loose. Outward success can hide inward struggle. Real health begins beneath the surface where pride, ego, and self-reliance are addressed. Cristi opens on mental health as an inside-out process — you can't build it outward when the inward is...