The Intentional Household: A LifeCraft Podcast

Send us Fan Mail One of the hardest things to understand is even harder to enact. Authority and submission are essential to marriage, and yet today we have a cacophony of voices attacking and defending what often are caricatures of reality. Join Sofia and me in considering this key to getting marriage right. https://life-craft.org/

Send us Fan Mail A very difficult part of intentional parenting is knowing what to focus on. Specific goals allow for more focused and fruitful labors. Sofia and I made a list of 5 things we know we want to instill in our children. Join us as we discuss them and share suggestions for how to go about cultivating them. https://life-craft.org/

Send us Fan Mail All men and women can be stewards and have the joy of ‘taking care’ of things. It is written deep within our nature. No prior experience necessary. Join Sofia and me and discover how every home can be a homestead, regardless of your background and the color of your thumb. https://life-craft.org/

Send us Fan Mail Now more than ever, our children need grandparents in their lives; indeed, it can make a profound difference. Are we doing all we can to facilitate this? Join Sofia and me as we look at challenges and opportunities from both sides—how parents can invite grandparents to a more central place in the home, and how grandparents can step up to their God-given place in their grandchildre...

Send us Fan Mail Crafting the good life together calls for a shared vision. But what if spouses disagree, or one spouse isn’t really engaged in the same way? This happens quite often and need not induce panic. Join Sofia and me in discussing what all of us must face to some degree. Working through this challenging situation can be yet another means of growing ourselves and our relationship. https:...

Send us Fan Mail What does a man really ‘propose’ in a marriage proposal? What is the project, if she accepts, that they set out on together? Our understanding and practice of ‘household’ has been eviscerated, so it’s no surprise spouses often don’t know what can really unite us, until death parts us. Join Sofia and me as we unfold the lost notion of household in its astounding richness and concre...

Send us Fan Mail Nothing is more important to parents, and nothing will demand more of us. Parents can’t assure that children will make good decisions, but we can be intentional about doing our part. The first place to look is in ourselves and our marriage. Join Sofia and me as we consider a few specific principles for orienting homelife around its central mission—giving our children the best star...

Send us Fan Mail Feeling overwhelmed is common, especially in households today, so we need to have a strategy for addressing it, for our own sake and for those we love. Join Sofia and me as we make some distinctions and seek principles for a better approach. This gives an opportunity to rethink roles in the household and discover a path to deepening the marriage relationship. https://life-craft.or...

Send us Fan Mail Getting married we assume we’ll have a great friendship. Yet often it doesn’t turn out as we hoped, or it seems harder than it should be. In this episode, Sofia and I turn to an ancient wisdom about the nature and kinds of friendship and apply it to marriage. Any true friendship is a masterpiece requiring we understand what we’re seeking and how to forge it. This is true in spades...

Send us Fan Mail Though we parents know it is our responsibility, things our children so need to hear from us—about chastity, dating, and marriage—are often not addressed, or not at the right times. This leaves our children vulnerable and unprepared for key challenges, and it deprives us of one of the best contexts to deepen our relationship with them. A better approach to ‘sex education’ treats i...

Send us Fan Mail Is woman as heart of the home an outdated and misleading stereotype, or is it what we should be striving for? In a postmodern age, can or should a woman’s place in the home be like it was in the pre-Industrial Revolution home? John and Sofia ask hard questions and offer some nuanced angles as they discuss this singularly important issue. In the end it’s not about theory, it’s abou...

Send us Fan Mail Our annual pig slaughter addressed fundamental issues we didn’t even know we had. Indeed, it has become a kind of microcosm of the life we try to make in our home. In this episode Sofia and I share our experience of raising and slaughtering pigs and reflect on how it has been for us a key feature of our homesteading, providing a work that connects us to our bodies, to one another,...

Send us Fan Mail We want Sunday to be different in our home. But where do begin? There are so many forces working against our making Sunday what we know it could be. John and Sofia take a principled but concrete and practical approach, from liturgy and prayer to family read-alouds and walks. Sunday can be not only the most important day but also leaven for the rest of the week. It can be the start...

Send us Fan Mail Save the Date!  Join John and Sofia Cuddeback on March 19th, for the launch of "The Intentional Household," a LifeCraft Podcast, where we take a dive into the radical renewal of homelife, from crafting the personal relationships at its heart, to planting time, porch time and prayer time. We can thrive in these trying times, but it demands we rediscover and re-examine tim...

Send us Fan Mail "Should we homestead?" This burning question of our time reveals our deep need in an increasingly dis-connected society to re-connect both with the people around us and with the earth.  John and Sofia Cuddeback propose a distinction that can be the key to thinking clearly about this issue. All of us can and should practice homesteading in one sense; but we might not buy...