The Redeemed Backslider

Send us Fan Mail He grew up in church, but the altar scared him, fitting in felt urgent, and “I’ll come back someday” sounded believable for a long time. Sean McDonald joins me to tell the story behind his return to Jesus and why the biggest obstacles were not just behaviors, but shame, identity, and the lies that keep people out of the building. We talk about what it’s like being raised by a pray...

Send us Fan Mail You can sit in a church pew and still feel a hundred miles away from God and you can be far away and still feel pulled toward home. I talk with Bishop Jim McPhaill, the pastor who has had a front-row seat to my own back-and-forth journey, about what he has learned across 44 years of ministry and why most people do not “choose rebellion” so much as they slowly drift. He shares a si...

Send us Fan Mail In this Episode, Kathy sits down with some of her first guests to talk about what has life been like since you rededicated your life. The ups and downs, the good times and the hard times. They answer a total of 19 questions. (Left to Right) Keith Battle Episode 2 Keri McPhaill-Rodriguez, Episode 3 Kathy Chastain (host) Episode 1 Reyna Galvez Episode 5 Victor Molano Episode 15 Supp...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever felt like God’s love depended on how perfectly you followed the rules, Tabitha Lopez’s story will hit close to home. She grew up in a strict United Pentecostal world where standards, leadership pressure, and fear of “getting it wrong” shaped her identity, even while she genuinely loved God and hungered for the Bible. Then Hurricane Katrina wiped out her home and com...

Send us Fan Mail She was the “good kid,” the straight-A student, the one who looked fine. But beneath the surface, Amber Alonzo was carrying loneliness, bullying, grief, and a private depression that eventually turned into anorexia nervosa and relentless intrusive thoughts. Amber joins me to tell the truth about what eating disorders actually feel like, how quickly control becomes obsession, and w...

Send us Fan Mail Some stories don’t fit into neat church slogans, and that’s exactly why they matter. I’m joined by Cindy Mayo, a licensed minister and founder of Alpha Ministries, to share a deeply personal testimony of trauma, survival, and finding a way back to God after years away from church. Cindy opens up about a childhood marked by dysfunction, sexual abuse, fear, and later being kicked ou...

Send us Fan Mail A mother’s prayer can sound fearless on the outside and still be full of questions in the quiet. Kathy Chastain sits down with Ashley Zachary, a newer convert with a raw, hope-filled testimony about coming out of a lesbian lifestyle, learning the Bible for herself, and discovering the power of the Holy Ghost in a way that turns “God is real” into lived experience. Ashley shares ho...

Send us Fan Mail Loneliness can be loud, even when you’re surrounded by people. Antonio Sarzi, a concert bassist who recently earned second chair in the Montana Symphony, joins me to tell the truth about what it feels like to be unseen, to chase perfection until it turns into shame, and to carry an addiction that started with childhood exposure to pornography and followed him into adulthood. Tune...

Send us Fan Mail A pastor’s son commits bank robbery, lands in federal prison, and still can’t shake the pull of God. That’s the real-life backdrop for our conversation with Rev. Michael Torres, who joins us to tell the story from the parent’s side and to offer something many families are starving for: hope that doesn’t deny the pain. We talk about the roots that shaped his life and ministry in th...

Send us Fan Mail A church kid can know every altar call and still feel unsafe when life collapses. Kathy Chastain sits down with author Elizabeth Rocha for a raw, deeply personal story about how bullying, grief, sexual assault, church conflict, and workplace betrayal can quietly erode trust and push someone into a slow drift away from God. If you’ve ever wondered why God didn’t protect you, or fel...

Send us Fan Mail What if the power you’ve been chasing is actually found in surrender? That’s the electric current running through Jon Deaver’s story—part skate-park bravado, part barroom chaos, and ultimately a fierce return to hope. He grew up hearing Scripture, drifted into cigarettes at ten and parties by day, became a teen dad, married young, and watched it all collapse. The scene that follow...

Send us Fan Mail A testimony this raw doesn’t whisper; it rings like a bell. Kathy sits with Diane, a drug and alcohol counselor whose childhood was marked by normalized sexual abuse, border crossings, and being left on a street corner in Mexico—only to be found because a grandmother stitched a phone number into a little brown coat. We travel through Mexican jail cells, classrooms that didn’t beli...

Send us Fan Mail A chance phone call, a buried wound, and a locked detox bathroom became turning points in a story that moves from numbing to purpose. We sit down with Dustin Long, president and CEO of High Hope Ministries, to trace the honest path from a prayer-filled childhood and a teenage call to ministry, through unresolved offense, career seduction, and the quiet compromises that led to addi...

Send us Fan Mail A bold prayer can outlast decades—and catch up to you when you least expect it. That’s the heartbeat of this powerful conversation with Ben Bland, a designer whose life moved from church pews to drag stages and back to the waters of baptism, where identity was stripped and reborn. We pull no punches about the pain: abuse hidden in a miracle-working church, the ache for belonging t...

Send us Fan Mail A voice in a jail laundry room. A Bible open to a sentence that felt like a summons. And a quiet whisper that rewrote a life: “I never left you.” Kathy sits down with Rev. Robert “Bobby” Rodello to trace a raw, unforgettable journey—from a childhood steeped in altar calls and miracles, to the fracture of a family, to gang nights and a case that stacked into centuries on paper. As...

Send us Fan Mail A nightclub. A tray of free cocaine. Faces twisting into something dark. Then an audible voice: get in your truck, go home, and go to church in the morning. That moment didn’t just interrupt a spiral; it rerouted a life. Evangelist Justin Leva joins us to chart a raw, unscripted journey from a childhood of abuse, addiction, and witchcraft-laced culture to a steady walk defined by...

Send us Fan Mail What does it take to break a 25–year addiction and the prison cycle that comes with it? Dennis Fulton doesn’t offer polished answers; he brings a raw story that begins in a South Modesto trailer park and runs through meth, armed robbery, juvenile life, and a courtroom miracle that made space for grace. We talk about the moment a child ingests drugs and CPS steps in, the shock of b...

Send us Fan Mail Stories of return have a way of finding the person who needs them most. We close the year by opening our inbox and our hearts—sharing letters from listeners who pulled over in tears, confessed hidden battles with pornography, and asked for prayer in moments of deep despair. We also celebrate quiet miracles: three people who went back to church, two brand-new believers who found a...

Send us Fan Mail What if the prayers you’ve been whispering for years are beginning to be answered—and the church needs to be ready for the homecoming? We sit down with Sis. Billie Jean Bishop, co-founder of Partners in Prayer, to trace a path from personal tragedy to a nationwide movement of intercession for prodigals. Her story carries a fierce tenderness: a miracle-filled conversion, a mother’s...

Send us Fan Mail The word holiness can feel like a verdict, especially if you’ve been burned by “standards” that sounded more like a measuring stick than good news. Kathy sits down with her pastor to untangle the knot: holiness as a life turned toward God, standards as practices that may flow from that love, and the harm that happens when we reverse the order. The conversation is tender, candid, a...

Send us Fan Mail A teenage romance. A gang neighborhood. A near-fatal drive-by and an overdose scare on the job. Then a quiet, stubborn decision by a young mom to move across town, climb on a church van with two babies, and keep walking to the altar for more than a decade. That’s the spine of this episode: the slow, steady courage that makes room for miracles. We sit with Luis and Eileen Pena as t...

Send us Fan Mail A mother’s psychosis, a father’s kindness, and a daughter learning to trust God more than outcomes—this conversation traces how early wounds shape our faith and why secure love can tether a drifting heart. I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist and educator Danielle Cisneros to unpack trauma in a Pentecostal home, the silence that followed crises, and the lonelines...

Send us Fan Mail A five-year-old meets God in a prayer meeting. A teenager discovers he doesn’t fit. A young preacher catches fire, then loses his footing in a storm of loneliness, loss, and regret. Years later, a desperate father bargains for his unborn child’s life on a Yosemite worksite—and God answers. This conversation with Michael Torres is the unvarnished arc of calling tested by catastroph...

Send us Fan Mail Some stories grip you because they name the ache you’ve been carrying. Luis grew up in church, but grief took him someplace colder—anger he couldn’t shake, music that deepened the mood, and pornography he couldn’t confess. He didn’t storm out on God; hope just thinned until silence felt easier. When conviction finally met courage, he chose the terrifying route: tell the truth, tru...

Send us Fan Mail Some stories arrive like a storm and leave the air clearer than before. Kathy sits down with April Martinez, who grew up loving church, survived years of hidden abuse, and then endured the whiplash of public blame and church hurt that pushed her out at sixteen. What follows is a fiercely honest journey through survival mode—protecting younger siblings, running from violence, two s...