One of the most suggestive songs by the band Over the Rhine is titled “All My Favorite People Are Broken.” In a sense, it expresses the heart behind this podcast, that pastors are not immune from brokenness.

But pastors are not supposed to be broken. We think we are supposed to be strong, not weak, and so we hide our weaknesses. To be seen as weak is to have an asterisk of suspicion and shame attached to our name. To admit to a need, and to take that need to a counselor or a therapist, frightens many of us.

However, in this reset of an episode that first aired in January of 2022, I encourage pastors to take the risk, to embrace the asterisk.

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EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (United States: Scribner, 2001, 2015 update), p. 363

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But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9. 10)

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.

This is part two of our conversation with Dr. Hans Madueme regarding mental illness and the church. In this part we turn to how then the church can care for those suffering from a mental disorder.

I’m grateful to Dr. Madueme for his time, and for you for joining us.

We encourage you to also subscribe to our newsletter where, on third Mondays and at other times there may be additional content. You can do so here.

You can help support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon. You can do so here.

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

For an explanation of the name and intention of these occasional interviews, read this, or listen to it here or here.

Michael Emlet, Descriptions and Prescriptions: A Biblical Perspective on Psychiatric Diagnoses and Medications

John Piper, Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship

When you buy a book using a link on this page, Greatheart’s Table receives a commission. Thank you for supporting this work!

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.

Welcome to another Rainy Day Conversation around Greatheart’s Table. This time we welcome Dr. Hans Madueme, Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Covenant College, in Lookout Mountain, Georgia to help us explore the intersection between mental illness and the church.

This is part one of a two part conversation. I hope you are able to take in both.

We encourage you to also subscribe to our newsletter where, on third Mondays and at other times there may be additional content. You can do so here.

You can help support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon. You can do so here.

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

For an explanation of the name and intention of these occasional interviews, read this, or listen to it here or here.

Michael Emlet, Descriptions and Prescriptions: A Biblical Perspective on Psychiatric Diagnoses and Medications

John Piper, Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship

When you buy a book using a link on this page, Greatheart’s Table receives a commission. Thank you for supporting this work!

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.

I’m Randy Greenwald and I’m a pastor.

My job is to remind others that there is complete acceptance by the kindness of a merciful God. That those who belong to Christ have received grace, a gift of forgiveness and adoption into the family of God. That this is as real today as it was when they first believed. I get to do that.

If only I would believe it were true for me.

And this is the problem many of us face. It’s hard to apply to ourselves a gospel we proclaim to others. How could that be? That’s what I’d like to talk about.

If you like what you find here, you can support this on Patreon, or at Substack.

Thanks for joining us around Greatheart’s Table.

We encourage you to also subscribe to our newsletter where, on third Mondays and at other times there may be additional content. You can do so here.

You can help support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon. You can do so here.

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

The letter from Luther was referenced by Dr. Kelly Kapic in a chapel message at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida.

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.

This is part two of the conversation we began last time with Dan, Diana, and Adria from Called to Peace Ministries.

As some of you know, the namesake for this podcast is one Mr. Greatheart, a character from Part Two of John Bunyan’s allegory Pilgrim’s Progress. Mr. Greatheart is a guide, one charged with the responsibility of leading and protecting Christiana (the wife of Christian from Part One) and her children to the Celestial City. He is, that is, a pastor, and the fact that part of his charge was to protect Christiana is an apt truth to consider for this conversation.

We want to fulfill that charge well. I’m grateful for these whose voices help us do that.

We encourage you to also subscribe to our newsletter where, on third Mondays and at other times there may be additional content. You can do so here.

You can help support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon. You can do so here.

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

For an explanation of the name and intention of these occasional interviews, read this, or listen to it here or here.

Called to Peace Ministries

Protect the Flock

Dan and Shannon Boeck, Rediscovering Christ: A Survivor’s Guide to the True Church

Dan and Shannon Boeck, Domestic Abuse and the Dechurched: Are people abandoning the church or is the church abandoning its people?

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed

Tyler Staton, Familiar Stranger: (Re)Introducing the Holy Spirit to Those in Search of an Experiential Spirituality

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Timothy L. Sanford, I Have to Be Perfect

When you buy a book using a link on this page, Greatheart’s Table receives a commission. Thank you for supporting this work!

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.

There are women in our congregations who are suffering under the heavy hand of domestic abuse. Oh, they may not have bruises to show for it, not ones that we can see, anyway. But domestic abuse, or as I’m preferring to call it, coercive control, even when not physical, doing grave damage to sheep under our care. It behooves us to have some insight into how to spot it, and how we might respond without doing harm.

This conversation with three insightful guests, all from Called To Peace Ministries, I think you’ll find, will be invaluable in pointing us all in a direction that will make us, and our churches, better caretakers of hurting women.

We encourage you to also subscribe to our newsletter where, on third Mondays and at other times there may be additional content. You can do so here.

You can help support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon. You can do so here.

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

For an explanation of the name and intention of these occasional interviews, read this, or listen to it here or here.

Called to Peace Ministries

Protect the Flock

Dan and Shannon Boeck, Rediscovering Christ: A Survivor’s Guide to the True Church

Dan and Shannon Boeck, Domestic Abuse and the Dechurched: Are people abandoning the church or is the church abandoning its people?

Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed

Tyler Staton, Familiar Stranger: (Re)Introducing the Holy Spirit to Those in Search of an Experiential Spirituality

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Timothy L. Sanford, I Have to Be Perfect

When you buy a book using a link on this page, Greatheart’s Table receives a commission. Thank you for supporting this work!

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.

Life and pastoring can be exhausting. And that exhaustion grows when we fail to distinguish between ourselves and God. A friend shared with me this week a new song by singer/songwriter Jess Ray called I Am Not God. My screen saver since the beginning of the year is a message: “Relax. You are not the Messiah.” We all are struggling to hold that distinction.

God knows our vulnerability to this and our compensating tendency to do too much and never rest and recalibrate. For this, he has given us the gift of sabbath. Too frequently we view the sabbath as rules and shackles. I disagree. Sabbath is an invitation to a feast.

I invite you to join the feast.

We encourage you to also subscribe to our newsletter where, on third Mondays and at other times there may be additional content. You can do so here.

You can help support this podcast by supporting us on Patreon. You can do so here.

EPISODE NOTES

Notes and resources relevant to this episode:

Podcast music provided by Cool Hand Luke and used with permission.
Intro: “Holy Vanguard” / Lyrics
Outro: “Wonder Tour” / Lyrics / Video

To find our more about Greatheart’s Table, visit us here.