Podcasts about Baylor University

Driscoll's CEO Soren Bjorn says stronger consumer education, regulatory reform, and support for California farmers will be critical to maintaining a vibrant specialty crop industry in the years ahead. In the second part of an AgNet News Hour interview, Driscoll's CEO Soren Bjorn discussed the importance of public engagement, agricultural policy, labor regulations, and the future of berry production in California. Bjorn, who has led the berry company for years, shared his personal journey into agriculture. Originally from Denmark, he came to the United States on a golf scholarship to Baylor University before beginning a career in the produce industry that eventually led him to Driscoll's. “I tell people I have gotten to live my version of the American dream,” Bjorn said. “My greatest dream was to one day run a great American company.” Throughout the discussion, Bjorn emphasized the need for agriculture to better communicate with consumers and policymakers. He argued that many critics of farming simply do not understand modern agricultural practices and that greater transparency can help bridge that gap. “A lot of these people just have no idea,” Bjorn said. “That's an opportunity for us.” One example of that outreach involves bringing community leaders, educators, and consumers directly onto farms. Bjorn said firsthand exposure to agricultural operations often changes perceptions and helps people better understand how food is produced. Bjorn also highlighted the strength of the Driscoll's brand, noting that the company has built consumer trust through product consistency and quality. According to Bjorn, Driscoll's ranked as the second-largest food and beverage brand in U.S. grocery sales during 2025, trailing only Coca-Cola. “That tells you the power of having a product consumers trust,” Bjorn explained while discussing the value of branding in agriculture. The conversation also turned toward California's regulatory climate. Bjorn argued that while regulations are often well-intentioned, lawmakers should be willing to revisit policies that fail to achieve their intended goals. He pointed specifically to agricultural overtime regulations, which he said reduced work hours and earnings opportunities for many farmworkers despite being designed to help them. “What we said was if you do this, the farm workers' work week is going to go down,” Bjorn explained. “The very people they were supposed to help lost.” Bjorn believes California can remain a highly regulated state while still improving efficiency by removing rules that create unnecessary burdens without producing measurable benefits. He encouraged policymakers to consult agricultural experts more frequently when evaluating new proposals. Despite ongoing challenges, Bjorn remains optimistic about the future of farming. He pointed to younger generations entering agriculture, including students involved in agricultural education programs and university studies, as a source of encouragement for the industry's future. Looking ahead to the summer berry season, Bjorn said consumers can expect strong supplies of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, while strawberry supplies should improve as the season progresses. He also encouraged consumers to remember the farmers behind the products they purchase. “When you pay a little bit extra in June and July this year, just realize there are farmers behind it,” Bjorn said. As California agriculture continues facing challenges ranging from labor and housing to regulations and public perception, Bjorn said building stronger connections between consumers and farmers will remain essential for long-term success.

Host Bill Elliff interviews OneCry Collegiate Director James Pool about his journey from the 1970s Jesus movement to a life transformed by revival, where personal encounters with the Holy Spirit reshaped his ministry and prayer life. James describes mobilizing intercessors, returning to Baylor University, and being a part of FM72 — a campus movement marked by bold evangelism, healing, repentance, and rapid spiritual growth among students. Please let us know how the OneCry Podcast has impacted your own story by emailing us at info@onecry.com You can find many more downloadable revival resources and join the movement at www.onecry.com 

Ann sits down with Dr. Emily Hunter, professor at Baylor University, about her work focusing on helping students and young professionals navigate their career paths. Features musical performances by David Hall.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello. My name is Douglas Henry, Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University, with this week's edition of Likely Stories. Fantasy writer R.F. Kuang published her sixth novel last year. It's called Katabasis, an odd but fitting Greek word for her story of academic misadventure.

Ann sits down with Corey P. Carbonara and Michael F. Korpi (both of Baylor University's Film & Digital Media Department) to discuss the future of digital cinema, hi-def television, immersive storytelling, virtual reality and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we sit down with a powerhouse panel of researchers and practitioners to talk about a groundbreaking, high risk study breaking down the silos in Equine-Assisted Services (EAS). Funded by the Horses and Humans Research Foundation (HHRF), this study is the very first to measure real time neurophysiological brain activity in children with autism while on horseback, while simultaneously tracking the physiology of both the horse and the horse leader.Our guests discuss the incredible value of participatory research, how data driven outcomes are reshaping everyday center programming, and why "humble curiosity" is the secret sauce to successful academic and practitioner partnerships.

From zero organized gaming experience to a state championship and a college scholarship! Co-hosts Dr. Jeffrey Mitchell and Courtney Gallaher trace the history of our school's Esports program alongside Athletic Director Reid McFadden and graduating senior Finn Kelly. Finn opens up about his rapid interest in Esports, getting recruited by Baylor University, and capping off his senior year with a spectacular state title and collegiate scholarship. Don't miss this inspiring story of talent, teamwork, and the power of Esports!  

My talk with Skye begins at 26 mins Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE : On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. This show is Ad free and fully supported by listeners like you! Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 750 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls Skye L. Perryman is the President and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan, national legal organization that promotes democracy and progress through litigation, regulatory engagement, communications, policy education, and research. Named as one of the 2025 100 Most Influential People In The World by TIME Magazine, Ms. Perryman took the helm at Democracy Forward a few months after January 6, 2021, in the midst of rising extremism in communities and courts across the country. She has built a visionary team of legal, policy, and communications experts to confront anti-democratic extremism head-on while also using the law to advance progress and a bold vision for the future. Under Ms. Perryman's leadership, Democracy Forward has expanded the scope and reach of its work, emerging as a nationally recognized institution that is taking on the most significant issues affecting people, families, and communities– from defending civil rights and fair wages to seeking to expand access to reproductive health care post-Dobbs to confronting attacks on education to addressing the climate crisis and much more. Since January 2025, Democracy Forward has played a leading role in inspiring courage and in protecting the American people from harmful and unlawful federal executive action. The organization has filed hundreds of legal actions, launched hundreds of investigations, and, through its Democracy 2025 initiative, has organized the largest, most successful affirmative litigation effort against executive branch excesses in United States history. Learn more about our work here. Known for her strategic insight and impact-oriented leadership, Ms. Perryman has a track record of winning tough legal and policy battles, uniting diverse coalitions, inspiring the American public, and elevating voices that represent the fabric of our country to deliver results that improve the lives of millions. Over the course of her nearly two decade legal career, Ms. Perryman has served in executive positions and has provided legal and strategic counsel for a broad range of clients and institutions. She previously served as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. There, she oversaw legal and policy strategies that resulted in historic advancements in access to health care for women, including developing strategies to support the extension of postpartum Medicaid coverage for more than 500,000 people, overseeing litigation that enabled the distribution of mifepristone by mail for the first time in US history, launching an industry-wide effort to address racism and promote racial equity in medicine, and leading comprehensive legal and policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. Perryman was previously a member of Democracy Forward's founding legal team and began her legal career in litigation roles at WilmerHale and Covington & Burling, where she gained the trust of clients in the health care, financial services, education, and consumer products industries while simultaneously maintaining an active pro bono practice, receiving numerous commendations and awards for her work. Ms. Perryman's work has been recognized widely for its positive impact on people and communities. She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her commitment to public service and her professional work, including receiving a Lifetime Award Award for the Pursuit of Justice from the Georgetown University Law Center's O'Neill Institute, being named one of the 500 Most Influential People Shaping Policy by Washingtonian Magazine for consecutive years, one of The NonProfit Times's Power & Influence Top 50 and their 2025 Influencer of the Year, the 2025 Resister in Law by the Feminist Majority Foundation, a Woman to Watch by the New Republic, a Chuck F C Ruff Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year recipient, a Sissy Farenthold Social Justice Award recipient, a Harry S. Truman Scholar (2002), a Baylor Line Foundation Outstanding Young Alumni (2018), and a four-time Rising Star in Litigation in Washington, DC, among other awards. Ms. Perryman is a frequent guest lecturer and keynote speaker on matters at the intersection of law and policy. She has testified before the U.S. Congress and other expert bodies and her legal work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court as well as state supreme courts. Ms. Perryman appears on both network and cable television and her work and commentary is routinely covered in outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, NBC News, The Washington Post, Texas Monthly, The Houston Chronicle, Teen Vogue, MSNBC and CNN. Ms. Perryman grew up in Waco, Texas and is a proud product of K-12 public education. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy magna cum laude from Baylor University where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and a Juris Doctor with honors from the Georgetown University Law Center where she served as an Editor for the American Criminal Law Review and was an Editor in Chief for the ACLR's Annual Survey on White Collar Crime. Ms. Perryman serves on the boards of the Interfaith Alliance, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, the Texas Observer, the Baylor Line Foundation, and the Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. Alongside both progressive and conservative legal scholars, she co-chairs We Hold These Truths, Democracy Forward's initiative to provide accessible civic education to the American public. Listen rate and review on Apple Podcasts Listen rate and review on Spotify Pete On Instagram Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on Twitter Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page Gift a Subscription https://www.patreon.com/PeteDominick/gift Send Pete $ Directly on Venmo All things Jon Carroll  Buy Ava's Art  Subscribe to Piano Tuner Paul Paul Wesley on Substack Listen to Barry and Abigail Hummel Podcast Listen to Matty C Podcast and Substack Follow and Support Pete Coe Hire DJ Monzyk to build your website or help you with Marketing

Cedar Hill High School rising senior defensive end Jalen Price talks about why he verbally committed to play football for Baylor University.

This week, we are resharing an excerpt from a longer conversation with Dr. Beth Allison Barr about Becoming the Pastor's Wife. In this reprise, we focus on Beth's work on early Christian and Medieval women ahead of Beth's summer class "Medieval Women and Religion", which runs from June 1-5, 2026. Beth's ability to trace the historical arc of Christianity, particularly as it pertains to women, will help give you an understanding of how we have gotten to the place we find ourselves. Enjoy, and please consider joining us in person or online this summer.Beth's BioBeth Allison Barr is the New York Times bestselling author of Becoming the Pastor's Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry (Brazos, 2025), and the USA Today bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth(Brazos, 2021). As the James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University, she teaches undergraduate and graduate students; she also speaks and writes as a public intellectual. Since receiving tenure in the History department in 2014, Dr. Barr has served as Graduate Program Director in History (2016–2019), received a Centennial Professor Award (2018), and served as an Associate Dean in the Baylor Graduate School (2019–2022).Related ContentThe Rise of the Pastor's Wife and the Diminishment of Women's Ordination (February 2025)The Cost of Forgetting Women in Church History (April 2024)Regent College PodcastThanks for listening. Please like, rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice and share this episode with a friend. Follow Us on Social MediaFacebookInstagramYoutubeKeep in TouchRegent CollegeSummer ProgramsRegent College Newsletter

What shapes your identity more — your faith or your politics? In this episode, sociologist George Yancey explores how Americansengage in public life today and why that engagement often feels louder, sharper and more polarized than in previous decades. George Yancey, professor of sociology at Baylor University, distinguishes public engagement from political engagement, noting that evangelicals have long contributed to the common good through volunteering, giving, mentoring and building institutions, even if those efforts receive less attention than politics.Together, NAE President Walter Kim and George Yancey examine how recent cultural and political dynamics have amplified partisan voices and intensified the pressures shaping Christian public witness.They also point toward a better way forward: a kingdom-centered identity marked by humility, curiosityand a deeper sense of belonging in Christ. You‘ll hear: How today's tensions are less about “Christian nationalism” and more about identity politics on both the right and left;Why political tribalism is so powerful in this moment; and How the Church can offer deeper belonging and a more faithful witness. As polarization grows, this episode invites Christians to re-center their identity — and engage public life with truth, love and concern for every neighbor. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.Do you like the podcast?Give us a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. This is the best way for others to discover these conversations. If you listen on Spotify, give us a follow and hit the notification bell to be sure you never miss an episode. And don't forget to pass your favorite episodes along to colleagues, friends and family.Resources Full conversation with George Yancey on YouTubeFor further study see Jeremiah 17:9, Luke 10, John 4, Galatians 3 “It's Not ‘Christian Nationalism.' It's Conservative Identity Politics.” by George Yancey in Christianity Today Books written by George Yancey What Is Christian Nationalism Anyway?, episode of NAE Difficult Conversations podcastNationalism vs. Patriotism: What's the Difference?, NAE podcast with Paul Miller“How to Live Well With Enemies,” by Luke Bretherton in Evangelicals magazine“A Christian's Place in Political Parties,” Q&A with Cherie Harder in Evangelicals magazineToday's Conversation is brought to you by Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company.

Stephen Priest graduated with the class of 2020 after attending Cambridge since second grade. He went on to Baylor University, where he majored in mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics, and is now completing a master's in philosophy at Georgia State, where his research touches on AI ethics and moral cognition. The throughline connecting all of it runs directly back to Cambridge. Stephen's episode is a sustained meditation on how ideas connect. Latin and Ancient Greek taken simultaneously led him to linguistics. Logic opened the door to set theory and philosophy of mathematics. A senior thesis topic became an undergraduate thesis topic and remains an area of active inquiry. The Cicero he studied in rhetoric class became the subject of a first-semester college research paper, written in Latin, drawing on three distinct strands of his Cambridge education at once. What he finds most striking is that it was not only his training in mathematics that prepared him for advanced mathematics. It was his training in the humanities. Upper-level math is about proofs, and proofs are arguments, and knowing how to find, develop, and communicate an argument clearly is the same skill Cambridge builds through essays and debate. The disciplines were never as separate as they appeared. For Stephen, philosophy is where all of it converges. It is the discipline that asks what the other disciplines are actually doing, and Cambridge, without ever teaching a philosophy course per se, spent years preparing him to love exactly that question.

In this latest episode I was joined by a rising star in the English game in current LET Access Series pro Rosie Belsham who takes to her 2nd season as a pro in a couple of weeks time when LET Access Series resumes in Austria! We find out about her trip to South Africa with Sunshine Ladies Tour and the highlight being going to see LIV Golf in Johannesburg followed by a Calvin Harris DJ set!  Rosie is from Whitley Bay, just outside of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and although she played Hockey to a good level as well as Golf she started the game at the age of 9 alongside her mum. She currently plays out of Maften Hall Golf Club who offer her luxurious practice facilities and support in her journey.  Rosie would go to Baylor University in Waco, Texas and would play for England Girls between 2018-2020 & played from 2020-2024 for England. In 2018, Rosie would win a national title at Fairhaven by a staggering 18 shots. Rosie alongside Annabell Fuller, Charlotte Heath, Caley McGinty, Lianna Bailey, Lottie Woad, Emily Toy & Amelia Williamson would win both 2021 & 2022 European Ladies Amateur Team Championship Gold Medals. In 2023, Rosie would represent Great Britain & Ireland at Vagliano Trophy at Royal Dornoch losing 13.5-10.5 but a great experience nonetheless. In 2025 would see Rosie turn professional and would ply her trade on LET Access Series starting off with a 7th at Santander Golf Tour Avila alongside a couple of solid top 30's at Rose Ladies Open & Hauts De France (both T29th). To start this year in Morocco she would finish T13th at Madaef Golf's Ladies Open.  Thanks Rosie for chatting, all the best in your quest for a LET card! Be sure to download via Podbean, Apple Podcasts & Spotify, also on YouTube.  

Have you ever felt like no matter how much you do for your family, it's never enough? What if that exhaustion is not in your head, it's in the work nobody has ever given a name to? In the Season 7 premiere of the Glow Up, Gyrl Podcast, Kyra sits down with Dr. Allison Alford, communication scholar, speaker, and clinical associate professor at Baylor University, and author of Good Daughtering: The Work You've Always Done, the Credit You've Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Like Enough. Dr. Allison has spent over 10 years researching what she calls "daughtering," the often invisible emotional, cognitive, logistical, and identity labor that women carry in their families. In this conversation, she and Kyra unpack the four forms of invisible daughter labor, why the "good girl" script keeps women from ever feeling worthy, what it really means to be a "porcupine daughter," and how some daughters are quietly pushing their families forward in ways that go completely unrecognized. Whether you're holding your family together while running on empty, navigating generational patterns, or figuring out how to be a daughter on your own terms, this one is for you. Connect with Dr. Allison Alford: Website: daughtering101.com Instagram: @daughtering101 TikTok: @daughtering101 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/daughtering101 Connect with Glow Up, Gyrl: Website: glowupgyrl.com Instagram: @glowupgyrl TikTok: @glowupgyrl Facebook: @glowupgyrlatl LinkedIn: @glowupgyrl Email: hello@glowupgyrl.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scripture calls us to be devoted to prayer, yet it's easy for prayer to drift from the center of our ministries. This breakout will equip you to build a sustainable culture of prayer in your college ministry. You'll learn how to lead and structure a prayer ministry rooted in Scripture that helps students know God, hear from Him, and love Him more.This session was recorded live at Roundup 2026, a gathering of college ministry leaders hosted by the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention.Emmy Lively serves as the Associate Young Adults & College Minister at Highland Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. She joined the staff in 2023 after graduating from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. In her role at Highland, Emmy disciples young adults in their walk with Jesus, oversees prayer ministries, and shepherds students through seasons of grief. Emmy married her husband, Jared, in November 2025. They enjoy serving in ministry together, traveling, being outside, and exploring new coffee shops!

With all the things there are to juggle in ministry leadership, too often the simple things are overlooked for the complex, technical things. In this session, the importance of simply showing up in peoples' lives will be proven to be the catalyst for building the bedrock of a relational ministry.This session was recorded live at Roundup 2026, a gathering of college ministry leaders hosted by the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention.Stanton is the College Pastor at First Belton Baptist Church. Since God saved and called him on January 18, 2008 in the mountains of Appalachia in Boone, NC, Stanton has been a collegiate athlete, a counselor at Kanakuk Kamps, a house monitor for a live-in discipleship residency in Mississippi, has met and married his incredible wife of 10 years – Paige, has received his master's degree from Baylor University's Truett Seminary with a concentration in Sports Ministry, has served in Baylor's counseling center helping students with drug and alcohol addictions, has been the chaplain for the Baylor baseball team, has been ordained into the ministry by Highland Baptist Church in Waco, and has welcomed 3 beautiful children into the world: Waverly (5), Boone (2), and Harvey (1), as well as been a foster parent to a sweet little girl, Hadleigh. 

How did we get here? From the Enlightenment to the rise of Postmodernism, the landscape of what we believe about God has shifted beneath our feet. In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer sits down with renowned theologian Dr. Roger E. Olson (Emeritus Professor at Baylor University) to map out the fascinating—and often turbulent—history of modern theology. They explore the tension between tradition and the "modern mind," discussing how giants like Schleiermacher, Barth, and Bonhoeffer navigated a world that was rapidly deconstructing old certainties. Whether you're a theology nerd or just trying to understand the intellectual roots of your own faith, this conversation provides a vital compass for the journey. In this episode, we discuss: The "Modern" Dilemma: What happens when theology tries to accommodate the demands of the Enlightenment? Reconstruction to Deconstruction: Understanding the shift from building grand systems of thought to the skepticism of the 21st century. The Giants of the Faith: Why figures like Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer still matter for your walk with Christ today. The Evangelical Response: How believers can engage with modern ideas without losing the core of the Gospel. Finding Your Place: How understanding the history of ideas helps you situate your own beliefs in a chaotic world. Join us for a deep dive into the ideas that shaped the modern church and discover how to think Christianly in an era of reconstruction and deconstruction. Get early access and a bonus with a Patreon membership. Subscribe to our YouTube channel To read James's article on this topic, check out his author page on Christianity.com.

Roger Whitney continues the decluttering series by exploring the opportunities that come from simplifying your life, finances, and relationships. He explains how reducing complexity can create more mental space, clarity, and confidence in retirement while also making it easier to focus on what matters most. Along the way, Roger dives into the origins and limitations of risk tolerance questionnaires, discusses how retirees can structure portfolios around purpose rather than arbitrary scores, and answers listener questions on donor-advised funds and Social Security survivor benefits. The episode wraps with practical reflections on decluttering digital inputs and defining your personal motivation for simplifying your life.OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN(00:00) Roger explains how decluttering helps reclaim your attention in a world competing for your focus.(01:37) Roger previews week two of the decluttering series and introduces the themes of opportunity, risk tolerance, and listener questions.ROCKIN' RETIREMENT IN THE WILD(02:07) Rick shares how he's enjoyed five years of retirement without feeling pressure to chase a larger “purpose,” instead embracing freedom, reading, and travel after leaving behind a stressful corporate career.RETIREMENT TOOLKIT(03:30) Roger responds to a listener's question about how risk tolerance should fit into a three-bucket retirement strategy. (11:15) He outlines why retirement planning should focus on building allocations from the ground up based on purpose and time horizon.PRACTICAL PLANNING SEGMENT(18:03) Roger explores the opportunities created by decluttering your things, including reducing overwhelm, maintenance, and future burdens on loved ones.(20:53) He discusses how simplifying finances can increase clarity, reduce anxiety, and create greater confidence in retirement.(24:25) Roger explains how decluttering relationships and obligations can create space for more intentional connections.(25:33) He highlights the importance of reducing digital and news clutter to protect your attention and mental bandwidth.LISTENER QUESTIONS(28:28) Roger explains how donor-advised funds can help simplify a cluttered brokerage account while improving tax efficiency for charitable giving.(33:00) He answers a widower's question about Social Security survivor benefits, timing strategies, and earnings test considerations.SMART SPRINT(36:00) Write down four or five benefits you hope to gain from decluttering your things, finances, relationships, or digital life to help stay motivated through the process.CLOSING THOUGHTS(38:20) Roger congratulates our podcast editor, Graham, on graduating from Baylor University.REFERENCESSubmit a Question for RogerSign up for The NoodleNote: The opinions expressed are for informational purposes only and should not replace personalized advice from licensed professionals.

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Elizabeth Backfish (PhD, Trinity International University), who is associate professor of biblical studies at William Jessup University, and Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott (PhD, University of Sheffield), who is associate professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. And together they're the authors of Grounded Theology in the Hebrew Bible: Exploring the Cultural Context That Formed Ancient Israel (Baker Academic). In our conversation we discuss the relationship between our biblical texts and material culture on a whole host of issues, highlighting how the two need to be understood together for proper interpretation. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Brandon Hurlbert. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on conduct(her) Kyra and McKenna interview Dr. Lynne Gackle, Professor Emeritus of Music at Baylor University.

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Jennifer Matheny, who is associate professor of Christian Scriptures at George W. Truett Seminary, Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, and the author of Hesed, the Seed of the Biblical Story: New Life for Old Testament Theology (published by Baker Academic). As we discuss, the term Hesed is notoriously difficult to translate, but by situating its variegated meanings within the stories and the Story of scripture, Dr. Matheny helps to shed new light on its significance. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Brandon Hurlbert. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we are bringing you a rerun from our very first season. Dr. Chaves' research is a strong reminder of the migration experience and how it shapes religious life.In this episode, Dr. João Chaves discusses what he learned from years of research on Brazuca Baptist churches, that is, Brazilian American Baptist churches. These congregations reveal the way the experience of migration shapes theology and religious life and raise questions for what the landscape of religious life in America might look going forward. This research is the topic of João's 2021 book with Baylor University Press, ⁠Migrational Religion: Context and Creativity in the Latinx Diaspora⁠⁠João Chaves⁠ is Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Mission at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He earned his PhD from Baylor University's Department of Religion in 2017. Follow João on Twitter, @JoaoB_Chaves.

The whole gang talked with Erin Moniz—Baylor University chaplain, Anglican deacon, and author of the excellent book Knowing and Being Known—about developing a Christian theology of intimacy. Erin's approach to intimacy offers as a valuable critique for our culture's obsession with romance and sex. Even more importantly, she offers a positive theological vision, exploring how friendships, family, and community relationships can become primary places where we are known, loved, and formed in Christ—with specific thoughts for queer/same-sex-attracted Side B Christians. We hope you'll give this episode, and Erin's book, a listen!About Our GuestRev. Erin F. Moniz (DMin, Trinity School for Ministry) is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and Associate Chaplain and Director for Chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults and journeys with them toward healthy, gospel-centered relationships. You can find her at erinfmoniz.com.—Note: This episode uses the terms “Side A” and “Side B” as shorthand for specific Christian perspectives on gay/queer sexuality. If you're new to the conversation, you might find it helpful to check out episode #3, where we talk through the four “sides”: ⁠#3 - A-B-Y-X | 4 Sides on SSA/Gay Sexuality⁠—★ Timestamps(00:00) #81 - Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships, with Erin Moniz(03:11) Erin's background, serving emerging adults, Side B connections(07:32) “We lack a robust theology of intimacy”(15:03) “I can live without sex, but I cannot live without intimacy”(18:53) Romance idolatry leads to hypersexualization(22:57) What's the difference: “Romance” vs. “Intimacy”?(28:22) When values conflict: autonomy vs. vulnerability(33:29) How AI bots could shape our intimacy(37:12) Can intimate relationships be “economic” also?(47:03) Are queer Christians better at healthy relationships?(52:36) Your advice to: “I'm falling in love with my friends”(01:01:15) Encouragement: You were made for intimacy on purpose by God—★ Links and ReferencesKnowing and Being Known: Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships (IVP ): www.ivpress.com/knowing-and-being-known—★ Send us feedback, questions, comments, and support || Email: communionandshalom@gmail.com | Instagram: @newkinship | Substack: @newkinship—★ Credits || Creators and Hosts: David Frank, TJ Espinoza, Tyler Parker | Audio Engineer: Carl Swenson, carlswensonmusic.com | Podcast Manager: Elena F. ★ Get full access to New Kinship at newkinship.substack.com/subscribe

The U.S. healthcare system is under real strain—and it's something both patients and physicians are feeling in everyday care. In Texas, those pressures are even more visible, where rapid population growth, rural access challenges, and regulatory complexity are making it harder for patients to get timely care and for doctors to focus on medicine instead of administrative work. These challenges aren't driven by a single issue, but by a combination of workforce gaps, growing bureaucracy, and structural inefficiencies that have been building for years.So what happens next? As policymakers, insurers, and healthcare systems compete to shape the future of care, one central question emerges: Can physicians reclaim control of patient care in an increasingly corporatized system?That's the question at the heart of this episode of I Don't Care. Host Dr. Kevin Stevenson sits down with Dr. Brad Holland, President of the Texas Medical Association, to unpack the organization's top priorities for 2026. Their conversation spans workforce shortages, regulatory reform, insurance power, and the evolving role of physicians in modern medicine.What you'll learn…How prior authorization and insurance barriers are getting worse, delaying patient care while placing an increasing administrative burden on physicians.Why physician shortages aren't about lack of interest, but instead driven by systemic training bottlenecks that turn away qualified candidates each year.How healthcare consolidation and insurance dominance are reshaping care, pushing costs higher and weakening the core physician-patient relationship.Dr. Brad Holland is a board-certified otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon with specialized expertise in voice and swallowing disorders, pediatric ENT, oncology, and facial reconstructive surgery. He currently serves as President-Elect of the Texas Medical Association and has held multiple leadership roles, including Speaker of the House for TMA and President of the Texas Association of Otolaryngology, reflecting deep influence in healthcare policy and physician advocacy. He also serves as clinical faculty at Baylor University and holds an Executive MBA, bringing both medical and leadership expertise to healthcare.

What does it really take to coach at the very top of the game?And how does a 32-year-old coach find himself leading the journey of one of the fastest-rising players in world tennis?In this episode of Control the Controllables, we sit down with Maxime Tchoutakian, the coach of Vicky Mboko — a 19-year-old who has taken the tennis world by storm, breaking into the Top 10 in less than a year.But Max's story is just as compelling as the player he now coaches.Ranked 530 in the world as a player, he took the US college route at Baylor University, rebuilt his career from scratch after COVID, and walked into the Mouratoglou Academy with no clear coaching plan, only to have one practice with Victoria Azarenka and receive a call from her agent 30 minutes later.What he shares in this episode gives a rare, honest look at what it really means to operate inside the world's best tennis teams.In this episode:What it was actually like telling a former World Number 1 how to improve her game at age 26.The moment Azarenka asked him to become her full-time coach and how scary that felt.Why adaptation is the single most important skill to survive life on the WTA tour.His honest take on whether coaches are paid well enough for what they sacrifice.What makes Victoria Mboko so special and why Max believes she will win multiple Grand Slams.The brutal truth about French tennis: why talented kids keep falling short when it matters most.His biggest coaching regret and why he wishes he'd trusted himself sooner.CONNECT WITH CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLESWebsite: https://www.controlthecontrollables.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctc.podcast/Email us: ctc.podcast@sototennis.comMentioned in this episode:Train Smarter Anywhere: Strength & Conditioning for Tennis Players On the Go

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of Plates and Pancakes, Steven Thompson sits down with Dr. Toby Brooks, Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor University, to unpack one of the most overlooked aspects of athlete development—identity beyond sport.Dr. Brooks brings a unique blend of experience in athletic training, sports psychology, and mental performance to the conversation, diving deep into what happens when the game is taken away. From career-ending injuries to graduation and the realities of the transfer portal and NIL era, this episode explores how athletes can navigate identity loss, self-doubt, and the pressure of performance-driven environments.Drawing on lessons from legendary coach Dick Tomey and real-life experiences with his son's baseball journey, Dr. Brooks breaks down what it means to build resilient, self-aware athletes. He emphasizes the importance of separating self-worth from performance, developing controllable goals, and creating team cultures where athletes feel seen, valued, and supported.The discussion also tackles:* Why athletes struggle with transition after sport* The role of confidence and “The Confidence Gap” in performance* How NIL and the transfer portal are reshaping team dynamics* Coaching strategies that prioritize long-term development over short-term wins* Building a love for movement that lasts beyond competitionThis episode is a must-listen for coaches, athletes, and anyone invested in developing not just better performers—but better people.https://youtube.com/@platesandpancakes4593https://instagram.com/voodoo4power?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=https://voodoo4ranch.com/To possibly be a guest or support the show email Voodoo4ranch@gmail.comhttps://www.paypal.com/paypalme/voodoo4ranch

Welcome to the Influence Podcast! I'm George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. In this episode I talk to Prof. Matthew D. Kim about his new book, Becoming a Friendlier Church: A Pathway to Genuine Community, forthcoming from Baker Books. Our focus is why churches are unfriendly and how they can become friendlier. "In this book, I want to draw attention to a crisis in congregations that may not be on many people's radars: too many churches are less friendly than they realize," Kim writes. "Unfriendliness might be furtively devouring their church's ministry effectiveness, influence, and longevity." Every church thinks it's friendly. But Kim writes, "Just as in the first round of American Idol, where some contestants overstate their singing abilities as they audition, many Christians believe they are good, friendly welcomers even if they're not." Matthew D. Kim, Ph.D., is professor of preaching and pastoral leadership, holder of the George W. Truett Endowed Chair in Preaching and Evangelism, and director of the Ph.D. in preaching program at Baylor University's Truett Seminary.   Sponsor AdThis episode of the Influence podcast is brought to you by Gospel Publishing House, distributors of Autism in the Church. Make your church a place where everyone belongs. Many congregations feel unprepared to walk beside individuals with autism and their loved ones. Autism in the Church equips churches to create an environment where individuals with autism are not just present, but known, discipled, and celebrated as vital parts of the body of Christ. For more information about Autism in the Church visit GospelPublishingHouse.com. Show Notes 00:00 — Introduction and Sponsor Ad 02:27 — Defining friendliness and unfriendliness 04:43 — Why church friendliness is at crisis levels 07:03 — Apathy 11:50 — Busyness 17:32 — Prejudice 24:32 — Friendliness during a person's greatest needs 27:27 — What preachers can do 30:04 — What are you reading right now that is interesting, helpful, and/or personally challenging? 32:14 — Conclusion

In this episode of The Key, we're digging into the minds of college presidents and how they're dealing with the chaos of the current moment. Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed's special content editor joins editor in chief Sara Custer to share some key findings from IHE's 2026 survey of college and university presidents on what leaders see are the immediate and long-term risks to their institutions and how they're managing to handle the mounting pressure on the college presidency. Later, Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, explains why discussions about mergers and acquisitions are more common among private, non-profit institutions. Thanks to Baylor University for sponsoring this episode. Join our conversation on human flourishing on May 4th in a webcast brought to you in partnership with Baylor University. 

Healthcare leadership is being redefined in real time. With the rise of AI, mounting financial pressures, and workforce burnout, executives today are operating in an environment of continuous disruption and uncertainty. In fact, industry leaders now rank workforce shortages and digital transformation among their top concerns—forcing a new kind of leadership that blends decisiveness with humility.So what does it actually take to lead through uncertainty, especially when you don't have all the answers?On I Don't Care, host Dr. Kevin Stevenson sits down with Joel Allison, former CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health and current Chairman of the Baylor University Board of Regents, for a candid conversation about leadership, faith, and legacy. This episode explores the defining moments of Allison's career, the risks that shaped one of the nation's largest faith-based health systems, and the personal principles that guided him through decades at the top.The conversation delves into…The high-stakes decision to merge Baylor Health Care System with Scott & White—a bold, controversial move that initially alarmed board members and nearly derailed Allison's career, yet ultimately became one of the most transformative and successful healthcare mergers in the country.How great leaders operate without certainty—why Allison believes you don't need all the answers to lead effectively, and how mentorship, trusted advisors, and humility become far more valuable than projecting confidence in rapidly changing environments.The enduring role of faith, purpose, and personal values—how Allison's sense of calling and belief system shaped his toughest decisions, grounded his leadership style, and helped him navigate decades of high-pressure challenges with clarity and conviction.Joel Allison is a veteran healthcare executive who served as President and CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health, leading its transformation into one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the United States. Over his decades-long career, he has been recognized for his commitment to quality care, leadership development, and faith-based service. Allison earned his degree from Baylor University and has remained deeply connected to the institution, currently serving as Chairman of its Board of Regents. Throughout his career, he has driven large-scale transformation, including system expansion, quality improvement initiatives, and the development of accountable care models focused on patient-centered outcomes.

Ann speaks to Dr. Carla Neuss, assistant professor of Baylor University's theatre department, about their adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic, "An Enemy of the People". Ann also sits down with Lydia Tate, the new president and CEO of Waco's KWBU-FM 103.3.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today's program, Bethel Church commissions a third-party investigation into clergy sexual abuse allegations against the church's Prophetic Ministry Director Ben Armstrong. We'll have details. Plus, charities were left with major donation losses when the fundraising platform Flipcase declared bankruptcy—while owing charity groups over $29 million. We'll take a look. And, a new report shows that evangelical giving has leveled out after a steep decline…the report also tracked online giving and spiritual engagement.  But first, recent events at Baylor University have sparked concern from Texas Baptists. Baptists with the Baptist General Convention of Texas are going to take a hard look at their relationship with Baylor at this year's meeting. Concerns relate to two recent events approved by Baylor and hosted by student groups. The first is the student-led Turning Point USA event. And the other alternative event is the LGBTQ-affirming “All Are Neighbors” event.  Both events were scheduled to take place on Wednesday this week in separate locations on campus. The producer for today's program is Jeff McIntosh. We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today's program include Kendall Lyons, Faith Pratt, Eric Black, Kim Roberts, Kathryn Post, Tony Mator, Makella Knowles, and Jessica Eturralde. A special thanks to Baptist Standard for contributing material for this week's podcast. You've been listening to the MinistryWatch podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

In today's episode, Claire is joined by archaeologists Jodi Magness and Deirdre Fulton to discuss Jodi's book The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon's Temple to the Muslim Conquest. This book is an excellent introduction to the archaeology of ancient Palestine with a structure that allows the reader to learn about the history alongside the archaeology. The introduction begins just before the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 586 BCE and moves through time covering the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Periods. Major sites include Masada, Caesarea Maritima, and Petra as she discusses monumental archaeology, pottery, and more. Jodi Magness is a Classical and Biblical archaeologist specializing in ancient Palestine (modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories) from the time of Jesus up to the tenth century. Her research interests include Jerusalem, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient synagogues, Masada, the Roman army in the East, ancient pottery, the Byzantine-early Islamic transition, and Diaspora Judaism in the Roman world. She has participated on over 20 excavations in Israel and in Greece, including co-directing the 1995 excavations in the Roman siege works at Masada. Since 2011, she has directed excavations at Huqoq in Israel's Galilee, which are bringing to light a monumental Late Roman (fifth century) synagogue paved with stunning mosaics.Her most recent books are Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades (2024) and Ancient Synagogues in Palestine. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Past President of the Archaeological Institute of America.Deirdre Fulton joined the Department of Religion at Baylor University in the fall semester 2013. Her area of research focuses on the Persian Period, specifically the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Fulton is also interested in zooarchaeological related research, connecting text and artifact. She is involved in several ongoing excavations in Israel, including the Leon Levy Ashkelon Excavations, Tel Shimron Excavations, and also the Jezreel Valley Regional Project. Her interest in archaeology helps inform questions related to diet, sacrifice, and economy.Deirdre is a member of the Steering committees on Literature and History of the Persian period for the Society of Biblical Literature and the Feasting and Foodways for the American Schools of Oriental Research. She is also a member of the Catholic Biblical Association and American Institute of Archaeology. She is married to James Fulton, a Geochemist in the Department of Geology.

On how to teach writing in 2026. On whether bad scribes can become good scribes. On the legend of Biscuits O'Bryan. On why Waco should be your next vacation destination.

He graduated from Baylor University in nineteen seventy-nine, moved to Austin, and sold five houses his first month. Within five years he was VP of expansion for the largest real estate firm in Austin. Then he walked away and started his own company. Today that company - Keller Williams Realty - has more than one hundred eighty thousand agents worldwide and is the largest real estate franchise on Earth by agent count. This is the full story of how Gary Keller did it, why the profit sharing model changed everything, and five lessons every agent and team leader can take from his career. Learn more: foxessellfaster.com

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks to Serhiy Kudelia, a Professor of Political Science at Baylor University and the author of the recently published book, "Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine."

The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth voiced support for the pontiff and criticized Trump for posting a “blasphemous” image depicting himself as Jesus. In other news, there's a one more example of the tension between Texas' rural roots and its urban explosion, of a town trying to find a balance between being left behind by the 21st century and being swallowed by it; Baylor University approved two gay Christian advocates to speak on campus this month as part of a student-led counter event to a Turning Point USA tour stop planned for the same day; and the Baylor Scott & White Health Plan — the health insurance arm of Baylor Scott & White — announced Tuesday that it plans to stop carrying Texas Medicaid plans and individual marketplace plans later this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's guest host is Joao Chavez and he speaks with BSIR scholars Paul Fiddes and Raimundo Baarreto on everyday christianity with global voices. João B. Chaves joined the Department of Religion at Baylor University in the fall semester of 2023. His research focuses on the history of religion in the Américas, the influence of U.S. Protestantism in Latin America, and the development of Latin American/Latinx religious networks in the United States. Dr. Chaves is an award-winning author whose books include The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South: Southern Baptist Missionaries and the Shaping of Latin American Evangelicalism (Mercer University Press, 2022), and Remembering Antônia Teixeira: A Story of Missions, Violence, and Institutional Hypocrisy (Eerdmans, 2023), co-authored with Dr. Mikeal Parsons. Dr. Chaves also co-edited a book with Dr. T. Laine Scales, titled Baptists and the Kingdom of God: Global Perspectives (Baylor University Press, 2023). Paul S. Fiddes took first class degrees in English Language and Literature (1968) and in Theology (1970) at the University of Oxford (St. Peter's College), followed by a D.Phil from Oxford (1975), and was awarded the D.D. of the University of Oxford for published work in 2004. At Regent's Park College, Oxford, he was successively Research Fellow in Old Testament and Hebrew (1972–75), Fellow in Christian Doctrine (1975–89), Principal (1989–2007), Professorial Research Fellow and Director of Research (2007–2018) and Senior Research Fellow (2018 to the present). He was also Lecturer in Theology at St. Peter's College, Oxford (1979-85). He was Chairman of the Board of Faculty of Theology of the University of Oxford from 1996–98, and received the title of Professor of Systematic Theology from the University of Oxford in 2002. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Bucharest, and Honorary Fellow of St. Peter's College, Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2020. He was ordained as a minister in the Baptist Union of Great Britain in 1972, and has extensive ecumenical concerns, including being a Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and Prebendary of St Endellion in North Cornwall.  Raimundo C. Barreto is an associate professor of World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he has been teaching since 2014. He holds a bachelor's degree in theology from Seminário Teológico Batista do Norte do Brasil, an MDiv degree from McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and a PhD in religion and society from Princeton Theological Seminary. Before coming to Princeton, he taught at various institutions in Brazil and was the director of the Division on Freedom and Justice at the Baptist World Alliance. Barreto is the author of Protesting Poverty: Protestants, Social Ethics, and the Poor in Brazil (Baylor University Press, 2023) and Base Ecumenism: A Latin American Contribution to Ecumenical Praxis and Theology (Augsburg Fortress, 2025). He is working on a new book titled Christians in the City of São Paulo: The Shaping of World Christianity in a Brazilian Megacity (Bloomsbury). He is also the co-editor of the Journal of World Christianity, the general editor of the World Christianity and Public Religion Series published by Fortress Press (2017–24), and a convener of the World Christianity Conference since 2018. In addition to his publications, which include numerous journal articles and book chapters, he has served on boards and committees of various organizations, including the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO), Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI), Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC), Baptist World Alliance (BWA), Aliança de Batistas do Brasil, American Baptist Churches (ABCUSA), the Alliance of Baptists, the National Council of Churches USA, and the World Council of Churches (WCC).

In this fun, 10-min excerpt, I talk with Dr. Tracey Sulak of Baylor University—an expert in how kids learn—about what adult riders can take from a more juvenile approach.

Top headlines for Monday, April 13, 2026Joel Osteen defends Kanye West by praising his “heart for God” despite backlash over past antisemitic remarks, Baylor University approves a progressive campus event in response to a Turning Point USA rally, and a new Pew Research survey finds that 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably. 00:11 Man says Jesus sent him 'back to Earth' after cardiac arrest00:58 Joel Osteen praises Kanye West as having a ‘heart for God'01:45 Pastor Brian Tome suspended after horse whip investigation02:33 ‘God is moving': Church launches biblical counseling center03:20 Baylor U. greenlights liberal event in response to TPUSA rally04:15 Treasury to provide guidance on Johnson Amendment05:10 It's not censorship relocating LGBTQIA books to the adult section06:00 60% of Americans harbor 'unfavorable' views toward Israel: PewSubscribe to this PodcastApple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle PodcastsOvercastFollow Us on Social Media@ChristianPost on TwitterChristian Post on Facebook@ChristianPostIntl on InstagramSubscribe on YouTubeGet the Edifi AppDownload for iPhoneDownload for AndroidSubscribe to Our NewsletterSubscribe to the Freedom Post, delivered every Monday and ThursdayClick here to get the top headlines delivered to your inbox every morning!Links to the NewsMan says Jesus sent him 'back to Earth' after cardiac arrest | LivingJoel Osteen praises Kanye West as having a ‘heart for God' | PodcastPastor Brian Tome suspended after horse whip investigation | Church & Ministries‘God is moving': Church launches biblical counseling center | Church & MinistriesBaylor U. greenlights liberal event in response to TPUSA rally | EducationTreasury to provide guidance on Johnson Amendment | PoliticsIt's not censorship relocating LGBTQIA books to the adult section60% of Americans harbor 'unfavorable' views toward Israel: Pew | U.S.

In this episode of Bracket Busters, the Jace, Juliana and Josue crew recap the chaos of March Madness – busted brackets, bold predictions, and one co-host who actually called it right

In this episode of the Conversations That Matter podcast, host John Harris delivers a wide-ranging Christian conservative news roundup and commentary, covering the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, critiques of Big Eva institutions like Baylor University and figures such as Russell Moore and Paula White, a pointed theological takedown of Tucker Carlson's recent Bible-related comments, a defense of Calvinism against Alexander Dugin's criticisms, cultural and social issues including Supreme Court wins on free speech, family breakdown statistics, and immigration policy, updates on the Iran conflict and ceasefire, and a strong warning against “panickin” and blackpilling in response to current events, all framed through a bold, explicitly Christian vision for America.Order Against the Waves: Againstthewavesbook.comJon's Music: jonharristunes.comTo Support the Podcast: https://www.jonharrismedia.com/support/Become a Patronhttps://www.patreon.com/jonharrispodcastSubstack: https://substack.com/@jonharris Follow Jon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonharris1989Follow Jon on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonharris1989/00:00 - Introduction & Podcast Vision02:10 - Christian Persecution in Nigeria & Truth Nigeria Update07:00 - Equipping the Persecuted Coffee Pitch09:30 - Baylor University & Womanist Theology Critique (Eve Reimagined)15:30 - Big Eva News: J.D. Greer, Russell Moore on Trump's Iran Tweet22:00 - Trump's Iran Statement & Hyperbole as Negotiation Tactic28:00 - Al Martin Passing & Reformation 21 Reflection30:00 - Supreme Court Win: Colorado Conversion Therapy Ban Struck Down34:00 - Crime & Justice Failures: Charlotte Train Murder Case37:00 - Immigration, Dignity Act Critique & Family Stability Stats45:00 - Demographic Changes in Texas & New York, Fertility Rates52:00 - Catholic Nuns Lawsuit & Enoch Burke Update56:00 - Tucker Carlson on Esther, Paula White, & Bible Critique1:10:00 - Alexander Dugin Blames Calvinism for West's Decline (Defense)1:20:00 - Iran Conflict Update, Ceasefire, & Foreign Policy Analysis1:40:00 - Don't Be a Panickin': Anti-Woke to Anti-Trump Pipeline Article1:55:00 - Closing Advice from JD Vance on Blackpilling & Staying EngagedSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/conversations-that-matter8971/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's YOUR time to #EdUp with Toby Brooks, Director of the Academy for Teaching & Learning, Baylor UniversityIn this episode, sponsored by the ​ELIVE 2026​ Conference in Denver, Colorado, April 19-22, the ​HigherEd PodCon​ II happening July 16 & 17, & the 2026 AcOps Conference July 29-31 by CoursedogYOUR cohost is Robert Graham, CEO, Poll EverywhereYOUR host is Dr. Jodi Blinco⁠, How does a Texas R1 founded in 1845 balance research, division 1 athletics & Christian worldview while launching a 12 credit hour graduate certificate in college teaching?Why do handwritten note cards & gratitude exercises create connection students crave when automated recruitment emails anger them as soulless commodities?What happens when 70% of freshmen enter as pre law or pre med but 70% of seniors don't go because they've been formed through the process?Listen in to #EdUpThank YOU so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for YOUR time to EdUp!Connect with YOUR EdUp Team - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Elvin Freytes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dr. Joe Sallustio⁠⁠⁠⁠● Join YOUR EdUp community at The EdUp ExperienceWe make education YOUR business!P.S. Want to get early, ad-free access & exclusive leadership content to help support the show? Become an #EdUp Premium Member today!

Our guest today is Kevin Washington, a former Notre Dame linebacker who is currently an associate AD with Baylor University in Waco, TX."Get in the Game" is part of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sports Spectrum Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Sign up for our Sports Spectrum Magazine and receive 15% off a 1-year subscription by using the code PODCAST15⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://SportsSpectrum.com/magazine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Do you know Christ personally? Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn how you can commit your life to Him."Get in the Game" is part of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sports Spectrum Podcast Network⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

In today's episode, I am speaking with James "Jim" Nogalski and Mark Biddle about their book Murder in the Tidwell Building. This is a rare treat for us as one of our very own Baylor Religion professors has written a crime novel set in the Religion Department's building. A skeleton is found in 2020 in Waco, Texas, on the campus ofBaylor University during the renovation of the Tidwell Bible Building, which houses Baylor's Department of Religion. During demolition, workers uncover the skeleton of a man who had been murdered fifteen years earlier. Suspicionquickly falls on three members of the Department of Religion, including two who are now high-level administrators of the university. All three have something to hide. Two detectives meticulously and creatively pursue the killer, despite encountering bureaucratic resistance from the higher echelons of administrators in the Waco Police Department and Baylor University.Jim Nogalski joined the faculty of the Religion Departmentat Baylor in the fall of 2007 after teaching at institutions in South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, and North Carolina. Nogalski is best known for his ongoing work in prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, and especially in the Book of the Twelve (Hosea through Malachi). Nogalski grew up in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. After graduating Samford University he completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentuckybefore completing a Master of Theology in Old Testament at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Rüschlikon (a suburb of Zurich), and his doctoral degree at the University of Zurich. He publishes regularly on prophetic literature, especially the Book of the Twelve. Dr. Biddle received his early education in the publicschools of Orlando, FL and Ft. Payne, AL. He holds a BAH from Samford University (Birmingham, AL), an MDiv from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), a ThM from Rueschlikon Baptist Theological Seminary (Rueschlikon, Switzerland), and a DrTheol from the University of Zurich(Zurich, Switzerland). Dr. Biddle began his teaching career at Carson Newman College (now University), where he also directed the Honors Program. After almost a decade, he joined the faculty of the Baptist Theological Seminary atRichmond as Professor of Old Testament, soon to become the Russell T. Cherry Professor there and to continue until the unfortunate closing of the school.Along the way, Biddle has taught adjunctively for SBTS, the Polish Baptist Theological Seminary in Warsaw-Radosc, and, currently, Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond.Dr. Biddle has published seven books, over forty articles, eleven translated volumes (from German to English), and scores of book reviews. He serves on the editorial board ofthe Review & Expositor, having served for two years as Associate Editor and seven as Managing Editor. He also serves on the editorial board of the Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary and is General Editor of the Reading the Old Testament series. He served for five years on the advisory board of Interpretation and as Issue Editor for R&E's volumes on “Genesis,” “Song of Songs,” “Apocalyptic Literature,”“Transitions,”and “Esther” (forthcoming).  

In recent years, Silicon Valley has imagined for us a new way of life – one where almost anyone can be a twenty or thirty-something-year-old with a supernatural glow, toned physique, understated intelligence, and a superabundance of vitality. This is not reality for most people, even for the twenty or thirty-something-year-olds, but medicine and technology originally intended to help people achieve baseline health are increasingly being leveraged to close the gap. This raises the question: what is medicine for? Is medicine about restoring people to some definition of “normal” health? And if so, what about all the people contentedly living in bodies considered medically abnormal?Our guest is Devan Stahl, author, clinical ethicist, and professor of bioethics and religion at Baylor University. Professor Stahl received her PhD in Health Care Ethics from St. Louis University, before completing her Master of Divinity at Vanderbilt University. Her scholarship focuses on disability theology and bioethics, and her most recent books include Disability's Challenge to Theology (2022) and Bioenhancement Technologies and the Vulnerable Body (2023). In addition to her scholarly work, Stahl volunteers as a clinical ethicist with the Supportive and Palliative Care Team at her local hospital. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss whether it is the role of a clinical ethicist to determine what is “right” in a given situation – and if so, how that is accomplished. We explore how Silicon Valley's promotion of the “optimized” human raises questions about the purpose of medicine, and the various ways medicine defines the idea of “normal” health. Stahl shares her experience in the healthcare system as someone with multiple sclerosis, cautioning that some providers are more comfortable focusing on the digitized version of someone's disability than on the person themselves. Together, we imagine a doctor's role not just in restoring patients to normality, but guiding them to flourish.  In this episode, you'll hear about: 3:19 - The questions that have driven Stahl's academic career as a professor of bioethics and religion. 5:00 - The types of requests Stahl receives as a bioethicist at her local hospital.12:51 - How Silicon Valley is skewing public perception of “health” — and the questions this raises about the purpose of medicine.20:12 - Stahl's experience navigating uncomfortable and confusing medical encounters as a person with disability herself.25:24 - Stahl's take on the “purpose” of modern medicine.29:48 - Ways in which our society tends to value certain kinds of bodies over others. 39:36 - Imagining the role of physicians in helping patients flourish. 44:55 - How health care professionals can find deeper meaning in their work and lives.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.Copyright The Doctor's Art Podcast 2026

Rev. Erin F. Moniz is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and associate chaplain and director for chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults and journeys with them toward healthy, gospel-centered relationships. She is a trained conciliator, mediator, and conflict coach. She enjoys playing music, being outdoors, and narrating the inner monologue of her two cats. She lives in Waco, Texas, with her husband, Michael. You can see more of Erin at her website, erinfmoniz.com. “I can live without sex, but I can’t live without intimacy.” In today’s landscape of digital interactions, many people long for deeper connections. We have a desire to move from being lonely and disconnected in our relationships to be seen, known, and wholly loved. From friendships to romantic relationships, meaningful and genuine personal connections remain our heart’s desire. College chaplain Rev. Erin Moniz is deeply attuned to the questions and concerns of today’s emerging adults. In Knowing and Being Known, she explores the essential elements of healthy relationships, addresses the complexities of intimacy, and shines a light on the barriers that can impede genuine connection. With her compelling storytelling and expert insights from her research with emerging adults, she emphasizes the significant role of identity and self-worth in fostering meaningful relationships. This comprehensive resource goes beyond the subject of sex, providing a holistic perspective on intimacy that resonates with single emerging adults and married couples alike. Begin to experience healthy relationships and transform your relational world as you ask better questions to get better answers. To know that we are loved by God is to know our identity in Christ. And this knowing provides us the tools and the path to a healthy, sustainable intimacy that allows us to be at home in our fullness in the gospel and with each other. Subscribe/Rate/Review Seminary Dropout on Apple Podcasts Get 40% off Shane's book Go and Do: Nine Axioms on Peacemaking and Transformation From the Life of John Perkins.

Skye and I start at 27 mins and Nyyera and I start at 1:00 Join us in Vegas for Podjam 3! Subscribe and Watch Interviews LIVE : On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. This show is Ad free and fully supported by listeners like you! Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 750 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Skye L. Perryman is a lawyer and the President and CEO of Democracy Forward, a non-partisan, national legal organization that promotes democracy and progress through litigation, regulatory engagement, policy education, and research. Over the course of Ms. Perryman's legal career, which has spanned nearly two decades, she has served in litigation roles at two global law firms, as a general counsel and chief legal officer, and in non-profit organizations. Ms. Perryman has represented clients across a broad range of industries, including in the healthcare, financial services, technology, education, consumer products, and non-profit sectors. Ms. Perryman's work has been recognized widely for its positive impact on people and communities. She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her commitment to public service and her professional work, including being named a Harry S. Truman Scholar (2002), a Baylor Line Foundation Outstanding Young Alumni (2018), a four-time Rising Star in Litigation in Washington, DC, one of the Most Influential People Shaping Policy in Washington, among other recognitions. Ms. Perryman is a frequent guest lecturer and keynote speaker on matters at the intersection of law and policy. Her legal briefs have been cited by the US Supreme Court as well as state supreme courts and her work is frequently covered in outlets such as The New York Times, National Public Radio, NBC News, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, Teen Vogue, MSNBC, and CNN. As a founding member of the litigation team at Democracy Forward, Ms. Perryman developed and filed cases challenging unlawful activities pursued by the forty-fifth Presidential administration. All told, Democracy Forward brought more than 100 legal actions against the prior administration for abuses of power, stopping harmful policies and improving the lives of millions. Following the events of January 6, 2021, Democracy Forward expanded the scope and reach of its work to address anti-democratic activity across the nation, including countering the work of far-right legal organizations who are seeking to reverse our nation's progress. It has taken more than 700+ actions and works alongside more than 400+ clients and partners, filing cases across a range of issues, including those that advance reproductive health care, protect the freedom to read, defend civil rights, and preserve crucial checks and balances in our system of government. Under Ms. Perryman's leadership, Democracy Forward has emerged as a leader in unmasking Project 2025 - an effort backed by more than 100 far-right organizations to enable a future anti-democratic presidential administration to take swift action to roll back our rights and freedoms, and hurt the American people. Ms. Perryman grew up in Waco, Texas and is a proud product of K-12 public education. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy magna cum laude from Baylor University where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and a Juris Doctor with honors from the Georgetown University Law Center where she served as an Editor for the American Criminal Law Review and was an Editor in Chief for the ACLR's Annual Survey on White Collar Crime. Perryman serves on the board of the Interfaith Alliance, the Baylor Line Foundation, and the Atlas Performing Arts Center, among other non-profit charitable organizations. Nayyera Haq is a highly respected communications expert, trusted by global leaders and organizations to elevate their public presence. With a career spanning government, media, and the corporate world, Nayyera has prepared executives, policymakers, and thought leaders for speeches at the United Nations, global leadership conferences, and boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies. Her unique experience as a former White House Senior Director and current global affairs analyst for CNN and MSNBC enables her to offer unparalleled insights into leadership, messaging, and media strategy. Join us Thursday's at 8EST for our Weekly Happy Hour Hangout!  Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on YouTube  Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page All things Jon Carroll  Follow and Support Pete Coe Buy Ava's Art  Hire DJ Monzyk to build your website or help you with Marketing

Most of us spend our entire lives being someone's daughter, but we rarely talk about what that role actually asks of us. In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Elizabeth Alford, a professor of communication at Baylor University and a leading researcher on “daughtering,” to unpack the expectations, emotional labor, and pressure many women carry in their families and how those dynamics can quietly shape our relationships, boundaries, and even our sex lives. What “daughtering” actually means. Why the role of daughter is rarely talked about but deeply shapes our identities, responsibilities, and expectations in families. The invisible labor daughters often carry. How emotional support, family coordination, and relational maintenance quietly fall on daughters. Why being a “good daughter” becomes tied to self-worth. How many women internalize the idea that being available, supportive, and reliable is what makes them worthy. The pressure of family expectations. Why daughters often feel responsible for maintaining harmony, showing up for everyone, and never dropping the ball. The shift from “perfect daughter” to “good enough daughter.” A simple reframe that helps reduce the pressure and unrealistic standards so many of us carry. How daughterhood affects romantic relationships. Why carrying too much emotional labor in family dynamics can leave women feeling mentally tapped out and impact desire and intimacy. Why partnership and delegation matter. How allowing siblings or partners to share emotional responsibilities can relieve pressure and strengthen relationships. Setting boundaries with family members. Practical ways to decide what you are and are not willing to discuss and how to communicate those boundaries clearly. Preparing for difficult family conversations. Why going into family interactions with a plan can help prevent frustration and resentment. How to start reshaping your role as a daughter. Small mindset shifts that help relieve some pressure while still maintaining connection with family. Connect with Dr. Elizabeth Alford Learn more about Dr. Alford's research on daughterhood and family communication on her website or by listening her podcast Hello Mother, Hello Daughter, where she explores the mother-daughter relationship through both academic insight and lived experience. You can also purchase a copy of her book "Good Daughtering" HERE! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1 Timothy 4:8 NIV “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”   *Transcription Below*   Brian Smith, author of The Christian Athlete: Glorifying God in Sports, is a staff member with Athletes in Action and a cross-country coach at Lowell High School. A former collegiate runner at Wake Forest University, he earned a BA in Communications and Journalism before completing his MA in Theology and Sports Studies at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary. Brian lives in Lowell, MI with his wife and three children. You can find him on Twitter @BrianSmithAIA.   Ed Uszynski is an author, speaker, and sports minister with over three decades' experience discipling college and professional athletes. With a heart for reconciliation and justice, he also works as a racial literacy consultant and marriage conference speaker, blending Biblical wisdom with practical living in the midst of complex cultural realities. He has two theological degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a PhD in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. He and his wife Amy have four children and live in Xenia, Ohio.   The Christian Athlete Website   Thank You to Our Sponsor:  Sam Leman Eureka   Questions and Topics We Cover: What is one of kids' greatest game day complaints?  Is it true that young athletic success is a predictor of adult athletic success? What are a few tips for instilling a heart of gratitude in our young athlete, rather than entitlement?   Related Savvy Sauce Episode: 230 Intentional Parenting in All The Stages with Dr. Rob Rienow   Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website   Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”   Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”   Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”    Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”    Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”    Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”    John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”    Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”   Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”   Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession- to the praise of his glory.”   Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”   Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“   Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“   Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”   *Transcription*   Music: (0:00 – 0:11)   Laura Dugger: (0:12 - 1:51) Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.   The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka.   Owned and operated by the Bertschi family, Sam Leman and Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over Central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at lemangm.com.   Brian Smith and Ed Uszynski are my guests for today.   They are co-authors of this recent amazing book entitled, A Way Game, A Christian Parents Guide to Navigating Youth Sports. And from the very beginning, I was captivated, even with one of the endorsements from Matt Martens, who's the president and CEO of Awana, and he summed it up this way, A Way Game provides a much needed perspective shift on one of the most sacred idols in our culture, youth sports. So, Brian and Ed are all for youth sports, and yet you're going to hear there's a different way to approach it than what we've been trained in culture.   And they're going to share some wonderful and very practical insights. I can't wait to share this with you. Here's our chat. Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Ed and Brian.   Ed Uszynski & Brian Smith: (1:51 - 1:54) Thanks for having us, Laura. Yeah, good to be here, Laura.   Laura Dugger: (1:54 - 2:04) So, excited about this chat. And will the two of you just start us off by sharing your family's stage of life and your involvement in sports?   Brian Smith: (2:05 - 3:29) Yeah, there could be a lot on the back end of that question. I'll start with sports, then get into family. I've been involved in sports my entire life, played every sport imaginable growing up, got cut from just about every single sport my freshman year of high school, ended up running track and cross country because it was the only sports that you could not get cut from at my high school.   And I ended up being pretty good at it by the time I was a senior, won some state championships, ended up getting a scholarship to run at Wake Forest University. So, I did that for four years right out of college. I coached a little bit collegiately.   Soon after that, I joined staff with a sports ministry called Athletes in Action that Ed and I have a combined 50 years with Athletes in Action. And really, that's been my life ever since. I've been ministering to college and pro athletes, discipling them, helping them figure out what does that actually look like to integrate faith in sport.   Even today, I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I coach high school cross country while I'm still on staff with Athletes in Action. I have a middle school Bible study that I run on Wednesday mornings.   Been married to my wife, who I actually met in high school. She was a distance runner too, and she ran at Wisconsin. So, we've been married for 20 years.   We have three kids, a high schooler, a middle schooler, and an elementary schooler who are all involved in sport at some level, some way, shape, or form.   Laura Dugger: (3:30 - 3:34) Wow, that's incredible. Thank you, Brian. And Ed, what about you?   Ed Uszynski: (3:34 - 5:04) Well, my story is very parallel to Brian's, just different sports and some different numbers. Just tack on 15 years. Yeah, I was a basketball player.   Grew up on the west side of Cleveland with a high school football coach. My dad was, but I was a basketball player. I played at high levels all the way through my 20s, got to play overseas.   I mean, this was a long time ago, but I got everything I could out of that sport. And as soon as I graduated from college, though, I started to work with that Athletes in Action ministry that Brian mentioned. So, I've been working with college and professional athletes for 34 years now.   And same, coached at different levels, have four kids. Amy and I have been married for 26 years. We have four kids, three are in college, and one's in ninth grade, who has a game this afternoon, actually.   So, we've just been going to games and have been involved in going to sports stuff for the last 20 years with our kids. And really what happened with Brian, and I is that we looked up a decade ago and realized this youth sports thing was a fast train that was moving in directions that we weren't used to ourselves, even though we've been around sports our whole life. It's like, there's something different happening now.   And then thinking about it as Christians, like, how do we do this well as Christ followers? We don't want to separate from it. We don't want to just go for the ride. How do we do this as Christian people? And that's what got us talking about it and eventually led to this book.   Laura Dugger: (5:05 - 5:23) Well, the book was easy to read and incredible. And I'd like to start there where you begin, even where you go back before going forward. So, when you're looking back, what are the factors at play that changed youth sports over time?   Ed Uszynski: (5:26 - 6:17) Well, I'll say this and then Brian, maybe you jump in and throw a couple of them out there. I mean, youth sports is a $40 billion industry today, which is wild to think about. It's four times how much money gets spent on the NFL, which is just staggering.   I can't even hardly believe that that's true, but it is. And it's really just in the last 20 years that that's happened. I mean, 50 years ago, you couldn't have had the youth sport industrial complex, as we refer to it.   You couldn't have had it. There were a bunch of things that had to happen culturally, as is true with any new movement or any paradigm shift that happens in culture. You've got to have certain things be true all at the same time that make it possible.   So, Brian, what were a couple of those? Again, I'll throw it over to you. There's six of them that we talk about in the book. And I think it's really fascinating because I'm a history guy.   Brian Smith: (6:18 - 8:40) Yeah. And we can obviously double click on any of these, Laura, that you want to, but we talk about how the college admissions process became an avenue where youth sports parents saw, man, if we can get our kids involved in some extracurriculars and kind of tag on high level athlete to their resume, it actually helps with the college admissions process. And so even the idea of college scholarships became an opportunity for youth sports parents to get their kids involved.   And then, yeah, maybe sports can actually get them into college. We talk about the economic shifts that happen, the rise of safetyism and helicopter parenting. ESPN was a massive one in 1979.   This thing called ESPN starts, and we get 24-7 coverage of sports, which they started exploring even early on. What does it look like to give coverage to something like Little League World Series and saw that it didn't really matter how young the sport was, it's going to draw a national audience. And so, we've almost been discipled by ESPN really over the last 50 years with this consistent coverage.   We talk about the rise of the sports complex. This one to me is like the most fascinating out of all of them. In 1997, Disney decided to try to get more people to come to their parks.   They built a sports complex, just a massive sports complex. The idea was, are the older kids getting sick of the Buzz Lightyear ride and the Disney princesses? So, let's build a sports complex and maybe it'll be something else that will draw this older crowd too.   And what happened was, I mean, a lot of people started coming to it, but kind of the stake in the ground game changer was when 9-11 hit. In the months and years after that, they saw a lot less people go to their parks, but population actually doubled going to the sports complex, which is wild to think that people were afraid to go to theme parks for a vacation, but they were willing to travel across state lines to play sports at the Disney complex. So other cities and municipalities took notice of that.   Today, there's over 30,000 sports complexes like Disney's, which again, this is all adding to the system of the youth sports industrial complex. Did I miss any, Ed?   Ed Uszynski: (8:41 - 10:47) Well, no, and that's good. And the reason why we even put all that on the table, again, everybody kind of intuitively knows if you're involved, you know, something's not right. But I think it's important to say this is not normal what's happening.   It's a new normal that's been manufactured by a bunch of cultural trends, by a bunch of entrepreneurs that are doing what entrepreneurs do, and they're taking advantage of the moment, and they are generating lots of money around it. So, it should be encouraging. If it's not normal, that means actually there's a counter way of going about this.   There really can be reformation. But when all this money gets involved, the two biggest consequences that come out of that is our kids start getting treated like commodities, which they are, and we could talk the whole time even just about what that means. But maybe even more importantly, or what comes out of that is that beyond their physical development, most coaches and clubs are not paying any attention to their emotional development, their psychological development, their spiritual development, all the different aspects of what it means to be human that, frankly, used to be paid quite a bit more attention to in youth leagues when I was growing up.   I'm 58 now, so I was playing in the 70s and the 80s. And it used to be expected, at least at some level, even among non-Christian people, that you would take those aspects of a kid's life seriously. And now those just aren't prioritized.   And so, what do we do about that? Again, that's kind of our whole point is, well, as Christian people, we're really supposed to be our kid's first discipler anyways. And part of that role and part of taking on that identity is that we would be asking, what is God trying to do in the wholeness of their life, the entirety of their life, even in the context of sports?   So again, I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but that's why we're trying to poke into that to say, oh, we could actually make change. We may not change the whole system. In fact, we won't. Most of us won't be expected to do that, but we can make significant change in our corner of the bleachers and what happens with our kids.   Laura Dugger: (10:48 - 11:05) That's good. And just like you said, to double-click on a few places, first of all, real quick, the 30,000 number, I remember that shocking me in the book, but I'm forgetting now, is that worldwide, the amount of sports complexes or is that just in America?   Brian Smith: (11:05 - 11:06) That's domestically in the US.   Laura Dugger: (11:07 - 11:52) Yeah. That is staggering. And then one other piece, all of this history was new to me as you brought it all together, but it was also fascinated.   This is from page 32. I'll just read your quote. The American youth sports ball began rolling when a British movement fusing spiritual development with physical activity made its way across the Atlantic Ocean at the turn of the last century.   And Ed, that's kind of what you were touching on, that they were mixing, I'm sure, spiritual, psychological discipleship, physical. Can you elaborate more on what was happening and where it originated? Because we've come very far from our origins.   Ed Uszynski: (11:53 - 13:18) Yeah. And there's been a bunch of really great books written about this topic called muscular Christianity. This idea, like you just said, Laura, of wedding physical activity through sports with our spiritual development and expecting and anticipating that somebody that was taking care of their body and that was engaging in sport activity, that was the closest thing to godliness.   That opened up the door for you to also be developing spiritually. And there was an expectation that both of those are going on at the same time. A bunch of criticism about that movement, but it was taken seriously.   The YMCA is actually a huge byproduct of the muscular Christianity movement. The Young Men's Christian Association created space for sports and for athletic activity to take place under the banner of you're also going to grow spiritually as you're doing this. So again, that was a hundred years ago.   And that's not really what AAU stands for today. The different clubs and leagues that we get involved in just don't talk that way anymore. Of course, culture just in general has shifted away from sort of a Judeo-Christian ethic guiding a North Star for us.   Even if we're not Christian people, that used to be more of a North Star. That's gone now. And so, it really is not expected in sports anymore.   Brian Smith: (13:18 - 13:55) And what we're saying is we cannot expect organizations to own that process for our kids. We can't outsource the discipleship of our kids to the youth sports industrial complex or the YMCA or the AAU. It really does start with us as Christian parents to be the primary discipler of our kids.   And there is a way to take what's happening on the field or the court or the pool and turn it into really amazing discipleship opportunities. But it means, and Ed is starting to tease this out, it means we need to change our perspective as parents when we sit in the bleachers or on the sidelines of what we're looking for and even the conversations we have with our kids on the back end.   Laura Dugger: (13:57 - 15:29) And now a brief message from our sponsor.   Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi family for over 25 years. A lot has changed in the car business since Sam and Stephen's grandfather, Sam Leman, opened his first Chevrolet dealership over 55 years ago.   If you visit their dealership today though, you'll find that not everything has changed. They still operate their dealership like their grandfather did, with honesty and integrity. Sam and Stephen understand that you have many different choices in where you buy or service your vehicle.   This is why they do everything they can to make the car buying process as easy and hassle-free as possible. They are thankful for the many lasting friendships that began with a simple welcome to Sam Leman's. Their customers keep coming back because they experience something different.   I've known Sam and Stephen and their wives my entire life and I can vouch for their character and integrity, which makes it easy to highly recommend you check them out today. Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you and they appreciate your business.   Learn more at their website, LemanEureka.com or visit them on Facebook by searching for Sam Leman Eureka. You can also call them on 309-467-2351. Thanks for your sponsorship.   Laura Dugger: (15:30 - 15:31) And I want to continue getting into more of those practicals. Do you want to give us just a taste or an example or story of what that might look like?   Brian Smith: (15:32 - 16:54) We keep saying, we keep talking about the importance of the car ride home that it's tempting for us and not us broadly in the U.S., tempting for us, Ed and I, as people who have done this for 50 plus years and who should know better, it's tempting for us as discipled by an ESPN over analyzing everything culture and want to talk about sports to get in the car ride home with our kids and all we want to talk about is how game went, what they did right, what they did wrong, what they could fix next time.   Maybe instead of passing to Tim, they should take the shot next time because they're wide open. They just hit three in a row. So, and what our kids need from us in those moments is less coaching, less criticizing, less critiquing, and they just need us to connect with them.   The stats on kids quitting youth sports is crazy right now. Its 70 percent are quitting before the age of 13, in large part because it's not fun, and a lot of kids are attaching this idea of it not being fun to the car ride home with their parents who, let's say this too, most of us are well-intentioned parents. We're not trying to screw our kids up.   We want what's best for our kids, but the data and the research and the lived experience continues to tell us what our kids need from us is just to take a deep breath, connect with them, less coaching. Ed keeps saying less coaching, more slurpees.   Laura Dugger: (16:55 - 17:07) I like that. And that ties in. Is it called the peak-end principle that you discovered why kids are resisting that critique on the way home?   Brian Smith: (17:07 - 18:17) Yeah, absolutely. The peak-end rule in psychology is known as this: we, just as humans in general, not just kids, we largely remember things in our lives based on the peak moment of that event, but also how the event ends. And so, the peak moment in sport can be anything from something that goes really well, like they scored a goal or made a basket or something that did not go well, just like a massive event that took place that they're going to remember.   But then it's also married to how that event ends. So, if you think for kids, how does every youth sport experience end? It ends with the car ride home.   So, if they're experiencing the car ride home as I did not live up to mom and dad's standards, or there's fear getting into the car because they don't know what their parents are going to say, how are they remembering the totality of their youth sport experience? It is, I didn't, I didn't measure up. I wasn't enough.   It felt like sports was a place that I needed to perform for my parents or my coach. And I always feel a little bit short. We want to help parents see like there's a different path forward that can be more joyful for you, but hopefully more joyful for your kid as well.   Ed Uszynski: (18:17 - 21:37) Well, and, and I'll just, let me keep going with that, Brian. I thought you really articulated all that so well. I can just imagine a parent maybe thinking, was there never a time to correct?   Is there never a time to give input? And we would say, well, of course there, there is, they need far less of it from us than we think they need when it comes to their sport. And again, we can talk about that.   They need far less of that from us. They need us to be their parents, not to be their coaches. Even if we are their coach, they need us to be more their parents.   But there is a time to do it. We're just saying the car ride home is the worst time to do it. And that's usually the time that most of us, you know, we've got two hours of stuff to download with them.   And that's just, it's not a good time. But the other thing that Brian and I keep talking about is how about, what if we had some different metrics that we were even trying to measure? So, most of the time our metrics have to do with their performance.   Like what, what are we grading them on? Again, depending on what the sport is, there's these different things that we're looking for to say, how you did today is based on whether you did this or you didn't do that and whatnot. And we're saying as parents, and again, starting with us, we needed some other metrics that were actually more concerned about what was going on in their soul.   So again, I'm sure we'll talk more about this, but the virtues, how did love show up in the way they competed today? Where that usually is tied to them noticing somebody else. Do I, am I even asking them any questions about that?   Are they experiencing peace in the midst of all this chaos and anxiety that shows up at every game? How do we teach them to experience peace? How do they become other-centered instead of just self-centered all the time in a culture, a sport culture that's teaching them to always be the center of attention and try to be?   So, we just have needed to exchange some of what we had on that performance list, like tamper that down a little bit and maybe expand the list of categories that we're looking for that actually will matter when they're 25. And we keep saying this, our goal is that they'd come home for Thanksgiving when they're 25. And so, we need to stay relationally connected to them and how we act on the car ride home day after day after day after day, year after year is doing something to our relationship.   But we also are recognizing that it's really not going to matter whether Trey finishes with his left hand at the game today when he's 25, it's not going to matter. It's not going to matter probably a year from now, but how he goes through the handshake line after the game and the way he addresses other people, and whether or not he's learning to submit to authority, whether or not he's learning to embrace other people's humanity. Yes, even in the context of sports, that's really going to matter when he's 25.   It's going to matter when he's married. Those are the things that will matter. And we say that as people who are older and have been involved in ministry and have worked with college athletes and see what happens in their lives even after they're finished, and they have no idea who they are anymore.   And this thing that's dominated their life has not actually prepared them well to do life. And that's a problem that we say, let's start changing that when they're six and not hope they're figuring it out when they're 22.   Laura Dugger: (21:38 - 22:11) I love that because that's such a theme throughout those virtues that you talked about, but discipleship and sports are a tool or a way that we can disciple our kids. I also love that you give various questions throughout the book and even quick phrases. So to close that conversation on the car ride home, if we say, okay, that's what I've been coaching the whole way home, what is a question we could ask our child afterwards and a statement we could say and leave it at that and do it a better way?   Brian Smith: (22:12 - 23:56) The question I have consistently asked my kids after learning that I've been doing this the wrong way for a long time, I tweet my question to they get in the car and I say, is there anything that happened today from the game that you want to talk about? And it's frustrating to me because 99% of the time they say, no, can we listen to the radio? And we listen to the radio, or they play a on my phone, but I'm respecting their desire that they're done with what just happened and they're ready to move on to the next thing, even though I really want to talk about what just happened.   And then the statement that I want to make sure that I'm consistently saying that they're hearing is I love you and I'm proud of you. So, game didn't go well. Yeah, you did play well today.   That's okay. Hey, I love you and I'm proud of you. Game went well today.   Awesome. Great job. Hey, I love you and I'm proud of you.   So I want that to be the consistent theme that they're hearing for me, which is hopefully going to help them better understand the gospel later in life, that as they get older and older, hopefully they'll begin to realize it seemed like the way that my mom and dad interacted with me when I was performing in sport, but their love was not attached to my performance. That seems really similar to what I'm learning more and more that Jesus does for me, that I'm trying to do all these things that are good. But from what I'm understanding about the gospel, it seems like Jesus loves me in spite of what I do.   He loves me just because He's connected to me, that God loves me because I'm a son or daughter, not because I'm performing as a son or a daughter. So, in a very real way, I really am hoping that I'm giving a good teaser for my kids now for when they fully experience the gospel as they go through the life.   Ed Uszynski: (23:56 - 24:47) Another really good connecting question. I love how you said all that, Brian, is if they don't want to talk about the game, is it okay, did you have fun today? And they can only go in one of two directions.   No. Well, tell me about that. Why not?   And it opens up the door to talk about, well, because I didn't get to play or because something bad happened. And again, tell me more about that. Tell me more about that.   Or they say, yes, great. What happened that was fun? And it creates a very different conversation in the car.   And it opens up, again, relational possibilities that go way beyond, why do you keep passing it when you should be shooting it? Wow. And just all the different ways that that comes out of us, depending on sport, depending on their age.   But those are great questions. Go ahead, Brian.   Brian Smith: (24:47 - 25:41) I just asked my son this morning. He's a freshman. His wrestling season is almost done.   And I just asked, like, what has been most fun for you in wrestling this year? And his first thing was, I feel like I'm learning a lot. And that's really fun for me, which he's on a really good team.   He's had a lot of success. He's made a lot of good friends. But even that gave me a window into his characters.   My son enjoys and I knew this is true about him. But my son enjoys learning, which means he enjoys the process of getting better and better and better, which can happen in school, it can happen doing stuff in the yard, it can it can also happen in sport. But for me to remember moving forward, yeah, he he's probably going to have a different metric for what's fun in sport than I often do for him.   Yeah, like I wanted to learn. I want him to win though, too. He's happy with learning right now.   So, I need to be happy with that for him.   Ed Uszynski: (25:41 - 26:34) If I can say this, too, again, I don't want to be vulnerable on your behalf. But then knowing this, he's lost a lot this year to really good kids. Yeah.   And so much of the learning has been in the context of losing. So, you as a dad, actually, you could be crushing him because of those losses and what he needs to do to fix that and what he needs to do so that that doesn't happen again. And it's like he's already committed to learning.   How do you just how do you celebrate the loss? Like he took the risk to try something new in this movie. He tried to survive an extra period.   That's a process when and it's we just need to get better at that. Like you genuinely can celebrate that. That's not just a that's not like a participation trophy.   It's acknowledging now, do you're taking you're taking the right steps that are actually making you a winner, even if you don't have more points at the end of the game right now.   Laura Dugger: (26:34 - 26:54) Yeah. Yeah. And that long term win that you're talking about, even with character and you've talked about fun and asking them about fun.   Is it true that that's the main reason kids are dropping out of sports at such a rapid rate before age 13 is that it's just not fun anymore?   Ed Uszynski: (26:55 - 28:58) Yeah. Yeah. And why is it not fun?   And again, this is where Brian and I are always getting in each other's business. And we know that this conversation gets in all of our business as adults. But why is it not fun?   It's not fun because of the coaches and it's not fun because of the parents. We are creating stress. We are creating again collectively because we're all in different places on the on the spectrum on this in terms of what we're actually doing when we show up at games.   But if you even just go to any soccer game and you be quiet and just listen to what's happening and everybody's shouting and screaming things and there's contradictory messages being sent and there's angst at every turn and there's an incredible celebration because this eight year old was able to get the ball to go across the line for another goal. And what that's doing inside the kids is it is creating a not fun atmosphere. Let's just say it like that.   That's a not fun atmosphere when you're eight, when you're 10, when you're trying to figure out how to make your body work. You're trying to learn the game that you're unfamiliar with and you're trying to do what this coach is telling you to do. And you're also trying to do what all the parents are telling you what to do.   And if it's a team sport, you're trying to interact and play with other kids who are all in that same state of disarray, which is very stressful and frustrating. And we're just adding to it. So instead of removing it, instead of playing a role that says, we're going to keep diffusing that stress.   And again, I'll speak for myself. Too often, I have been the one that's actually adding to it. And so, kids are just like, why would I do this?   Why would I want to get in that car again with you? It's not fun. This is a game.   And so, there's a million other things that I can do with my time where I don't have everybody yelling at me and I don't have to listen to you correct me for two hours.   Laura Dugger: (29:00 - 29:21) Well, and one other thing that surprised me, maybe why kids are dropping out, you share on page 47, a quote that research reveals a strange correlation. The more we spend, the less our kids actually enjoy their sport. So, did you have any more insight into that?   Brian Smith: (29:21 - 30:50) Yeah, this was a real study that was done at Utah State. Researchers found that the more money parents are spending, again, let's say well-intentioned parents, the more we're spending in sports, the less our kids are enjoying. And the more they have dug into it, they're finding, and intuitively it makes sense.   If you buy your kid a $600 baseball bat, what's the expectation that they're supposed to do with this really expensive bat? When they swing, they better hit the ball, and they better get on base. If we're going to buy you this expensive of a bat, you can't just have process goals with it.   You better swing and hit it. And that's causing stress for kids. If you travel across state lines and you go to Disney to play at their sports complex, you're not there for vacation.   You're there to perform. So even if parents are saying we're trying to have fun, kids know when you're traveling and you're getting all this good equipment and you're on the elite team and you're receiving the best of the best stuff, they know it comes with some sort of an expectation. College athletes can barely handle that type of pressure and expectations, but we've placed this professional on youth sports from fifth five-year-olds to 15-year-olds, and it's just crushing them.   It's crushing them. Again, college athletes and professional athletes can barely handle it. They need mental health coaches for sports, but we're expecting that our five-year-olds can handle it, and they can't.   Ed Uszynski: (30:51 - 31:19) And they may not even be able to articulate it. So that's the other thing. They may not be able to identify what's actually going on inside and put it into words.   So again, that's why we're trying to sound the alarm for ourselves and for others who are listening, because we can do it different. Again, just to even keep spinning it back in an encouraging direction, we can do this different. We can change this this week in our corner of the bleachers.   We can start over again.   Laura Dugger: (31:21 - 31:48) Absolutely and make a difference. And before we talk about even more of the pros with sports, I think it's also necessary to reflect and maybe even grieve a few things. So, what would you say are some things families are missing out on when they choose youth sports to overfill their calendar, that that's all that they make time for?   What do you think they're missing out on?   Brian Smith: (31:51 - 33:16) Yeah, I think a couple that come to mind are family dinners are a big one. That's big for us in the Smith house, is just having the ability after a long day to sit at the dinner table together, to eat food together, and to process the day and be with one another. But when my kids' practice goes late, it means we're either eating almost towards bedtime or we're eating in different shifts.   And so that's something that we grieve. I think for me, when my schedule is full, I'm tempted to adopt the mindset that what's happening on the wrestling mat or on the track matters more than it actually does. And it robs me of the ability to just take a deep breath and smile and enjoy watching my kids play sports.   That without an intervention or a pregame devotional in the car for myself, I risk sitting in the stands or being on the sidelines, being stressed out and putting pressure on myself and pressure on my kids and gossiping about why the coach didn't put this kid into the people next to me, instead of just enjoying the gift that is sports and watching my kid try and succeed and try and fail. That is a gift available to me as a dad to watch my kid do that. But the busyness often robs me of that perspective.   Ed Uszynski: (33:17 - 36:06) Well, and the busyness robs, again, if you're married, that busyness eventually wears away at your relationship. And it's not just sports. I mean, busyness, we can fill our schedule, overfill our schedules with any number of things.   We can overfill our schedules with church stuff to a point where it becomes detrimental to our relationship. If we don't set boundaries so that we're making sure we're doing what we need to do to be face-to-face and to be going to areas beneath the surface with each other in our relationship and being able to do that with our kids as well, eventually there's negative consequences to that. It may not happen right away, but I've definitely experienced that.   We've experienced that in our home where it's easy to maybe chase one kid around for a while, but what happens when you add three into the mix and you haven't really done a time budget or paid attention to the fact that when we sign up for all these things, you get a month into it and you realize, oh, we have to be in different places at the same time. So, we're not even watching stuff together anymore. We're just running.   I can endure anything for a season, but what youth sports wants now in every sport from the youngest ages is that it becomes a year-round commitment. So, you're not even signing up to play a season anymore. You're signing up for a year in most cases because after the games, then they're going to have training.   They're going to have this other thing going on. And so again, can we say, well, we'll play the actual season, but then we're not going to do the additional training over these next three months. Again, we want to give parents' permission that you can say no to that.   Well, we paid for it. Well, it's okay. If you want your kid to be on that team and you like this club or whatever, then you pay the money and you just say, we're going to sit those three months out and we're going to use those three months actually to have people over our house for dinner.   Again, whatever's on the list, Laura, that you said about being more holistic and not letting sport operate like an idol in our life where it's taken on, it's washed out everything else in our life. We can get back in control of that by just saying no a little bit. You can go to church on Sunday.   Even if there's tournament games going on on Sunday, you can go to the coach early and say, hey, we just, in our family, we just don't want to be available before 12. Are you okay with that? And most of the time coaches will be.   The kid might have to sit extra maybe for not being, whatever. Okay. That's not going to be the end of the world that they had to sit out an extra game or had to sit out a half because they weren't available on Sunday morning.   It might actually make a huge difference that they weren't at church for two and a half years in the most formative time of their life.   Laura Dugger: (36:07 - 37:36) And a lot of times the way of wisdom includes reflection, getting alone with the Lord and asking, have we overstuffed our schedule this conversation today? Let's talk specifically with youth sports. Is that trumping everything else?   Because what if we're putting it in a place it was never intended to be as an idol where we sacrifice hospitality or discipleship or community or even just a more biblical way of life? I think we have to bring wisdom into the conversation for what you've mentioned. Whether it's worth it, if they're even enjoying it, how much we're spending on it, and do we have the budget to allocate our finances that way and evaluating the time just to see and make sure that it's rightly ordered.   Did you know you could receive a free email with monthly encouragement, practical tips, and plenty of questions to ask to take your conversation a level deeper, whether that's in parenting or on date nights? Make sure you access all of this at thesavvysauce.com by clicking the button that says join our email list so that you can follow the prompts and begin receiving these emails at the beginning of each month. Enjoy!   But if we flip that to if youth sports are rightly ordered, then what are some things that we can celebrate or reasons that you would want families to give this a try?   Brian Smith: (37:37 - 40:09) The massive positive that we keep coming back to is we have a front row seat to see our kids go through every possible emotion in sport, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And then if we have the right perspective, we are armed with awesome opportunities and awesome information that we're seeing. We get to see what our kids are really good at.   We get to see their character gaps. And then we get to be the ones who, again, who are their primary response, primary disciplers. It really goes back to like, are we trusting youth sports for too little in our kids' lives?   Like many of us are trusting that our investment is going to get them a spot on a team, or maybe they get an opportunity in high school, maybe in college. And what we're saying is, yeah, that maybe. And that's not a bad end goal.   But if that's everything that you're investing into youth sports, it's not enough. Like what you have available to you every single day is to ask your kid if they showed somebody else's dignity on the field. You don't know if your kid's going to hit a home run today.   That may not be available to them their entire life. What's available to them every single day is to ask a question to their teammate, to see somebody and show dignity to them. And that's really, it's like, it's almost the opportunity of a lifetime for us as parents who, when our kids get home from school, we really don't know what happened most of the day.   We asked them how it went and we get the one-word answer. In sports, we don't have to guess. We get to see everything that happens.   And again, if we are actually trusting youth sports for discipleship investment, that's a good ROI. That's a good return on our investment. But we need a consistent intervention almost daily to say, no, this is why they're in sports.   Yes, I want to see them get better. I want to see them have fun, but Holy Spirit, would you help me see things today that I normally don't see? Holy Spirit, would you put them in circumstances and relationships today and in the season that's going to help them look more and more like Jesus by the time the season's done?   Holy Spirit, would you convict me in the moment when I am being a little too mouthy and saying things that I shouldn't? Would you help me to repent? And God, in those moments where I'm actually doing wrong on behalf of my kid, would you help me to humble myself and apologize to them?   And God, would you repair our relationship that way? So again, all of these options are available just because our kid's shooting a ball or they're on the field with somebody else tackling other people. We're trusting youth sports for too little.   Ed Uszynski: (40:10 - 41:10) That's all big boy and big girl stuff. It just is. I don't normally naturally do any of that.   I have to be coached into that. I have to be discipled myself. I have to work through my own issues, my own baggage, my own fears about the future, my own idolatrous holding onto this imagined future that I have for my kid, irrespective of what God may or may not want.   I've got my own resentment. I've got my own regrets from the past. I wish things had gone differently for me, so I'm going to make sure they go different for you when it comes to sports.   And it's hard to look in the mirror and admit that I have anger issues. I mean, youth sports create a great opportunity for me to get up all my pent-up frustration from the day. We've given ourselves permission to do that, in most cases, to just yell and yell at refs and gripe about coaches and yell at kids.   Brian Smith: (41:10 - 41:31) Because that's what we do at the TV, right? When our favorite team is playing, we've conditioned ourselves to say, awful call, that was terrible. Then we get on social media and we complain about it.   We are discipling ourselves to this is how it's normative to respond within the context of sports. Then we carry all that baggage to our six-year-old soccer game.   Laura Dugger: (41:33 - 42:02) Well, I love how you keep pointing it back toward character and discipleship. You clearly state throughout the book, sports don't develop character, people do. But could you maybe elaborate on that a little bit more and share more now that we've listed pros and cons, you still list a completely different way that we can meaningfully participate while also pushing back?   Brian Smith: (42:04 - 43:49) I'll start with the first part, and then you can answer the second. We use the handshake line as a great example of why character needs to be taught to our kids. If you just watch a normal handshake line left without coaching, the kids are going through it, especially the ones who lose with their head down, they have limp hands, there's no eye contact, and they're mumbling good game, good game.   Sometimes they don't even say it, they'll say GG stands for good game. They don't just learn character by going through the handshake line. If anything, that's going through it like that without any sort of intervention or coaching, that's malforming their character.   That's teaching them when things don't go well, that it's okay for them not to be a big boy or a big girl and look somebody in the eye and congratulate them. What needs to happen? An adult needs to step in and say, hey, as we go through the handshake line, whether you win or lose, here's how we do it with class.   We shake somebody's hand, we look them in the eye, and we say good game. Even if in those moments we don't actually mean it, we still show them dignity and honor. And then when we're done going through the handshake line, guess what we're going to do?   We're going to run down the refs who are trying to get in their car and get out of here, and we're going to give them a high five and say, thank you so much for reffing today. That stuff needs to be taught. Our kids don't just come out of the womb knowing how to do that.   We have to teach them how to do it. Sometimes good coaches will do that, but the more and more we get sucked up into the sports industrial complex, we're getting well-intentioned coaches, but we're getting coaches who care more about the big W, the win, than the character formation stuff that happens.   Ed Uszynski: (43:49 - 45:27) They need to keep hearing it over and over again. I have a ninth grade Bible study in my house the other day with athletes and a whole bunch of my son's basketball team. Exactly what Brian just said, I actually was like, wow, I've got them here.   There was a big blow up at a game the other day, and we wound up talking about it. I said, I'm going to take this opportunity actually to say what Brian just said. When you go through a handshake line, this is how you go through it.   I watched what happened in the game a couple days later. Basically, they did the exact opposite of what I told them to do, and they lost. It was just what Brian said.   They went through limp handed. They didn't look anybody in the face, and they weren't even saying anything. I just chuckled to myself, and you know how this is as a parent.   They may or may not do it. Of course, those aren't my kids. I have more stewardship over my child, who actually, he is doing what I've asked him to do because I've re-emphasized it across time now.   It's not a failure because they didn't do what I said. Again, the pouty side of me wants to be like, forget it. I'm just not even going to try anymore.   It's like, no, they're kids. That was the first time they've heard that. They're going to do what their patterns have, the muscle memory that's been created by their patterns, just like we do as adults.   The next time I have a chance to bring that up again, I'm not going to shame them. I'm just going to go over it again with them. Here's how we do it.   It's super hard to do this, guys, when you just want to be violent with people or you want to cry. You got to pull yourself together. That's what big men do.   That's what big women do in life. They pull themselves together in those moments and do the right thing.   Brian Smith: (45:28 - 46:01) You don't know whether the fifth time you say it is going to stick or the 50th time. Your responsibility as the Christ-following parent is to do it the sixth time and the seventh time and the seventh time and trust that God is going to take those moments and do what he does. We're ultimately not responsible for our kids' behavior.   We're responsible for pointing them in the right direction, and then hopefully, yeah, the Holy Spirit steps in and transforms and changes and convicts in those moments, but it might take some time.   Ed Uszynski: (46:02 - 47:47) Tom Bilyeu So that's how you push back, Laura. You were asking that. How do we push back without being just completely involved in it or going for the same ride that everybody else is going for?   There's just little moments like that scattered throughout. Literally, every day that my kids are involved in youth sports, the car ride over, what happens on the way home, how we talk about it, what happens during the game and what we wind up talking about out of that, the side conversations that happen that just get brought up apart from games of how we interact with people and so-and-so looks like they're struggling. What do you know about that?   That's how we push back, that in our corner of the bleachers, oh, how we interact with other parents. We haven't even talked about that yet, that I can take an interest in more than just my own kid in the bleachers and spend way more energy actually in cheering for other kids and just trying to give them confidence and spend way less time trying to direct that at my own child who knows that I'm there. In fact, my side kid has said he doesn't want to hear my voice during the game.   It distracts him. He's like, I'd much rather that you cheer for other people. It's like, okay.   Having questions ready for other parents during timeouts and as you sit there for hours together, what do you talk about? Well, I could be the one that actually initiates substantive conversations over time with them and asks them about what's going on in different parts of their life. And in having done that, people want to talk.   They want a safe place actually to share what's going on in their So let me be the sports minister. Let me take on that identity and actually care about other people.   Laura Dugger: (47:49 - 49:47) I love that. Even that practical idea of just coming to each game, maybe with a different question, ready to open up those conversations. And I'll share a quick story as well.   Our two oldest daughters recently just gave cheerleading a try at a local Christian school that allows homeschool kids to participate. And this is an overt way that somebody chooses the different way. So, it's the coach of the basketball team.   His name is Cole. And at the end of every game, we saw him consistently throughout this season when it was a home game, whether their team won or lost, he would ask them, okay, shut off the scoreboard. It's all blank.   He gathers both teams. As soon as the game is over teams, cheerleaders, the stands stay filled with all the parents. And he says, this is not our identity.   The world and Satan, our enemy, who's very real. He wants us to put our identity here, but it's not here. You made us better tonight by the way that you played and you were able to shine Jesus.   And we're going to go a step further and we're going to do what we call attaways. So, he's like, all right, boys, you open it up. And his team is trained.   They say to the other team, Hey, number 23, what's your name? I loved how you pushed me so much harder tonight and says, my name's Ben. And so, their Attaway is, Hey, Ben.   And everybody goes, Hey, Ben. Yeah, Ben. Yeah, Ben Attaway.   And everybody just erupts in clapping. And the other team is always blown away and they are just grinning, whether they just lost. So, the boys go through that for a while and then they open it up to the other team and they start sharing Attaways.   And then they open it up to the crowd and the parents are able to say, I see the way you modeled Jesus by being selfless with the ball or whatever it is. So, Cole said that his college coach did that many years ago and he's passed that on. And I love that's one way to redeem the game.   Ed Uszynski: (49:47 - 51:39) Wow. Beautiful. Beautiful.   Yeah. That's amazing. And, you know, I, so Brian and I talk about this too.   And I coached at a Christian school. So, we, we think that it's really important if you're going to play sports and you're going to be a Christian coach that you actually take the game seriously. And that we actually are here to compete and we are here to try to win.   There's nothing wrong with that. And we're going to pursue excellence when we show up with our bodies, and we train for this sport and we're going to try to win. Cause I think sometimes we end up kind of going all or nothing, especially within our Christian circles.   We're uncomfortable with that. And it's like, yes, do that. And on the backside of that to do what that coach did is amazing.   It's that, that is, that is exactly what we're saying. We're also going to try to form our souls in the midst of this. We're going to try to win on the scoreboard.   Okay. The game's over, we lost, we won, whatever. There's more going on here than just that. And can we access that together? And again, that's so rare. Probably everybody listening has never even heard of anything like what you just said.   It would be amazing if a bunch of people did, but that's what we're saying. Let's do more of that. Let's find ways to have more of those conversations in our sphere of influence.   Maybe we're not the coach, but we can do that in our car. We can do that when we're at dinners with the other, with other players and other team, you know, we, we can do that. We can take that kind of initiative.   If we have those categories in our mind, instead of just being frustrated that my kid didn't get to play as much tonight. And I'm that bugs me. It's like, okay, it can bug you.   And now I gotta, I gotta be a big boy and get more out of this than just being frustrated that he or she didn't get to play as much. It's hard.   Laura Dugger: (51:40 - 52:11) Absolutely. Well, and like you guys are doing having Bible studies outside of the, the team that you can instill values in that way and share scripture that they're memorizing to go out there with excellence for the Lord. So, I love all of that.   And I've got just a few quick questions, just kind of for perspective. I want to draw out something from the book. Is it true that young athletic success predicts adult athletic success?   Brian Smith: (52:13 - 53:51) It is not true. This is, this is not a hot take. This is researched back more and more research they're doing on this.   And they're finding that there's not a direct correlation between a young elite athlete and them continuing that up into the right trajectory and being an elite athlete later in life in large part, because when puberty hits, like everything is a game changer. So, this is, I found this fascinating and this is probably going to be new to you too. This just came out today.   At the time we're doing this podcast, the winter Olympics is going on in Norway. It's just like, they're killing it. Nor Norway's youth sports system.   This is wild. They give participation trophies for all the kids. They don't keep score until 13 years old.   They don't do any national travel competitions, no posting youth sports results online. So, there's no online presence of youth sport results. And their country motto is joy of sport for all.   And they're, they're killing it right now in the Olympics. So, like, that's not to say, like you got to follow their model and then you're going to win all these gold medals, but it is, there is something to just let the kids have fun. And the longer they play sport, because it's fun, the better opportunity you're actually going to have to see them blossom and develop some of these God-given gifts that they might have.   Don't expect it to come out before they're 13. Even if it does, there's no guarantee that it's going to continue on until they're 23. Just let them have fun.   Ed Uszynski: (53:52 - 55:55) Brian, we, Brian and I got to speak at a church the other day about this topic. And there was a couple that came up afterwards and they asked the question of what, so when do you think we should let our kids play organized sports or structured sports? And so again, Brian and I are careful.   Like I, there's no, there's no one size fits all answer to that. We would suggest as late as possible, wait as long as possible. Because once you start doing structured sport where there's a coach and you have to be at practices and the games are structured and there's reps, it just cuts away all the possibility they have to just play and just to go up to the YMCA and just play for three hours at whatever it is that they like to do.   And they said, well, it's encouraging to hear that they said, because we, we actually are way more into just developing their bodies physically. And so, we do dance with them, and we do rock climbing and they were kind of outdoorsy people, and they just started listing off all these things they do because we want them to become strong in their bodies, and learn to love activity like that. And I just thought, again, that's, that probably would cause a lot of people to freak out to hear that, that they have eight, nine-year-olds that aren't on teams yet.   They're just, they're training their bodies to appreciate physicality and to become coordinated and to, you know, to get better at movement. And it's like, what sport is that not going to be super helpful in five years from now, even when they're 12, 13 years old. And now they really do want to play one sport, and they do want to be on a team.   They're going to be way ahead of the kids actually that just sat on benches or stood in the outfield, you know, day after day after day at practices. Again, that's maybe hard to hear, but maybe there's some adjustments that need to be made again; to give ourselves permission to say, we don't have to get on that train right now. You don't have to, your kid's not going to be behind.   They actually could be ahead. If you do the kinds of things we just talked about.   Laura Dugger: (55:56 - 56:11) I love that. And even that example with what it looks like played out with Norway and also, do you have any other quick tips just for instilling and cultivating a heart of gratitude and youth sports rather than entitlement?   Brian Smith: (56:13 - 57:33) I'm a high school cross country and track coach, and I have kids on my team who want to get faster at running, but instead of running, they want to lift weights and they want to do plier metrics. So, there's, yes, there's a spot for that. But the way you get better at running is to run.   You got to run more miles and more miles. And I think gratitude is similar. That gratitude, part of it is a, it's a feeling, but it's also a muscle that we can flex even if we don't feel it.   And so, I would encourage parents who are trying to instill gratitude into their kids to give them practical things like, hey, after practice, just go shake your coach's hand or give them a fist bump and tell them, thanks for practice today, coach. That that's a disciplined way to practice gratitude that will hopefully build the muscle where they're, they're using it later in life. After a game, I taught my kids this when they were young and they still do it today.   Go shake a ref's hand. I mentioned this earlier, just a really, really practical way to show thankfulness and gratitude to somebody who really doesn't get a whole lot of gratitude pointed at them during a game or after a game. If anything, they have people chasing them through the parking lot for other reasons.   I want my kids to be chasing them down to give them a fist bump or a high five. And so, gratitude is something that we can just practice practically. And hopefully the discipline practice will lead to a delight and actually doing it.   Ed Uszynski: (57:34 - 59:39) And how do we cultivate an inner posture? Cause I tend to be a cup half empty type person. I'm a, I'm a whiner by nature and a continuous improvement.   There's always something wrong. And I'm, it's easy for me to find those things just as a person. I'm not even saying that as a dad or a coach or anything.   And it's been super helpful to me in the last decade, even to just like, I can choose to shift that. There, there is, there's a list of things that are broke, but there is always a list of things that are good. There's always something good here to be found.   And even as I've tried to like, again, tip the scales more in that direction, I can keep pushing that out of my kids. So, so this, you know, my ninth-grade son tends to just like, he doesn't like a whole bunch of what's going on in basketball right now. So, I keep asking him if he's having fun.   He says, no, like, why not? Or like, who did, why did you not have fun today? So, it's just the same thing every day.   I'm like, okay, who did you enjoy even being with today? Nobody. And I'm like, dude, I don't believe that actually.   I just, I don't believe that. There was somebody that you had some moment with today that you enjoyed, or you wouldn't want to keep going back up there because, and he does. So, give me a name.   Okay. Lenny. What happened with Lenny that was fun? And I make him name it. Like I'm, I'm, I'm trying to coach him through it. And sure enough, he does have some sentences of what was fun today.   And it's like, good, let's, let's at least hold onto that in the midst of all the other stuff that's not right. Let's choose to see the thing that was good and that you enjoyed and that we could be thankful for. Not everybody got to have that today.   Again, I have to have my, I have to be the parent. I have to be the discipler. I have to be in, you know, in charge of my own soul that wants to be negative all the time and say, nope, we're going to, we're going to choose gratitude today because the Bible tells us to do that.   There's something about that posture that opens the door for the gospel to be expressed through us. So, let's practice.   Laura Dugger: (59:40 - 59:50) Well said, and there's so much we could continue learning from both of you. Where can we go after this chat to learn more from each one of you?   Brian Smith: (59:52 - 1:00:14) Yeah, we do a lot of our writing online at thechristianathlete.com. And so, if you go there, you can see articles that are specifically written for parents, for coaches, for athletes, all around this idea of what does it look like to integrate faith and sport together? So, the

We talk a lot about parenting. But we don't talk nearly enough about being a daughter. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Allison Alford — communication scholar, professor at Baylor University, and author of Good Daughtering — to unpack the hidden emotional labor adult daughters carry inside their families. We explore the invisible work, the guilt, the pressure to be "enough," and how daughters can set boundaries without walking away from the people they love. This isn't about cutting family off. It's about understanding your role, recalibrating it, and finding pride instead of burnout. If you've ever felt like you're doing a lot… but it's never quite enough — this one will hit. What We Cover What "daughtering" actually means (and why it's invisible) The "specter of expectation" and where guilt really comes from The difference between healthy families and the "messy middle" Why boundaries aren't magic — they're strategy How to shift your role even if no one else in your family changes Why being a daughter can be a noble pursuit — not just a burden What changes when daughters finally see the system clearly Chapters 00:00 – Intro + Texas roots & communication background 01:00 – "Not by magic": boundaries during the holidays 02:00 – Why she wrote Good Daughtering (research → real-world tools) 06:45 – Growing up with a therapist mom + learning to "talk about talking" 12:00 – Emotions A–Z vs A–F (communication differences in relationships) 16:00 – Generational healing, enmeshment & the "messy middle" family 20:00 – What "daughtering" actually means (visible + invisible labor) 23:30 – The guilt, pressure & the "specter of expectation" 26:00 – Where to begin: notice → calibrate → communicate 29:00 – When family won't change: boundaries + internal work 36:00 – Realizing the invisible labor in her own life 42:00 – Daughters as an untapped community 46:00 – Is daughtering a noble pursuit? 49:00 – What's inside the book (tools, scripts, boundary setting) 53:00 – What changes if daughters "see the Matrix"? + Release date About Dr. Allison Alford Dr. Allison Alford is a communication scholar and Clinical Associate Professor at Baylor University. Her research focuses on family communication, identity, and the overlooked emotional labor of adult daughters.