Breaking Bread Podcast ACCFS Staff

The question before every human being is not if they have pain, but rather, what they do with the pain that they have. Some people make peace with their pain. Unfortunately, many do not. In this Breaking Bread two-part series, Brian Sutter and Kaleb Beyer help us understand what making peace with pain means, why it is important and how to do it.

One of the pains of parenting is watching your children make poor choices. What should we do when there is not much we can do? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter and Craig Stickling speak to the do’s and don’ts of parenting through these challenges. 

Show Notes: 

 So your child made the wrong decision. Remember this Mom and Dad:  

Hang in there with them. 
Protect your relationship with them. 
Have a posture of grace with them. 
Be learners together. 
Allow natural consequences to teach. 
Help them learn from their decisions. 
Speak truth in love. 
Don’t over personalize their decision. 
Lean on the larger community to speak truth into their life. 
Give it time. 


Trust in prayer. 

Spiritual disciplines are ancient. Yet they are growing in popularity with our contemporary Christian culture. What are common cautions that should accompany our wise application of spiritual disciplines? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Isaac Funk helps us understand four cautions: legalism, agency, syncretism and mysticism.
Show Notes: Spiritual disciplines are those practices we habitually do in the body that form us into Christlikeness. Reading the Word, silence, solitude, fasting, tithing, fellowship are just a few of many. Many spiritual disciplines are classic. Practices employed by Christ and faithful believers for thousands of years.
Understanding the “shadow” of a thing is important for wise and healthy use. We want to have this circumspect understanding of spiritual disciplines. Without it, we can fall into ditches that are unhelpful. Consider four trappings to be thoughtful about.
Legalism: Legalism is an unhealthy relationship with performance. At its worst, dependence on performance erroneously replaces faith in Christ. We need to remember the following… Spiritual disciplines are not our morality. Spiritual disciplines are not our performance. Spiritual disciplines are not our forgiveness. Spiritual disciplines do not secure merit with God. Agency: When employing spiritual disciplines, we can become confused with who is at the source of the effort. Is it us? Is it God? We need to remember the following: We do not control our spiritual growth; rather we make ourselves available to God through the practices to be formed by him. God is the first source behind any practice. Syncretism: Syncretism is the blending or merging of different religious beliefs and practices. Many different religious faiths, as well as atheism, share bodily practices that on the outside look the same. We need to remember the following: Many bodily disciplines will benefit human beings regardless of walk of life or religious beliefs. However, these are not uniquely Christian unless we are employing them to grow in Christ likeness. Mysticism: By mysticism, we mean experiencing God in ways that transcend ordinary sensory perception and intellectual understanding. If applied unhealthily, the believer can develop errant ideas about God that are steeped in individual experience. We need to remember the following: Our discipleship experience with God should never contradict the Bible. Be accountable to the larger Christian community. Include other people in your discipleship journey with Christ.

This episode of Breaking Bread, Fred Witzig and Erica Steffen give us a history lesson. Not a history lesson about our past. But a lesson about how to capture our past into history. Oral history is the means for getting this done. Fred and Erica will both explain how to carry out this collection of history as well as cast a vision for our participation in a larger Elder Teaching Resource effort.

Hope exists. Depression is not a life sentence. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Ted Witzig Jr. chart the course for walking through depression to the other side.
Show notes:
There are different kinds of depression. Treatments can vary. However, the path through depression typically has three benchmarks. The first is changing behavior. The second is a shift in thinking. The third is an improved mood.
1.       Behavior activation:
·        Physical activity: moving the body.
·        Social interaction: engaging with people.
·        Meaningful activities: engage in small, doable things in a consistent manner to develop a sense of competency.
2.       Engage thinking through counseling:
·        Challenge negative self-talk through healthy truth based in Scripture.
·        Medicine (in some cases) can be beneficial in helping the mind think well and engage the therapeutic treatment.
3.       Positive mood shifts follow improved thinking.

Depression is real and prevalent. Many live in the felt reality that the skies are cloudy, and no sun exists behind them. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Ted Witzig Jr. speak to the realities of depression - what it is, what it feels like, and what effect it has on living.
Show notes:
What it is:
Clinical depression is a mental condition that flags five of the following nine symptoms:
·        Sad or depressed mood.
·        Loss of interest in things once appreciated.
·        Weight loss or weight gain.
·        Sleep loss or sleep gain.
·        Agitated and “keyed up” or sluggish and “slowed .down”.
·        Loss of energy and motivation.
·        Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt.
·        Decreased concentration.
·        Wanting to die.
What it feels like:
·        Depression feels like driving with the brake on. Everything is more difficult. Joy is snuffed out of life. Stressors overwhelm resources. The sky is grey, with no hope of clouds parting. If they did part, no sun exists beyond them anyhow.
What effect it has on living:
·        Depression tends to a spiraling downward. Natural reactions to depression tend toward being unhelpful rather than helpful. Depression tends toward isolation and isolation tends towards a further depressed state. Hopelessness tends toward inactivity and inactivity tends toward failure to meet work deadlines. Depression exasperates itself.
How can helpers help?
·        Help people reverse the downward spiral with small incremental steps in the positive direction. Do this, not by giving orders but by coming along side hurting individuals.