The Strong Women Podcast Colson Center

Christmastime is a season of festivity—carols, parties, decorations, food. But do we understand the true meaning of festivity and its divine origins? Haley Stewart—mom, author, and editor at Word on Fire Spark—joins us this week to give us a true vision of festivity, one that begins with encountering God and responds with an overflow of joy for who He is and what He has done. Listen in for a rich conversation on true Christmas joy and finding echoes of festivity in our favorite Christmas stories. We also talk about how the countercultural practice of Advent prepares us to celebrate Christmas with greater joy. 
 
Download your free Strong Women Advent resource guide! Advent begins Sunday, December 3rd. Explore “Prepare the Way of the Lord-Advent 2023” for books, devotional, music, and art that tunes your heart to worship in preparation for the coming King this Christmas season. Landed.Colsoncenter.org/advent  

Mouse Nuns series by Haley Stewart and Elizabeth Wallin: The Pursuit of the Pilfered Cheese  

The Curious Christmas Trail, and Strange Sound by the Sea 

“The Sham Practice of Christmas” article by Haley Stewart on the University of Notre Dame’s Journal of Church Life 

In Tune with the World, a Theory of Festivity by Joseph Peeper 

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 

The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander 

Advent Hymns: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, O Come Divine Messiah, People, Look East, Handel's Messiah 

Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson 

Silas Marner by George Elliot 

Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson 

Works of Mercy by Sally Thomas 

Strong Women is partnering with our amazing friends at Drinklings to offer a special Flannery O’Connor mug and Strong Women coffee blend just in time for Christmas! Check out these products here and get yours today. These also make great Christmas gifts for the other Strong Women on your list! 
Today, Christians face mounting pressure to conform to harmful secular ideologies about race, sexuality, human identity, and more. In response, the Colson Center seeks to equip believers with a Christian worldview on all these things, so they can know, live, and speak the truth in love. As we reach the end of the year, would you consider donating to support the ongoing work of the Colson Center? You can make your donation at colsoncenter.org/swyearend. 

How do we remain faithful to Christ when our faith clashes with this cultural moment, or when we have to choose between conscience and career? We need courage, and courage must be cultivated. Join us at CCNC 2024 to find answers and tools to cultivate courageous faith for the specific challenges you face in this cultural moment. Speakers include Dr. Al Mohler, Father Calvin Robinson, Riley Gaines, Katy Faust, and more. For full speaker lineup and registration, go to colsonconference.org.   

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/  

Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women 

Join Strong Women on Social Media:  

https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/ 

https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/ 

 

What are women made for and what are they capable of? What makes them valuable? What is “women’s work”? One of the most culturally influential women in American history used her life’s work to answer these questions and affirm women in both society and the home—yet many people have never even heard of her. Sarah Josepha Hale was a mother, writer, activist, and editor of the popular nineteenth-century women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book. Her work contributed to a robust and holistic view of womanhood that validated women as image bearers, dignified their many spheres of work—both domestic and professional—and advocated for their access to education and advancement. Take a listen to this best-of episode with journalist Melanie Kirkpatrick and be encouraged by this remarkable woman from American history.  
 
The Strong Women Podcast 81. The Woman Who Influenced a Nation with Melanie Kirkpatrick 

 

The Hudson Institute: https://www.hudson.org/ 

Lady Editor by Melanie Kirkpatrick 

Thanksgiving by Melanie Kirkpatrick 

Escape from North Korea by Melanie Kirkpatrick 

Godey's Lady's Book January 1864 by Sarah Josepha Hale and Louis A. Godey  

Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper," 1841 by Sarah Josepha Hale 

Northwood by Sarah Josepha Hale 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 

 

Strong Women is partnering with our friends at Drinklings to offer a special Flannery O’Connor mug and Strong Women coffee blend just in time for Christmas! Check out these products here and get yours today. These also make great Christmas gifts for the other Strong Women on your list! 

I’m so excited to introduce a new Advent resource for you just in time for the Christmas season: “Prepare the Way of the Lord”! Christmas is on its way, and you and I have a sweet opportunity to know Jesus better this season. To help you observe Advent in a meaningful and doable way, I’ve put together a curated collection of Advent recommendations. These are designed to help you prepare your heart for the Lord this season. “Prepare the Way of the Lord – Advent 2023” includes recommendations for Advent reading, music, art, learning, books and activities for kids, and more. Whether you’re new to Advent or have observed it for years, these lists are designed to cut through the fluff and excess and help you tune your heart to Jesus. Advent starts on Sunday, December 3, 2023. You can access your free copy of “Prepare the Way of the Lord” by clicking here.  

Today, Christians face mounting pressure to conform to harmful secular ideologies about race, sexuality, human identity, and more. In response, the Colson Center seeks to equip believers with a Christian worldview on all these things, so they can know, live, and speak the truth in love. As we reach the end of the year, would you consider donating to support the ongoing work of the Colson Center? You can make your donation at colsoncenter.org/swyearend. 

How do we remain faithful to Christ when our faith clashes with this cultural moment, or when we have to choose between conscience and career? We need courage, and courage must be cultivated. Join us at CCNC 2024 to find answers and tools to cultivate courageous faith for the specific challenges you face in this cultural moment. Speakers include Dr. Al Mohler, Father Calvin Robinson, Riley Gaines, Katy Faust, and more. For full speaker lineup and registration, go to colsonconference.org.   

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://

What is education for? How does the Christian worldview shape our approach to it? If you ask this week’s guest, she’ll tell you that it’s for the flourishing of children, parents, and communities. Lynn Swaner is the Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). She joins us to talk about a Christian ethic of education and discipleship, the unique landscape of schools today, as well as the exciting innovations happening in Christian education across the country. We discuss what it looks like to approach education Christianly (whether you’re in a Christian school context or not) and to live out Jesus’ call toward love and discipleship as parents, students, and teachers—all for the advance of God’s kingdom and the flourishing of culture.  
 
Association of Christian Schools International 
Colson Educators 

“How Do You Do It All?” Blog Post By Lynn Swaner June 30, 2022 


Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor 

 
Future Ready by Lynn Swaner, Jon Eckert, Erik Ellefsen, and Matthew H. Lee 

Culture Map by Erin Meyer 

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson 

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietze  

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin 

Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts 

 
 

Today, Christians face mounting pressure to conform to harmful secular ideologies about race, sexuality, human identity, and more. In response, the Colson Center seeks to equip believers with a Christian worldview on all these things, so they can know, live, and speak the truth in love. As we reach the end of the year, would you consider donating to support the ongoing work of the Colson Center? You can make your donation at colsoncenter.org/swyearend. 

How do we remain faithful to Christ when our faith clashes with this cultural moment, or when we have to choose between conscience and career? We need courage, and courage must be cultivated. Join us at CCNC 2024 to find answers and tools to cultivate courageous faith for the specific challenges you face in this cultural moment. Speakers include Dr. Al Mohler, Father Calvin Robinson, Riley Gaines, Katy Faust, and more. For full speaker lineup and registration, go to colsonconference.org.   

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/  

Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women 

Join Strong Women on Social Media:  

https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/ 

https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/ 

 

From a young age, Kellie Fiedorek was driven by a passion to seek justice and uphold the dignity of every human life. Today, she serves as senior counsel and director of Government Affairs at Alliance Defending Freedom. In this episode, she shares her journey into the legal profession, her work with ADF, and her involvement in the 303 Creative v. Elenis Supreme Court Case. Kellie also underscores the vital importance of the fight for freedom of speech and freedom of religion, emphasizing that this cause transcends political or religious affiliations. Tune in to be inspired by Kellie’s story of following the Lord's leading, being faithful with what’s in front of her, and trusting God to equip her for the work He has called her to do. 
 
Alliance Defending Freedom  

Blackstone Legal Foundation 

S4 04: Staying Faithful Under Public Pressure With Lorie Smith Strong Women Podcast 

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer 

Subscribe to the Strong Women monthly journal 

 

Christians are called to speak the truth in love, love God and our neighbors, and care for the victims of bad ideas in this cultural moment. At the Colson Center, everything we do is to help Christians live out that calling. To support this ongoing work in the coming year, partner with us by giving a year-end gift at colsoncenter.org/swyearend.  

Registration for our 2024 Colson Center National Conference – Courageous Faith – is now open! From May 30 – June 2, we’ll gather in Arlington, Texas at the brand-new Loews Hotel & Resort. We at the Colson Center believe every Christian can live like one. But we also know that, when the world around us is changing rapidly, it’s hard to know how to live as a Christian in this time and place. The Colson Center National Conference is a gathering of people who want to face today’s unique challenges with informed and courageous faith. This year’s gifted speakers include Sean McDowell, Neil Shenvi, Kathy Koch and more. They will help us tackle the complex worldview challenges of today with biblical insight and practical application. To register, go to colsonconference.org today. 

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/  

Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women 

 Join Strong Women on Social Media:  

https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/ 

https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/ 

 

Did you have formal logic in school? I didn’t. As Kathy Gibbens was teaching her kids logic, she learned the importance of thinking clearly and logically herself. She recognized how helpful it is to have categories that bring order to confusing slogans and conversations. Amid the ramped-up rhetoric of 2020, Kathy launched a podcast to help train those of us who have never formally learned logic, so that we can learn not what to think but how to think. She joins me today to tell us her story and to walk us through a few of the common fallacies that people make when forming and defending their views.   
 
Kathy’s Website Filter It Through a Brain Cell 

Classical Conversations homeschooling 

The Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel Bluedorn, Hans Bluedorn  

Heidi St. John’s Off the Bench Podcast 

The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom by Larry Loftis 

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom 

Corrie Ten Boom: The Watchmaker's Daughter, Trail Blazers Series by Jean Watson  

 
Every day, social media feeds us messages like “follow your heart,” and “live your truth.” If we let these lies shape our beliefs, we ultimately end up exhausted and discouraged. Our next Lighthouse Voices event will address these appealing lies and help us respond to them with Christian wisdom. We’ll be joined by Alisa Childers, author of Live Your Truth and Other Lies. She’ll provide insight on how Christians can address faulty cultural slogans with wisdom, truth, and love. This free event will take place on Tuesday, November 7 at 7pm Mountain Time, and will be offered both online via livestream and in-person at Focus on the Family headquarters. Spaces are limited, so claim your spot today at colsoncenter.org/lighthousevoices. 

Registration for our 2024 Colson Center National Conference – Courageous Faith – is now open! From May 30 – June 2, we’ll gather in Arlington, Texas at the brand-new Loews Hotel & Resort. We at the Colson Center believe every Christian can live like one. But we also know that, when the world around us is changing rapidly, it’s hard to know how to live as a Christian in this time and place. The Colson Center National Conference is a gathering of people who want to face today’s unique challenges with informed and courageous faith. This year’s gifted speakers include Sean McDowell, Neil Shenvi, Kathy Koch and more. They will help us tackle the complex worldview challenges of today with biblical insight and practical application. To register, go to colsonconference.org today. 

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/  

Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women 

 Join Strong Women on Social Media:  

https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/ 

https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/ 

Abortion has been packaged and falsely marketed as a form of healthcare necessary for women’s empowerment, while pro-life advocacy has been mislabeled as anti-woman. Dr. Christina Francis knows this reasoning is backwards, and she uses her voice to fight for the wellbeing of women and babies. Today, she does that as an OB-GYN and CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG). Dr. Francis works hard to inform women about the realities of chemical abortion as well as the lifesaving option of abortion pill reversal. This week, she talks about her journey of becoming a passionate pro-life advocate, the harms of chemical abortion, the progress of her lawsuit against the FDA, and how Christians can be thoroughly pro-life. 
 
Alliance Defending Freedom 

American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists 

March for Life 

Live Action 

The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture by Scott Klusendorf 

The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession by Dr. Fahr Curlin and Chris Tollefson 

 

Secular culture has widely embraced the destructive ideas produced by Critical Theory. But these ideas have caused great cultural divisions and a loss of faith. Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer’s latest book, Critical Dilemma, is a much-needed resource to help Christians understand Critical Theory in all its forms and respond with discernment, truth, and love. You can claim your copy today at colsoncenter.org/swcriticaldilemma . 

Registration for our 2024 Colson Center National Conference – Courageous Faith – is now open! From May 30 – June 2, we’ll gather in Arlington, Texas at the brand-new Loews Hotel & Resort. We at the Colson Center believe every Christian can live like one. But we also know that, when the world around us is changing rapidly, it’s hard to know how to live as a Christian in this time and place. The Colson Center National Conference is a gathering of people who want to face today’s unique challenges with informed and courageous faith. This year’s gifted speakers include Sean McDowell, Neil Shenvi, Kathy Koch and more. They will help us tackle the complex worldview challenges of today with biblical insight and practical application. To register at our lowest price, go to colsonconference.org today. 

The Strong Women Podcast is a product of the Colson Center which equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. Through commentaries, podcasts, videos, and more, we help Christians better understand what’s happening in the world, and champion what is true and good wherever God has called them.  Learn more about the Colson Center here: https://www.colsoncenter.org/  

Visit our website and sign up for our email list so that you can stay up to date on what we are doing here and also receive our monthly book list: https://www.colsoncenter.org/strong-women 

 

Join Strong Women on Social Media:  

https://www.facebook.com/StrongWomenCC 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/strongwomencommunitycc/ 

https://www.instagram.com/strongwomencc/