The Grace Cafe Podcast

Welcome to triple digits! We've hit episode 100 in The Grace Cafe Podcast. This episode is a conversation about 4 areas of our lives that are radically different than they were when we were in the midst of performance-based Christianity (PBC). After our crash and burn out of PBC the Holy Spirit began doing things in our lives in each of these areas as we moved further and further away from PBC and into a more complete understanding of what it means to have the life of God in us and us in Him, apart from institutional religion. Here's the 4 areas of our story that we talk about: Along the way we give a shoutout to our friends at the Growing in Grace Podcast. Here's a link to that podcast: Growing in Grace Podcast -Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 99 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. This episode is centered around the question, "Did the Father pour his wrath on Jesus while he was dying on the cross and abandon Him there?" Our friends Greg and Kim join us via Zoom and asked us this question. During our conversation, a couple other questions arose related to it: "Did Jesus descend into hell when he died?" and "What is baptism for the dead?" Since this episode is a little longer than usual, here are the timestamps marking the beginning of each topic in case you want to go directly to that spot: 00:00 - Episode 99 00:40 - Introduction 02:24 - Did the Father Pour His Wrath on Jesus at the Cross and Abandon Him There? 51:50 - Did Jesus Spend 3 Days in Hell? 01:09:03 - What is Baptism for the Dead? Grab your favorite beverage and enjoy!

Welcome to episode 98 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. Let's talk about some of the ways institutional Christianity has trained us to weaponize our faith and to weaponize our understanding of the Bible, especially when dealing with others whose opinions differ and with whom we disagree.

Welcome to episode 97 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. This episode is a free-flowing conversation about our own detox from institutional religion and ways our thinking has changed over the years as we've distanced ourselves from performance-based Christianity and religious obligation. Our conversation revealed to us how much influence, control, and manipulation organized religion can have over us, all in the name of Jesus, while keeping us from fully experiencing Jesus. We hope you find encouragement in this episode as you listen in. This is our last episode for 2020. Starting in 2021, we will be dropping two episodes per month. We hope your holiday celebrations are the very best and we will see you again in 2021. M&S

Welcome to episode 96 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. After a much needed break, we settled in behind the podcast mics to talk about life during these weird Covid times and the importance of being kind to yourself. This free-flowing conversation touches on many subjects related to life under a global pandemic as we catch you up a little with what's been going on with us. Links we talked about in this episode: Audacity Bootcamp: Beginner to AdvancedSurviving Spiritual Abuse It's good to be back....

Welcome to episode 95 of the Grace Cafe Podcast. After a four month hiatus, we're back! We thought we would pick back up by talking about how the way we view our journey out of performance-based faith continues to change, as our understanding of who we are in Jesus becomes more clear. Knowing who you are in Jesus can't be overstated! It's our security during times of change when life around us seems out of control. Our identity in Jesus never changes because he never changes. We don't...

Welcome to episode 94 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. We hope that you all are coping well with this global pandemic we find ourselves in. None of us have experienced anything like this before. It's a first for all of us and it's normal to have fears, worries, and uncertainties. We have them too. We talk about that in this episode as well as the additional noise that social media adds to our lives and Mike's decision to leave Facebook because of that noise. Links to Mike's podcast editing...

Welcome to episode 93 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. This episode is the result of a lot of conversations the two of us have had over the last 5-6 weeks as the trajectory of our lives has undergone a definitive shift. A friend of ours, Matt McMillen, recently put this quote on Instagram: "Sometimes it takes 10 years to get that 1 year that will change your life." Matt's quote was a catalyst that brought clarity and defined more precisely what we've been experiencing and talking about for the...

Welcome to episode 92 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. In a conversation with the Pharisees of his day, Jesus made an amazing statement concerning the Old Testament. He told them, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness of me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." The Pharisees of Jesus' day believed that an academic pursuit of the Old Testament scriptures was life-giving and in so doing, they missed the...

Welcome to episode 91 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. This episode is an energized conversation with Matt McMillen about the New Covenant and our identity in Jesus. God's opinion of us is the first thing that gets obscured by organized religion. Here's a sample of where our conversation took us: Matt has authored several books with more on the way. Yes, we talked about those too. You'll find Matt on-line at: https://mattmcmillenministries.com/ Grab your favorite beverage, get comfortable and...

"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:1-2) Did you catch that? John, using a term of gentle affection (little children), tells us that when we sin... remember. Remember what we already have in Jesus, the forgiveness of sins. "I am writing to you, little...

Happy New Year! Welcome to episode 89 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. In this episode we take a look back at our own journey over the past decade and our trek out of performance-based Christianity. It's been 10+ years of healing for us after having left the different religious environments in 2009 that we were a part of for many years. We know many of you are on similar journeys out of toxic religious experiences and we hope our podcast provides a safe place for you to process your own experience. We hope this episode will encourage, strengthen, and remind you of the hope and love that is yours in Jesus. Click Play to listen in.

Welcome to episode 88 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. In this episode, we catch you up on some of the things that have been going on with us personally, eventually landing on the topic of obedience. But along the way we talk about Christmas, Mike's skin cancer diagnosis (not the bad kind thankfully) and his experience under the doctor's knife, the future of this podcast, other podcasts we enjoy and recommend, and our gratitude to you for allowing us to be a part of your lives and for listening to...

Welcome to episode 87 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. Sarah Knaub joins Susan in this episode as they talk about the church's dismissive view of women. This excellent conversation was prompted by John MacArthur's "go home" statement directed toward Beth Moore. Susan and Sarah's conversation is loaded with rich and important content. Roles, submission, spiritual gifts, personal preference, teaching, marriage, men, children, strength, and theology are just a few of the topics this episode covers. Push play and join the conversation. Share it with a friend and subscribe in your favorite podcast app or on iHeartRadio.

Welcome to episode 86 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. The phrase "the Word of God" appears several times in the New Testament. I had always heard and believed that "the Word of God' was a reference to the Bible. I assumed that the Bible is the Word of God and that the phrase "the Word of God" was another way of saying the Bible. When Paul told Timothy to preach the word, it's assumed he meant preach the Bible. But the Bible never calls itself the Word of God. That phrase is reserved in Scripture for Jesus (Rev. 19:13) and the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:9, 13), as determined by context. Tradition has given the Bible the title, the Word of God, but the Bible itself never does. That topic is sandwiched in the middle of this episode from our old Known & Loved podcast that originally aired in March of 2017 and was a conversation that took us in several directions. Shout out to our friend Rocky Glenn in this episode who wrote us a letter that we interacted with. We hope this episode encourages you.

Welcome to episode 85 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. We've had some recent conversations with others who've related their stories to us about how asking honest questions resulted in being shunned, shamed, and even asked to leave the group they were in. When our journeys take a turn away from performance and toward a more genuine experience with grace, the resulting freedom that accompanies that experience is scary to those who haven't discovered it yet and asking questions or expressing new...

Welcome to episode 84 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. When John wrote, "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), was he giving us a formula to keep grace in check with truth? Does grace need balanced with truth in order to keep it manageable? Is truth somehow opposed to the free operation of Grace? I lost count years ago of the number of times I've heard John's words explained this way. Let's talk about it in this edition of Take Five.

Welcome to episode 83 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. Fear and doubt. These are two emotions we can all relate to and we all experience to varying levels and at different times. In performance-based, top-down religious environments, fear and doubt are common byproducts because the spotlight is on our own failed performance. At the same time, fear and doubt are not allowed to be expressed in that environment because they're counterproductive to it. In performance-based Christianity, fear and doubt...

Welcome to episode 82 of the Grace Cafe Podcast. In this edition of Take Five, Mike talks about taking up our cross and following Jesus. When Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24) was he referring to a spiritual discipline that involves denying my own needs and bearing up under trials? That's a common interpretation of this passage. We're told that when trials come, we all "have our cross to bear" and my ability...

Welcome to episode 81 of The Grace Cafe Podcast. Joel Brueseke joins us on this episode as we talk about what it means to be rooted and grounded in grace. Joel is co-host, along with Mike Kapler, of The Growing in Grace podcast and Joel also has a solo podcast and blog called Grace Roots. Our conversation took us into the many things that so easily distract us and lure us away from what it means to be rooted and grounded in grace alone, apart from performance. You can find Joel on line...