Breaking Bread Podcast

Play lies at the center of life for a child, and it should. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Amy Mammadov, a speech language pathologist, along with Brian Sutter, shine light on this important aspect of human growth and development. Additionally, parents should encourage, teach, evaluate and share in the enjoyment of play with our children.    Show notes:  Encourage Play:  Play is critical in the development of language, thought and human relations.   Teach Play:  The norms and technology of the day have stunted play. Some children need to be taught how to play.   Evaluate Play:  Not all play is equal. Many toys and forms of amusement today are adult directed play. Child directed play, on the other hand, provides rich areas of growth and potential.  Utilize Play:  Playing with your child gives you insights into where they are developmentally and provides an opportunity to model healthy reasoning.  Share in the enjoyment of play:  Shared enjoyment is key. If play i

Exploration is a prerequisite to having a settled identity. For parents with kids unsettled and exploring, this can be a frightening time. What role do we play in the exploration process? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Brian Sutter will help us sort it out.  Show notes:  Identity:  Is the sense of self – Who I am and who I am not.   Identity Formation:  Starts with exploration and ends with commitment.  Exploration is trying, investigating, experiencing, researching.  Commitment is being settled, resolved and grounded.  Identity Culture in “the west”:  It is constructed individually. This means that the community has a limited influence on placing an identity on an individual. Rather, the individual has the ownness of discovering and embracing their identity.   Challenge:  Our young people are saddled with the task of sorting out their identity for themselves.  Angst:  Watching young people explore their identity.  Opportunity: 

We all know that the body is made up of different members. Members one of another. The hand needs the foot. The eye needs the ear. But even more profound than these examples is the uncommon humility that my non-dominate left hand has with my dominate right. Similar in frame and made to do everything the right hand can… it performs well, but not as well. Yet it serves my body selflessly and without dissention. In this podcast we will listen and learn from our non-dominate hands a lesson on cooperation and being a member one of another.    An Imagined Interview with my Left Hand:  Me: When did you learn that I was going to be what they call “right-handed?” Left-hand: I learned this early. I noticed you were using the right hand to lead and do the more sensitive tasks.  Me: Do you compare yourself with the right? Left-hand: I don’t. My right hand does his job so well, and I’m glad. I do my job well.   Me: What do you understand your job to be? Left-hand: My job is to be a good left-hand complement

The Christian life has music interwoven into its fabric. We use it to worship God. We are instructed to sing. It should not be surprising then to learn that music has the potential to benefit the mind and emotion. In this episode, music therapist Nick Lanz gives us tips on how to use music therapeutically.  Show notes:  Music Therapy: The clinical & evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.   What do music therapists do?​  Assess emotional well-being, physical health, social functioning, communication abilities, and cognitive skills through musical responses.  Design music sessions for individuals and groups based on client needs using various musical interventions.  Participate in interdisciplinary treatment planning, ongoing evaluation, and follow up.​    Music therapy interventions for mental health can address a variety of healt

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.   Show notes:  What does making peace with pain mean?   Answer: Making peace with pain happens when we change our relationship with pain. Instead of orbiting the pain, we are freed from the unhealthy attachment we have with it. While pain may remain, we are able to live with it as a part of our story but it does not govern our identity. Pain has its proper effect on our lives - not too much, yet not ignored.  Why is making peace with pain important?  Answer: Pain unattended has a tendency to generate unhealthy attachments in our lives. We orbit closely to the pain. Some will try to soothe the pain by unhealthy means. Others will over identify with the pai

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 erroneous

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

While we might lean more towards left or right brain thinking, we use them both. In fact, it is important we do. And we can. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr., Brian Sutter, Kaleb Beyer and Kathy Knochel help us understand how important it is that we connect with people with both halves of our brain.

Two halves make a whole. This is true for everything. But it is uniquely true for our brains. Each half, the left and the right, bring a wholeness that without either one, we are much less than half. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr., Brian Sutter, Kaleb Beyer and Kathy Knochel help us better understand the vast wonder of our created brains and give us a vision for healthy functioning that uses whole brain living.  Show notes:  The left brain (hemisphere) is understood to be the seat of rational logic. It excels in language, math and science.  The right brain (hemisphere) is understood to be the seat of emotional perception. It excels in music, art and fantasy.  It is common that people tend toward one side over the other. That is, they view the world, engage in relationships and respond to their environments by leading with one side of the brain over the other.  Whole brain living is seeking to understand the value that each brain hemisphere brings.  It is possible to grow i

Music and verse capture, preserve, and allows the participant to access deep truths with a melody that matches the beauty, mystery and hope of the message. This is what we have in Christmas hymnody. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Katie Miller, Arlan Miller, Isaac Funk, Shauna Streitmatter and Matt Kaufmann share their favorite Christmas lyrics that capture the wonder of Christmas – God with us. Show notes: Arlan: O Little Town of Bethlehem by Phillips Brooks The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. Isaac: In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti, Angels and archangels may have gathered there, Cherubim and Seraphim thronged the air; but His Mother only, in Her maiden bliss Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.   Shauna: O Holy Night, by Placide Cappeau The King of kings lay once in lowly manger, In all our trials born to be our friend; He knows our need, To our weakness is no stranger. Behold your king. Katie: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by Henry W. Longfellow I

Parenting our children through the highs and lows of our technological world can be a challenge. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Jon Moser provides us with four helps. He gives us one technology lesson to instruct our children in. He gives us one technology danger to protect our children from. He provides one issue that we should be able to engage our children about and he gives us one redeeming quality that technology offers our kids. Show Notes: Instructive:  ·        Help your kids understand how social media algorithms work to populate their feeds. Help them understand the goals of the social media platform.   Protective:   ·        Protect your family’s privacy. Encourage the use of privacy settings on social media platforms. Have a conversation about contact lists and who should be allowed into them. Consider using a VPN to protect against malware infection. ·        Example: protonvpn.com   Engaging:   ·        Engage with your children about technology use. Have a discussion about using techno

With all the voices speaking into our teenage girls today, let’s be sure ours is one. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kathy Knochel and Katie Miller turn up the volume on 3 critical ideas from which our teenage girls would benefit. And it’s no surprise, God very much wants to speak into these important matters. Show notes:  Three things teen girls should know: 1.       Learn the sound of your inner voice. ·        Learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy self-talk. ·        Learn to tune out unhealthy self-talk. 2.       Learn to see your identity through God’s eyes. ·        Learn the difference between identities that come to us from this world and those that come to us from God. ·        Learn to tune in to who God has created you to be. 3.       Learn to see yourself as an image-bearer of God. ·        Learn to detect where your self-image is coming from. ·        Learn that your value and worth come from God. Resources https://accounseling.org/spiritualgrowth/women/young-women-supp

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that "makes all things beautiful in his time.” This truth is curious. It would seem that God has an intention beyond making things right. Or making things work. Or making things whole. He intends more than those...He intends to make things beautiful. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Isaac Funk and Shauna Streitmatter help us understand beauty and faith. When our senses are exercised to detect beauty, we will live a bit more as we were created to live. Show notes: Beauty is beautiful: ·        Beauty is an intention of God. He creates things beautiful. ·        God sets the standard for beauty. Our senses can be exercised to better detect it. ·        Anywhere that beauty exists can be a place for worship of God. ·        Beauty is detected in our senses. We find art, music, flavors, textures and fragrances pleasing to our senses. ·        We detect beauty in our thoughts.  We find story and lyric appealing. ·        We must linger with beauty to appreciate it. It slows us down.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God makes all things beautiful in his time. This truth is curious. It would seem that God has an intention beyond making things right. Or making things work. Or making things whole. He intends more than those...He intends to make things beautiful. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Isaac Funk and Shauna Streitmatter help us understand beauty and faith. When our senses are exercised to detect beauty, we will live a bit more as we were created to live.  Show notes:  Beauty is beautiful.  Beauty is an intention of God. He creates things beautiful.  God sets the standard for beauty. Our senses can be exercised to better detect it.   Anywhere that beauty exists can be a place for worship of God.  Beauty is detected in our senses. We find art, music, flavors, textures and fragrances pleasing to our senses.   We detect beauty in our thoughts.  We find story and lyric appealing.  We must linger with beauty to appreciate it. It slows us down.  Beauty tra

When it comes to having difficult conversations, many of us are avoidant. Unfortunately, this passivity is not helpful in the long run. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Arlan Miller helps us sort out the mindset and the skillset of stepping into these difficult conversations.  Show notes: When might a difficult conversation be necessary? ·        Difficult conversations might be necessary when silence on issues that concern us and others are leading to increasingly unhealthy ends. What goals should I have? ·        Goals for the outcome of a difficult conversation should not merely be influencing others on our behalf. Rather, healthy relationships and shared understanding should be objectives. What preparation should I do? ·        Prayerfully self-reflect. Understand the “story” you are making and develop a curiosity for the “story” other people have. As much as you can, make a safe place for dialogue. What skills should I bring to bear? ·        Attempt to be thoughtfully direct. Correct with objectiv

Personal change can be so hard sometimes. We want to think differently and act differently. But we don’t. In this episode of Breaking Bread, three guests weigh in on the matter - a pastor, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist. Together, Jeff Waibel, Ted Witzig Jr. and Aaron Plattner explore the landscape of people change and provide hope that it is possible.