In this episode of the Attaching to God podcast, hosted by Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw of Embodied Faith, licensed therapist Lisa Cuss joins the conversation.

Lisa shares her journey from teaching to becoming a therapist, her focus on trauma and attachment-informed modalities, and her work with Capable Life alongside her husband, Steve Cuss. The discussion delves into the complexities of anxiety, personal and collective grief, and the transformative process of attachment both to oneself and to God. Lisa highlights the importance of being seen and comforted by God, the role of trauma in shaping behavior, and the significant shift when individuals recognize God's presence in their deepest pain. This episode offers insights into how mental health and spiritual growth can be fostered within church communities.

Lisa is a licensed therapist (MA, LPC), speaker, and trainer who is passionate about the intersection of Psychology and Faith. In her private practice, Lisa uses trauma and attachment informed modalities to help people journey through deep pain and stuck places to find more healthy connection within themselves, with others, and with God. Lisa also works alongside her husband, Steve Cuss, within Capable Life, an organization that helps people find relief from chronic anxiety and deepens connection with God in the workplace and the home place.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

What is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount really about? Is it an out-of-reach spirituality for the really devoted? Is it a practical guide for political action? A reworking of the Old Testament Law? Or an existential treatise on the intentions that guide our actions?

What if it outlines the way toward human flourishing?

Dr. Jonathan Pennington is a Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. And a teaching pastor his local church. Dr. Pennington is the author of many books, including Reading the Gospels Wisely, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, and Jesus, the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Need for the Good Life.

Find out more about Dr. Pennington here: https://www.jonathanpennington.com/

Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.

• Starting April 29 (2025), with the live calls on Tuesdays, 4pm (EST).
• Link: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/attaching-to-god-cohort

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

God’s true nature is beyond human comprehension. It can never be fully expressed in human words. But Scriptures uses one particular word to describe the distinctiveness of God’s character; this is the Hebrew word hesed.

Michael Card is an award-winning musician and performing artist. His many books include Scribbling in the Sand, A Fragile Stone, and Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.

• Starting April 29 (2025), with the live calls on Tuesdays, 4pm (EST).
• Link: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/attaching-to-god-cohort

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

This Holy Week, as Jesus, "the man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Is. 53:3), walks toward the cross, we ask what it might be to proclaim this as good news.

An older evangelism might ask, Where will you go when you die? But in our age of anxiety and despair, maybe we need to shift to: What do you do with your sorrow as you live? That Jesus walks with us in our sorrows is really good news.

That's what we are talking about today with Dr. Andrew Root. He is the Carrie Olson Baalson professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He writes and researches in areas of theology, ministry, culture and younger generations. And most recently has written about Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness.

Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.

• Starting April 29 (2025), with the live calls on Tuesdays, 4pm (EST).
• Link: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/attaching-to-god-cohort

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Does doing your job need to feel like losing your life? Can your vocation be part of your spiritual formation? Can we survive digital overwhelm?

Dr. Craig Mattson is a researcher, teacher, and writer at Calvin University. He’s the editor of The Mode/Switch newsletter and podcast on Substack, both of which decode workplace culture and the strange etiquettes of digital spaces. Craig’s three books address spiritual formation by attending to the kinds of humans we yearn to be in the digitally saturated spaces of life and work. His most recent book is Digital Overwhelm: A Mid-Career Guide to Coping at Work.

Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.

• Starting April 29 (2025), with the live calls on Tuesdays, 4pm (EST).
• Link: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/attaching-to-god-cohort

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Many spiritual seekers are becoming psychonauts, experimenting with psychedelics. But will that trip lead where we think it will?

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ashley Lande about how her long and winding journey in and their the world of psychedelic experimentation eventually led her to Jesus, the only one who really makes all things OK.

Ashley Lande is a writer and artist living in rural Kansas with her husband and four children. She is the author of the memoir The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever: Transcendence, Psychedelics and Jesus Christ.

Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.

• Starting Nov. 12 (2024), with the live calls on Tuesdays, 2:30pm-3:30pm (EST).
• Link: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/attaching-to-god-cohort

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Can we master our emotions? Is that healthy? Are emotions a gift from God, or part of our sinful reality? That’s what we are talking about today.

Dr. Kevin Chapman is a licensed clinical psychologist with a specialty in cognitive behavioral therapy. He is the founder and director of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. He leads Sound Mind Ministries and hosts The Sound Mind Show (YouTube). And he just release Mastering Our Emotions: Biblical Principles for Emotional Health.

Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.

• Starting Nov. 12 (2024), with the live calls on Tuesdays, 2:30pm-3:30pm (EST).
• Link: https://www.embodiedfaith.life/attaching-to-god-cohort

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Baseball is back. Spring is sprung (depending on where you live). And so we are bringing you the 10 reasons baseball is a mirror for our spiritual formation.

And along the way, Geoff and J.R. Briggs share some favorite baseball memories, especially about their first time hanging out in the bleachers at Wigley Field.

Here are the reasons, in no particular order:

1. Going Home
2. All about Failures
3. It's Boring
4. It starts in the spring (of NEW LIFE)
5. Teamwork
6. Routines
7. Tradition
8. The Cathedrals of Baseball
9. The Hall of Fame
10. and I forgot the last one...

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).