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#InsideOut Making friends in middle and high school has always been challenging. Add social media and it’s even more complex. Youth leader and writer Kathryn Eckhardt believes that youth leaders and parents can help teens manage the feelings spawned by friendship dramas that can escalate when friends aren’t talking face to face. Eckhardt is the author of The Gospel Coalition’s August 15, 2026 article "Help Teens Navigate Friendship in the Social Media Age." She encourages caring adults to listen well to the teens in their lives, remind them of the character qualities to look for in a friend, and, when they feel disappointed or rejected, repeat the good news of God’s love for them. In addition to serving as a youth leader, Tallahassee-based Eckhardt serves in her church women's ministry. Her writing has appeared in The Gospel Coalition, World Magazine, Rooted Ministry, and byFaith Magazine. ###

#InsideOut   There are a lot of church and ministry voices we can listen to. Some will help us grow and serve.  Others are not healthy. How do we know what to look for? We need discernment to know if churches we attend or teachers we listen to online are sound--or if they injure people even while preaching the message of Jesus Christ.   Mark Pritchard joins me for this Inside Out conversation about discernment. He’s senior pastor at Church of the Gates in Missoula, Montana. Along the way he outlines key attributes we should look for in a healthy church or ministry and talks through ways to respond to church abuse and church hurt.  ###

#InsideOut   Most of us resonate with the Old Testament book of Job.   “The book of Job specifically zeros in on suffering, and we are going to have suffering in this world,” says author, pastor, and council member for The Gospel Coalition Andrew M. Davis.  “Jesus said, ‘In this world you will have trouble.’ And we do. And so, God is able to walk with us in our suffering and in our grief and give us wisdom through this book and through other books of the Bible.”   Davis uses words from Job’s response to his suffering as the title for his new book Yet Will Hope in Him. That hope is found in God’s inspired Word--and supported by our familiarity with it.   “The more we read Scripture and see the promises of God and immerse ourselves in them,” Davis says, “the stronger our hope will be.”   God did not answer all of Job’s questions in the Old Testament book’s 42 chapters. But God did answer them by the end of the entire Bible, Davis points out in our conversation, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. ###

#InsideOut   Tim Mulgrew thinks many Christians are missing the transformation God promises because we ask too little of the Bible He’s given us.   Mulgrew’s the author of the new book The Book of Us: Discovering Ourselves in the Story of the Bible.   “I think we do ask too little of our Bibles,” Mulgrew says. “Most Christians treat Bible reading as a daily task, something that’s required of their Christianity, but they don’t see it for its true purpose: which is really to reconcile us to God and live the life He has for us.”   One question he suggests we ask as we read God’s Word is this: “Of all the events in life that clearly reflect God, why did God think it was important to capture these particular events, and why is it important that He has me reading them this day?”   Listen to Martha’s conversation with Tim Mulgrew on this Family Life Inside Out podcast.

#InsideOut Author and photographer Dorothy Littell Greco joins me for a conversation about Greco’s new book For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America. We discuss the polarizing word, misogyny, that serves as vehicle for talking about attitudes, systems, and powers—including ones we may not have recognized before--that work to block our combined efforts to help girls and women thrive. And because we know that Jesus loves and values women, we also talk about how the Church is in the best position to set the tone for our entire culture.       ###

#InsideOut We want to help friends who suffer. Blake Glosson counsels us to sit with them, listen without trying to fix anything, grieve along with them, and encourage them in ways that are tailored to their struggle. Glosson is an associate pastor at Chapelstreet Church in Geneva, Illinois and the author of a July 2026 article in The Gospel Coalition titled “Ways to (Actually) Help a Sufferer.”

#InsideOut   Gen Z is sometimes caricatured for spending considerable time on the internet. But what if while online, these teens and young adults are making significant connections and sharing their Christian faith in the medium they and their peers know best?   Barry Meguiar is encouraged that they are. In fact, he believes that Gen Z believers are the best hope for spreading God’s Good News.   “Our only hope is Gen Zers. I believe that,” he says. “They have the fervency; they just don’t have the truth. It’s our job to give them the truth. And when we do that, man they’re off and running. I tell you, that’s exciting.”   A new part of Meguiar’s Ignite America ministry is focused on supporting Gen Z believers with the Ignite Next Gen’s ministry tool “From Scroll to Soul.” In addition to Ignite America ministries, Meguiar is known for the Meguiar’s family’s car care products business and his Car Crazy radio and television shows.   Learn more about the “From Scroll to Soul” ministry tool here.

#InsideOut   Church hurt is a deep hurt, like betrayal.   “There’s these layers and these waves of pain that come, not only from the direct wound from being sinned against, but the fact that it’s not addressed, and in the end you end up really losing your community. And you’re in a place of, honestly, deep despair and confusion,” says church counseling pastor Timothy St. John.   St. John serves as counseling pastor at Lighthouse Community Church in Torrance, California and is the author of the new book After Church Hurt: Healing in the Care of the Good Shepherd.   “The way I define ‘church hurt’ is any unrepentant sin that is minimized, normalized, or promoted by a church culture and its leadership,” he says. “And I say, ‘church culture and its leadership’ because if the leader or the church body was willing to address the wrong, there could be a path of healing within the church.”   An avenue of that healing, St. John says, is through believers who authentically represent Jesus Christ.   “It’s really going to have to start with someone who does represent Christ well coming alongside that person, and showing them--embodying the love of Christ, the heart of Christ,” St. John says. “It’s going to involve someone, really, who can reverse the impression, over time. Slowly give them a new impression of this is who Christ truly is: ‘I can give you a dynamic where you are honored and where your feet are washed and where you are loved.’”

#InsideOut In a world of competing messages, how do we distinguish God’s voice? Book author, former pastor, and freelance writer Ezra Byer shares with Martha the three filters he uses to discern if what he’s hearing is coming from God. He and his wife Janan are the founders of The MondayChristian.com, which uses the tag line Turning Sunday Belief Into Monday Action.

#InsideOut When it comes to financial confidence, we’ve got a gender gap: women, on the whole, feel less certain about money matters. Today’s Inside Out guest believes that our general sense of confidence grows when we know that we are valued by God, and that confidence can lead to financial confidence and financial wisdom. We need the right budgeting tools, of course, but Bethany Frymire says we make strides in stewarding God’s good gifts when we first know that we are of great worth. Frymire is a financial advisor and author of Women of Worth: a Faith-Based Guide to Financial Wisdom.

#InsideOut Pornography is predatory, increasingly more violent, and focused on getting into the hands of girls as well as boys. It’s accessible, anonymous, affordable, and addictive. Today on Family Life’s Inside Out, Martha talks with author Kristen Jenson about the dangers and some of the long-term effects of pornography. Jenson shares strategies that can help parents give their daughters tools to avoid pornography--and process what they’ve seen when they encounter it.   Jensen’s newest book in her Good Pictures Bad Pictures series is the read-aloud book Good Pictures Bad Pictures Guide for Girls: How I Stay Safe, Smart & Confident.   Learn more about the book here.

#InsideOut Almost every other adult 18 and older is single, according to the most recent US Census numbers. So here’s the question: if you’re married, how are you connecting with the singles in your life?   Writer and Inside Out guest Melissa Huston wants the married among us to keep in mind that our single friends are not lacking. But they may feel isolated.   “You may be the only person to ask a single person how their day was,” she says. “They’re not coming home to someone who (we joke) is paid to ask that, or what they might need. Or to check and see if they made it home safely when they leave a function. Or to make sure they have somewhere to be for the holidays and offer to pick them up from the airport.”    Huston is recently married. She gleaned lessons from her single years to write the March 2026 Gospel Coalition article: "What Singles Need from Married Friends."   “The Psalms tell us we lack no good thing with Christ as our shepherd. And Paul speaks of singleness as a gift and a calling, and God certainly wouldn’t ordain that if that meant that a person would forever be lacking,” says Huston. “And so, I think just remembering that singleness, just as much as marriage, is a reflection of God’s goodness toward us.”   After listening to our Inside Out conversation, you can read Huston’s Gospel Coalition article here.

#InsideOut Reports of a surge of interest in the Gospel circulated immediately after the September 2025 murder of Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. But a January 2026 study from the Cultural Research Center shows that this increased interest in Jesus Christ has not translated into more people living with a biblical worldview.   “We’ve heard about Bible sales, church attendance, even discussions about spiritual matters having an uptick in those months right after that assassination,” says Dr. Adam Rasmussen. “But any increased interest in the Christian faith spurred by Kirk’s assassination has not produced positive growth when it comes to biblical worldview.”   Rasmussen is Dean of Arts & Humanities at Arizona Christian University and Cultural Research Fellow with its Cultural Research Center, founded in 2019 by George Barna.   “Although 12 percent of American adults had a biblical worldview in 1994, that number was halved to just six percent by 2020. It dropped to four percent in 2023, and it remains stuck at four percent right now in 2026,” he says. “So there has been no measurable difference.”   Developing a Christian worldview often happens in community with others, and mature Christians have a role to play.   “We all have to ask the question: how much Christ is in my Christianity? How much of the Bible—how biblical—am I in my beliefs and behaviors?” he says. “I don’t know about you, but I need help with that.”

#InsideOut Abortions in the United States had been increasing for four years when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022. Even with states adding abortion regulations in the years since the Dobbs decision, abortions continue to increase.      The Gospel Coalition’s senior writer and the faith-and-work editor Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra joins Inside Out to talk about some of the reasons behind the increase. Her January 22, 2026 TGC article is titled, "How to Fight for Life when Abortions are Invisible."   “Certainly, we should keep fighting legally--for legal restrictions on abortion--and there are some things you can do,” Zylstra says. “But this is proof that as long as there is sin in the human heart, babies are not safe in the womb. The safest way to protect a child in the womb is to change hearts, and of course only the Gospel can do that. Only Jesus can change your heart.”   You can also listen to Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra’s previous Inside Out conversation by looking for Family Life’s Inside Out April 19, 2023 podcast “Girls & Social Media.”

#InsideOut When we disagree with people, Inside Out guest Patrick Payton says that as followers of Jesus we must disagree in ways that honor the image of God in the other person. Our culture encourages us to react with outrage, but Payton says that if we believe that God loved the world enough to send his Son, we need to ask ourselves, “am I more broken for their lost condition than I am angry for their political position?”   Patrick Payton is a former mayor of Midland, Texas, and the retired founding pastor of Midland’s Stonegate Fellowship. He currently leads The Payton Group consulting firm and is the author of the 2026 book The Middle: How the Quiet Majority Can Mend a Divided Nation.