Talking with kids about sex, pornography, and sexuality can stir up fear, shame, and a deep sense of inadequacy for many parents. In this episode, Dan and Rachael sit down with author and parent-educator Laurie Krieg to think through a steadier, wiser way forward—one rooted in the gospel, attunement, and ongoing relationship rather than one-time "big talks."

Drawing from her new book "Raising Wise Kids in a Sexually Broken World," Laurie shares her own journey as she offers parents help to move from reactivity to intentionality. She names why these conversations feel so overwhelming—often because of our own unresolved stories—and invites parents to do their own work so they can show up with courage and calm.

Rather than avoiding hard topics or responding with fear and control, Laurie offers concrete, age-appropriate ways to engage kids through many small conversations over time, helping parents become the trusted "anchor" their children return to when confusion, curiosity, or exposure inevitably arises.

This conversation is especially helpful for parents navigating early exposure to pornography, online content, and rapidly changing technology. Laurie shares practical language parents can use, how to reduce shame when kids encounter inappropriate material, and how to frame boundaries not around fear, but around God's beautiful design for bodies, intimacy, and care.

Throughout, the emphasis is clear: it's never too late to begin, repair matters more than perfection, and wisdom is something parents can grow into—step by step—as they walk alongside their children in a complex world.

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For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

You can find transcripts, show notes, and more for each episode at:
theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:
https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

In a country that is hurting and fractured by deep division, many of us are wondering how to remain rooted in love. As followers of Jesus, the question before us is not simply what do we think, but how do we stay human, attentive, and faithful in such a time as this?

In this thoughtful and spacious conversation, Rachael Clinton Chen welcomes theologian and author Kat Armas into a much-needed dialogue about power, imagination, and what it means to remain grounded and joined together in the way of Jesus.

Drawing from her newest book, "Liturgies for Resisting Empire: Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World," Kat invites listeners beyond political binaries and party lines into a deeper reckoning with how power has shaped our stories.

Here, empire names more than a political system. It refers to any way of organizing life—political, theological, cultural, or personal—that relies on power and fear to preserve itself, rather than love, humility, and mutual care. Often, its influence goes unnamed, shaping our imaginations, our bodies, our relationships, and even our spirituality.

Against this backdrop, Kat offers liturgies as embodied practices that can steady us, give us language when words feel thin, and help us resist dehumanization together.

This episode is not about debating political parties or policies. Instead, it invites us to slow down, to notice what's been "in the water" all along, and to return our attention to Jesus. We hope this conversation offers something more sustaining than easy answers—a holy resistance shaped by presence, community, and love.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

Faith, hope, and love are beautiful words—but for many of us, they don't feel simple or safe. When they've been wielded to control, silence, or shame, these core concepts can carry weight, confusion, and even fear. In the wake of spiritual abuse, what once promised life can feel distorted or out of reach.

Today, Dan and Rachael step tenderly and courageously into what it means to reclaim faith, hope, and love after harm.

Rather than treating faith as certainty, hope as optimism, or love as obedience, they reframe these virtues as deeply human, relational realities: faith as trust, hope as imagination for a future shaped by goodness, and love as a force grounded in honor, freedom, and delight.

Together, they name how spiritual abuse exploits fear and shame to protect power—fracturing our ability to trust ourselves, others, and even God.

Healing doesn't begin with forcing a set of dogmatic beliefs, but with safety: learning to listen to our bodies, recover discernment, and engage relationships where difference and nuance are welcomed.

This conversation is for anyone longing to rediscover a faith that makes room for personhood, courage, and love that does not demand fear in return.

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For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

Most of us say we value the truth—until it unsettles us, costs us something, or asks us to change. Truth has a way of disrupting the stories we use to survive.

That's exactly what we're talking about on the podcast today. Dr. Monique Gadson joins Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen to explore why truth-telling feels so threatening—personally, relationally, and culturally.

Drawing from systems theory, theology, and her lived experience, Dr. Gadson names anxiety as the central force that keeps us from truth. When we lack the capacity to tolerate the discomfort truth brings, we turn to projection, delusion, scapegoating, and certainty as coping mechanisms. What begins as an inability to regulate anxiety within families and relationships spills outward into institutions, churches, and society itself, resulting in polarization, blame, and a deep resistance to accountability.

The conversation presses especially hard on the role of Christians in this moment. Rather than leading the way in humility, repentance, and truth-bearing love, the church is often entangled in systems that suppress truth to protect power, purity narratives, or a false sense of goodness.

Dr. Gadson speaks candidly about the cost of being a truth teller, particularly as a Black woman, and the reality of being scapegoated for disrupting dominant stories. Yet she also offers a grounded hope: freedom comes through differentiation, integrity, and the slow, courageous work of managing anxiety rather than projecting it onto others. Truth, she reminds us, is not about annihilating one another, but about creating the conditions where real relationship, responsibility, and repair are possible.

Ultimately, this episode invites us to ask not only what is true, but what does truth stir in us—and can we bear it?

As Dan reflects, the truth both attracts and repels us—and our prayer may simply be, "I believe; help my unbelief."

This is a conversation for anyone longing to live with greater integrity, emotional maturity, and faithfulness in a world that increasingly struggles to tell—and receive—the truth.

"What if the sacred is not somewhere else? What if it's right here and right now?"

In this rich and reflective episode of the Allender Center Podcast, Dan and Rachael welcome theologian, author, and beloved mentor Dr. Keith Anderson.

Drawing from his book, "On Holy Ground: Your Story of Identity, Belonging, and Sacred Purpose," Keith invites us to reconsider vocation not as a role, title, or single decision made when you're young, but as a lifelong relationship with Jesus. It's one shaped by seasons, suffering, questions, and ordinary faithfulness.

Together, they explore how calling is formed not in abstraction, but in the particularity of our stories: our bodies, our sufferings, our relationships, and our hope.

If you are asking questions about purpose, identity, belonging, or how to remain open-hearted amid suffering and uncertainty, this episode is a gift. It's a reminder that vocation is not about getting it right once, but about learning, again and again, how to live your life with God.

*This episode contains discussions of addiction and includes a quoted derogatory term. Listener discretion is advised.

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You can find transcripts, show notes, and more for each episode at:
theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:
https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

The new year can bring the hope of a fresh start… or the dread of more of the same.

In this first episode of the year, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen name what many of us are already feeling: life feels heavy, noisy, and hard to keep up with.

They talk about the "stone in the shoe" of modern life—how distraction, overwhelm, and unresolved trauma slowly wear us down—and share practical ways to respond. That might look like stepping back from constant media, creating gentle daily rhythms of prayer, worship, and Scripture, or using journaling and writing to slow your thoughts and reconnect with what matters most.

At the heart of the conversation is a simple but challenging invitation: to stay awake to suffering without losing hope, and to let love, humility, and courage shape how we live. Reflecting on Romans 12, we're invited to resist chaos and despair and instead lean into the kind of formation that only comes from following Jesus.

This episode is about 40 minutes long. After listening, consider taking a few extra minutes (maybe even more than a few) to reflect on how you want to enter the new year: more grounded, more aware, and more spiritually centered.

As Dan says in closing, "It would be great if it's a happy new Year… but may it be one in which our lives are more formed in Jesus."

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You can find transcripts, show notes, and more for each episode at:
theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:
https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

As the year comes to a close, Dan and Becky Allender continue their annual podcast tradition: pausing to reflect on the year that has passed. They share a bit about their own experiences—what they've learned, what they're grieving, and what they're celebrating—as they prepare to enter a new season.

Together, they invite you to also pause and reflect: What moments from your year need remembering? What relationships could use repair or deeper care? What desires and hopes might God be stirring in your heart for the year ahead?

We are deeply grateful for your presence and support of the Allender Center Podcast in 2025. As we step into 2026, we look forward to continuing this journey together!

This Advent season, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen are joined by Rev. Dr. Michael Chen for a rich and deeply human conversation about the Trinity and what it reveals to us about God, ourselves, and our relationships with others.

Together, they explore how the mystery of one God in three persons shapes our understanding of love, relationality, and beauty—particularly in the context of Advent, when we reflect on God's incarnation and presence in the world.

This episode is an invitation to pause, wonder, and engage your heart with the presence of God in this season of anticipation.

The podcast will take a short break next week for the holiday, but we'll be back on December 26 with an end-of-year reflection from Dan and Becky Allender.