All Saints Podcast | Believe Doubt Seek

Episode 4: Stop Trying to Stop Worrying: Asleep in the Boat

Episode Summary

What do you do with the worry that comes after you’ve already prayed? In this episode we step into the boat with the disciples in Mark 4:35–41. A furious squall hits the Sea of Galilee, seasoned fishermen are bailing for their lives, and Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the stern. Their cry, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”, is the question underneath many of our own prayers, and underneath the headlines as well.

Jesus doesn’t scold them for waking him. He gets up, speaks to the wind and waves, and the lake goes still. Then the story takes a strange turn: the disciples are more afraid after the calm than during the storm. Worry asks, “Does God care?” The deeper question is “Who is this in the boat with me?”

In This Episode

•Why prayer sometimes feels like it hits the ceiling, and why you’re in good company if it does

•Our private storms and the public ones: reading Mark 4 alongside the news

•The sleeping Jesus: what the cushion reveals about his humanity, his exhaustion, and his trust in the Father

•“At their wits’ end”: when all your skill and every tool you have stop working

•The real fear isn’t that God is weak but that God is indifferent

•Jesus stills the storm, the first of his nature miracles in Mark, showing his authority over creation itself

•“Do you still have no faith?” heard not as a rebuke but as “Did you really think I’d let you drown?”

•From relief to awe: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

•Hurricanes and headlines are not two different problems for God

Scripture Referenced

•Mark 4:35–41, Jesus calms the storm

•Psalm 107:25–27, “they were at their wits’ end”

•Psalm 89:9, “when its waves mount up, you still them”

•Psalm 65:6–7, the God who stills the roaring seas and the turmoil of the nations

•Proverbs 30:4, “Whose hands have gathered up the wind?”

•Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God”

This Week’s Practice

Go back to that moment when your prayer felt like it hit the ceiling.

1Wake him up. Don’t pretend you’re fine. Tell Jesus honestly: I’m scared. I’m not sure you care. He can take it, and the Psalms are full of prayers like that.

2Ask the better question. Picture your storm, and picture Jesus in the same boat with you. Then ask him: Who are you, in this?

3Carry someone else’s storm. Choose one storm from the headlines, such as a family in Bend, a town on the Gulf Coast, or a neighbor worried about rent, and bring it to him too.

Key Quote

“His sleep wasn’t neglect. It was trust. He knew who held the storm. Do you?”

Stop Trying to Stop Worrying: Not Yours to Carry

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Episode : 3

Some of the heaviest worry isn't about us at all. It's about them. This week we look at what it means to cast our cares on God, especially our worry for the people we love. Part of the series Stop Trying to Stop Worrying.

The friend who stopped returning your texts. The marriage coming apart that isn't yours. Your mom, whose memory slips a little more each visit. You love these people, so you carry them with you. Everywhere. And if someone told you to stop worrying about them, it would almost feel like a betrayal. Isn't worrying what love does?

In this episode, we sit with two passages written by people who knew that weight. In Psalm 55, David is in anguish over the betrayal of a close friend, and right in the middle of it he writes a line that sounds almost too simple: cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you. Centuries later, Peter writes to scattered, persecuted churches and tells them to humble themselves under God's mighty hand and throw all their anxiety on him.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why the Hebrew word for "care" covers far more than anxiety, including the very people and situations God has placed in your hands

• What it means that God doesn't just watch over the people we love, but steps under the weight of their lives

• Why Peter's word for "cast" really means to throw, and what it looks like to stop keeping one hand on the thing you've handed over

• Why Peter puts humility before casting, and how worry can quietly put us in God's role

• Three ways carrying someone else's whole life becomes dangerous: to them, to us, and to our faith

• How letting go isn't checking out, and why you're more present for people when you're not drowning in fear for them

SCRIPTURE

Psalm 55:22

1 Peter 5:6–7

FOR TODAY

Think of one person you've been carrying this week. Just one. Say their name, then pray something like this:

"God, I love them. You love them more. I can't hold their whole life, but you can. I'm putting them in your hands. Show me the one thing you want me to do for them today, and help me let the rest go."

And if you pick them back up an hour from now, that's okay. Set them down again. Casting isn't something you do once. It's something you learn to do over and over.

CONNECT WITH ALL SAINTS

All Saints is a community for all who believe, doubt, and seek. Find groups, the app, and more at https://believedoubtseek.org

If this episode helped, share it with someone you know who's carrying a lot for somebody else.

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Stop Trying to Stop Worrying

Episode 2: Today Has Enough

Matthew 6:25–34

Most of our worry isn't about right now. Right now, we're usually okay. Worry is a kind of time travel: it carries us into a future we haven't reached, shows us the worst version of it, and drops us back in the present, worn out from a trip we never needed to take.

In this episode, we sit with Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount, spoken to ordinary people who didn't know where next week's bread would come from. Jesus doesn't scold them for being anxious. He points: look at the birds, consider the lilies. Worry tells us everything depends on us. Jesus invites us to look up and notice that the world we're standing in is already being held.

In this episode

•Why worry feels productive, and why it isn't. Worry doesn't add an hour to our lives or solve tomorrow's problem. It spends today's strength on a future we can't yet live.

•What the birds and lilies teach us. Creation isn't a throwaway illustration. Jesus points to it because it matters to God, and God's care for it reveals something about God's care for us.

•Prayer as the alternative to worry. Paul doesn't just tell us to stop being anxious; he gives us something to do with what worries us.

•Today's trouble, today's grace. Like manna in the wilderness, grace can't be stockpiled. It comes fresh each day.

•What "seek first the kingdom" really means. The kingdom is God's intention for the world becoming reality: the hungry fed, enemies reconciled, the stranger welcomed, the overlooked given a place at the table. It's God's work, and we're invited to join it.

Scripture

•Matthew 6:25–34

•Philippians 4:6

•Exodus 16 (manna in the wilderness)

Mentioned

•N. T. Wright on Christian hope as God renewing creation rather than abandoning it

A line to carry with you

"We don't need tomorrow's grace today. We need today's grace today."

A practice for today

When you notice yourself worrying, stop and ask: Is this today's trouble or tomorrow's?

•If it's today's, do what you can, then let it go.

•If it's tomorrow's, say, "That belongs to tomorrow." Take a breath, look around, and notice something God is caring for without your help.

Today has enough, and today God has enough for you.

For reflection

1.Where does your worry tend to travel: next week, next month, or years ahead?

2.What would it look like to treat prayer, not rehearsal, as the "productive" response to what worries you?

3.Where do you see God bringing life or restoring what's broken right now, and how might you join in?

Stop Trying to Stop Worrying

Psalm 46:1–5, 10 & Philippians 4:6–7

Maybe nothing in your life is on fire. It's just a lot: the emails, the test results you're waiting on, the kid who won't talk to you, the bills, the news. Any one of them you could handle. All of them together keep you up at 2 a.m.

This episode looks at two passages written by people who knew that feeling. One is a temple song from Jerusalem. The other is a letter Paul wrote from prison. Neither pretends everything is fine. Both say the same thing: you don't have to carry the weight of all of it.

In this episode:

Faith that admits the mountains shake. Psalm 46 doesn't promise that hard things won't happen. It speaks from inside the upheaval, and that gives us permission to name what's shaking instead of spiritualizing it away.

The river under the city. Jerusalem had no great river. The psalm's "river that makes glad the city of God" points to a hidden current, God as "a very present help": present in the middle of it, not arriving after it.

Why "just stop worrying" never works. Paul doesn't simply forbid anxiety. He redirects it in four movements: in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, and let your requests be made known.

Thanksgiving as memory. Anxiety lives in an imagined future. Thanksgiving plants our feet in a remembered past where God was faithful.

Peace that keeps watch. Paul's word for "guard" pictures a sentry at the city gate. The worries will still knock, but you aren't the one who has to stay awake guarding the door.

Every "you" is plural. God's peace often comes through a friend who prays when we can't, or through a community that holds what we can't.

"Be still" means let go. The Hebrew carries the sense of loosening your grip, like a fist slowly unclenching. Rest isn't passivity: you still make the call and show up to the appointment, but you do it from rest instead of dread.

A practice for this week:

Name it. Say or write the one thing weighing heaviest on you today.

Pray it specifically. "God, here's what I'm afraid will happen…"

Remember one faithfulness. Name one time God carried you before, and say thank you.

Open your hands. "I'm letting go of this. You are God. I am not."

Breathe the promise. Inhale: "God is my refuge." Exhale: "Your peace keeps watch over my heart."

Repeat it each time the worry returns. It will return, and that's fine. The watch is kept.

Scripture referenced: Psalm 46:1–5, 10 (ESV); Philippians 4:6–7 (ESV and The Passion Translation)

"Worries will still come knocking at 2 a.m. But you won't be the one who has to stay awake guarding the door. Someone else is on watch."

Episode Show Notes: More Than a Belief System-Why We Need the Holy Spirit for Everything

We don't just need the Holy Spirit for church — we need him for our politics, our relationships, and every hard conversation in between. Whether you believe all of this, doubt most of it, or you're just seeking and not sure yet, this episode is for you.

What we cover

- Why the most qualified people in history (the original disciples) still weren't ready without the Holy Spirit

- Who the Spirit is: "another Helper" of the same kind as Jesus (John 14:16)

- The simple test for discerning what's really from the Spirit: is this something Jesus did, or would do?

- The two ditches the church keeps driving into: sensationalizing the Spirit vs. institutionalizing the Spirit

A picture for how the Spirit actually operates. Not like a standing army with headquarters and a chain of command, but like wind moving through the cracks in our systems

- What that means for how we handle politics, social issues, and our closest relationships

- An invitation to all whp believe, doubt, and seek

Scripture referenced

•Acts 1:8 — "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

•John 14:16 — "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever."

•John 16:7 — Jesus tells the disciples it's better for them that he goes away, because he will send the Helper

Quote from the episode

"The Spirit doesn't ask our institutions for permission, and he definitely doesn't wait for our politics to sort itself out before he moves."

Questions for reflection or group discussion

1Have you ever seen something done "in the name of the Holy Spirit" that left you confused or wary? What happened?

2Which do you lean toward more naturally — sensationalizing the Spirit, or institutionalizing him?

3Where in your life right now (a relationship, a decision, a conversation you're avoiding) do you need the Holy Spirit to move "through the cracks" rather than through your own plan?

4If you're doubting or still seeking what would it look like to bring that honestly to God this week rather than waiting until you're sure?

Knit Together in Love — Colossians 1:24–2:5

What does it actually take to keep turning a whole life toward Jesus especially in a season marked by division and drifting doubt? In this message, we sit with Paul's words to the Colossians and ask what it means to be "knit together in love," to let Christ be the center not once, but daily. We talk honestly about suffering, about the doubts our kids and friends bring us, about a culture pulling people apart politically and away from faith quietly and about the deep, often invisible ways God is still growing something real underground, even when it doesn't look connected on the surface. Come with your questions. That's where the secret ingredient tends to show up.

In this episode:

•Why doubt can be a catalyst instead of a threat

•Suffering as the "cross-shaped" pattern of a Christ-follower's life

•Staying in relationship across political and ideological divides

•What teaching-as-dialogue looks like house to house

•This week's challenge: listening for what others see in you

Show Notes: Be Still and Know That I Am God

Psalm 46:10 and the practice of trust in an anxious, always-on world

Episode Summary

In a culture built on constant notifications, instant answers, and nonstop motion, six ancient words still cut through the noise: "Be still, and know that I am God." In this episode, we slow down with Psalm 46:10, a verse written in the middle of chaos, not calm, and ask what it actually means to trust God's character, release the "if onlys" that keep us stuck in regret, find peace without full clarity, and rest in a love we don't have to earn. This isn't a call to do more. It's an invitation to let go.

What We Cover

•Why Psalm 46 was written in the middle of national upheaval, not peace, and why that matters for reading it today

•Trusting the character of God when we don't have the outcome we want (1 John 5:15)

•Releasing the "if only" thoughts that keep us stuck in regret and self-blame

•Letting God fight the battles we can't control (Exodus 14:14)

•Finding peace even when we can't see the full picture (Isaiah 55:9)

•Resting in God's presence and love rather than earning it

•A simple, practical practice for building stillness into daily life

Scripture Referenced

•Psalm 46:10 — "Be still, and know that I am God."

•1 John 5:15 — "And since we know He hears us, when we make requests, we also know that He will give us what we ask for."

•Exodus 14:14 — "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

•Isaiah 55:9 — "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways."

•Psalm 37:7 — "Be still in the presence of the Lord."

Reflection Questions

1.Where in my life right now am I "white-knuckling" instead of trusting?

2.What "if only" thought have I been replaying, and what would it take to set it down?

3.Where do I feel like I can't see what God is doing — and what do I still know to be true about His character?

4.When did I last sit in stillness long enough to actually receive God's love, not just

affirm it?

5.What would change in my daily life if I believed, moment to moment, that God's presence surrounds me?

This Week's Practice

Set a timer for five minutes. No phone, no agenda. Sit, breathe, and quietly repeat: "Be still, and know that I am God." Let the sentence shorten each time, be still and know… be still… know until it becomes less something you're saying and more a posture you're resting in.

Quotable Moments

•"Every time we choose stillness over striving, we're making a quiet declaration: God is God, and I am not and that is good news."

•"Peace isn't the reward for having it all figured out. It's available before the clarity comes."

•"Surrender isn't just uncomfortable anymore; it can feel almost irresponsible."

Connect / Continue the Conversation

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TicToc: @believedoubtseek

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All Saints is a community for All who believe, doubt, and seek. But believing, doubting, and seeking only make sense if they are directed at someone. In this episode, we talk about why Jesus must remain at the center of everything we are becoming.

Romans 1 tells us that creation reveals the reality and power of God. But creation alone cannot give us the fullest picture of who God is. That picture comes through Jesus. Jesus shows us that love is not simply something God does. Love is who God is.

We also explore why some Christians find it easier to emphasize morality than to trust the work of the Holy Spirit. Rules can be written down, measured, and enforced. They can also give us a sense of control. Trusting the Spirit with another person’s life is less predictable. The Spirit may work more slowly than we want, begin somewhere we would not begin, or ask us to listen and love before we correct.

This does not mean that how we live is unimportant. It means we must get the order right. Morality is not the price we pay to receive God’s love. A transformed life is the fruit that grows as we learn to live within that love.

Using the image of a rhizome, we consider how the life of Jesus spreads through relationships rather than being confined to a building, institution, platform, or single model of church. That life can emerge around a table, through a screen, over coffee, in prayer, through service, or wherever people create room for honest connection.

The forms may change. Jesus does not.

Scripture

Romans 1:18–25

Psalm 19

1 John 4:7–12

Questions for Reflection

* What is actually shaping the way I live and treat people?

* Where have fear, control, outrage, or the need to be right displaced Jesus?

* Am I using morality or judgment to avoid the harder work of love?

* Where might the Holy Spirit be asking me to listen before I speak?

* Who has God placed in my life whom I need to approach with greater grace and openness?

Next Steps

Read Psalm 19 and pay attention to the signs of God’s presence around you. Then read a Gospel story in which Jesus encounters someone others have judged, avoided, or reduced to a label. Notice how Jesus approaches that person, what truth he tells, what dignity he restores, and what he refuses to control.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you one concrete response. It may be making a call, offering an apology, listening without preparing a rebuttal, welcoming someone whose questions make you uncomfortable, or serving someone without treating them as a project.

For All Saints, the next step is to become a community whose life spreads through relationships: small gatherings, shared meals, honest conversations, prayer, hospitality, and care. We are not asking everyone to fit into one model. We are asking each person to remain connected to Jesus and carry his life into the places where they already live.

All Saints is a virtual faith community for all who believe, doubt, and seek.

Creating a Movement, Part 2: Rhizome

Scripture: Acts 8, 10, 11 (with roots in 1 Peter 2:4-12)

A tree grows from one visible trunk, top-down. A rhizome spreads underground, sideways, sending up new growth in places you'd never predict, and it still has one life running through the whole thing. That's the image for this episode, and we trace it through three moments in Acts: believers scattered by persecution who end up planting the gospel wherever they land, the Spirit falling on Cornelius's household before the church has worked out any theology to explain it, and a handful of believers whose names Scripture never bothers to record starting the church at Antioch. We also bring in Bobby Clinton's research on what movements have in common and ask what it would take for a congregation to be less of a location and more of a movement.

Three questions from this episode

- Where has something in your life scattered you: a move, a loss, a disruption that might actually be the Spirit sending you somewhere he already intends to work?

- Is there a "Cornelius" in your life, someone outside your familiar circle that the Spirit may already be moving toward before you've worked out all your theology about them?

- Are you willing to be one of the unnamed ones, no title, no platform, no credit, who simply opens a home, shares a meal, tells the truth about Jesus, and lets something start that you'll never get to name?

What we cover

Acts 8: persecution scatters the Jerusalem church, and it's ordinary believers, not the apostles, who carry the gospel out. Acts 10: The Spirit falls on Cornelius's household before Peter even finishes preaching. God moves first, and the church catches up. Acts 11: Unnamed believers start the church at Antioch, which later sends out Paul and Barnabas.

We also walk through Bobby Clinton's five commitments of a movement: personal involvement, persuading others to join, commitment to the core beliefs, non-bureaucratic cell-group organization, and enduring opposition. The fourth one is where the rhizome language comes from most directly.

Questions for discussion or journaling

- Name one disruption from the last few years. Did it open a door you wouldn't have chosen yourself?

- Who's someone in your life who feels outside the circle? What would it look like to pay attention to what God might already be doing there?

- What's one small, unglamorous thing you could start this week that you'd never get credit for?

Scripture referenced

1 Peter 2:4-12 · Acts 2:46-47 · Acts 8:1-4 · Acts 10:44-45 · Acts 11:19-21

Mentioned in this episode

J. Robert Clinton, *The Making of a Leader*

What if this community simply wasn't here?

Not "would people miss it" would anything in your actual life, your actual relationships, be different?

This week we're talking about prayer the discipline most of us quietly struggle with and why it's the starting point for everything we believe God is calling All Saints toward next. We'll also open up Movement 6: the invitation to help build what's coming, not just watch it happen.

If something's been breaking your heart lately, stick around. That might not be a coincidence.

This Sunday

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