Real Life with Beth and Rob

Youth-culture expert, Nicole O’Dell is the host of Choose NOW Radio: Parent Talk and Teen Talk and the founder of Choose NOW Ministries, dedicated to guiding teens through tough issues and helping parents encourage good decisions. On air, O’Dell covers peer pressure, dating, purity, drugs, alcohol, modesty, popularity, and anything else that comes up along the way. Nicole writes and speaks to preteens, teenagers, and parents about how to prepare for life’s tough choices.

As an author, O’Dell writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her popular YA fiction includes the Diamond Estate Series and the Scenarios for Girls interactive books that feature alternate endings, allowing young girls to decide the outcome for the main character. Her nonfiction for teens includes Girl Talk, which she wrote with her two daughters based on their popular advice column. While her YA resources encourage and equip teens, Nicole also works to bridge the communication gap between teens and their parents. The Hot Buttons series helps parents discuss tough issues with their tweens and teens before the issues pop up in real life. Watch for future Hot Buttons books on subjects like bullying, image, prejudice, friendships, politics, and more.

Nicole, resides in Paxton, IL, with her husband and six children—the youngest of whom are toddler triplets.

Listen as Nicole talks “HOT BUTTONS” with Beth and Rob. Work-Love-Pray-cover

Diane Paddison: Harvard MBA, chief strategy officer at Cassidy Turley, and two times the only female member of the executive team at a Fortune 500 company. She’s also a wife, mother and Christian. Author of Work, Love, Pray—a practical guide to help women balance faith, family and work—Diane created 4word, a city-by-city and online community of career women. A frequent speaker at national events, Diane speaks to women who feel called to home and career, and to the corporations that need them.

Listen as Diane shares about her book, Work, Love, Pray—a practical guide to help women balance faith, family and work. About the book: The ratio of women in today’s workforce is rising, and old best practices no longer apply. Women launching careers will find wisdom for every life stage in Work, Love, Pray.

Diane Paddison shares the ups and downs of her own corporate, personal, and spiritual life. 15 more leaders advise how to progress in your career without compromise. The foreword is authored by a successful executive, Charity Wallace, Senior Advisor to Mrs. Laura Bush and Director of the Bush Women’s Initiative.

Application questions in every section guide self-assessment. Women are connecting in Work, Love, Pray book studies. Work, Love, Pray is becoming a must-read for husbands, pastors, and mentors.

Anne Lamott is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker and writing teacher. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical. Anne Lamott is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Grace (Eventually), Plan B, Traveling Mercies, and Operating Instructions, as well as seven novels, including Rosie and Crooked Little Heart. Listen as she discusses her newest book, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son (2013.)

Paul Young was born a Canadian and raised among a Stone Age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of former Netherlands New Guinea. He suffered great loss as a child and young adult and now enjoys the “wastefulness of grace” with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

The Shack was published in 2008 and became an international phenomenon with more than eighteen million copies in print (ten million in the United States and more than 8 million in foreign translations). It spent 50 weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 41 languages.

Married to Kim 33 years, father to 6, father-in-law to 3, grandfather to 6. Author, The Shack (2008), Cross Roads (2012), The Shack Reflections (Oct 2, 2012). Listen as Paul discusses his newest book Cross Roads.

“When Audio Adrenaline said goodbye in 2006 due to frontman Mark Stuart’s chronic vocal problems, fans thought they’d heard the last of the Grammy Award-winning Christian rockers. Now with the release of “Kings & Queens,” Audio Adrenaline is back with a revamped line up that features former dcTalk member Kevin Max on lead vocals, original bassist Will McGinniss and new members Jason Walker on keyboards, former Superchick guitarist Dave Ghazarian and drummer Jared Byers, previously with Bleach. Stuart remains involved in songwriting, production and overall brand management as the band embarks on a new chapter. Kings & Queens AudioA

Audio Adrenaline kicked off a 30-city tour on March 1 in Morganton, NC. “There are a lot of young kids at these shows. By summertime we’ll playing big festivals and people would have had the record. We’ll really get an idea of what people think about this,” he says of the rebooted Audio Adrenaline.” – Audio Adrenaline Begin New Chapter With Pop-Tinged ‘Kings & Queens’ By Deborah Evans-Price, Nashville (March 13, 2013 6:00 PM EDT), Billboard.com.

Listen as the guys share about their new album, Kings & Queens, and their passion for the orphan child with their work in Haiti with Hands & Feet Project.

Mark SchultzListeners have come to expect inspiring and remarkable stories in songs from Mark Schultz, a 14-time Dove Award nominee and platinum-selling artist who touches hearts whether he sings about parents praying for a sick child (“He’s My Son”), or writes in honor of his great-grandmother’s sons who fought in World War II (“Letters From War”).

And with his latest effort, All Things Possible, Schultz continues to tackle matters of the heart and spirit with uncommon craftsmanship–though the past five years have impacted this artist in ways he could’ve never predicted or expected. He’s lived in Europe, started the Remember Me Mission with his wife to help orphans (Schultz himself is adopted), and became a father in 2012 to a boy, Ryan Samuel Schultz.

Produced by Seth Mosley (Newsboys) and Pete Kipley (MercyMe/Phil Wickham), All Things Possible has a joyous, infectious pop-rock feel that shows Schultz’ soulful tenor and tuneful melodies at their peak. Yet there’s added depth that comes as this compassionate storyteller dives deeper into using music as a vehicle for better things. Here, he quotes no less a source than theologian Frederick Buechner: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Listen as Gary discusses his newest book, The Sacred Search, (Zondervan, 2013). He challenges readers to think beyond finding a “soul mate” and to look for a “sole mate”—someone who will walk with them on their spiritual journey. Turning conventional dating wisdom upside-down, Thomas asks: What if there’s no such thing as “the one”—there’s something even better in God’s plan? What if being “in love” isn’t a good enough reason to get married? What if God designed marriage to make us holy rather than happy?

The Sacred Search casts a vision for building a relationship around a shared spiritual mission—and making a marriage with eternity at its heart.

Featuring Manny Mill who is Executive Director of Koinonia House® National Ministries (KHNM). Since 1991 when the Koinonia House of Wheaton was opened, and 1997 when KHNM began, Manny has been developing a core of post-prison ministry leaders to equip the church to meet the needs of Christian ex-prisoners returning to society. He currently invests much of his time traveling to different churches, prisons, ministries, colleges and conferences to present the mission to “equip, assist and support” members of the local church in their ability to embrace Christians coming out of prison. Manny is also the co-author of Radical Redemption: The Real Story of Manny Mill.

Featuring Jonalyn Fincher and Bo Stern. Jonalyn Fincher co-founded Soulation, a non-profit dedicated to helping others become more appropriately human. She works with her husband, Dale, as a national speaking/writing team. They recently co-authored their first book together, Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk. She writes regularly on her personal blog blending women and spirituality RubySlippers.org for the past five years. She co-authors a blog on women and friendship with a female psychologist ArtofFriendship.org. Her first book, Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home (Zondervan, ’07), explains the qualities of a woman’s soul.

Bo Sterns make her home in Bend, OR, where she is a teaching pastor at Westside Church with a passion for making theology accessible, compelling and transformative. Both her position in the church and her personal battle have allowed Bo to minister to others as they are facing their own goliaths. She considers it to be a privilege to provide a listening ear and a should to cry on being a part of another’s Army so that they don’t have to fight their battle alone. Bo and her husband, Steve, also serve on the international board of Kings Kids Village, a home for AIDS affected orphans in Nairobi, Kenya. They are also active in ALS advocacy a disease Steve has been fighting since 2011. Bo is the author of the book, Beautiful Battlefields.

Featuring Jean Johnson and Eric Thurman. Jean Johnson is the author of We Are Not the Hero: A Missionary’s Guide to Sharing Christ, Not a Culture of Dependency. Eric Thurman is President of the Global Mission Unit at David C Cook. Listen as they share their experiences in the mission world and how to create a dependency on Jesus instead of the “American Culture.”

Featuring Jedd Medefind. Jedd serves as President of the Christian Alliance for Orphans. He has written numerous articles and three books. He co-authored Four Souls, which explores questions of faith, purpose, poverty, and community amidst a real-life journey around the globe. His most recent book, Upended: How Following Jesus Remakes Your Words and World, examines what it means to live as an apprentice to Jesus in the way we connect, influence and love.

Featuring Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, the author of the national bestseller The Harbinger: the Ancient Mystery that holds the secret of America’s future. Jonathan leads the Beth Israel Worship Center in Wayne, NJ, and is president of Hope of the World, an international outreach. His teachings are heard around the world and are known for revealing the deep mysteries of biblical truth.

Featuring David Ireland, founder and senior pastor of Christ Church in Montclair, N.J., a 6,000-member congregation of 40 nationalities. Dr. David Ireland is a recognized expert on how individuals can break through racial and cultural barriers to develop meaningful, enjoyable relationships. An in-demand speaker, Ireland is the author of the important new book from NavPress The Skin You Live In—Building Friendships Across Cultural Lines.