You might think of joy as an internal disposition: you either have it or you don't. But if the difference between happiness and joy is that joy is supposed to be independent of our circumstances, then it stands to reason that joy is something that can (and, biblically speaking, should) be cultivated in our lives.

But how do we do it? Ben Taylor from Bellevue Baptist Church teaches us how we can cultivate joy and what the key to being joyful is.

We tend to want to focus on the upbeat and the positive. But did you know that about 1/3 of the Psalms, the hymnbook of ancient Israel, contains sad songs called Songs of Lament?

What might it look like for us to be willing to enter into the difficult things in our prayer lives? Why do we need to confess our sin to God if He already knows we're sorry? How does lament work and why should we do it?

Additional resources

Busy. Stressed. Overwhelmed.

You've probably characterized your time in one of these ways recently. So why in the world would you take time to intentionally rest? How would you even go about it?

As stress and anxiety rapidly become more commonplace, practicing rest as God's people is incredibly important. Learn how can and why you should take a Sabbath rest weekly.

Listening Guide

Additional Resources

We've convinced ourselves that we only have a limited amount of brain space, so while we're students there's no way that we can commit to memorizing Scripture.

Meanwhile, when our favorite song from middle school comes on we can sing every word. We remember lines from movies we watched last week and heard once. We're in professional school, in large part, due to our ability to memorize information.

So why can't we memorize Scripture? Listen this week for some practical tips and tricks on how we can commit to memorizing Scripture even while we're busy.

Listening Guide

Additional Resources

Many of us find prayer to be difficult. But what if our prayers could be directed and deepened with one, easy practice?

Listen this week to learn how you can pray using Scripture. Over the last two years, this training has been the most impactful on our students. It can be for you, too!

Listening Guide

Additional Resources

Scripture is full of admonitions to remember. But our short attention spans and the way we have been conditioned to run to things that are "new" clashes with these admonitions. How do we do it?

Journaling is a great way to intentionally reflect on what God has done and said. Join us this week as Casey Groomes shares her practice of journaling with us.

Additional resources

Reading the Bible is difficult when we're busy, much less studying the Bible! And how do you even start? 

Studying the Bible doesn't have to be as daunting or time consuming as we fear. This week Mitchell Morris, the new student director at Island Community Church, shares a simple method for studying the Bible that we can practice to help us know and follow Jesus more intimately.

Listening Guide

Additional Resources

Inductive Bible Study Helps

Prayer is a discipline that we all know we should practice more, but we often don't measure up to our own expectations in our prayer lives. 

Chris Parsons, a second year PT student at UTHSC, is passionate about prayer. In this episode, he shares his perspective on how to cultivate and create space for prayer in the midst of a busy schedule.

Listening Guide

Additional Prayer Resources

"I love Jesus, but I don't like the church" is a popular slogan. Many others simply don't feel like they have enough time to belong to a local church, especially during professional school.

But the local church is the God-ordained vehicle for our spiritual growth, our missional engagement, and our place of community. BCM President Garrett Salansky reminds us why we should and offers practical suggestions on how we can be involved in a local church during this season of life.

Listening guide

Local churches

Reading the Bible regularly has been shown to be one of the greatest factors in growing in spiritual maturity. Everyone has heard countless exhortations on the necessity of daily Bible reading to grow in their faith. But most of us find reading the Bible a majority of days difficult, much less every single day.

In this episode of Discipleship IRL, we unpack some of the practical obstacles that we face in daily Bible reading, offer suggestions for how to create a more regular Bible reading practice, and suggest some resources below to help you more regularly engage in Bible reading.

Bible reading resources