In STORIES WITH SAM’s first Zoom based interview, Sam hears from Marshall about his itinerant childhood in northeast Texas and how his family responded both to his different childhood interests and his diagnosis of Muscular Dystrophy. Marshall also walks us through his experiences in college, how he met his wife and wound up as a counselor, how they became adoptive parents, and what he’s up to these days.

Kory shares with Sam how he’s currently juggling training for his first triathlon with founding a company, his childhood in Texarkana, the loss of a family member that drove him to come to terms with his sexuality, coming out in high school, finding a passion for theatre, studying world religion at Oxford, and the three principles he tries to live by now.

In the newest episode of STORIES WITH SAM's series "This is 40," Sam and Ellen discuss the attribution of inspirational quotes on the internet, what it feels like for us both turning 40, Ellen’s childhood with an alcoholic father and his death a few years back from liver failure, how she and her husband met and decided to foster then adopt children, and what she thinks might be next.

In a first for STORIES WITH SAM, the tables are turned and Sam gets interviewed. On the cusp of his 40th birthday, Sam sits down with his best friend Marshall to talk about his childhood and what it was like to grow up in a small town, his family of origin and the ways it shifted as he entered adolescence, the start of his faith journey, a health issue late in high school that knocked him off the track he had been on, college and seminary, meeting and marrying Kim, pastoring Mosaic, and moving on from professional ministry.

Sam hears about Brad’s childhood in Arlington and what it was like growing up with older sisters. Then they dive into Brad’s adolescence and ask questions about how much the wilder experiences people sometimes have in those years should impact our own parenting. The majority of this episode focuses though on Brad and his wife’s parenting journey with their three children - including one with autism and one that was an international adoption that didn’t play out the way anyone could have expected.

Some of you might need a warning around the transparent and difficult nature of Brad’s sharing around the general issues families can face with international adoption and the specific challenges his family faced. He shares about the family dynamics that began to quickly fall apart and the abuse of his biological children by his adopted child. Finally Brad talks about the decision he and his wife had to ultimately make to move their adopted son out of their home and what their relationship is like with him now. If there’s any reason you wouldn’t want to listen to that section, it starts about an hour and a half in. I hope as many of you as can will try to make it through though. It’s a heartbreaking but powerful story.

In the first episode of the year/decade, Trina and Sam discuss what it was like for her to grow up with older siblings and how that made things tough once she was the only one at home. We also talk some about anxiety and depression, the tragic loss Trina and her family experienced, the religious baggage from both the Catholic and Protestant traditions that has caused her to quit believing in God, and the different jobs she’s had that helped her get to the work she does now with the formerly homeless.

Ed talks with Sam about Central Texas day trips, growing up as a “surprise” in his family, his journey to becoming a Presbyterian youth minister who then walked away from that work, and how his Austin work in film and farming got him into what might be the most perfect job he could have. There’s also some parenting thoughts thrown in and one point where Sam accidentally says the word “Sorry” like a Canadian.

Sam and Leah talk about what it was like for her growing up as the youngest of three kids, how tough it can be to bring up past hurt in relationships, her path to studying social work, and her current work with women’s health initiatives.

Sam and John begin and end this chat by focusing on the benefits of disciplines like yoga and fasting. In between, there are sections on finding, walking away from, and returning to faith; the challenges that can come later in life for those who might have had too much success in adolescence; balanced approaches to parenting; and Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

In the first full episode of STORIES WITH SAM, Sam is joined by Danielle. She walks Sam through topics as varied as growing up in the Midwest (with a slight detour to Okinawa), navigating her parents’ divorce, figuring out what she wanted to do after high school, learning how to make paper, living with anxiety and depression, and how every part of her life relates to some NBC sitcom.