The Strong Women Podcast

By Colson Center

Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality Christianity

What's The Strong Women Podcast about?

In our culture, if a woman is said to have strength it usually means she is competing with a man or acting like a man.

What if there is strength in the way God made us, as women?
There is and we recognize it when we see it.

We are excited to introduce you to women who display true strength, not in spite of being women but because of it.

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LAST EPISODE

S4 17: “Dear Softball, You ...

12.06.2023

Imagine if you got everything you ever wanted. Would it satisfy your soul? After experiencing great success in her athletic career, today’s wise-beyond-her-years guest realized that only Jesus could satisfy her soul and give her a firm foundation amid the ...

The Strong Women Podcast episodes:

12.06.2023 S4 17: “Dear Softball, You Don’t Define Me” With Grace Lyons-Turk Imagine if you got everything you ever wanted. Would it satisfy your soul? After experiencing great success in her athletic career, today’s wise-beyond-her-years guest realized that only Jesus could satisfy her soul and give her a firm foundation amid the ...
11.29.2023 S4 16: Embracing True Festivity This Christmas With Haley Stewart Christmastime is a season of festivity—carols, parties, decorations, food. But do we understand the true meaning of festivity and its divine origins? Haley Stewart—mom, author, and editor at Word on Fire Spark—joins us this week to give us a true ...
11.21.2023 Best of Strong Women With Melanie Kirkpatrick What are women made for and what are they capable of? What makes them valuable? What is “women’s work”? One of the most culturally influential women in American history used her life’s work to answer these questions and affirm women ...
11.15.2023 S4 14: Education That Leads to Flourishing With Lynn Swaner What is education for? How does the Christian worldview shape our approach to it? If you ask this week’s guest, she’ll tell you that it’s for the flourishing of children, parents, and communities. Lynn Swaner is the Chief Strategy and ...
11.08.2023 S4 13: Trusting God’s Calling on Your Life With Kellie Fiedorek From a young age, Kellie Fiedorek was driven by a passion to seek justice and uphold the dignity of every human life. Today, she serves as senior counsel and director of Government Affairs at Alliance Defending Freedom. In this episode, ...
11.01.2023 S4 12: Thinking Critically for the Love of God With Kathy Gibbens Did you have formal logic in school? I didn’t. As Kathy Gibbens was teaching her kids logic, she learned the importance of thinking clearly and logically herself. She recognized how helpful it is to have categories that bring order to ...
10.25.2023 S4 11: Telling the Truth About Chemical Abortion with Christina Francis Abortion has been packaged and falsely marketed as a form of healthcare necessary for women’s empowerment, while pro-life advocacy has been mislabeled as anti-woman. Dr. Christina Francis knows this reasoning is backwards, and she uses her voice to fight for ...
10.18.2023 S4 10: A Non-Obsessive Approach to Caring for Our Bodies With Lainey Greer Many of us struggle with body image. Our bodies matter and we are called to care for them—but how do we do that without obsessing? What does it look like to steward our bodies? This week, Lainey Greer joins us ...
10.11.2023 S4 09: Honoring and Caring for Aging Image Bearers with Georgette Forney In part 2 of our conversation with Georgette Forney, she shares how God directed her pro-life advocacy toward end-of-life-care. She has taken time to research and write a Christian curriculum on end-of-life care, to help Christians think biblically about aging ...
10.04.2023 S4 08: Finding Forgiveness and Healing After Abortion with Georgette Forney Georgette Forney is the director of Anglicans for Life and co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness campaign. At age 16, Georgette had an abortion. Even after becoming a Christian, she struggled to believe that God could forgive her. She ...
09.27.2023 S4 07: Clinging to God Through Grief and Loss With Dana St. John How do we trust the Lord in the face of devastating loss? This week, I’ve invited my friend Dana St. John to share her experience of walking with the Lord through the unexpected loss of her husband at age 44. ...
09.20.2023 S4 6: Finding Strength in God Through Persecution With Virginia Prodan Virginia Prodan joins us for a second time to share the incredible story of how God saved her. She tells us about her participation in God’s work in communist Romania, the way He strengthened her through persecution, and what we ...
09.13.2023 S4 05. The Shocking Dorothy Sayers With Crystal Downing Crystal Downing joins us this week to talk about the 20th-century Christian author, Dorothy Sayers. Crystal is Co-Director of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, where scholars research, write about, and preserve the memorabilia of a handful of ...
09.06.2023 S4 04: Staying Faithful Under Public Pressure With Lorie Smith Lorie Smith is a graphic designer and the founder and owner of 303 Creative. She’s also the center of a landmark Supreme Court case regarding freedom of speech—a case she has just won thanks to her perseverance and the hard ...
08.30.2023 S4 3: Before the Sex Talk With Linda Noble and Linda Stewart Part 2 Our guests today are Linda Noble and Linda Stewart, affectionately called “The Lindas.” I love how these two ladies in different seasons of life looked at the world around them and asked, “What is missing that we can add?” They ...
08.23.2023 S4 2: Before the Sex Talk With Linda Noble and Linda Stewart Part 1 Our guests today are Linda Noble and Linda Stewart, affectionately called “The Lindas.” I love how these two ladies in different seasons of life looked at the world around them and asked, “What is missing that we can add?” They ...
08.16.2023 S4 1: Bringing Christ’s Love and Light to Women in Strip Clubs With Rachelle Starr Our guest today is Rachelle Starr, founder of Scarlet Hope. At 21, Rachelle felt God calling her to minister to women trapped working in strip clubs in her city of Louisville, KY. Today, she shares some of the stories she’s ...
08.09.2023 Best of Strong Women: Men and Women Working Together for the Kingdom With John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle This is one of my favorite episodes because Erin and I get to interview our husbands. Being made in the image of God as male and female is a good thing. It is not an accident that we are created ...
08.02.2023 Best of Strong Women: Lifelong Learning with Cindy Rollins In this best-of episode, we are joined by Cindy Rollins, an author, mother of nine, speaker, and co-host of The Literary Life Podcast. Cindy has encouraged many women, including Erin and Sarah, to stay curious, hunt for beauty in the ...
07.26.2023 Best of Strong Women: Strength During the Upheaval of World War II with Sheila Broderick v2 We are joined by Sarah’s lovely and feisty English grandmother, Sheila Broderick. Sheila was ten years old when England declared war on Germany in World War II. She was evacuated by train to Wales, but unlike the Pevensie children of ...
07.19.2023 Best of Strong Women: Seeing and Knowing Yourself and Others With Kathy Koch We welcome Dr. Kathy Koch, president of Celebrate Kids, to talk about the importance of paying attention to those around us. As Kathy likes to say, we are all made on purpose, with purpose, for a purpose. Kathy has a ...
07.12.2023 Best of Strong Women: A Life Shaped by the Body of Christ With Mollie Hemingway This week we welcome Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at the Federalist Society and a Fox News contributor, to share her story with us. During her adolescence, Mollie’s family oriented their lives around the church. She shares with us how that ...
07.05.2023 Best of Strong Women: God Redeems our Suffering With Joni Eareckson Tada During our season break, we’re looking back at some of our first and favorite episodes. In this conversation with Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni shares her journey from being a young athlete to a quadriplegic and how God has used this ...
06.28.2023 S3 27: Looking Back and Looking Forward: Reflecting on Three Years of the Strong Women Podcast With Erin Kunkle We flip the microphone in this episode towards our guest, Erin Kunkle. Erin has been co-hosting Strong Women with me for three years now. The podcast has grown and has become more than the side project it was when we ...
06.21.2023 S3 26: Contending for Life in a Post-Roe America, One Year in With Alexandra DeSanctis We have been living in a post-Roe America for a year now, and it’s become more evident than ever that abortion has torn our nation apart—affecting babies and mothers, families, civil society, and every area of our common life. This ...
06.14.2023 S3 25: Caring for Patients as Human Beings, Not Machines With Kristin Collier At this year’s Colson Center National Conference, we sat down with Dr. Kristin Collier, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Program on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at the University of Michigan Medical School. Kristin shares how her ...
06.07.2023 S3 24: Learning to Know and Love God with Our Minds With Melissa Cain Travis Our guest today is Dr. Melissa Cain Travis, an Affiliate Faculty member at Colorado Christian University’s Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics. Melissa loves to read about, talk about, teach about, and discuss ideas—from philosophy to faith to ...
05.31.2023 S3 23: Rescuing Our Children from Transgender Ideology With Maria Keffler Maria Keffler is a mother, educator, and author who dedicates her time to helping parents whose children are being taken captive by the lies of the transgender movement. In our conversation, Maria shows us how this social and cultural movement ...
05.24.2023 S3 22: Testimonies From Six Strong Women in This Year’s Colson Fellows Class We often refer to the Colson Fellows Program on the Strong Women podcast. This week, we’re excited to share the testimonies of six Colson Fellows-in-Training, all of whom are also Strong Women listeners. They share the highlights of their experiences ...
05.17.2023 S3 21: Mother and Son: Pam Tebow Shares Her Story In part 2 of our conversation with Pam Tebow, she tells us about the challenges she faced when she was pregnant with her son, Tim Tebow, and how God transformed her experience into a story of life and joy—not only ...
05.10.2023 S3 20: The Power of Habits: Doing “Small Things with Great Love” With Pam Tebow Happy Mother’s Day! Our guest today, Pam Tebow is the mother of five children, including Tim Tebow. Through her story, she shares how God has shaped her heart and the hearts of her children through the small, daily habits of ...
05.03.2023 S3 19: Engaging Secular Culture With Unshaken Faith With Alisa Childers and Natasha Crain Alisa Childers and Natasha Crain love to evaluate what’s happening in culture and help Christians navigate the modern world in such a way that upholds and strengthens their faith. They equip Christians to consider how faith shapes the way they ...
04.26.2023 S3 18: Reading Scripture Devotionally, Intelligently, and Faithfully With Courtney Doctor Courtney Doctor is the Director of Women’s Initiatives at The Gospel Coalition. She joins us this week to discuss the vital importance of discipleship and the heart-transforming power of God’s Word. She shares the value of “life-on-life" discipleship, where authenticity ...
04.19.2023 S3 17: Having Adult Children and Honoring Our Parents: How Do We Do This Well? With Cindy Rollins Cindy Rollins returns for her third interview, this time to talk about the difficult stage of life when your kids grow up and become adults. Cindy, whose nine children are all adults now, shares with us both the goodness and ...
04.12.2023 S3 16: A Better Vision of Women in the Old Testament With Katie McCoy Katie McCoy, the director of Women's Ministry at Texas Baptists, shares with us that many contemporary believers misunderstand the status of women in the Old Testament. God's governance of His people before Christ's coming included a vision of women displaying ...
04.05.2023 S3 15: From Isolated to Reaching Out With Emily Colson The lockdown of the last few years affected all of us in one way or another. Emily Colson and her son Max, who has autism, were stripped of outside community and the team who helped them. Desperate to find things ...
03.29.2023 S3 14: Walking Through Doubt Toward a Thicker Faith With Stacie Johnson Description: Is it OK to doubt? Is there a difference between healthy and unhealthy doubt? Our guest today, Stacie Johnson, knows what it’s like to wrestle with doubts and develop a stronger faith along the way. She walks us through ...
03.22.2023 S3 13: Friendship Endures Racial Divide With Monique Duson and Krista Bontrager Monique Duson and Krista Bontrager were already friends when they realized their different beliefs about race and culture. They had many long, heated conversations over the course of months and years—but then something changed. Join us as they share what ...
03.15.2023 S3 12: What Is Dating For and How Has It Changed? With Lisa Anderson How has dating changed? How should we view it? Lisa Anderson runs Boundless at Focus on The Family, a ministry that helps young adults to thrive in adulthood. Lisa shares insights and wisdom on the topic of dating that help ...
03.08.2023 S3 11: Singleness Isn’t a Waiting Room for Marriage With Lisa Anderson Singleness is something that the Bible calls good, but do we really believe that? Is singleness just the stage of life before we “settle down”? Lisa Anderson is a Christian single woman who runs Boundless at Focus on The Family, ...
03.03.2023 S3 10: Standing in the Face of Persecution With Tehmina Arora – Part 2 India is ranked 10th on the World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution—but there is a strong woman living faithfully in the midst of it all. Do you ever wonder what you would do in the ...
03.01.2023 S3 09: Standing in the Face of Persecution With Tehmina Arora India is ranked 10th on the World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution—but there is a strong woman living faithfully in the midst of it all. Do you ever wonder what you would do in the ...
02.22.2023 S3 08 Lauren McAfee: Trusting in God During Life’s Worst Nightmares Lauren Green McAfee was raised in a Christian home. She is the granddaughter of the founder of Hobby Lobby, and daughter of Steve Green, the founder of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. The mother of two children, ...
02.17.2023 Q&A With Sarah Zylstra: Walking Away From Social Media Sarah Zylstra answers our listeners' questions about Social Media. Register for the Strong Women Lent Reading Challenge! Visit colsoncenter.org/lent for more information. We hope you join us! Social Sanity in an Insta World by Sarah Zylstra Scrolling Alone: How Instagram ...
02.15.2023 S3 07: Walking Away from Social Media With Sarah Zylstra So many of us have been swept up into social media without asking, “Why am I using this? What is this for?” Sarah Zylstra has thought deeply about these questions. She joins us today to share her journey and struggles ...
02.08.2023 S3 6: Women’s Health - More Than an Abortion Conversation With Valerie Huber Valerie Huber takes notice of what is in front of her, no matter how small, and uses her gifts and resources to make a difference in the lives around her. This way of seeing and living has fueled Valerie’s life ...
02.03.2023 A Beautiful Vision for Women’s Rights: A Reflection on Our Interview With Erika Bachiochi Erin and Sarah reflect on their interview with Erika Bachiochi about the beginnings of the Women’s Rights Movement and how the original vision of the movement was rooted in the primary purpose of human freedom: the development of virtue. The ...
02.01.2023 S3 5: Mary Wollstonecraft: A Champion For Women’s Rights With Erika Bachiochi Erika Bachiochi returns to the Strong Women Podcast to teach us about a woman in history that many of us have never heard of but certainly should know about: Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary was a writer and champion for women’s rights. ...
01.27.2023 How Differences Make Us Better: A Reflection on Our Conversation With Mandy Birch Sarah and Erin reflect on their conversation with Mandy Birch and how the differences that we find between men and women and person to person are part of God’s good design. S3 2: Developing Resiliency in Yourself and Others With ...
01.25.2023 S3 4: A Woman in a Man’s World With Mandy Birch Listener Mandy Birch served in the military as an engineer for 30 years and now works in quantum computing, fields typically thought of as masculine. God has used Mandy’s love of adventure and doing the hard things to show her ...

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