Well Said

Somewhere along the way, leaving became our first choice and staying started to feel like the risk. We keep an exit open in nearly every corner of our lives because it feels like security. But what if it’s quietly keeping us from ever being fully known and discipling us out of endurance? In this episode, Tory and Mary explore the difference between a contract and a covenant, and what it means to belong to a God who has already bound Himself to us. What if staying gives us the very thing we’re afraid it will cost us?

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How we name what’s wrong decides what kind of hope we go looking for. In this episode, Tory and Mary explore what happens when sin quietly drops out of our vocabulary, and why a smaller view of sin goes hand in hand with a smaller view of God. Together they consider what it looks like to own what’s ours, and why that honesty makes room to receive something far better than managing our problems by ourselves. What if the God holy enough to name our sin is the same God near enough to redeem us?

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It's easy to say "I'm glad you're here." It's a lot harder to say, "I'm glad you're here — and because I love you, I need to tell you something." In this episode, Tory and Mary close out their conversation on what makes a church feel like family, digging into the last ingredient in the soil: the piece most of us quietly avoid, how to tell someone they're wrong without making them feel unwanted or leaving them there. What's the difference between correction that pushes someone away and correction that helps someone grow staying rooted in who they belong to?

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You can't announce love into existence, and you can't teach a church into feeling like family. Like anything alive, it grows out of the soil it's planted in — the ordinary, often unnoticed conditions of a Sunday gathering, a Community Group, a discipleship relationship. In this episode, Tory and Mary get practical about what that soil actually looks like and how to cultivate it, so that a church doesn't just talk like a family, but starts to be one. What would it take for our church to have the kind of soil that produces the love and character of Christ?

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"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15 ESV). And so do we. So why doesn't knowing the right thing actually change us? In this episode, Tory and Mary explore attachment theory and neuroscience to show that character isn't built by right belief or willpower alone, it's built by what we're attached to. Does God actually attach Himself to us, not just love us as a character trait, but bind Himself to us? And if so, can we become so attached to Him that we start responding like Jesus without even trying?

Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms by Jim Wilder
The 19 Relational Skills — THRIVEtoday

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Ever read the same passage five times and still walked away confused? You're in good company, even the crowds and the disciples walked away from Jesus' parables confused. In this episode, Tory and Mary ask whether the whole Bible works the same way, rewarding those who seek rather than those who simply read. Why does God give us a text that requires searching instead of just handing us the answers? What's the difference between the crowds who walked away and the disciples who kept asking and what that might mean for how we read the Bible?

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We often talk about spiritual disciplines as a means of grace, a way to receive God's presence in the moment. But is there a deeper layer? In this episode, Tory and Mary explore how these practices aren't just for what they give us today, but for who they're forming us to become tomorrow. Drawing from Scripture and personal experience, they ask: what if the small, faithful habits of denial and reception are actually training us for a battle or a season we can't yet see?

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Most of us hear Recovery and think, “That’s for people with bigger problems than mine.” But the gospel tells a truer story: every disciple is being recovered from sin, shame, suffering, and selfreliance into life with Christ. Recovery isn’t a detour from discipleship, it’s discipleship applied to the very places sin, suffering, shame, and brokenness have distorted our identity, relationships, and dependence on Christ. In this episode, Tory and Mary are joined by Jessica, Tolu, and Jasmine to talk about Recovery at The Well and what happens when Jesus meets us in the places we’re tired of hiding. What are you still trying to overcome alone? 

Listener Note: This episode includes conversations about pornography, addiction, abuse, sexual immorality, and body dysmorphia. Some parts may feel especially heavy, so please listen with care.

https://thewellaustin.com/events/recovery/

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When someone we love is grieving, our instinct is often to find the right words, offer solutions, or try to make the pain go away. But what if one of the most powerful ways we can love others is simply by being present? In this episode, Mary and Tiffany Stein discuss practical ways to walk with the grieving, avoid common mistakes, and faithfully reflect the comfort and compassion of Christ. Together they explore what it means to weep with those who weep and offer others the same comfort we ourselves have received from Christ.

Mourning God: Grieving Loss, Wrestling with God, and Finding your way back to Life by Tiffany Stein

Walking with the Grieving

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Many of us know what it feels like to wait on God. But what happens when the waiting stretches on, suffering deepens, and God's presence seems hidden? In this episode, Mary sits down with Tiffany Stein to discuss the Wall, the Dark Night of the Soul, and the painful reality of walking through seasons of grief, disappointment, and uncertainty. Drawing from Scripture and personal experience, they explore how hope, community, and God's faithfulness sustain us while we wait.

Listener Note: This episode includes conversations about grief, death, cancer, and infant loss. Some parts may feel especially heavy, so please listen with care.

Mourning God: Grieving Loss, Wrestling with God, and Finding your way back to Life by Tiffany Stein

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