Introduction to the Joyful Journey Podcast
Hosts Janet Aucoin, Jocelyn Wallace, and Alexandra Nitzschke come together from different walks of life to discuss a mutual passion for gospel-focused theology. In this introductory episode, the ladies introduce themselves and share why they love teaching women how theology applies to everyday life, the purpose in launching this podcast, and what they hope to accomplish through this ministry.
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Joyful Journey Podcast is a ministry of Faith Bible Seminary. All proceeds go to offset costs of this podcast and toward scholarships for women to receive their MABC through Faith Bible Seminary.
Transcript:
Janet: This is what I was designed for. This is what God made me for. And I can live in
communion with the God of the universe and I can live in a way that honors him and that can encourage and love other people. Like that's what we were designed for.
Janet: I don't just need to feel better. I need the truth. And ultimately that will make me better.
Alexandra: I just want to make it as totally simple and no brainer as possible for ladies to see that the Bible is really applicable to their everyday life.
Jocelyn: When they understand theology, the application flows out of it quickly with joy.
Janet: It is a journey, but even the journey itself is joyful when I'm doing it, holding the hand of my savior and trusting him all along the way. This is the joyful journey podcast, a podcast to inspire and equip women to passionately pursue beautiful biblical truth on their journey as women of God. When you choose truth, you're choosing joy.
Janet: We are so excited to share with you the joy of biblical thinking and everyday living. It's our desire to inspire and equip women to passionately pursue biblical, beautiful truth on their journey as women of God, when you choose truth, you're choosing joy. My name is Janet. I'm the host of the Joyful Journey Podcast, and I've got my co-host here with me, Jocelyn, and Alexandra. We're going to spend just a few minutes letting you get to know us and why we're here. I became a Christian my freshman year in college and over the course of many years, I have certainly seen God's trustworthiness. I have been blessed beyond anything I would deserve. I've also had my share of trials, like everybody else in the middle of all of that, God gave me my husband, Brent. We've now been married 26 years. I have a newly married son. So, a new thing for us is that we have our daughter in love and so he's 22 and he's actually in seminary here at my church and my daughter is 21 and she is the behind-the-scenes production for this podcast. So, it's fun to get to serve with my kids. So, we're figuring out the whole empty nest season. But you guys are obviously in very different seasons. So, tell, tell us a little bit about each of where you're coming from.
Jocelyn: Well, my husband and I have been married for 24 years. We got married in 1996 and we've got two daughters who are just our pride and joy. Haley is 18 and Shelby is 15 and they're, you know, in high school approaching the end of high school, making big plans for the rest of their life,
Janet: I know.
Jocelyn: Thinking through what they want to do when they grow up. We have been a part of this church for 20 years. But before that I was raised in a Christian family and didn't really
understand what it meant to live for Jesus and be passionate about Him and have His Word be the anchor of my joy. So, I'm excited about this podcast, just to talk about what, what, how wonderful that can be.
Janet: Excellent. I know it is amazing when you think about the fact that you can be around truth for a long time. And still not really understand. I remember when I first understood that truth was practical.
Jocelyn: Exactly
Janet: And it would really make a difference in how I lived. And when I learned how to live the way I was designed, the joy that would come from that as well. So
Jocelyn: So true
Janet: That’s exciting.
Alexandra: It makes you hungry to learn more.
Janet: Yes. Yes. So, Alexandra, tell us a little bit more about where you're coming from.
Alexandra: Yeah, well, I'm definitely the young mom. Not that you guys are old, but I definitely have, and the young mom of the group, I've got a four-year-old boy, a three-year-old boy and twin two-year-old boys and we have our first daughter along the way. We absolutely, we call our family, just a beautiful chaos because having four boys, four little boys, sometimes it's like being in a WWF ring. Sometimes it's just the sweetest thing. But I absolutely, absolutely love being a mom and even more so, I love being a wife. I'm married to Stefan Nitzschke. He's the pastor at Faith Church in Lafayette, Indiana. And actually, he's not the pastor, the senior pastor. He's the pastor of college ministries, and I absolutely love working with college aged girls because they are for the first time in their lives most of them just getting out on their own and suddenly, they're hit with new experiences and they're willing to talk about tougher subjects. And I just love, love being able to push college girls to think deeper and to take the things that a lot of them have grown up learning about and actually apply it to their lives. Things like finals and, you know, the
stresses of college life really bring to the surface, a lot of opportunities to apply God's Word to their lives. And I just absolutely delight and walking alongside young women in that way.
Janet: Well, and I think each of you in different seasons of your life, Really came to understand the power of the word of God to change. And I know, Alexandra, you've been very open about the fact that you have struggled with addictions in the past and I think that's really powerful for people to know. You can have addictions in your past and live an incredibly joyful life.
Alexandra: I am so thankful for God's redemption in my life. And I, so I originally came to our church as a resident of Vision of Hope residential treatment center. I had an eating disorder and because I was giving into habitual sin, the Lord did not, for good reasons, did not bless me with joy and peace. And so, because I craved those things, so badly, I turned to substance abuse to deal with that, and just was spiraling out of control, and got to the place where I needed literally 24-hour accountability to help me learn how to be an, a human adult and to, develop skills. To really just learn how most adults function, honestly. But in a more real sense, I had no idea what God's Word said even about oh, the depth of sin and how the consequences of sin are really choices that we have every day in life. And I feel I am, I wish I hadn't known the depth of sin like I super, I regret it so much. And sin is awful and dark and there is nothing beautiful about it. But I am thankful that the Lord has allowed redemption in my life because I think it allows some young women in our church to share things with me and talk to me and it gives me opportunities to talk about sin that maybe people don't normally like to, they're too ashamed to talk about. So yeah,
Jocelyn: And I am coming from the background, having grown up in a Christian home and being a member of a Christian ministry family, where we actually didn't understand the joy of living for Jesus in a completely different way. So, we were very educated on what was true about scripture, but we were not so strong on applying it to our everyday life and we were just as joyless, just as miserable, but we were just super smart about the Bible, and it didn't change our life. And so, when you know truth about God's Word and you, you're so grateful for Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection reconciling you to God, the one true God, when you're so grateful for that salvation, then you just want to learn what He says about life and then live it out. And what happens is this contagious, outrageous joy that affects you and everyone around you. But on either end of that spectrum not having right theology and understanding truth really made us, you know, sadly inadequate in experiencing joy and having good emotions.
Janet: And that, that is so, and I hadn't even thought about this before. I'd realize we're in
different seasons of life, which is pretty cool that we can all be good friends and be in the very different seasons. But we, all, our backgrounds are so very different, because mine was a fairly religious home, but where we didn't really understand true biblical Christianity, even. So, for me, I would have always told you I was a Christian, but it had no impact on the way I lived. And I didn't even know it was supposed to till I was a freshman in college and went to a campus ministry and learned. And again, I can remember thinking, I, it is exciting when you have lived without that. And then you see. This is what I was designed for. This is what God made me for. And I can live in communion with the God of the universe and I can live in a way that honors Him and that can encourage and love other people. Like that's what we were designed for. And I remember being actually concerned that because my kids would grow up knowing that, would they understand how awesome it is?
Jocelyn: I’ve thought the same thing.
Janet: You know but look at that. And very, the Lord knows how to show us that whether you come from a Christian home and make other choices, whether you're not from that, He knows how to meet us, where we are and show us how much better He is. But that's one of the things I'm really excited about is that we can be three women and three seasons of life with one passion that we get to share.
Alexandra: You know, Janet, something that I really am excited about for this podcast is, you know, doesn't matter what background you come from, the world tells us it offers us counterfeit joys, and we're all susceptible to being deceived into thinking that the ways of the world will satisfy. And really the only path to joy is becoming more like Jesus. And the only way to become like Jesus is through the power of the Holy spirit, but also learning about Christ in the word of God. And something that I am super stoked about with this podcast is that we're three women who yes, we come from different backgrounds and we lead very different lives, but we're all united with this common love for our Savior and common love for His Word and the richness that can, that we get to experience by abiding in His Word.
Jocelyn: I think back through my professional past, serving our community in a bunch of
different ways. Like I served for so many years, training new moms, how to be aware of what their baby should be doing and working with homeless women and women in transition and then the end of my professional career was working with young women in addiction at Vision of Hope. In the social service world, there's this strong feminist undercurrent that the way to help women is to teach them to be empowered and to give them confidence. And there's nothing more empowering and more giving and contributing to someone's confidence then knowing that the decisions that they're making are appropriate and will result in good emotions like happiness and joy and gladness and, and love. And the thing that I think is so cool about scripture is that you can know if you follow what Jesus teaches us in His Word, you will be blessed. You will have happiness and all of the professional work that I did in social services that was not focused on helping people biblically. It was just so, falling so short. Like here I can help, you know how to raise your kids. I can help, you know, how to be successful. But if I can't give that to you from
God's Word, you can do all the right things and you're not going to have the right emotions. So I'm excited about this podcast from the perspective of knowing that when we live God's away, we, when we believe that His truth is true, and then we make that the core of our life, no matter what circumstances or contexts that happens in, you will have joy. Even if your circumstances are tough. And here we are three different points of life, three different backgrounds, three different family sets, and we have one consistent joy, one consistent peace, and it's not rooted in having had a great past or even having a promise of a great future. It's rooted in our love for Jesus and our dedication to His Word.
Janet: And yet really, it is because of a promise of a great future. It's just not an earthly future. Yes. Yes. Cause that's right. So, we can know where we're going. And we really do believe God, when He says that in His presence is the fullness of joy. And right now, we're not in His presence. So, we don't have the fullness of joy. I mean, anybody listening is probably going. They have no idea; they’re living joyful lives. And then look, what just happened to me in the pain in my life. And in the midst of that, there is a joy of knowing that you're with the One who created you. But what we also know is the day is coming when we are going to be in His presence and there will be fullness of joy. But until then we get to experience tastes of His presence in His Word. And that's what I think fires each of us up. And that's the premise of this podcast. Joyful Journey is about the fact that true joy really is found in living biblically. So, join Jocelyn and Alexandra and I for our first episode. And we're going to delve more deeply into the topic of joy.
