The Deep Dish

Courtney Doctor, Melissa Kruger, Vanessa Hawkins, and Jen Wilkin have each been married for more than 25 years.

In this conversation, they talk about how marriage was different from what they expected, what practices have strengthened their marriage through life's ebbs and flows, and they debunk some of the worst marriage advice they’ve heard. 

 Recommended Resources:

• Single, Dating, Engaged, Married by Ben Stuart
• Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

Related Content:

• Growing Your Marriage While Having Young Kids
• Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love
• Marriage in Gospel Focus
• A Biblical View of Marriage

Discussion Questions:

1. What does spending quality time together look like in this season of your lives? 
2. What is the best (or worst) piece of relationship advice you have received? What made it helpful or harmful?
3. What strengths do you see in yourself and your spouse? How have those strengths balanced out areas of weakness in different seasons of your lives?
4. Can you think of a way you would like to rearrange your priorities in order to strengthen your marriage (or your future marriage)?
5. What “one another” commands come the easiest to you? Which are most difficult, and how might you seek to live those out increasingly?
6. In what ways has God used your marriage to sanctify you?
7. What do you want to pray for your spouse, marriage, or yourself based on what you have heard and discussed?

Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor talk with their colleague Ann Westrate about how understanding each others’ gifts has enhanced their work as a team. They talk about how much the Working Genius assessment helped them understand why what might be easy for one of them is hard for someone else. Understanding what different gifts are represented in a team can enhance morale and strengthen relationships. We all have gifts, but none of us have all the gifts.

Recommended Resources:

• Growing Together by Melissa Kruger
• Working Genius assessment 
• Ann’s Recipe for Steak Soup 

Related Content:

• Let’s Talk: Spiritual Gifts
• Flourish in How God Has (and Has Not) Gifted You
• The Spiritual Gift You Don’t Notice Until It’s Gone

Discussion Questions:

1. What gifts or abilities have others recognized or affirmed in you? How has God given you opportunities to use and develop those?
2. While this episode focused on the Working Genius, there are many assessments available to help you understand the way you work and interact with others. If you have taken any, how have your results been helpful to you?
3. In what ways have you struggled with envy of other peoples’ giftedness? 
4. How do you see your own strengths as an essential part of the body’s functioning? Where do you feel called to invest your talents in new ways (or to continue using them)?
5. If you are a parent, how do you see your giftedness impact the way you serve your family in this season of life?
6. Who in your work, church, or family needs to have their giftedness recognized and affirmed? How is God calling you to encourage that person or those people?

Courtney Doctor talks with Melissa Kruger, and Elizabeth Woodson about the true meaning of contentment and how to find it. They discuss how discontentment springs from the attitude of our hearts rather than our circumstances and will only be overcome by trusting God’s goodness. They talk about the enemies of contentment as well as how the psalms of lament show us that grieving is compatible with contentment. We can confess that God has withheld no good thing while also asking, “How long, O Lord?”

Recommended Resources:

• Embrace Your Life by Elizabeth Woodson
• The Envy of Eve by Melissa Kruger

Related Content:

• Looking for Contentment? It’s Not What You Think
• Will God Provide for Your Needs?
• Your Church Needs Your Contentment
• Discover the Grace of Lament

Discussion Questions:

1. In what areas of life do you struggle with comparison? How have you experienced comparison feeding feelings of discontentment?
2. What regular practices help you continually remind yourself to find contentment in the “past certainty and future hope” God provides instead of your current circumstances? In what ways is this challenging for you as well?
3. Can you think of an example in your life where God has made the “boundary lines” fall in pleasant places (Psalm 16:6 even if you didn’t immediately recognize it)? What past circumstance has taught you that what he has given (or withheld) is enough?
4. What would it look like to “delight yourself in the Lord” in your current season of life?
5. In what ways have you experienced God transforming your desires into what he desires?
6. What current circumstance is God using as a “schoolroom” to teach you how to trust him more deeply?

Melissa Kruger talks with Sandi Taylor and Ruth Chou Simon about parenting teenagers. They reflect on the principles of their parenting that have stayed the same even though their practices have changed as their children age. They discuss how to pick the right battles, why you shouldn’t look shocked when your teen tells you something shocking, and why teens need both firmness and warmth from their parents.

Mentioned Resources:

• Parenting with Hope by Melissa Kruger

Related Resources:

• Parent, Meet Your Teen
• Breaking Social Media’s Grip on Teens
• You Can Parent Teens with Hope in a Secular Age
• Your Teenager Needs Discipleship

Discussion Questions:

• In what ways do you want to “go first” in modeling for your kids what a life following Jesus looks like?
• How and why does rule-making give us a false sense of security as parents? What areas do you feel most prone to create rules for your kids that go past what God has said?
• What idols has God revealed to you in your parenting? How will you combat the influence of those idols?
• How can you prioritize creating space and opportunities for conversations with your teen (or how will you plan to prioritize this in the future)?
• How does reflecting on the ways that God parents you help inform the way you want to parent your children?
• How can your discussion partners pray for you and your family in this season?

Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor talk with Jen Wilkin about how to embrace a more beautiful and biblical view on bodies, aging, beauty, and youth. They discuss why we should see aging as a gift rather than a disease, and how we can prepare our spirits for the decline of our bodies. This conversation will not tell you where to “draw the line” when it comes to pursuing a more youthful appearance through beauty treatments, but it will renew your perspective so that that question will seem less important.

Mentioned Resource:

• On Getting Out of Bed by Alan Noble

Related Resources:

• 5 Lies About Your Body
• How to Grow Newer When You’re Not Growing Younger
• Not the You You Remember
• Wrinkle Cream Can’t Redeem You

Discussion Questions:

• What is your favorite thing about being in the decade of life you are currently in?
• In what ways have you experienced cultural pressure to value and preserve youthfulness? How has this impacted you?
• What role does social media play in shaping your perceptions of aging?
• Can you think of examples of people in your life who are aging gracefully? What have you learned through their example?
• What wisdom have you gained as you have grown older? How does this help you see aging as a gift, rather than a disease?
• What does pursuing “imperishable beauty” in your life look like right now? How would you like to do this increasingly?

Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor talk about the mysterious tension between the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. They discuss what implications God’s sovereignty has for our prayer lives and why it shouldn’t cool our passion for evangelism. Although it may be hard to understand how God could be sovereign when we are suffering, what is initially a troubling doctrine can become our deepest comfort.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• None Like Him by Jen Wilkin
• In His Image by Jen Wilkin
• Chosen by God by R. C. Sproul
• Count It All Joy by Helen Roseveare
• Knowing God by J. I. Packer
• Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer
• Piercing Heaven: The Prayers of the Puritans

RELATED RESOURCES

• The Unlikely Friendship between God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility
• Why God’s Election Is Good News
• How Romans 8 Made Me a Calvinist
• 3 Objections to the Doctrine of Election

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Have you ever experienced an interruption or inconvenience that turned into a “divine appointment?” How did God use that situation?
• How has learning about God’s sovereignty challenged or comforted you personally?
• How does remembering God’s sovereignty affect your prayer life? 
• In what ways have you struggled to hold the truths of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in tension? What questions has this tension raised for you?
• How have seasons of suffering or hardship grown your trust in God and helped you experience his presence in distinct ways?
• In what current situation do you most need to “lay your head on the pillow of God’s sovereignty”? How can your discussion partner(s) pray for you?

Courtney and Melissa talk with Nancy Guthrie about their prayer lives. They talk about why it makes sense to pray, even when we believe God has already determined what is going to happen, and why it makes sense to let God’s Word shape our prayers. Listen to this deep and honest conversation if you want to leave more eager to pray!

Mentioned in This Episode:

• I'm Praying for You: 40 Days of Praying the Bible for Someone Who is Suffering
• Praying Through the Bible for Your Kids
• What Every Child Should Know About Prayer
• Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans

Related Resources:

• Praying Past Your Preferred Outcomes
• Let’s Talk: Why We Pray
• Discovering How to Pray: Prayer in the Psalms

Discussion Questions:

• How would you describe your prayer life in your current season? What keeps you from prayer?
• What daily needs are you most likely to pray for? Which do you tend to overlook?
• When has God answered a prayer for you in a unique way? Or how has he helped you persevere in prayer as you wait on his timing?
• How has God used prayer to align your heart and desires with his own?
• How often do you incorporate confession into your prayers? How has God blessed this practice? Or what do you think prevents you from engaging with God in this way?
• How have you been inspired to pray for others in new ways based on what you heard?
• What change would you like to make in your prayer life as a result of what you’ve heard and discussed together?

Courtney Doctor, Melissa Kruger, Vanessa Hawkins, and Jen Wilkin share their experiences of mentoring and being mentored. They discuss the biblical impetus for life-on-life discipleship and how to overcome the intimidation factor when someone asks you to mentor her. They give practical advice on how to make a mentoring relationship work in real life.

Recommended Resources:

• Growing Together by Melissa Kruger
• The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer

Related Content:

• Let’s Talk: Finding a Mentor and Being a Mentor
• 3 Reasons You Can Say ‘Yes’ to Mentoring
• When Mentoring Gets Messy
• Mothering in the Internet Age

Discussion Questions:

1. What has mentoring or discipleship looked like in your life to this point? Who is one person that has played a significant role in helping your faith grow?

2. In what ways have you experienced other believers “bearing witness” to God’s faithfulness? How did this encourage you?

3. Who has powerfully spoken into your life and “loaned courage” to increase your confidence to serve God?

4. Do you tend to prioritize time alone with God or time in community? Why is it necessary to pursue both, and how might you need to adjust your focus?

5. What are the primary ways you’re being mentored and discipled right now? Who is mentoring you “from a distance?” and who is walking alongside you, allowing you to see the messiness of her own faith as she pursues God imperfectly?

6. What next step do you want to take to pursue mentoring or discipleship, and how can others pray for you?

Courtney Doctor and Melissa Kruger introduce The Gospel Coalition’s new podcast for women. They talk about why women need to have deep conversations and what might stand in the way. Listen to find out about the guests and topics this first season will cover, and join them for deep conversations about deep truth!

The Deep Dish is a new podcast from TGC hosted by Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor that invites women into deep conversations about the deep truths of God. These discussions (which are always better served up with a slice of deep-dish pizza!) will equip women to engage in richer discipleship relationships in their local contexts. Tune in for warm conversations among friends—including special guests along the way—to dig deeper into God’s Word and explore how it applies to every area of our lives.