The Uplift

Jesus: The Remix

What if the Jesus you need most is not a new Jesus, but the real Jesus reintroduced? Pastor Damian Chandler returns in Episode 9 of The Uplift we call “Jesus: The Remix” - a message that does not change Jesus, soften Jesus, or reinvent Jesus, but invites us to see Him clearly again. Beyond cultural filters, religious assumptions, and incomplete versions of Christ, this episode brings the focus back to Jesus as Son of God, Savior, King, and the patient Redeemer still waiting for people to say yes. Chandler opens with a sports story: the last second shot. As a Toronto Raptors fan, he walks listeners back to Kawhi Leonard's unforgettable Eastern Conference playoff shot against the Philadelphia 76ers - bounce, bounce, bounce, and in. The crowd remembers the game-winner, but not all the missed shots and missed opportunities that made the final shot necessary. Then he turns to Luke 23 and the thief on the cross. The thief, Chandler says, is a man who had missed opportunities. He had likely heard about Jesus' ministry. He may have known the stories of the sermons, the healings, the feeding of the 5,000, the blind receiving sight, and the lame walking again. He saw Jesus treated unjustly. He saw the crowd choose Barabbas. He heard the mocking. He knew Jesus was innocent. And still, his life had brought him to a cross. But Chandler refuses to let the thief remain a distant Bible character. "This thief is me," he says. He names the ache so many people carry: the feeling that you missed your shot, squandered your chances, and no longer deserve another opportunity. Then he preaches the heart of the gospel: God is not only the God of the first chance. He is the God of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chance. From there, the message unfolds around three movements: the providence of God, the proximity of God, and the patience of God. Providence means Jesus was crucified on the same day as the thief because God was still reaching for him. Proximity means Jesus was placed in the middle, close enough for both thieves to hear His final sermon: "Father, forgive them." Patience means Jesus stayed on the cross long enough to hear one broken request: "Remember me." And then comes the turn: Jesus' final words before death were spoken to a criminal who had missed his opportunities. Chandler says Jesus saved His final breath, final energy, and final words for a man who thought it was too late. This episode is for anyone who thinks they have gone too far, waited too long, failed too many times, or missed too many chances. The Savior is waiting. Not because He has changed, but because He is exactly who Scripture says He is: close, patient, merciful, and ready to answer the prayer, "Remember me." --- The Uplift is a podcast from Breath of Life Fellowship in Stamford, CT. Join us in person: 884 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, CT Bible Study — Saturdays at 11:30am | Worship — Saturdays at 12:30pm --- Keywords: Jesus The Remix, Pastor Damian Chandler, thief on the cross, remember me, Luke 23, second chances, Jesus saves, providence of God, proximity of God, patience of God, Christian podcast, Breath of Life Fellowship, Stamford CT, gospel message, Jesus reintroduced, salvation, forgiveness, last second shot sermon, Kawhi Leonard sermon illustration, John 3:16, Christian hope, Jesus is waiting

Booked, Busy, and Broken Down

What if ignoring your limits does not make you faithful - it just makes you tired? In Episode 8 of The Uplift, Maxine sits down with wellness expert, life coach, personal trainer, and URNX CEO Helen Macey, along with Breath of Life Fellowship member, HR professional, fitness leader, and sports enthusiast Jean Joseph, for a practical and deeply honest conversation about self-care, stress, movement, boundaries, and what happens when full calendars become full-body exhaustion. The episode begins with a reality many people are living in real time: booked schedules, constant demands, bodies quietly waving the white flag, and minds that keep pushing through because stopping feels selfish. But this conversation refuses the lie that self-care is indulgent. Self-care, Maxine frames it, is stewardship. It is learning to care for the mind, body, and soul as part of a faithful life. Helen brings the conversation from theory into testimony. Today, self-care makes her feel eager - eager to begin the day with God, check in with her body, work out, and honestly assess how she is doing emotionally. But she is clear that it was not always that way. There was a season when self-care was a survival kit, something she reached for only at the edge of burnout. She names one of the quiet traps of serving others: sometimes giving can feel like it is filling you, while actually draining you. Her reminder is simple and sharp: even Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. The self cannot be skipped. Jean adds another angle: self-care requires planning. As someone who likes to serve, show up, and be reliable, he names the pressure many people carry to be the person everyone can count on. He connects that pressure to family, work, HR, church, sports, and the "superhero" images that teach people to keep helping without stopping. His honesty makes the conversation feel grounded: sometimes self-care starts with admitting that no, or not now, may be the healthiest answer. Together, the conversation moves through wake-up moments, guilt, preparation, community, burnout, spiritual honesty, and practical rhythms. Helen shares how stepping on a scale at 18 and seeing 210 became a turning point in her wellness journey. Jean reflects on sports, discipline, reliability, and the cost of trying to come through for everyone. They talk about the need for community, the danger of suffering in silence, and the importance of not depriving others of the chance to grow by always doing everything for them. The most practical section may also be the most freeing: start small. One moment with God. One honest prayer. One walk. One push-up. One breath. Self-care is not about copying someone else's spiritual rhythm or fitness routine. It is about awareness, honesty, consistency, and learning to bring your real self - even your frustration, disappointment, or anger - into the presence of God. This 44-minute episode is for anyone who feels stretched thin, overextended, irritable, burned out, responsible for everyone, or quietly disconnected from the things they used to enjoy. Self-care is not selfish. It is sacred. You are not a machine. You are God's masterpiece. --- The Uplift is a podcast from Breath of Life Fellowship in Stamford, CT. Join us in person: 884 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, CT Bible Study — Saturdays at 11:30am | Worship — Saturdays at 12:30pm --- Keywords: self-care, burnout, Christian wellness, faith and fitness, Helen Macey, Jean Joseph, Booked Busy and Broken Down, stress management, movement, exercise, boundaries, work-life balance, Breath of Life Fellowship, Stamford CT, Christian podcast, holistic well-being, mental health, spiritual health, physical health, self-care is sacred, URNX Now, church and wellness, Christian health conversation

Rest Is the Revolution

What if one of the most spiritual things you could do this week is stop? In Episode 7 of The Uplift, Pastor Crystal Ward delivers a clear, timely, and deeply practical proclamation on the concept of Sabbath, self-care, and the kind of rest our culture keeps training us to ignore. In a world that glorifies hustle, exhaustion, overthinking, and nonstop productivity, she makes the case that rest is not laziness, weakness, or escape. It is trust. It is obedience. And it may be one of the most revolutionary acts of faith available to us. Crystal starts with a question that sounds simple until it gets personal: Are you practicing self-care? Not the kind built on occasional indulgence or emergency recovery, but the kind that creates sustainable rhythms of wholeness. Bubble baths, shopping sprees, and vacations may have their place, she says, but real self-care has to go deeper than temporary relief. It has to become a pattern. Her answer is Sabbath. Rooting her message in Genesis 2, Pastor Ward reminds listeners that God built rest into creation itself. Sabbath was not added as an afterthought once people burned out. It was there from the beginning. God blessed Sabbath, made it holy, and offered it as a rhythm for human flourishing. Not because He was tired, but because we would be. From there, she breaks Sabbath care into three dimensions: physical rest, mental and emotional renewal, and spiritual reconnection. We are not machines, she says, and rest is not a reward reserved for people who finally finish everything. It is a necessity. Without it, we drift toward burnout, anxiety, cluttered thinking, and spiritual disconnection. With it, we recover clarity, peace, and room to hear from God again. But one of the strongest turns in the message is her reframing of Sabbath itself. For many people, Sabbath has been reduced to a list of restrictions or rules. Pastor Ward pushes back hard on that idea. Sabbath, she says, is not about God limiting us. It is about God rescuing us from ourselves. It is not restriction. It is freedom. It is love. It is God pulling us off the hamster wheel long enough to remember that we are human beings, not human doings. At just over 19 minutes, this episode is short, but it lands with unusual weight. It is for the listener who feels rushed, stretched thin, emotionally noisy, spiritually dry, or quietly exhausted from carrying too much for too long. If you have been treating rest like something you'll earn later, this message gently and firmly says: later may be too late. Sabbath, in Pastor Ward's words, is not a luxury. It is a God-given rhythm of restoration. And if you let it, it can change your life. ⸻ The Uplift is a podcast from Breath of Life Fellowship in Stamford, CT. Join us in person: 884 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, CT Bible Study — Saturdays at 11:30am | Worship — Saturdays at 12:30pm ⸻ Keywords: Sabbath rest, Christian self-care, Crystal Ward, Rest Is the Revolution, burnout and faith, Sabbath as freedom, rest as resistance, spiritual renewal, holistic well-being, Christian podcast, Breath of Life Fellowship, Stamford CT, emotional renewal, physical rest, spiritual reconnection, trust God with your rest, Sabbath sermon, rest is not a luxury, biblical self-care, Sabbath message, Breath of Life

What If I'm Wrong?

What if one of the strongest things your faith could do is admit it doesn't have all the answers? Episode 6 of The Uplift brings author, communication professor, and speaker Heather Thompson Day into a conversation many believers have quietly had in private but rarely feel safe saying out loud: What if I'm wrong? Not wrong in a way that destroys faith, but wrong in a way that humbles it, deepens it, and pushes it past performance into trust. Heather opens with a story about a little girl trapped on a burning roof. Her father calls from below, "Jump, I'll catch you," and when she cries that she can't see him, he answers, "I can see you." That becomes the heartbeat of the episode: faith is not always about seeing God clearly. Sometimes it's about trusting that God sees you. From there, she dismantles one of the church's biggest assumptions. We often treat certainty like spiritual maturity. Heather argues the opposite. Drawing from the Gospels and communication theory, she points out that Jesus asked hundreds of questions and answered only a few directly. If God, who has all the answers, chose questions as a primary way of teaching, why do so many Christians act like doubt is dangerous and curiosity is rebellion? In the proclamation, Heather walks through what it means to be an eyewitness rather than an arguer, why trust matters more than certainty, and how the early church became known not by self-labeling but by embodied love. "Christian," she reminds us, was a name other people gave the disciples after watching how they lived. Not because they won debates. Because they looked like little Christs. The second half becomes more personal. In conversation, Heather reflects on the parts of her book that were forged in grief, disappointment, and unanswered questions. She talks about watching her father pour his life into ministry, then develop Alzheimer's, and wondering how a faithful life could look so unrewarded from the outside. Her mother's text changed everything: "You say Dad has nothing to show for it. He has you to show for it. So I think you're wrong." That shift becomes the episode's deeper invitation. Maybe the story God is writing is larger than the one we would have chosen. Maybe obedience is success, even in the desert. Maybe purpose isn't something waiting for us later when life gets easier, but something available right now. Maybe the question isn't whether we are getting everything right. Maybe the real question is whether we are willing to trust God enough to keep walking. This is a 60-minute conversation for anyone carrying doubt, asking hard questions, wrestling with fear, or trying to hold onto faith without pretending certainty they don't actually have. --- The Uplift is a podcast from Breath of Life Fellowship in Stamford, CT. Join us in person: 884 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, CT Bible Study — Saturdays at 11:30am | Worship — Saturdays at 12:30pm --- Keywords: faith and doubt, Christian questions, Heather Thompson Day, What If I'm Wrong, trust over certainty, church and curiosity, deconstructing faith, honest faith, Christian podcast, Breath of Life Fellowship, Stamford CT, spiritual growth, purpose in the desert, obedience is success, eyewitness faith, early church, Christian identity, uncertainty and trust, asking hard questions, God can handle your questions

Truth vs. Control: Breaking Free From Spiritual Abuse

Some wounds don't come from the world. They come from the church. Episode 5 of The Uplift is the most personal conversation in the series so far — a 74-minute expert-facilitated panel roundtable that goes into places most faith communities still refuse to name. The topic is spiritual abuse: how it gets taught to children, how it operates through scripture, how it entangles love with performance, how it leaves people either clinging to religion or walking away from it entirely — and how healing is even possible after that kind of damage. The conversation is guided by Dr. David Sedlacek and Dr. Beverly Sedlacek, co-founders of Into His Rest Ministries — a pastoral heart, a clinical mind, and a Christ-centered mission. Dr. David is a retired professor, therapist, and pastor with over 40 years guiding people through trauma, family dysfunction, and spiritual restoration. Dr. Beverly is a doctorally prepared mental health clinician with a gift for speaking into the hardest rooms. Together, they bring what they call an "ebony and ivory" approach to ministry — and a combined 60+ years of clinical and pastoral experience to a conversation that badly needs both. Around them, five panelists show up with real stories. Ruth Dwyer, a Seventh-day Adventist, shares a memory from age five — her aunt telling her that Jesus was writing down every sin to punish her. She says she made two decisions that day. One was self-fulfilling. The other was not. She also names shame and guilt as the obstacles that nearly kept her from healing, and credits the Sedlaceks for pushing her toward therapy and a Christian coach. Louise Calixte, a pastor's kid and ministry singer, talks about codependency with the church: the way service can hollow out a person when love is connected to usefulness rather than identity. Her father's death in 2018 cracked something open. She eventually took a year-long sabbatical from church before COVID. Clifton, 22, left the church entirely. He identifies as a seeker, not a Christian, and he brings Kierkegaard and Hebrews 11 into a room of believers and asks the question most people are afraid to ask out loud: what's the difference between real faith and performative faith? Caroline Adams, a pastor's wife who describes herself as "not the traditional first lady," carries her own history of church hurt — and shares what it cost her to stay, to serve, and eventually to meet people where they actually are. The structure moves through three acts: defining what spiritual abuse actually is (and separating it from the broader terms "church hurt" and "religious trauma"), sharing the lived stories that sit underneath those definitions, and then — without rushing past the hard parts — turning toward what healing actually looks like. Dr. David puts language around the psychology of certainty-seeking: why religious leaders and systems reach for control, what it costs the people under that control, and why "hurt people hurt people" is not just a slogan but a cycle with real victims. Dr. Beverly talks about what the church is meant to be — a safe community — and about a missionary chaplain she visited who said "I love you" every single day to a man who didn't need Bible verses. He just needed to know he was loved. The episode closes with Dr. David's mirror exercise: look at yourself, say "I love you." Dr. Beverly's closing word: "Love always wins. Love always wins. Doesn't matter where you are on your journey. Love always wins." This is a 74-minute conversation. It is not easy. It is worth every minute. The Uplift is a podcast from Breath of Life Fellowship in Stamford, CT. Keywords: spiritual abuse healing, religious trauma, church hurt, spiritual abuse in the church, Dr. David Sedlacek, Dr. Beverly Sedlacek, Into His Rest Ministries, trauma-informed faith, leaving the church, pastor's kid deconstruction, codependency and ministry, shame and guilt Christianity, unconditional love God, Seventh-day Adventist spiritual abuse