Win Today: Your Roadmap to Wholeness

Sitting under preaching every Sunday is not the same as knowing the Scriptures well enough to recognize when you are being led somewhere the text never meant to take you. A sermon that never confronts your sin can feel like grace, until one day you realize that your discernment and your hunger for the Lord have drifted off course a few degrees at a time. The uncomfortable question is not whether false teaching exists, but whether you would recognize it if you heard it. Philip Anthony Mitchell, founder and lead pastor of 2819 Church in Atlanta, joins me for an urgent conversation about the state of the American church. About Philip Anthony Mitchell Philip Anthony Mitchell is the founder and lead pastor of 2819 Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a congregation named for the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, and he is known for bold, Scripture-anchored gospel proclamation and an unflinching call to spiritual maturity. He has been married to Lena since 2004, and together they have four children. His debut book, Contend, draws on the letter of Jude to call believers to stand for biblical truth in the culture while fighting for faith in the hidden battles of the heart. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

You've become very good at being seen. You know how to read a room, how to offer just enough of your story to seem open while keeping the deepest thing safely out of view, how to hand the world a competent, admirable version of yourself. And still, underneath the feed and the applause and the performance you have perfected, there is an ache you can no longer explain away, because you are surrounded and you are not known. In this conversation, Ian Simkins joins me to name the quiet distance between the platform and the table, and to expose how much of our exhaustion is simply the cost of maintaining an image our bodies, our nervous systems, and our spirits were never built to sustain. About Ian Simkins Ian Simkins is the lead pastor of The Bridge Church just outside Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife, Katie, and their three sons. Shaped for years in ministry in the Chicagoland area before moving his family to Middle Tennessee, he writes and teaches out of the actual life of a local church rather than from theory. His new book, Every Table an Altar: Reclaiming Connection in a World of Division, Distraction, and Loneliness (Zondervan), was born from that community, and it makes the case that the antidote to our disconnection is not another program or platform but the ordinary, sacred practice of gathering at a table. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

LJ Mitchell has spent a decade as the music director of Elevation Worship, and he joins me for a conversation that begins with performed faith and refuses to stay on the surface. Because the reason we broadcast the walk is the same reason we cannot put down the role: we have confused what we do with who we are, and we are frightened of who we would be without the applause. We talk about releasing what you're known for, the hidden work of formation that no one claps for, and the wilderness that excavates the false scaffolding out of you. LJ is not saying this from a safe distance; he is telling you what it cost him to loosen his grip while he was still holding the thing. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Jacob Coyne joins me this week with the credibility of someone who has lived on both sides of that gap. He built a platform of more than a million followers and a suicide prevention movement that has reached a generation, and then received a warning that reordered his life: you cannot build a house on a rocket ship. We talk about the commercialization of Christianity and the strange market for spiritual performance, about how discernment is formed in slow and hidden places rather than loud ones, and about the sobering warning Jesus gives in Matthew 7—that a person can do impressive things in His name and still hear, "I never knew you." This is not a conversation about someone else's hypocrisy. It is about yours and mine. Guest Bio Jacob Coyne is a preacher, content creator, and the founder of Stay Here, a faith-based suicide prevention movement that has trained and equipped a generation, reaching people through a social media following of more than 1.4 million. He is the author of the new book The Secret Life of Christians: How to Live Authentically, Especially When No One Is Watching, which grew out of his own reckoning with platform, performance, and the cost of building a name. He lives with his wife, Mariah, and their daughters in East Tennessee, where much of this conversation about the hidden life was hard-won. Show Partner SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I'm not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It's sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren't hidden—they're published right on their site. And that matters because many so-called EMF blockers on the market either don't work or can't prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn't we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

You would never call it worship. You'd call it being responsible. But look at what you organize your life around, what you reach for the second the ground shifts, the thing you cannot fall asleep without having settled. You have built an altar to certainty, and you bow at it every time fear whispers that if you could just get control of this, you'd finally be safe. It isn't faith. It's control wearing faith's clothing, and underneath it is a version of you who learned a long time ago that holding everything together was the only way not to get hurt. Dr. Alison Cook joins me for a conversation that goes straight underneath that pattern. A therapist, host of The Best of You podcast, and author of the new book The Secure Soul, Alison has spent two decades helping people tell the difference between security and certainty, and see why the two were never the same thing. We talk about what it means to be held by a God whose first gift is not a map but His presence, about the control we mistake for faith and the caretaking we mistake for love, and about the wilderness seasons that strip away every scaffolding we built to feel safe so that something truer can finally hold us. If you are the strong one, the capable one, quietly white-knuckling a life that looks impressive from the outside and feels hollow underneath, this conversation will not hand you a better way to manage it. It will ask you to take your hands off the thing you have been worshiping. To let yourself be seen before you have earned it, loved before you have fixed it, held before you have figured any of it out. The security you are aching for is real. It was never on the other side of control; it is found in the presence of the One who has never once asked you to carry it alone, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. Guest Bio Dr. Alison Cook is a therapist and the host of the top-ranked The Best of You podcast, where she helps people heal past wounds, develop a strong sense of self, and experience a God who is for them. She earned her BA at Dartmouth College, her MA at Denver Seminary, and her PhD at the University of Denver, where she specialized in integrating psychology and theology. Certified in Internal Family Systems, she is the author of The Best of You, coauthor of Boundaries for Your Soul, and the author of the new book The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn't Come Easy. Show Partner(s) SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I'm not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It's sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren't hidden—they're published right on their site. And that matters because many so-called EMF blockers on the market either don't work or can't prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn't we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

You know the feeling. The world that once held shape around you — the role, the identity, the thing you built or pursued or believed about yourself — has come apart. And instead of leaning into the chaos and learning what it has to teach you, you've found a more comfortable option. You've constructed a story. A controlled version of events where you're still the hero, where the failure makes sense, where the disruption is somebody else's fault. The snow globe stays intact on the countertop. You shake it and admire the beauty. And you tell yourself the simulation is real. Geoffrey Cain joins me for one of the most unusual and honestly riveting conversations this show has ever produced. Geoffrey is a national columnist and the author of Steve Jobs in Exile, the definitive account of the twelve wilderness years between Jobs's ousting from Apple in 1985 and his legendary return in 1997. What emerged from that research is something that has far less to do with Silicon Valley than it does with the interior architecture of every human being who has ever hit rock bottom and had to decide what to do next. We cover four lessons the wilderness teaches every person who enters it — how it harnesses potential, tests motivation, forces maturity, and compels you to finally confront yourself. We dig into ego death: what it actually is, why the ego is not the enemy it's made out to be, and why the unchecked ego eventually destroys every relationship it touches. We examine the moment Jobs stood at the edge of personal bankruptcy, nearly broken by his own brilliant volatility, and chose — slowly, painfully, imperfectly — to start releasing control and trusting the people around him. And we talk about the universal human tendency to choose fantasy over reality, comfort over confrontation, and the seductive lie that we can trick ourselves into maturity without ever doing the actual work of being transformed. Here is what this conversation will ask of you: it will ask you to look honestly at the place where you are substituting the snow globe for the actual world. It will ask you to name the interior flaw you have been circling and avoiding rather than confronting. It will ask you to consider that the wilderness you are in right now is not a detour from your story but the very place where your story is being written. You can leave this conversation inspired, or you can leave it changed. Those are two very different exits. Guest Bio Geoffrey Cain is an award-winning author and national journalist whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Economist, Wired, and The Spectator. His previous books — Samsung Rising and The Perfect Police State — established him as one of the most rigorous and compelling chroniclers of technology, power, and human behavior writing today. His newest book, Steve Jobs in Exile, draws on previously unpublished documents, unbroadcast footage, and new interviews with Jobs's closest colleagues to tell the definitive story of the twelve years that transformed a volatile, brilliant young founder into one of the most consequential leaders in modern history. Geoffrey writes the Substack newsletter The Burner Files and is a managing partner at Alembic Partners. Show Partner SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I'm not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It's sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren't hidden—they're published right on their site. And that matters because many so-called EMF blockers on the market either don't work or can't prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn't we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

We talk about healing as though it's inevitable. As though proximity to Scripture, therapy language, or Christian community automatically produces transformation. But God does not force anyone into wholeness. He invites. He confronts. He calls. And too many believers confuse awareness with growth. This week on Win Today, Debra Fileta joins me for a sober conversation about emotional health and spiritual maturity. We examine why so many Christians remain emotionally immature while sounding spiritually fluent, how "trauma-informed" has in some circles become trauma-defined identity, and why you cannot become spiritually mature if your mental and emotional life is neglected. Healing is not passive. It is participatory. If your faith is sincere but your reactions are volatile… if you know the right language but keep repeating the same patterns… or if you've mistaken self-protection for self-awareness, this episode will clarify what real growth actually requires. Guest Bio Debra Fileta is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in relationship, marital, mental, and emotional health. She is the author of five books, host of the Love + Relationships Podcast, and founder of TrueLoveDates.com, a widely read relationship advice platform reaching millions worldwide. Known for her candid yet compassionate voice, Debra integrates clinical insight with Christian faith to help individuals and couples pursue emotional health and stronger relationships. Her work has been featured in outlets including Christianity Today, Focus on the Family, Relevant Magazine, Crosswalk.com, Charisma Magazine, and more. Show Partner SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I'm not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It's sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren't hidden—they're published right on their site. And that matters because many so-called EMF blockers on the market either don't work or can't prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn't we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

You can feel it, even if you have never named it. The tightness around not having enough, not being enough, not doing enough. The reflex to protect what you have before someone takes it. The way your relationships quietly become negotiations, your faith quietly becomes performance, and your inner life quietly becomes a war zone — all while you are calling it prudence, discernment, stewardship, responsibility. You have been living from a worldview. And you probably have no idea which one it is. Jamie Winship returns to Win Today, and this conversation cuts deeper than most Jamie is the founder of Identity Exchange and author of the new book The War of Worldviews, and for decades, he has brought peaceful, identity-rooted solutions into some of the most dangerous conflict zones on earth. What he has learned in war-torn regions, maximum-security prisons, and international diplomacy is this: every conflict, without exception, is a worldview problem before it is a behavior problem. There are only two worldviews. The separation worldview, which is built on scarcity, runs on fear, and always ends in self-protection and self-promotion. And the connection worldview, which is grounded in abundance, operates from love and produces self-emptying, other-focused transformation. We also dig into why identity alone isn't enough if the worldview carrying it is toxic, the staggering difference between influence and production, what Moses was actually warning Israel about through the story of Joseph, and why Daniel's refusal to bow to the empire changed three dynasties while Joseph's compliance led to his own people's bondage. If you have been calling your fear something else — and there is a good chance you have — this conversation is going to name it. You will have to decide what to do with what you hear. That decision will shape everything else. Guest Bio Jamie Winship is the co-founder of Identity Exchange and Identity Impact, training and consulting agencies that have helped leaders across professional sports, government, law enforcement, business, and international diplomacy discover their true identity and operate from it under pressure. After a distinguished career in law enforcement in the Washington DC metro area, Jamie earned a master's in English and spent years working in some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones — Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, and Israel — developing his Identity Method, a process of identity transformation that resolves inner conflict and opens new levels of creativity and resilience. He is the author of Living Fearless and the new book The War of Worldviews. Show Partner SafeSleeve designs a phone case that blocks up to 99% of harmful EMF radiation—so I'm not carrying that kind of exposure next to my body all day. It's sleek, durable, and most importantly, lab-tested by third parties. The results aren't hidden—they're published right on their site. And that matters because many so-called EMF blockers on the market either don't work or can't prove they do. We protect our hearts and minds—why wouldn't we protect our bodies too? Head to safesleevecases.com and use the code WINTODAY10 for 10% off your order. Episode Links Show Notes Buy my book "Healing What You Can't Erase" here! Invite me to speak at your church or event. Connect with me @WINTODAYChris on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.