In this episode, we’re talking about one of the biggest challenges facing students today: mental health during the college years. Between academic pressure, anxiety about the future, loneliness, relationships, social media, and the constant pressure to succeed, many students are struggling quietly and wondering how to navigate it all faithfully and wisely.

My guest is Brooke Wesley, a licensed clinical social worker, Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, and co-founder of Bellatore Recovery in the Kansas City area, where she has spent more than two decades helping teens and adults pursue healing and emotional health.

Brooke’s passion for this work is deeply personal, growing out of her own recovery journey from an eating disorder. Along the way, she has worked in hospitals, schools, recovery programs, and private practice, and she also helped launch Kansas City’s first transitional living program for women recovering from eating disorders. She’s also the author of Hungry To Be Whole: A Therapist’s Story of Healing from Anorexia, where she shares both her personal story and professional insights into recovery and hope.

In this podcast we discuss:

• How overcoming her own eating disorder led Brooke to want to help others.
• Factors that contribute to students’ mental health challenges.
• Signs of good mental health, and how this relates to success in college (and life).
• Why students can still be lonely while around so many people, and what to do about it.
• Signs of unhealthy relational dynamics.
• How a biblical worldview should help frame our understanding of mental health.
• Correcting common misunderstandings about mental health.
• How to recognize when it is time to find a mental health professional.
• How to find a good mental health professional by asking the right questions.
• The value of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
• The distinction between anxiety and stress.
• Specific advice for how parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends can help a student who may be struggling: signs to watch for and how to be helpful.
• How churches can help students who are struggling.
• Examples of those who have experienced healing and wholeness as a result of this journey.
• Proper and improper ways to use AI.

Resources mentioned during our conversation:

• Brooke Wesley and Maureen Rank, Hungry To Be Whole: A Therapist’s Story of Healing from Anorexia
• College Faith podcast conversations about finding Christian community on campus
• Aundi Kolber, Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode–and into a Life of Connection and Joy

One of the most pressing and contested topics on college campuses today is social justice, and many Christians are confused about how to understand it through a biblical lens. I hope this conversation will clear away some of the confusion.

I’m joined by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, a professor of theology and philosophy at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. Dr. Williams is the author of Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth. In it, he argues that Christians are called to care deeply about justice, but that not every version of “social justice” reflects a biblical understanding of truth, human dignity, or the gospel.

Instead, he invites readers to recover a vision of justice rooted in Scripture, the character of God, and the dignity of every human being made in the image of God. In our conversation, we explore how Christians can think carefully and faithfully about justice, truth, identity, and cultural engagement—especially in the context of higher education.

In this podcast we discuss:

• How Thaddeus came to be interested in this topic and write Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice.
• Why social justice is such a central topic on campus and in our culture.
• Defining “Social Justice B” and its underlying philosophy, Critical Theory.
• Why these ideas now provide ultimate meaning for many (becoming their religion).
• How students can understand and affirm biblical justice as true social justice (and how John Perkins helped clarify the four guideposts of correct social justice).
• How our culture’s understanding of social justice (“Social Justice B”) actually leads to further injustice, making our culture cruel and uncaring.
• Why understanding the Image of God helps us think well about issues of social justice and equality.
• How to distinguish between “Social Justice A” and “Social Justice B” in conversations, papers, and class discussions.

Resources mentioned during our conversation:

• Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice
• Thaddeus Williams’ Podcast “The Shed & Beam”
• J.P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul
• Hellen Pluckrose & James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody
• Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer, Critical Dilemma: The Rise of Critical Theories and Social Justice–Implications for the Church and Society
• Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer, Pose Woke: Asserting a Biblical Vision of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
• Stan Wallace, “How Should Christians Understand Critical Theory?”

In this episode, I’m continuing my sporadic series on various campus ministries. I’m joined by Jaime Noyd, the Director of the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN). We discuss what ESN is and how it will be of great help to you if you are considering following God’s call to one day serve Christ as a professor.

In this podcast we discuss:

• How Jamie came to direct ESN
• Why ESN exists–the vision of the ministry
• How scholarship can be a sacred calling
• If students may join ESN if they are not involved in InterVarsity
• How students can join ESN before they start college
• Some examples of students greatly helped by ESN
• Where ESN is going in the next 20 years
• Questions to regularly ask yourself (or others) in following God’s calling to the professorate
• The next step to joining ESN

Resources mentioned during our conversation:

• Emerging Scholars Network website
• Contacting Jamie: esn@intervarsity.org
• The American Scientific Affiliation
• Christian Professional Societies
• InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministries
• Cru’s Graduate Student Resources
• Veritas Forum Communities
• The Society of Christian Scholars
• The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
• Christianity and Intellectual Inquiry: Thinking as Pilgrimage by Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen
• The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by A.J. Sertillanges
• Love The Lord Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by J.P. Moreland
• Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential by Gordon T. Smith
• The Call by Os Guinness
• Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or Ph.D. by Robert L. Peters
• The Thinking Christianly podcast
• Scholars’ Compass (ESN devotionals)
• The Biblical Story and the Story of the Academic Disciplines (free with a Society of Christian Scholars membership)