Archives for July 2026

When I was a young teenager, I heard a traveling evangelist say the best form of therapy was speaking in tongues. The preacher at the time was criticizing modern therapy as unchristian and, ultimately unnecessary. We don’t need to sit in rooms and endless unpack our problems and our past trauma. What people need more than anything – he said – is the presence of God.

I understand the sentiment. I love the presence of God. I believe there is tremendous value in spiritual disciplines, practices, and experiences with God. But what happens to our formation as people when we are trained to be skeptical of therapy? How would our relationships be different, our marriages be different, our relationship with God be different if we learned to feel at home in the body God gave us? Where we didn’t feel the need to set aside our humanity for performative piety? What if therapy is a gift from God? 

I’m not a therapist or an expert on therapy. That’s why I’m talking to Kate Willsey. Kate is a therapist and coach who specializes in religious trauma. She unpacks the tensions inherent at the intersection of the nervous system, theology, and spiritual formation. I’ve been following Kate’s work on social media and have been so blessed by her work. And I thought you would as well.

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I remember my days as a young worship leader. There was always this unspoken tension between being performative and pastoral. Is it my job as a worship leader to provide a powerful, exciting experience or to guide them in a healthy practice for their spiritual formation? When we say worship was really good this week, what do we mean? If you lead worship, you know the tension. When you put a singer or musician on a stage, under the lights, it is by definition a performance. Performance is not a bad thing,but we, at the same time feel uncomfortable talking about performance when it comes to worship. If you surveyed your congregation, likely most would scoff at the idea of worship as a performance. And yet, we have adopted performative tools in local church ministry. So what do we do?

One of the worship leaders that helped me navigate these tensions early on was Paul Baloche. If you don’t know the name Paul Baloche, you likely know his songs. Open The Eyes of My Heart, Above All, or Hosanna (Praise is Rising) have been staple songs in churches all over the world, and that’s only scratching the surface of the sheer number of songs he’s written. But what I love most about Paul is not his songwriting prowess but the fact that he’s truly a normal guy like the rest of us. In a marketplace of worship that has often been defined by what is trending, cool, and exciting, Paul has been faithfully leading the church and coaching worship leaders on how to be themselves and lead with authenticity.

Paul is no stranger to the Beyond Sunday Podcast. And it was refreshing to catch up and talk all things worship. Even do some reminiscing about earlier eras of worship leading in the 80s and 90s.

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