The inaugural season of Grow on the Go podcast for women with Donna and Kevann as they discuss Donna’s books Kick the Boring Out of Your Life and Friend Me along with a few other topics.

Season 1 Episode 49 – Friend Me – Lessons in Loneliness – In this final episode of the series based on my book Friend Me, Kevann and I chat about when loneliness becomes destructive and when it is redemptive. Sharing from personal experiences of friendlessness, learn why sometimes God isolates us for a time, not to punish us, but to draw our attention to our relationship with Him or another important relationship we’re neglecting. We’ll also explore the parable of the vine and the branches to see why trying to get from others what only God can give results in frustration and even deeper loneliness.

Season 1 Episode 48 – Friend Me – How to Find a Friend – Have you ever had struggles finding friendship, especially in new chapters of life? Getting practical, real-world strategies for forming new friendships.

Season 1 Episode 46 – Friend Me – The Road Less Travelled – Learn why forgiveness is a path we choose to walk and how to know you’re at the end when you get there.

Season 1 Episode 45 – Friend Me – Courage to Confront – There are times when we get to a place in a relationship where the only way to continue together is to have a confrontation.

Season 1 Episode 44 – Friend Me – Evaluating Relational Health – After talking over the past few programs about toxins in friendship, Kevann and I felt it was time to discuss how to figure out which friendships can and can’t be saved. We’ll also look at effective ways to walk away leaving our former friend’s heart and dignity intact.

Season 1 Episode 43 – Friend Me – It’s All About Me – This podcast continues to unpack relational toxins like narcissism. Kevann and Donna talk about our experiences of both experiencing and being this person in a relationship. We’ll compare this attitude to Jesus’ example and His instructions for how to live in our connections with others. Donna will give her thoughts on how to help both parties in a friendship infected with narcissism grow up.

Season 1 Episode 42 – Friend Me – Are you Satisfied? – Discontentment is the fuel our economy runs on. That may be healthy for GDP, but it is toxic to individuals and their friendships. This week, we’re talking about how the attitude of wanting more/better/different is infectious. Plus, we’ll share our own struggles with discontentment and what the antidote is.

Season 1 Episode 41 – Friend Me – I Want What She’s Having – Donna and Kevann continue their discussion of relational toxins. But on this episode, we’re going to sort out the difference between jealousy and envy. More specifically, why envy is so destructive to people and relationships. You’ll learn how God often uses others to highlight areas of brokenness in our own hearts. Remember that when we can forgive and love ourselves, then we can love and forgive others, even when their faults are painfully familiar.

Season 1 Episode 40 – The Fragrance of Friendship – Donna and Kevann begin to unpack the characteristics of toxic friendships. We share stories of how we influence our friends, as well as how our friends influence us.  It can be profound — profoundly good or profoundly bad. But since no friendship is perfect, how do we decide if a friendship is dangerous to us? Some verses from Proverbs that can help! Finally, we’ll tackle the toxin of gossip: what it is, and how to manage it in your life and relationships.

Season 1 Episode 39 –   The Seasons of Friendship –  This week we are discussing the evolution of friendships. As we build intimacy and trust, we also become aware of things we don’t like about each other. Sometimes we get to a point where it seems the bad outweighs the good. What happens next determines whether you have deep, mature friendships or not. We’ll show how our friendship with God goes through seasons as well and talk about how to get past an autumn of disappointment with God.

Season 1 Episode 38 – Forging Friendships –  Donna and Kevann talk about how we can connect with people, build friendships and trust. Furthermore, we’ll also look at the beautiful story of friendship between Jonathan and David in the Bible. There are some really great lessons we can utilize in our own friendships. In particular, when someone we love is traveling a rough road.

Season 1 Episode 37 – May I Help You – Donna and Kevin discuss figuring out how to step into the pain, stress, and mess of another person. More importantly, how to do that in a sensitive and helpful way. As usual, we have lots of stories that illustrate how and why assisting our friends is worth the trouble. But should each person carry their own load or bear each other’s burdens? There is also an important distinction between the Bible’s seemingly contradictory instructions.

Season 1 Episode 36 – Soft and Strong – Donna and Kevann chat about how acceptance and accountability are really two sides of the same coin. If one of these qualities is missing, a friendship is either overly fragile or unnecessarily harsh. We’ll highlight both with our own stories of getting it right and getting it wrong to try and understand what makes a resilient friendship. Plus, we’ll go through several scriptures that teach us about the powerful yet compassionate friendship God extends to us. And ways we can offer it to others.

Season 1 Episode 35 – The Importance of PomPoms – Everyone needs to be affirmed and encouraged. It’s almost impossible for us to reach our potential without someone cheering for us. As friends, we can be that pivotal person in someone’s life. Kevann and Donna talk about things they’ve learned about affirmation in relationships and Donna points out Scriptures that encourage us to encourage others with our words.

Season 1 Episode 34- Being at Ease – Donna and Kevann talk about another important characteristic of friendship: the ability to be at ease. They each share their own stories of how times of conflict and calm are treated in comfortable friendships. Donna shows us from scripture how we can actually be at ease with God. Instead of waiting for us to mess up, he waits for us to crawl up into his lap.

Season 1 Episode 33 – Authenticity – This week, Kevann and Donna talk about chapter 4 of Friend Me and the beauty of authentic friendships, as well as the frustration of plastic ones.  Donna shares how laying our hearts bare in the context of true friendship shapes our character and she teaches about Jesus’ response to realness and falseness in relationships.

Season 1 Episode 32 – Being There – The importance of availability in friendship.  Donna and Kevann delve into chapter 3 of Friend Me: Turning Faces into Lasting Friendships.  They reflect on times when their friends stepped in and made themselves available at pivotal times in their lives.  Practical ways to “be there” for friends and opening our eyes to the idea that Jesus is a constant friend.

Season 1 Episode 31 – Biology and Chemistry – Donna and Kevann continue a conversation based on Donna’s book Friend Me: Turning Faces into Lasting Friendships. They talk about what it means to be part of the Body of Christ. They also discuss how all friendships are unique and yet have at least eight characteristics in common. On this episode, Donna uses lots of personal stories to introduce us to the first of eight critical traits of friendship: affinity

Season 1 Episode 30 – Beyond Facebook – Donna and Kevann Carter begin a conversation based on Donna’s book Friend Me: Turning Faces into Lasting Friendships. They look beyond Facebook to compare the authenticity of online vs. face-to-face friendships and why the real ones matter.

Season 1 Episode 29 – Fresh thoughts on Old Words – Donna and Kevann talk about their memories of Christmas carolling and what those carols mean to them. Donna suggests that singing those familiar carols with understanding could turn a ritual into a reformation. She unfolds the beautiful theology in the archaic words of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” so that we can hear these old words with fresh ears.

Season 1 Episode 28 – Christmas Expectations and Disappointments  – Has your Christmas ever been Christmas card perfect? Donna and Kevann talk about where our Christmas expectations come from and how they often lead to disappointment. Additionally, Donna looks at the first Christmas and why embracing our disappointments actually leads us deeper into the heart of what Christmas is really all about.

Season 1 Episode 27 – A Thousand Words Paints a Picture  – Donna and Kevann are back with all new episodes of Grow on the Go! This week, they chat about how one event can leave such a wide spectrum of perspectives among people. John was one of four writers who contributed to painting a picture of Jesus. Donna wraps up her teaching series on John by answering 4 questions:

Season 1 Episode 26 – Collisions with Truth  – How much does truth matter? Lying doesn’t seem like a big deal when it isn’t going to hurt anyone and if, in fact, it might actually prevent hurt. But what if it isn’t just a theoretical thing; what if Truth is a person?

Season 1 Episode 25 – Life Diverted – Donna welcomes Lauren Klukas to Grow on the Go. Lauren shares her journey of having to abandon the life she planned for the different one God had in store for her. Donna gleans from Lauren’s journey the life lessons she learned along the way and helps us learn from her experience.

Season 1 Episode 24 – Bumper Crop Christians – Kevann and Donna talk about the frustration they experience at their lack of progress in being more like Jesus: more patient, kind, etc. Often the ways we process that frustration can be destructive. We can beat ourselves up or give up altogether. There’s got to be another way! Donna wraps up her teaching of the vine and the branches (John 15) focusing on bearing fruit and helping us become bumper crop Christians.

Season 1 Episode 23 – The Process of Elimination – Before they get to talking about how pruning eliminates unhealthy growth from a vine, Donna and Kevann take a detour to an unpleasant but in retrospect hilarious story about another type of elimination. They also discuss personal examples of thing that God has pruned out of each of their lives.

Season 1 Episode 22 – Coming Home – Kevann and Donna talk about the attraction of coming home and what that means for each of them. In this first of three podcasts on John 15’s parable of the vine and the branches and Donna teaches on belonging.

Season 1 Episode 21 – Experience – On this podcast, Kevann and Donna talk about how the same experience can affect individuals so differently.

Season 1 Episode 20 – When you feel invisible – Born into a family of strong leaders, Kevann talks about having her own leadership ability overlooked at home. Donna shares why she felt invisible growing up as the compliant child between two sisters.

Season 1 Episode 19 – Wrestling or Resting – After talking about the Carter girls’ strange love of wrestling, Kevann and Donna get down to talking about how our view of God determines whether we wrestle with him for control or rest in his arms.

Season 1 Episode 18 – Shadows in the Dark – On this podcast, Donna and Kevann talk about their own spiritual blind spots and how to bring light to dark shadows in life. In the teach time, Donna unpacks John 9 where Jesus heals a blind man in a weird way on the wrong day.

Season 1 Episode 17 – Dinner and a Show – After talking about their mutual love of portmanteaus and various stage performance disasters, Kevann and Donna have a conversation about people’s motives for following Jesus in John’s day, but also now. In the first century many people were more interested in fish and bread than the bread of life.

Season 1 Episode 16 – Seek Healing – At last Donna introduces us to her other daughter, Kendall. Together they talk about Kendall’s amazing journey of being healed and participating with God in healing others.

Season 1 Episode 15 – Stairway to Heaven – Did you know Jesus called himself the stairway to heaven? Kevann and Donna go from talking about the controversy concerning the song to the one surrounding the real stairway to Heaven.

Season 1 Episode 14 – The Importance of Timing – Timing is everything. Being somewhere right when something pivotal happens can change your life. On this podcast, Donna and Kevann talk about how this has happened for them in both trivial and profound ways. Make the most out of life and Grow on the Go!

Season 1 Episode 13 – Embrace Your Creator – Kevann has experienced more personal expressions of God’s care for her than anyone else Donna knows! In this episode, Kevann gets very vulnerable as mother and daughter talk together about those very stories, how they express the intimate nature of the relationship God wants with us, and how to embrace it to the fullest.

Season 1 Episode 12 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Invest Wisely – Kevann and Donna chat about how we can invest our lives in things that really matter instead of adopting the short term investment strategies of our culture. Learn direction as to what the Bible says about how to form and weigh your values so that your investment portfolios are weighted for the long-term.

Season 1 Episode 11 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Travel Light – Our painful pasts,  present pressure and fears of the future can weigh us down and suck the joy out of life. Donna and Kevann discuss how an accurate perspective of God can help us leave our baggage behind.

Season 1 Episode 10 – Seek Justice– Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that God just wants regular church attendance and general niceness from us. In this interview with Elise Shelly, Donna unpacks what it means to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Season 1 Episode 9 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Leverage Pain – When pain invades our lives we have choices to make. Kevann and Donna converse about their personal experiences and Donna teaches on how choosing God’s strategies for coping can leverage our pain for good.

Season 1 Episode 8 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Protect Your Purity– God’s design for sex is meant to help us live the beautiful life God wants for us. Donna and Kevann discuss what purity means for both singles and married people, why it’s so important, and how that purity can be protected in a sexually insistent culture.

Season 1 Episode 7 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Watch Your Words– Today on Grow on the Go, Kevann and Donna discuss the power of words to inflict violence on peoples’ hearts or to breath life into a dying soul. The Bible teaches that our words can actually invite people to live or invite them to die. Donna unpacks this today and also the healing words Jesus speaks over us; words that can literally affect our eternity.

Season 1 Episode 6 – Grieve with Hope – Donna chats with her friend Shirley Thiessen about how grief has brought them together and what God has taught them each through the loss of precious loved ones. Donna looks at what the Bible has to say about the home God is preparing for us on the new earth. She also shares how we can thrive until we are reunited with loved ones who are already experiencing the exciting life that God promises to those who place their faith in Jesus.

Season 1 Episode 5 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Take Risks – How can we get our of our comfort zone and do the things we dream of doing? Today, Donna and Kevann talk about what keeps us stuck in our ordinary lives instead of taking responsibility for what’s going on in the world around us. Donna will shows us through individuals from the Bible, as well as in present day, how to overcome feelings of fear and insignificance so that we can make a difference.

Season 1 Episode 4 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Build Bridges– Building Bridges is all about forgiveness and trust – not necessarily trusting people, but trusting God! Donna shows us through the lives of three unlikely Bible characters that God is with us in every relational firestorm we face and he holds our hearts. Kevann and Donna discuss why Christ-followers have no choice but to bravely build bridges and walk across them.

Season 1 Episode 3 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Build Boundaries – On this podcast, Donna and Kevann discuss how God has boundaries and he wants us to have them too. In fact we can learn a lot about building, repairing and maintaining boundaries by looking at the life of Gideon. Donna unpacks Gideon’s story for us and also gives really practical advice about how to modify our behavior so that others begin to treat us with respect.

Season 1 Episode 2 – Kick the Boring Out of Your Life & Think Big – Today Donna and Kevann dive into the first chapter of Donna’s latest book, Kick the Boring Out of Your Life: Think Big, Take Risks, Travel Light. Life can be very busy but still leave us uninspired. Shifting our attention beyond our daily minutia can help us Think Big.

Season 1 Episode 1 – Meet Donna and Kevann and Grow on the Go – In the debut episode of Grow on the Go, author and speaker Donna Carter and her daughter Kevann discuss the busyness of women today, the importance of growing in our relationship with God and how we can do that on the go.