Podcast

The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone.

In this heartfelt episode, John steps away from the plans and simply shares what’s been on his heart after a powerful night of prayer and adoration. Reflecting on the countless emails, messages, and stories from listeners around the world, he reminds us that the mission of Just a Guy in the Pew has never been about one voice—it has always been about one family walking toward Christ together.

Whether you’re carrying addiction, loneliness, a struggling marriage, grief, or simply wondering if anyone sees you, this episode is a reminder that you are not alone.

Together we’ll explore:
🔹Why God saves us personally but sanctifies us together.
🔹How isolation is one of the enemy’s greatest weapons.
🔹Why authentic Christian brotherhood changes lives.
🔹The beauty of carrying one another’s burdens.
🔹How your prayers, encouragement, generosity, and witness are helping rescue souls every day.
🔹Why every believer has a place in God’s mission.

This is more than a thank-you. It’s an invitation.
To stop walking alone.
To become part of someone else’s story.
To remember that the Church is a family—and that no one has to journey to Jesus by themselves.

We’re in this together.

Most everyone has felt stuck, that your life would be so much better if everyone else just got on your level one way or another. We know that’s a distraction by the enemy to get you focusing on the speck in your brother’s eye while you walk around with a two-by-four hanging out of your own. But what do we do to finally overcome that? How do we fight against this and win?

Long story short: we can’t on our own power. It’s only the power of Jesus Christ that can lead us to victory.

And that starts with surrendering. It starts when we decide we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, when we go to God and claim the victory that is ours because it was His, and it was His victory that He won with us in mind and for our sake.

In today’s episode, we’ll talk about:

🔹What the enemy wants us to believe about ourselves

🔹The encouragement St. Paul gives us throughout his letters in the New Testament

🔹Some things that have helped me enter the truth of who I am more deeply that I hope will also ring true in you

God is not somewhere out there. He dwells within you. His power is within you. His victory is your victory. If anything from this episode stays with you, I sincerely hope and pray it’s that, because that’s at the heart of who you are. Not your sins, not your mistakes, but the simple truth that you are the one for whom Jesus died, rose, and conquered the grave.

Most of us were taught how to work hard, provide, and solve problems. But very few of us were ever taught how to truly love, communicate, or lead our families the way Christ calls us to.

That leaves a lot of men frustrated. We work harder, say less, withdraw emotionally, and wonder why our marriages keep drifting further apart.

This week, I sit down with Dr. Greg Popcak, the founder of CatholicCounselors.com and host of EWTN’s More2Life program, to have one of the most practical conversations we’ve ever had on marriage, fatherhood, communication, and authentic masculine leadership.

In this episode we discuss:

🔹Why leadership and control are not the same thing.
🔹The biggest communication mistakes husbands make.
🔹Why leadership and control are not the same thing.
🔹The biggest communication mistakes husbands make.
🔹Why leadership and control are not the same thing.
🔹Why your wife often wants your presence more than your solutions.
🔹How emotional shutdown slowly damages a marriage.
🔹What healthy Catholic counseling looks like.
🔹The surprising habits that help families pass on the faith.
🔹Why your children need to see you pray through life’s struggles—not just solve them.
🔹How small daily acts of care can completely change the culture of your home.
🔹Why it’s never too late to begin rebuilding trust.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re trying your best but nothing seems to change… or you’ve wondered how to become the husband and father God is calling you to be… I think this conversation will encourage you.

Check out more of Dr. Popcak’s work:
CatholicCounselors.com
EWTN’s More2Life program

And follow him on social media:
Instagram | X.com | Facebook

Tell me if you’ve ever said something like this before:

“If my boss wasn’t such a jerk, I’d like my job.”

“If my wife would just listen to me, we’d be able to be happy.”

“If only my friends would stop doing x, y, or z, I’d be able to be myself.”

This blame game is a favorite tool of the enemy going all the way back to Eden. As long as we’re focused on what other people aren’t doing right or how they’re hurting us and waiting on them to change, we’re not facing ourselves and becoming the saints we’re called to be.

In this episode, we’re talking about why so many of us feel stuck. The simple answer is that we fall into this trap that says happiness and freedom depend on other people changing their behavior, and that’s not at all the case. We’ll get into:

🔹What stories we tell ourselves about the struggles we face

🔹The responsibility we have to choose our responses to the things that happen to us

🔹Where the search for freedom and happiness truly starts

If we know something someone’s doing isn’t right, of course we hope and pray for a change. But whether or not they do is between them and God, and only God has the power to change their hearts. It does us no good to tie our happiness, our freedom, our calling to what they’re doing. That plays right into the enemy’s hands. If you find yourself in this place, I hope this episode encourages you to chase after the freedom God has for you, no matter what everyone else is doing.

As Catholics, we treat Mary with a particular sense of reverence and honor. But sometimes it’s hard to know how to relate to her, and how to open ourselves up to a relationship with her without feeling like we’re somehow taking time away from her Son. The truth is that she always brings us closer to Jesus, so the time we spend with her is time spent with Him. That’s what my friend John Heinen, executive director of The Catholic Gentleman, joins us in the pew to talk about. Today, we’re going to talk about:
🔹Mary’s role in our growth in virtue
🔹How to build a deeper relationship to Jesus through Mary
🔹A few concrete things you can do right now to grow closer to Mary, and by necessity her Son.
As John said, Jesus spent 30 years of His life on earth glorifying God through obedience to Mary and Joseph. If Mary is that important to Him, she ought to be for us as well. And if you’re worried about giving her too much and God not enough, just remember that no matter how much you love Mary, you’ll never be able to love her more than Jesus does.