Axis Conversations

Three Big Conversations:

Song of the Week: I Knew It, I Knew You - Taylor Swift - 02:16

→ Click here to read the lyrics.

In Other News: - 48:50

The United Kingdom has introduced a law to ban social media access for children under 16 in early 2027, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, and X. "Overstimulated" has become the most used "therapy speak" (paywall) term a...

Olivia Rodrigo's new album soars to the top of the charts, more dads seem to be opting way into fatherhood, and Disclosure Day raises important questions about faith.

Song of the Week: I Knew It, I Knew You - Taylor Swift

→ Click here to read the lyrics.

In Other News:

The United Kingdom has introduced a law to ban social media access for children under 16 in early 2027, including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, and X. "Overstimulated" has become the most used "therapy speak" (paywall) term among Gen Z (ages 13-24), often used...

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"My husband and I are expecting our first child next week, so he will be a first-time dad. But he never knew his own father, so he'll be learning how to be a dad without any sort of first-hand example. How can he navigate being a dad when he never had one?" - Erin

After 20 years in the corporate world (with IBM, Pepsi and Goldman Sachs), Roland Warren spent 11 years as president of the National Fatherhood Initiative before joining Care Net in 2012 as...

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Three Big Conversations:

Resource of the Week - The Sermon on the Mount Experience - 02:02

In Other News: - 37:54

The 2026 World Cup, hosted by Mexico, the United States, and Canada, kicked off this Thursday in Mexico...

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Social media companies are being sued for engaging students during school hours, Gen Z is more comfortable disclosing their personal finances than any other generation, and why a chip being inserted into our brains might be the least of our problems.

Resource of the Week - The Sermon on the Mount Experience

In Other News:

The 2026 World Cup, hosted by Mexico, the United States, and Canada, kicked off this Thursday in Mexico City. If it matches 2022's viewing numbe...

→ Help us improve our podcast! Click here to fill out this three-minute survey.

After 20 years in the corporate world (with IBM, Pepsi and Goldman Sachs), Roland spent 11 years as president of the National Fatherhood Initiative before joining Care Net in 2012 as president and CEO. A graduate of Princeton University and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Roland is an inspirational servant leader with a heart for Christ and a mind for business. As part of our lead up to Father's Day this month, we'll be talking with Roland primarily about the difference a dad...

→ Help us improve our podcast! Click here to fill out this three-minute survey.

Three Big Conversations:

Slang of the Week - Lida Bida Boda Butt - 2:18

→ Mike Novotny's NEW BOOK - Newlywed: A Christian Guide for Loving Year One

In Other News: - 43:20

Taylor Swift's new song "I Knew It, I Knew You" c...

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Off Campus is already a frontrunner for teen show of the summer, students are scared to eat in front of their peers, and what the success of Backrooms says about the state of the movies.

Slang of the Week - Lida Bida Boda Butt

In Other News:

Taylor Swift's new song "I Knew It, I Knew You" comes out today and was inspired by an early screening of Toy Story. PlayStation's "State of Play" gaming showcase happened this week...

→ Help us improve our podcast! Click here to fill out this three-minute survey.

"How can I instill a good work ethic in my 14 year old son? I have tried to model this for him and we talk about the importance of putting in the work to be good at sports, music, etc. However, he seems to give minimal effort on these pursuits and becomes frustrated and makes excuses when we encourage him to apply himself." - Eddie

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Three Big Conversations:

Song of the Week - "the cure" by Olivia Rodrigo - 3:16

→ Click here to read the lyrics

→ Click here to listen to the song (language)

In Other News: - 42:40

Small "dot cakes," baked in cups, and covered in frosting and rainbow nonpareil sprinkles, are going...

The OKC Thunder have become the NBA's favorite villain, Pope Leo publishes an AI manifesto, and The Mandalorian and Grogu had a disappointing first weekend.

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Song of the Week - "the cure" by Olivia Rodrigo

→ Click here to read the lyrics

→ Click here to listen to the song (language)

In Other News:

Small "dot cakes," baked in cups, and covered in frosting and rainbow nonpareil sprinkles, are going viral. The colorful aesthetic of these cakes...

Ashlee has spent years helping moms navigate the tension between modern motherhood and creativity. She's a writer, editor, and the founder of Coffee + Crumbs, the home of essays that have resonated across the internet, meeting millennial moms where they are. She's also the writer of Create Anyway, a book about nurturing creativity in the margins. The Coffee and Crumbs writers' collective has created two beautiful books, The Magic of Motherhood. You're In Good Company, their latest collection of essays about how community shapes motherhood, was just released last month. 

We are also joined by author and speaker K...

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Three Big Conversations:

Song of the Week: "Janice ST*U" by Drake - 3:04

→ Click here to read the lyrics

In Other News: - 51:28

The Mandalorian and Grogu, a Star Wars adventure starring Pedro Pascal and his travel-sized "baby Yoda" sidekick, is expected to earn $160 million this weekend...

A brand called Fear of God sells must-have hoodies, the Freemasons are recruiting heavily from Gen Z, and what parents need to know about how gore travels online.

Song of the Week: "Janice ST*U" by Drake

→ Click here to read the lyrics

→ Click here for A Parent's Guide to Loneliness

→ Help us improve our podcast! Click here to fill out this three-minute survey.

In Other News:

The Mandalorian and Grogu, a Star Wars adventure starring Pedro Pascal and his travel-sized "baby Yoda" sidekick, is expected to earn $1...

"Would you share ideas and council on navigating the fine line between keeping church attendance and spiritual disciplines as a family pritory (i.e. wanting to establish and model this as a lifelong priority for our kids), and not turning your teen off from Christianity, where your teen runs away from the faith because of you "making them go" to church every Sunday. Drawing from Paul's words, how can we parent in regards to church attendance in the spirit of Colossians 4:2-6, especially verse 6?" - Aileen

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Three Big Conversations:

Resource of the Week: Faith and Life Survey - 01:54

→ Click here to watch our video about manifesting.

→ Click here to watch our video about Looksmaxxing.

→ Click here to read the article about these local running clubs.

In Other News: - 45:00

Teen boys and young men are turning to injectable peptide stacks in order to achieve p...

Gen Z hits the track (and the tracking apps), a new Lord of the Flies adaptation hits home, and pop songstresses say they are manifesting their dream lives.

Resource of the Week: Faith and Life Survey

→ Click here to watch our video about manifesting.

In Other News:

Teen boys and young men are turning to injectable peptide stacks in order to achieve physical transformations and faster muscle recovery, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal (paywall), in a trend being fueled by looksmaxxing culture. The latest Gen Z trend is t...

Jen Pollock Michel is the award-winning author of six books: A Rule for the Rest of US, Teach Us to Want (Christianity Today's Book of the Year), Keeping Place, Surprised by Paradox (Christianity Today's Book of the Year Award of Merit—Beautiful Orthodoxy), A Habit Called Faith, and In Good Time (Canada's Word Guild Book of the Year Award). 

Jen is a sought-after contributor to publications like Christianity Today, The Christian Century, The Gospel Coalition, Mockingbird, and The Dispatch, among others. She is also a first-year mentor in Whitworth University's MFA in Creative Writing program, and she tra...

Three Big Conversations:

Slang of the Week: "Chud"- 1:28

In Other News: - 42:58

The Savannah Bananas, an "exhibition baseball" team that includes comedy and choreographed dances in games of what they call Banana Ball, played in front of 102,000 fans this past Saturday with a cameo from the Dude Perfect team. Angel Studios' new adaptation of Animal Farm (paywall) hit theaters this past weeke...

The jury is out for The Devil Wears Prada 2, the Met Gala made people mad for different reasons, and moms are ready to organize—so they can boycott school events.

Slang of the Week: "Chud"

In Other News:

The Savannah Bananas, an "exhibition baseball" team that includes comedy and choreographed dances in games of what they call Banana Ball, played in front of 102,000 fans this past Saturday with a cameo from the Dude Perfect team. Angel Studios' new adaptation of Animal Farm (paywall) hit theaters this past weekend, uniting George Orwell's classic critique of...

Parenting right now just feels… different.

We're doing it in the middle of smartphones, social media, and nonstop input. We're thinking about safety, screen time, mental health, cyberbullying… all of it, all at once aaand probably even before 9am.

So this question keeps coming up: is it actually harder to raise kids now, or was it just a different kind of hard back then?

Did previous generations have more freedom because they weren't monitoring devices or even getting pulled into doomscrolling themselves? Or were they carrying a weight we might underestimate? Less support, less...

Three Big Conversations:

Slang of the Week: "You the birthday." - 1:57

→ Click here to see the video high school in the 90's

→ Click here to listen to our podcast episode Freya India on How to Care for Teen Girls in a Digital Age

In Other News: - 46:14

The Devil Wears Prada 2, which co...

Tweens are grabbing an iced latte to get a hit of belonging, a third of Gen Z believe they have "psychic abilities," and nearly half of young adults say they'd live in the past if they could.

Slang of the Week: "You the birthday."

→Click here to see the video high school in the 90's

→Click here to listen to our podcast episode Freya India on How to Care for Teen Girls in a Digital Age

In Other News:

The Devil Wears Prada 2, which comes out today, is projected to m...

Freya is the author of the Substack GIRLS, where she writes about the challenges girls and young women face in the modern world. She's also a staff writer for Jonathan Haidt's newsletter, After Babel. She has contributed to publications including The New Statesman, The Spectator, and The Free Press. 

Today, we are going to be discussing her debut book, GIRLS, Generation Z and the commodification of everything, which will be out in the US in May. Her book serves as both an account of her upbringing in the digital age, as well as an inside look for p...

Three Big Conversations:

Teens are birdwatching - 13:12

Posting on Snapchat - 26:50

Learning to slow down from John Mark Comer - 41:34

Song of the Week: "drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo - 2:08

→ Click here to read the lyrics (language).

→ Click here to watch The Conversation Starter on Offline Hobbies.

In other news: - 58:36

Young people are speedrunning their Bachelor's or Master's degrees, finishing them in as quickly as three months, as less traditional forms of University attendance become more popular.

Tomodachi Life: Living the D...

Teens are birdwatching, posting on Snapchat, and learning to slow down from John Mark Comer.

Song of the Week: "drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo

→ Click here to read the lyrics (language).

In other news:

Young people are speedrunning their Bachelor's or Master's degrees, finishing them in as quickly as three months, as less traditional forms of University attendance become more popular.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the newest game in Nintendo's oddest series, which plays as a mix between The Sims and Animal Crossing, and its brand of soc...

This week, we're taking a break from the Axis Conversations podcast—including the Roundtable, Ask Axis, and our interview series. We are meeting with members of our Axis community to dream and pray together about this upcoming year and beyond. We appreciate your support, and we're excited to see you back here next Thursday and Friday, when our regular schedule will resume—including the CT Audio Podcast and the Culture Translator Roundtable! See you then!  - The Axis Team

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→ Check out the podcast now...

People are paying to talk to an AI avatar of Jesus, texts from teens make perfect emo songs, and Justin Bieber reminds everyone of why he became a pop star in the first place. But first: 

Resource of the Week - Parent Guide to Gen Alpha

Check out our YouTube Episode → What Christians Are Missing About Gen Alpha

In Other News:

In a strange TikTok trend (as opposed to a normal one), young men are seeing how far they can run into Scientology centers for social media clout as they film the...

Amy Amy Adamczykis Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Programs of Doctoral Study in Sociology and Criminal Justice at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Trained as a sociologist of religion, her research focuses on how different contexts (such as nations, counties, friendship groups), and personal religious beliefs shape people's deviant, moral, and health-related attitudes and behaviors. We'll be talking today primarily about the findings from her book Handing Down the Faith.

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→ Check out the podc...

Three Big Conversations:

Slang of the Week - "Clipped" - 1:58

In Other News: - 41:34

A squishy stress-relieving toy has taken over the internet, and they are sold out everywhere. It's safe to say that teens and tweens are obsessed.  Olivia Rodrigo announced her first single from the album is called "drop dead" and will be out on April 17. Anticipation is building for I Hav...

The Night We Met is BookTok's latest darling, teenagers are wearing pimple patches in public, and Super Mario Galaxy brought tweens to the box office on Easter weekend.

Slang of the Week - "Clipped"

In Other News:

A squishy stress-relieving toy has taken over the internet, and they are sold out everywhere. It's safe to say that teens and tweens are obsessed.  Olivia Rodrigo announced her first single from the album is called "drop dead" and will be out on April 17. Anticipation is building for I Have Proof, a new horror movie that wi...

"Thanks for your awesome content. As a father of 3 girls in a hybrid homeschool setting (they are in a classroom two days a week), we are fairly sheltered from outside influences/influencers. I would love practical advice on how and when to guide my girls in developing good judgement and discernment regarding which influences to embrace and which to ignore." - Matthew

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→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

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Three Big Conversations:

Song of the Week - "Babydoll" by Dominic Fike - 02:50

→ Click here for the lyrics

In Other News: - 54:16

If you thought the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters wouldn't survive into 2026, look no further than your local McDonald's, which has Huntr/x and Saja Boys themed meals (and a Derpy the Tiger McFlurry). With the Artemis II mission, NASA...

Teens are inspired by the fashion in Love Story, everybody, everywhere, is maxxing, and the meaning of Easter might feel lost somewhere in the baskets and plastic grass.

Song of the Week - "Babydoll" by Dominic Fike

→ Click here for the lyrics

In Other News:

If you thought the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters wouldn't survive into 2026, look no further than your local McDonald's, which has Huntr/x and Saja Boys themed meals (and a Derpy the Tiger McFlurry). With the Artemis II mission, NASA is sending astronauts to the moon for...

CJ Fant is one of our own team members at Axis. As basically our resident gaming aficionado, I wanted to bring CJ on to talk about how parents can understand this medium a little better and enter into some intentional conversation around video games with the next generation. 

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→ Become a monthly donor today, join the Table.

→ Check out the podcast now on our YouTube Channel!

→ Get your question on Ask Axis! Send in your questions to ask@axis.org.

→ For more Axis resources, go to axis.org.

Three Big Conversations:

Resource of the Week - The Pour Over - 02:21

In Other News: - 55:50

It's sequel season for Kirsten Dunst. The actress just signed on for the untitled Minecraft movie sequel and The Housemaid 2 alongside Sydney Sweeney. The actress said in an interview with Town and Country that she just wants to make a "pile of cash." A new Chappell Roan drama is trending after a claim that her security guar...

Epic Games lays off 1,000 employees, Gen Z is posing like a platypus, and BTS releases their first album since 2020.

Resource of the Week - The Pour Over

In Other News:

It's sequel season for Kirsten Dunst. The actress just signed on for the untitled Minecraft movie sequel and The Housemaid 2 alongside Sydney Sweeney. The actress said in an interview with Town and Country that she just wants to make a "pile of cash." A new Chappell Roan drama is trending after a claim that her security guard yelled at Jude Law's 11-year-old daughter a...

"My kids go to church because that is what we do as a family. They know God is good and Jesus is the Messiah because of what they have been taught and how my husband and I center our lives on Jesus. But how can I encourage them to seek a personal relationship with the Lord that isn't built on what they've done all their lives and been told? To instead, build it out of an independent, self-driven desire to know the God of all creation? How can I help them from deconstructing their faith in the future when...

Three Big Conversations:

Song of the Week - "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley - 01:58

→ Click here to read the lyrics

→ Click here for reviews of Project Hail Mary

In Other News: - 44:30

The Oscars happened. Ryan Coogler was the second Black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay. Plus, for the seventh time in the histo...

The latest TikTok trend involves sounding like a brainless sycophant to mimic ChatGPT, a senior prank goes wrong in Georgia, and Project Hail Mary packs art, science, and Ryan Gosling into a family-friendly movie.

Song of the Week - "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley

→ Click here to read the lyrics

→ Click here for reviews of Project Hail Mary

In Other News:

The Oscars happened. Ryan Coogler was the second Black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay. Plus, for the seventh time in the history of the award show, there was...