Pastor Evan Wickham joins Juli to share lessons he’s learned and what his church is doing to lead biblically with clarity and love.
Authentic Intimacy
Transcript: #556 Why We Can’t Ignore What Offends Us About Jesus
A transcript of Java with Juli #556, where Dr. Juli Slattery is joined by author and ministry leader Rick Lawrence.
Q&A: How do I build emotional intimacy with my spouse when they don’t believe in God?
How do you build emotional connection with a spouse when you have different beliefs?
#556 Why We Can’t Ignore What Offends Us About Jesus
Rick Lawrence, author of “Editing Jesus”, joins Juli to discuss how many American Christians make Jesus into an image other than Himself.
Q&A: We just got engaged. How do we start to prepare for our marriage?
How can you prepare for sex in marriage when you’re engaged?
Transcript: #552 When You Want Sex More Than Your Husband Does
A transcript of Java with Juli #552, a conversation between Dr. Juli Slattery and Sheri Mueller, LCPC, and author of “I Want Him to Want Me”.
Cómo enseñar a los niños sobre los límites y la intimidad saludable
No siempre podemos estar con ellos, entonces, ¿cómo podemos ser proactivos mientras intentamos mantenerlos seguros?
Q&A: How do I start to heal after my spouse’s affair?
How do you heal after the betrayal of a spouse?
Q&A: Is it okay to have sex before marriage?
Is sex before marriage okay?
Menopause and Sex: What You Need To Know
Pelvic Health Physical Therapist Heather Marra joins the blog to deepen your knowledge about female sexuality and menopause.
Lo que necesitas saber sobre el sexo antes de tu noche de bodas
Aunque no podemos anticiparlo todo (lo cual es parte de la diversión), puede ser útil saber algunas cosas antes del día de tu boda.
Q&A: How do I explain the unbiblical sexual choices others make to my young kids?
How to talk to your kids about other people’s sexual choices.
What Can Church Leaders Do to Combat Porn Use in the Church?
Four ways churches can be strengthened and equipped to develop a healthy approach to combating pornography use.
#540 A Pastoral Perspective on Supporting Those with Gender Dysphoria
Pastor Sam Ferguson joins Juli to get practical about loving the hearts of hurting people while staying rooted in God’s Word.
How to Teach Children Healthy Intimacy and Boundaries
We can’t always be with our kids, so how can we be proactive in keeping them safe?
#539 The Impact Of Shame And How To Overcome It
Curt Thompson, MD, author of “The Soul of Shame”, joins Juli to explain what shame is, why we experience it, and what to do with it.
Has God Changed His Mind About Sex?
Cultural ideals around sex and sexuality have shifted over the last 100 years, but does this mean God’s design for sex has shifted as well?
#517 How to Beat Loneliness and Cultivate Deeper Friendships
Jeff Kemp joins Juli to talk about what we need to do to cultivate deep, long-lasting, and life-altering friendships.
#514 How Deconstruction and Divorce Rocked a Young Couple’s Life
Chris and Stephanie Teague, the musical duo behind Out of the Dust, share how their marriage fell apart and how God put it back together.
How to Bridge the Gap in Mismatched Libidos in Marriage
Juli expands on a popular episode with Dr. Michael Sytsma and Shaunti Feldhahn all about how couples can bridge the sexual desire gap.
For a Better Marriage, Try This
What do you think is the most important element when it comes to marriage?
When Your Adult Child Makes Sexual Choices You Disagree With
What does it look like to love God and love an adult child who has a very different sexual ethic?
Q&A: How do I connect with my emotionally disconnected husband?
Got an emotionally disconnected spouse? Hear what Juli says about how to connect.
Should I Go to a Gay Wedding?
Few topics in today’s world are more divisive in the Christian Church than sexuality.
#503 Lies, Pornography and Sex Addiction Almost Ended Their Marriage, Now They Help Others Find Hope
How do porn and sex addiction really affect a family?
#500 Sex, Faith and Family: Conversations Every Couple Should Have Pre-Marriage
Are you ever really ready for marriage? Are there certain conversations couples should have prior to engagement? Scott Kedersha weighs in.
#494 Purity Culture, Men and Sexual Entitlement
The purity narrative failed men too. Noah Filipiak unpacks some of the harmful ideas passed on to men in an effort to protect purity.
Q&A: What Does God Say About Divorce?
What does God say about divorce? Juli unpacks this layered topic.
#492 How Human Trafficking Causes Us to Rethink What We Believe About God
Author Charles Martin unpacks some of the realities of human trafficking, what it means to be broken, and what it takes to find freedom.
#363: Why Are Christians Afraid Of the LGBT+ Conversation?
Rachel Gilson discusses why it’s more important than ever to maintain a high view of scripture and know what the Bible says about our sexuality.
3 Subconscious Beliefs You May Hold About Living With Same-Sex Attraction
Scripture reveals that the way we think shapes our actions, but have you given thought to what and how you think about our sexuality?
#386: What’s the Secret To Getting the Marriage & Intimacy You Want? Go Vertical
Guests Dave and Ann Wilson join Juli in this special bonus episode as they share how God transformed their marriage from the top down.
#388 Single & Sexually Whole
The late Dr. Doug Rosenau joins Juli to discuss the difference between erotic and social sexuality, and why we need to rethink desire.
#483 Why You Need a New Theology of Singleness, Even if You’re Married
Join Juli and guest Dr. Danielle Treweek as we kick off week two of our 7-week series exploring various themes around God, sex and intimacy.
Q&A: Is It Possible For The Woman to Be The Higher Drive Partner?
Are husbands always the higher desire partners?
#469 Porn, Rape Culture, and Why The Battle Against Sexual Assault Starts at Home
Did you know that on average, each year, around 463,634 Americans are victims of sexual assault? That’s a heartbreaking statistic, and it reveals a very real source of pain and trauma in contemporary American culture. What causes people to commit sexual assault? Is there a way to stop it? Dr. John Foubert joins Juli to discuss some of the reasons these numbers are so high, and what can and needs to be done to prevent sexual assault from happening.
#466 Enough is Enough: Recognizing and Combating Abusive Relationships
Is there a difference between a bad relationship and a harmful one? How can you spot the difference, both in your own relationships and those of your friends and family?
Join Juli and Dr. David Clarke as they discuss how to recognize abuse patterns of behavior, how to set boundaries, and when necessary, how to get out and create safety elsewhere.
#452 Porn Addiction in Marriage: How to Let God Redeem Your Story
When it comes to porn, the gender gap is closing. Meet two women who know that overcoming a pornography addiction or sexual shame is not about changing your behavior but about allowing Jesus to transform your identity. One is the Samaritan women who met Jesus at the well and the other is Jessica Harris, Juli’s guest on “Java with Juli.”
#451 Porn Addiction and Women: Break the Silence, Bring the Hope
When it comes to porn, the gender gap is closing. Meet two women who know that overcoming a pornography addiction or sexual shame is not about changing your behavior but about allowing Jesus to transform your identity. One is the Samaritan women who met Jesus at the well and the other is Jessica Harris, Juli’s guest on “Java with Juli.”
#446: How Much More of Your Sexuality Will You Let God Reclaim in 2023?
Juli shares her thoughts on 2022, on having hard conversations about sexuality, and how to ask God to use painful circumstances to...
#445: Give the Gift of Seeing the Good in What You Have
Seeing the good in all things does not mean ignoring the bad. Rather, as we approach the hard things, we see the...
How Do I Know He’s “The One”?
Q: Is there one person I'm meant to marry, or should I just choose a good man? A: This question isn't simply a contemplative exercise; it impacts how you approach dating and marriage. However, I think it is the wrong question to be asking. The question of "Is there...
Prioritize Sexual Intimacy by Getting Your Bedroom Ready, Part 3
One very practical and creative way to work on sexual intimacy in your marriage is to put thought and intention into the physical space of your bedroom. Whether or not you are aware of it, the environment of your bedroom impacts your sexual intimacy. Here is a quick...
Prioritize Sexual Intimacy by Getting Your Mind Ready, Part 1
“Your most important sex organ is your brain.” I remember when I first heard this statement as a young married woman. Enjoying sex is practically impossible without thinking about it. Both men and women can struggle to know how to think about sex in a way that is...
A Road Map to Sexual Integrity in the Midst of Sexual Brokenness
Do you want to know the question that keeps me up at night? It’s this: How can I honor God with my sexuality in the face of my sexual brokenness and unmet desires? At Authentic Intimacy, we often use words like sexual wholeness or sexual integrity instead of sexual...
Are You a Good Friend? 7 Keys to Building Healthy Friendship
Several months ago, a friend invited me to coffee. After catching up on kids and ministry, I noticed her countenance shift. She obviously was struggling to share something difficult with me. After a few deep breaths, my friend explained how several years ago I had...
#214: Answers To Your Questions About Sex, with Dr. Juli Slattery & Linda Dillow
Is it “dirty” to dress up for your husband in the bedroom? Is it wrong to masturbate if your husband can’t have sex? What if your...
What To Wear in the Bedroom?
Do you need to change what you wear in the bedroom? Like me, maybe you choose your sleepwear based on comfort and not to entice. I much prefer Life is Good to Victoria Secret in the bedroom, but we will save that conversation for another day. Even though I sometimes...
#405: How To Be Broken and Used by God (At the Same Time)
Cory Morgan joins Juli to share how his brokenness became an opportunity to bring others alongside him on the journey toward sexual integrity.
#399: Why Questions About Sex Cause You to Question God
Juli and Hannah kick off the "Making Sense of God & Sex" series with a conversation about how questions around sex always lead...
#391: Make Your Relationship Better With a Few Intentional Habits
Relationships naturally find ruts. With our natural bent toward self-love, we easily get stuck focusing on our own needs or...
#389: Thinking About Becoming a Blended Family?
Blended family couples have honeymoon phases too!—they just usually come a little later. Even the strongest couples will face...
#381: “Show It Off” or “Cover It Up”: Messages That Shape Our Body Image
What messages have you been told about your body and your sexuality? At the coffee shop with Juli are two...
#36: What Kind of Love Are You Making?
If there is one place in the Bible that gives women permission to have fun, to explore and to enjoy sexual pleasure, it’s the poetic...
#371: Schedule Sex and Dry Cleaning In the Same Conversation? It Works
Being intentional about the business of marriage builds intimacy. When couples make decisions together, their emotions and buy-in...
Webinar Series: Sexual Pleasure: How To Get Your Mind and Body to Work Together, Pt 3
Saying "Yes!" to Sexual Pleasure Part 3 in this webinar series In the final webinar in our series, Dr. Jennifer Degler brings her humor, candor, and expertise to help you understand how to get your brain and your body working together so that you can share the kind of...
#370: Why the Single Life Is Uniquely Meaningful and Totally Ordinary
Do you feel stuck somewhere between "not married" and "not called to singleness"? Truth be told, few single Christians feel called...
#369: Changing the Way We Talk About Porn (Because Women Struggle Too)
“I had one woman say, ‘I struggle with masturbation.’ And she just started crying. And then she said, ‘I’ve never said that word...
#95: The Dating Manifesto
Do you struggle with being single? Maybe you've been rethinking that 21-point list of "non-negotiable" qualities you need in a...
#366: No More Pushing Past the Pain! God Cares About Your Sexual Pleasure
What do you do when sex hurts? Do you white-knuckle your way through it, because you think you...
#362: How To Become a Better “Better Half” with Jamie Ivey
A complement, according to Webster, is “something that fills up, completes, or makes better or perfect.”...
#359: How To Help Women Speak Out Against Sexual Harassment
Tiffany Bluhm wishes this wasn’t her story to tell. Like most victims or bystanders of sexual harassment, she had everything to lose...
#358: Sexuality, Spirituality, and Why We Settle For Counterfeit Intimacy
Have you ever turned to Netflix instead of pursuing sex with your spouse? Have you turned to Instagram instead ending your day by...
#357: Emotional Safety: What It Is and Why You Need It
What is emotional safety? Look at it this way: an emotionally unsafe relationship is a place where you can’t be yourself. You’re...
#356: Sex & the City of God (What Life Looks Like When We Love God First)
That longing you have to be fully known? God put it there. It’s meant to draw you into intimacy with Him....
#353: Why Telling Your Abuse Story is Complex, Courageous & Healing
Every abuse story has unique layers of complexity and pain. The decision whether or not to tell someone else is often a difficult...
#350: Making Time To Make Love (Especially When You Don’t Feel Like It)
It's hard to prioritize sexual intimacy when you don't understand why God created sex in the first place. Instead, you put up walls...
#345: What You Need to Know About Progressive Christianity
Compassionate. Inclusive. Nonjudgmental. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a church like this? It’s why...
How Do I Recognize an Abusive Marriage?
Ask Anything: Interviews with Experts Dr. Ramona Probasco is a psychologist and a certified domestic abuse counselor. She is also a...
#341: When Staying Married Feels Impossible
Circumstances in Laurie’s life started triggering her memories of childhood sexual abuse. Her lifelong struggle...
#338: Single and Sexual
As a single person, your sexuality isn’t defined by a list of “do's and don’ts” or captured by simplistic questions like, “What does...
#337: Questions You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask About Sex
Dr. Doug Rosenau, a pioneer in Christian sex therapy, has been answering questions about sex for decades—long...
#334: What Your Pastor Needs to Know About Porn
In this episode, Juli sits down with Mark & Rosie Makinney to debunk misconceptions about pornography and marriage --many of...
#140: The Story of A Rape Survivor
One of Hettie’s greatest fears was that she would be raped. In her home country of South Africa, it is estimated...
#332: Parenting Your Kids Without Shame
In parenting, shame is unavoidable. As a mom or dad, at times you'll likely feel ashamed of how you’re doing as a parent or of how...
#331: Say Goodbye to Labels
Life is tends to put labels on us. We even pin labels on ourselves. More often than not, these labels are hurtful, superficial, and...
#325: BONUS! When Sex Hurts, Pelvic Floor Therapy Can Help
Past trauma, childbirth, a physical fall—just a few of the MANY reasons you might experience painful sex or sexual dysfunction....
#324: Sex Therapy: What Is It, and Why Should You Go?
Online Christian sex therapy—yes, you read that right. Did you know that there are therapists trained specifically to address issues...
#322: The Secret Superpower of Kindness
Think about your toughest relationship: The wife who only ever seems to offer you the cold shoulder. The husband you’re finding it...
#321: Taking Your Marriage Back From Porn
One of the most painful experiences as a wife is learning of your husband’s porn addiction—or learning that...
#318: Why Are We Afraid to Touch?
Let’s face it: As Christians, we’re kind of afraid to touch. Touch feels unsafe and sexual—even...
Java Pack: Conversations that Heal
This Java Pack is a Christian leader’s guide to addressing sexual pain. As Christians, we often spend a lot of time debating what we should believe about sexuality. We may devote some time to ensuring we are personally honoring God with our own sexual choices....
#311: Where Is God When We Suffer?
Sometimes life gets so hard, we doubt that Jesus is still with us. Did he abandon us? Was our faith even real in the...
Taming the Tongue on Groundhog Day
I’ve heard a lot of people comment that life right now feels like the movie “Groundhog Day”—the same thing over and over again with no end in sight. While there are blessings in having our lives slow down, there are also tensions and frustrations that overflow out of...
Porn Affects You, Even if You Don’t Look At It
The sad truth is that the damage of porn goes far beyond the person consuming it and also affects their relationships, the people in their lives, and culture as a whole.
#222: What’s Your Money Personality?
The two biggest areas of conflict in marriage are sex and money. We talk a lot about sex on Java with Juli, but today we're talking...
Spice Up Your Sex Life
Are you feeling stuck in your home and in your sex life? Think back to the last time you left your house: It could possibly have been four or five weeks! And most likely it has been even longer since you and your spouse went out for a date night. When my husband and I...
Webinar: When Marriage Gets Messy (Healing after Infidelity)
You may not be in the middle of an affair, but we all have to deal with sin in our relationships. It's easy to turn to other sources of comfort and avoid having hard conversations with your spouse. As your resentment builds, your heart drifts. Thankfully, Jesus has...
#40: Bonus! What Do You Fear?
The COVID-19 pandemic is pushing all of our anxiety buttons; loss of loved ones, financial loss, being stuck inside...
#306: When You Can’t Wait Another Day
What do you do when you find yourself in a situation you don't like, didn't sign up for, and can't wait to be done with? (Social...
COVID-19 and Porn: A Quick Fix But No Solution
(Presione aquí para leer en español). Since COVID-19 the pornography industry has seen a massive increase in website traffic. On March 24th, one major site announced that their premium content would be free to all visitors resulting in a massive increase of 18.5%. The...
Don’t Waste the Pain
Practically every conversation I’ve had in the last week has contained a phrase like, “These are strange times.” Strange times, indeed. Never in our lives have we walked through so much uncertainty. Our health, careers, and security all seem to be dangling on a...
#304: Stop Caring What Others Think
Are you constantly preoccupied with what others think about you? With how you look, how much money you make, or how many Instagram...
Stop Trying So Hard!
Several years ago, I met with a spiritual mentor with whom I shared an ongoing battle with a particular sin. We had been meeting every month for over a year, yet I was still tempted by the same sin. I didn’t feel like I was making any spiritual progress! I asked her,...
When Christians Disagree About Sex
When the Nashville statement was released, it brought conservative Christianity’s relationship with sexual issues front and center into the mainstream media. USA Today described the Nashville statement this way, “A coalition of conservative evangelical leaders laid...
#295: We All “Desconstruct,” It’s Reconstructing that Matters
Questions about sexuality, sexual abuse, and gender have sent a new wave of “deconstructing” throughout the Christian...
Learning To Be a Promise-Breaker
Has anyone ever told you that it may be healthy to break your promises? No, I’m not talking about going back on your word or taking your wedding vows lightly. I’m referring to a different category of vows … the kind of promises that people rarely acknowledge. Our...
#293: Secrets to a Lasting Relationship
Dating has changed. A LOT. In the last decade, cohabitation, sex, and sexual experimentation have been touted as the best ways to...
A Hopeless New Year?
Turning my calendar to January 1 is usually refreshing for me. It represents a new year with a clean slate and excitement ahead. So why does ushering in 2020 feel so heavy and discouraging? There are many indications that our culture is quickly moving in a dangerous...
The World Has a Lot To Say About Sex
If you haven’t noticed, our views on sexuality have changed quite a bit over the past 20 years. Americans are far more accepting of behaviors they once considered to be sexually immoral. Cohabitation, having sex outside of marriage, no-fault divorce, viewing...