What happens when a ministry doesn’t just speak its values—but lives them?

What does Collide really stand for—and why do those values matter for your life too? In this solo episode, Collide founder and director Willow Weston shares the seven core values that have emerged from Collide’s story: continually colliding with Jesus, choosing authenticity, recognizing brokenness so it can be made whole, embracing intergenerational community, pursuing holistic spiritual health, continually growing, and believing God can use ordinary, imperfect people to make an impact. These aren’t simply statements Collide decided to put on a wall; Willow explains that they became clear by looking back at how God has shaped the ministry from the beginning. Through Scripture, stories, and practical encouragement, Willow challenges us to consider the values shaping our own lives and reminds us that when we continually collide with Jesus, He transforms the way we love, heal, grow, live in community, and use what He has given us for a greater purpose.

Meet Willow Weston

Willow Weston is the founder and director of Collide and host of The Collide Podcast. Collide began out of Willow’s own experience of encountering Jesus in the midst of pain and inviting other women to join her in pursuing healing and transformation.

Through Collide, Willow is passionate about creating spaces where women can authentically encounter Jesus in the beautiful, broken, messy, and hopeful parts of their stories—and allow that collision to transform every area of their lives.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• What it means to be a mission-driven ministry
• The core values that guide Collide through every season
• Why living your values matters more than just stating them
• How God uses brokenness as an invitation to transformation
• Practical encouragement for aligning your own life or work with your beliefs

How This Episode Will Encourage You

If you’re longing for deeper purpose or trying to build something rooted in truth, this episode will ground and inspire you. You’ll be reminded that when you bring your whole self—brokenness and all—to Jesus, He will meet you, heal you, and transform everything.

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Welcome to the Collide Podcast.

I'm Willow Weston, the founder and director of Collide, and I get to talk to you today a little bit about Collide's seven core values.

And these are values that we don't just say we have, but actually, the way that I was able to sort of locate and recognize that these are our values were by looking back, looking back at our story and the mission that we have lived out.

Our mission is that Collide invites people of all ages, stages, experiences, faith backgrounds, as imperfect or broken as they may be, on their journey to authentically run into Jesus. And as he collides with them, they're forever transformed.

And as I looked back on this ministry that God unexpectedly started years ago, it became very easy for me to see the values that we were living out and that we continue to live out.

And as a ministry or a business or even as an individual person, recognizing your values, then claiming them and reclaiming them and continuing to call them out and lean into them is so huge. Values have to be something we live, not just something we say we believe, or something that we teach.

In fact, Gandhi said, your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny. That's how huge values are. Your values become your destiny. And so today, I just want to share a little bit about Collide'svalues.

And those values have actually helped unfold the story to point to where we are at today and where we're going. And they'll give you a little bit of a sense of who we are and. And what we're about and why we do what we do. And these values are not just a list.

They're not just something we say we do, but they're actually truly who we have been and who we will continue to be. And our first value is that we're women who we. We value women colliding with Jesus and his teachings.

And when I say that, what I mean is this is completely central to what we do. Our story started out with me colliding with Jesus in my pain and inviting a few others to come along with me.

And we experienced so much transformation in our lives from running into him that we couldn't help but tell. More and more people and more were added to our number, and more and more collide. But you don't just collide with Jesus one time.

You don't just give your life to Jesus and then move on. You and I have to regularly be running into Jesus. And it's in this pursuit that his love will infiltrate who we are.

It's in this pursuit that we will better love. Because we've run into Jesus, we will think like he thinks because we've collided with him so often. We will see others like he sees others.

Because we get Jesus, our relationships will bring about more peace. Our calling will have more impact on our communities. Because when we are people who collide with Jesus, we also begin to change the world.

And in a lot of ways. We have lived in a Christian culture that has been about colliding with Jesus once.

But when you look at Jesus, he so often in his collision said, come. In Matthew 4:19, when he ran into some fishermen, he said, come, follow me, and I will call you out to become fishers of men.

When Jesus was hanging out with his disciples, he said in Matthew 19, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. When he saw Zacchaeus in his tax collector booth, Jesus said, zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.

When he met the woman at the well in John chapter four, he told her, go call your husband and come back to me. In John 6, Jesus declared, I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

When Jesus died and was resurrected and he showed up to his homies, he said, come and have breakfast. None of the disciples dared ask, who are you? They knew it was Jesus. Over and over again, you see that Jesus calls people to come. It's really simple.

Come and collide with him, come and walk with him, come and eat breakfast with him. Come and let him come to your house. Come and see, come and follow.

You don't just give your life to Jesus and then move on, but we regularly value running into Jesus. And when we do, we become new people. And so here at Kolide, we're continually creating opportunities for people to collide again and again and again.

It is one of our huge values around here. Our second big value is that we encourage authenticity.

And authenticity is really just telling your story as it actually is, not as you want it to be or as other people expect you to be, but as your story really is. Authenticity is really the Beginning of letting God do his greatest stuff.

If you go and listen to the podcast about the story of our origin, you'll remember that this story started out with me in a counseling office with one woman who was a mess. It started with pain, not health. It started with messiness, not perfection. It started with brokenness, not wholeness.

And it started with being very real about all of that. There was no hiding, no falsehood, no faking it. And that is what God continues to use again and again.

In this story, God is using women who are being real about their lives, and he's colliding with them in the midst of their life. We always say around here, Jesus meets you where you're at. So being real about where you're at is a huge value of ours.

And we give people permission around here to be where they're at. We're just handing out permission slips because people are done with false faith and people have surrendered Silicone Church.

And we believe that God can handle darkness and God can handle pain and God can handle dirty secrets. And so we need to be a people who can handle those things.

I always say if people can't share their story with Christians, then Christ won't be a part of their story. Authenticity invites people to come as they are to Jesus.

And so in our ministry, we tried to be the most real, nitty, gritty, down to earth, honest people. And then we believe women will come by floods, opening their heart to Jesus because they feel like they can come as they are.

We encourage being real in our relationships with God, in our marriages, with our children, and even on our staff. That means no secrets, no double lies, no hypocrisy, no doing one thing with some people and then not with others. It means telling the same story.

It means no faking perfection, no acting like you've arrived. No anymore. It's not that we're called to be perfect and free from problems. It's that we're called to be real about them.

We're not Christians who used to struggle. We lean upon Christ every day. We're not followers who used to sin. No, we fight that ugly battle every day.

We're not believers who look at others and think, wow, they really need help. Because we're so in tune with the fact that we also need help, our lives.

So we value authenticity and the idea that Jesus meets you where you're really at. We also value recognizing brokenness so that it can be made whole.

Jesus did something very interesting Every time he collided with someone, every time he did, he brought about an awareness of what it was that was broken in their life. With the woman at the well who purely came for water, Jesus recognized her brokenness.

He helped her see her thirst to be loved and how she was trying to quench it. With the man who was lifted down before Jesus by his friends through the roof, Jesus actually first, before healing his body, said what?

Jesus said, son, your sins are forgiven. See, Jesus recognized what was really breaking this man and it was the state of his heart. It was the mess in his mind and his heart and his faith.

More than it was his body, it was paralyzing his soul. The sin of his When Jesus collided with the rich young ruler, he called this guy out on what was broken about him.

This man had a broken sense of priorities and he cared more about his riches than poor people. And Jesus collides with people and helps us recognize the patterns in our lives that aren't working. The brokenness that needs to be healed.

But he does it in a way that's not condemning or shame slapping, but there's actually an invitation there. Why does Jesus do that? Why does he collide with people and help them see their brokenness?

He did that and does that because he knows that people have to recognize their brokenness first before they will ever desire true healing. Instead of their man made band aids that just cause more pain, Jesus wants people to yearn for what he has for them.

He wants people to see that their own way doesn't work so they won't keep going down the same destructive path that continues to bring damage into their life. And so Jesus shows up and he invites each one of us in such tender and loving ways to recognize the spaces and places in our lives that need mending.

He invites us to see the things that trigger us still. The things that cause anxiety attacks, the things that keep coming up in relationships, that tend to be themes in our lives.

And he invites us to recognize that we might need some help, that we might need to say yes to. The invitation to walk towards health and wholeness.

And so that's a value of ours, is that we spend a lot of time with our conferences and our classes and our Bible studies, creating spaces to invite people to reflect, to hear that invitation from God to walk towards wholeness.

We also value the experience and support of an intergenerational community of women of all ages, church backgrounds, life experiences and faith stages. We can say this is our value because this is how God wrote our story. And so it became a value.

The Collide Story More from Me Meeting with a group of 20 some college age girls in my living room. And now we have 17 year olds and 80 year olds in our community. We have addicts walking in and sitting next to church ladies.

We have people who think they have it all together being bombarded by the fact that they don't right next to people who can barely hold their head up and feel worthy enough to utter a prayer. We have Presbyterians sitting in our conferences next to Baptists and atheists sitting next to women who have walked away from the church.

And it's been decades. This is not just your average community. Here we gather women from all walks of life. Some take communion dipping others by cup.

Some have never taken communion before. Some worship with an organ and others with fancy lights and videos. Some have stained glass windows and pews in their churches.

Some have chairs and rock bands and some don't go to church. Some are strong and growing and others are struggling to get a break.

Some women love Jesus with all their hearts and some have historically wanted nothing to do with him. Some think they haven't knelt down and some are positive that they don't. And they all gather together in the collide community.

And the beauty is in this diversity. The power is in what we can learn from each other. As we share, as we tell, as we proclaim, as we're real, as we ask, as we seek together.

We have young moms who need older moms to walk alongside them. We have empty nesters who long to have purpose again. And we can find that purpose by mentoring younger women who show up in this community.

This isn't just a value we need to have at Kolide. This is a value that we all could stand to have in our lives. We could all be blessed by meeting with people older than us.

And if we aren't doing this, we can be. And if, if you feel brave enough, you can ask someone older in the faith to hang out with you and have coffee or go for a walk or pray over you.

And if you're older in that faith, you could be meeting with younger women. You should be. Don't shelf yourself. Don't put yourself on the bench. There are young women who would love to learn from you.

We can co learn from each other. This way of life will truly bless us, grow us and use us in huge ways.

We're seeing God show up in these relationships with women from all different places and all different ages. And God is doing powerful things.

We also value teaching a theology around here that runs into the holistic parts of who we are to encourage healthy Spirituality. And here's what I mean about that.

Many Christians make an interaction or a moment or a conversion with God all about just getting people to believe the right things. And somehow they make it. It sound as though there's this spiritual checklist to check off.

And if we can get people to say, I believe this, and I believe this, and I can check off all these theological statements, then they're good.

And of course, God cares about what we believe, but God also cares about our bodies, and he cares about our anxiety, and he cares about our relationship. And God wants for us health and wholeness in all areas of our life. He's not just interested in what we think with our mind.

He's not just interested in what we're doing on Sunday mornings. He actually wants all of us. He wants our whole self and our whole self to be whole.

And so our hope here at Collide is that we want to encourage women to invite Jesus to run into all of who they are. Their minds, their hearts, their relationships, their bodies, their friendships, their marriage, their depression, their anxiety, their past, their.

Their future. And so we will continue to teach a theology that invites that kind of thinking.

We also value pushing women towards growth and steps to go further on one's journey with God. Here's the deal, friends. You don't ever stop growing, ever.

If you do, then I'm not sure you're colliding with Jesus because you can't stay the same and go with God. Jesus is always changing us. I think about some scriptures that remind us of this.

In Philippians 1:6, the Bible says, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Romans 12:2. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

In Ephesians 4:22,24, you were taught with regard to your formal way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God and true righteousness and holiness, and Isaiah 64, 8. Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter. We are all the work of your hand.

We have a beautiful God who is changing us, transforming us, refining us, shaping us, completing us.

And so here at Clyde, we're always pushing women to take that next step, to be brave, to consider what it is that God might be calling them to do next.

And so we've created all sorts of steps that women can take to continue to grow, to continue to be transformed, to continue to learn and be challenged.

And our last value that I want to mention today is that we value challenging, equipping and inspiring people to serve, lead, minister and use their gifts in order to live in to their God given purpose and change lives. And this whole thing. If you go back and hear the collide story, it started as an experiment.

It started with God using one woman to impact a few women and then he used a few women to impact more women. And God has been adding to our numbers. And the more he adds to our numbers, the more we see that God uses us to do amazing things. Yes, us.

In fact, we have a Bible study you should check out called yes you where we completely dismantle all of our insecurities, all the things that hold us back from believing that God can use us. Because God uses nitwits and God uses messy people and God uses broken people and God uses pain to do beautiful things.

And that truly is the collide story. We have seen God use women to impact women, to impact women, to impact families, to impact communities, to impact the world.

And we're going to continue to see that because we continue to lean into that with everything that we are. We value that so much. We're not shying back from that.

We're infusing and empowering and inspiring women to continue to believe that God can use them to do amazing things, to continue to dreamed that God can use them, to continue to fight, to use their voice, to continue to use their gifts. And we'll keep challenging women to to continue to believe that God using you isn't about you being perfect.

It isn't about you having everything together. It isn't about you not messing up.

It's really about you believing that God can use you, your gifts, your unique story, your experience, and then leaning into that and being brave and trusting that he can and being willing and saying here I am. Use me.

And so all the time and all that we do, we have a leadership development program where we give women the opportunity to volunteer and we pour into them and we equip them and they are doing beautiful, amazing things. There's women writing blogs and women hosting Bible studies and women using their voice to lead people in worship.

And there's women writing dramas and then and then casting for those dramas and putting those on at our conferences. There's women who've left the corporate world to jump over in ministry and work on our staff.

And they feel like they're being tapped into God's purpose and destiny for their lives. I mean, I have story after story that I won't go into today of God truly using women to impact other people.

And I know so many of you listening, you have fears that you bring onto the playground. And we think of this as almost like a playground where we get to be brave and do experiments, and if they fail, they fail.

They're not failures if they're called experiments. So we're not afraid to risk around here. We're not afraid to try new things. We're not afraid to say, here, God, use us and see what God can do.

And a lot of us, we show up to the playground and we often think we can't fail, right? And maybe you fell off the slide because you climbed way too high and you got hurt.

And it's then that you said to yourself, self, climb with care next time.

Maybe you were the new girl that showed up on the playground and something said, someone said something to you that caused you to feel like you can't show up on the playground anymore and believe that God can use you to do amazing things. But that's not God's voice. God has given each of you gifts.

But even bigger than that, God wants to unleash the power in your life to do amazing things.

But some of you are so worried about messing up, you're so worried about failing, you're so worried about risking and being vulnerable that you won't be a vessel that God can use mightily.

You'll be the kid on the playground that's playing by themselves on the teeter totter because you're afraid to get hurt, you're afraid to look like a fool. But God wants to use you in this world to do amazing things.

And we'll keep being that voice in your life because we believe it so much and it's a value of ours, but also because we've seen it to be true. And it is our story.

What began as one woman's story of colliding with Jesus in the midst of her brokenness has grown into a movement of thousands of women who are daring to believe that God meets us in our pain and uses it to meet others in their. We invited a few friends who invited a few friends, and we've seen it firsthand.

The more we collide with Jesus, the more we experience what we're running after. Authenticity, wholeness and purpose.

And so we here at Collide are fiercely committed to creating spaces, conversations and gatherings for everyday chicks like you to run into Jesus and collide with Him. So we invite you, in your story of beauty and brokenness, to walk alongside us in ours.

And as we collide and are changed together, we'll change lives. I'm so glad that you hung out with me today. I invite you to continue to check out so much of who we are on our website.

Go and check out more podcasts, read a few of our blogs, check out the resources and the free downloadables we have for you. Grab a Bible study at our store friend. Keep colliding. We're so glad you're with us.

Thanks for tuning in to keep up with us.

You can find us on Instagram, we collide on Facebook as Collide Women and you can also visit our website at wecollide.net to find our blog resources, event information, and more.

One last thing, if you enjoyed this episode, when you take a few seconds and leave us a review, it seems like such a small act, but reviews help us to keep producing this content and help other women find it too. Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode and letting us walk with you as you seek and collide with Jesus.