Pam Borrow has spent her career doing what plenty of churches still tell single women they can't: leading. She's the Principal of C3 College, sits on the C3 executive team overseeing discipleship, coordinates a Master's program for C3 pastors at Alphacrucis University College, and somewhere in between is quietly finishing a PhD. She's single, and completely done being treated like a problem the church needs to solve.

In this episode, Pam and Katie talk about the real grief of singleness (and why it never fully disappears, it just gets less intense), the moment a scripture from Numbers — "life and death stand before you, choose life" — changed everything, and why she refuses to sit in a "singles connect group" full of, as Katie puts it, "weeping willows." They get into everything church culture gets wrong about single people: the singles-auction-on-stage humiliation, the isolation, the even-numbers-only dinner parties — and what actually helps: texting people instead of waiting to be invited, being included in kids' weddings and Christmas plans, and a pastor bold enough to admit his own blind spots on stage.

It's a conversation about theology too — the goal of the Christian life was never marriage, it was Christ formed in you — and about identity: "I'm more than my status. It's honestly the least interesting thing about me."

Pam Borrow is the Principal of C3 College, travelling globally to promote the college and connect with alumni. She sits on the C3 executive team overseeing discipleship — pastoring, Connect groups, the Next Step leadership pathway, youth and kids ministry, and preaching and teaching — and coordinates the C3 Pastors Master's program at Alphacrucis University College. She's also partway through her own PhD, a devoted aunt, and a Connect group leader. Fifty, single, and thirty-plus years into a ministry career, Pam is proof that a full, faithful, single life in senior leadership isn't a hypothetical — it's already happening.

Artist and four-time Archibald Prize finalist Kirsty Neilson on the freedom of a single season, the church prayer that made her furious, and why "it's not rejection, it's protection."

Kirsty Neilson has been hung in the Archibald Prize four times, painted the likes of Cheng Lei, Ita Buttrose and Garry McDonald, and built a fifteen-year career on stepping out before she could see where she'd land. In this episode she sits down with Katie to talk about what actually changed her relationship with her own singleness — the desperate, self-righteous prayers, the church culture that only knows how to pray singles into marriage, and the moment she heard "it's not rejection, it's protection. Move on." They talk freedom, mission work in Uganda and Ethiopia, and why the value of this season isn't a "what if" — it's now.

Kirsty Neilson is a Sydney-based portrait and landscape artist represented by Nanda\Hobbs, and a four-time Archibald Prize finalist (including her 2024 portrait of journalist Cheng Lei). Her past sitters include Ita Buttrose, Garry McDonald, Grace Tame and Rachel Ward. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National Art School and is drawn to painting women with stories worth telling.

Beyond the studio, Kirsty is an ambassador for the Barbara May Foundation, has completed five mission trips to Uganda with Watoto, and has worked with Esther's Voice providing art therapy to survivors of trafficking in Cambodia.

• Instagram: @kirstyneilson
• Website: kirstyneilson.com

• Barbara May Foundation — maternal health, Ethiopia
• Watoto — child care ministries, Uganda
• Esther's Voice — anti-trafficking ministry, Cambodia
• Cheng Lei — Australian-Chinese journalist, subject of Kirsty's 2024 Archibald Prize portrait

In the first episode of The Pentecostal Nun, host Dr Katie Haldane sits down without a guest to share the heart behind the show: that a single Christian is not half a person waiting for a spouse to complete them — they are whole in Christ, and this season, however long it lasts, is a good gift from God.

Katie unpacks why church culture so often treats singleness as a problem to be fixed — the pity, the “poor you,” the well-meaning attempts to “set you up with anything that moves” — and makes the case, backed by Tim Keller, ancient rabbinic sources, and 1 Corinthians 7, that Christianity was actually the first faith in history to hold up single adulthood as a viable, honourable way of life.

She walks through what it looks like to do singleness well: rejecting fear, shame and disgrace; building an identity that isn't dependent on relationship status; fighting loneliness through real community rather than a relationship; and learning contentment now, rather than waiting for a wedding day to grant it. Along the way: a rabbi's brutal ancient take on unmarried men, the moment Jesus's own singleness reframed everything for her, and the very Australian story of a chainsaw, a fallen tree, and a prayer that got answered in a way she didn't expect.

In this episode

—  Why “poor you” is the wrong response to singleness — and what to say instead

—  Tim Keller's case that Christianity was the first religion to treat singleness as a viable calling

—  What Jesus's own unmarried life means for anyone who feels like a “lesser Christian”

—  The difference between being alone and being lonely — and how the church can do better

—  Why desperate people make desperate decisions, and how to reject the fear of missing out

—  Katie's four keys to being single and secure: gift, advantage, worth, and freedom from shame

Scripture referenced

1 Corinthians 7:7–9, 7:29, 7:32–35 · Genesis 2:18 · Psalm 68:6 · Romans 12:10 · Colossians 2:6–10 · Philippians 4:11 · Isaiah 54:4–5

Timestamps

00:00  Cold open: “I am single and secure”

00:25  Welcome to Episode 1

00:54  The “poor you” response, and where it comes from

01:45  “Pairs and Spares”: if you're the spare, this one's for you

02:40  Don't get Jerry Maguire syndrome

03:30  Tim Keller: Christianity and the first case for single adulthood

04:56  Ancient culture, ancient pressure — and vanishing without children

05:52  Jesus never married

06:51  Reason 1: singleness is a gift, not a punishment (1 Cor 7:7–9)

09:00  Reason 2: the advantages of this season (1 Cor 7:32–35)

11:37  On loneliness — and the friend who stayed in an abusive relationship

13:23  What the church needs to do better

15:08  Reason 3: self-worth and contentment in Christ

16:53  “I the Lord am your husband” — Isaiah 54:5

18:46  Reject FOMO, reject desperate decisions

19:14  Reason 4: single without fear, shame or disgrace

20:04  “But you're not married, are you?”

21:55  Isaiah 54:4 — no shame, no disgrace

22:23  The storm, the tree, and the neighbour with a chainsaw

23:47  Living every season in light of eternity (1 Cor 7:29)

25:12  Closing blessing

🔔Subscribe to The Pentecostal Nun so you don't miss the conversations coming up — and if this episode landed, send it to a single friend who needs to hear it today.