The Warrior Raiser® Podcast

On today's episode we invite our friend and Warrior Women Tribe® member, Kary Garretson.

Kary is a wife, mom, church planter, writer, and an introvert. She loves the stars, reading, running, and worshiping Jesus. Kary and her husband, Chris, have four beautiful and goofy children. In 2022, they followed God's crazy, amazing plan for their lives by partnering with April and Matt Harmon to establish Redefined Community Church in Martinsburg, PA.

Kary's ministry journey began at Flood City Church in Johnstown, PA, where she served on staff for nearly a decade. During her time there, she gained experience in various areas such as preaching, teaching Bible studies, developing leadership skills, and performing spoken word poetry.

On today's episode, Kary emphasizes the importance of relying on God's character, as He is always faithful and good, even in the face of adversity. He never leaves us nor forsakes us, and we can confidently trust Him with all our hearts.

To follow Kary and her journey, visit:

KaryAnnGarretson.com

Redefined Community Church

Welcome to the SEASON 3 opener of the Warrior Raiser podcast, where we explore the theme of "The Next Right Step."

This year's conversation is inspired by the key verse from Ephesians 4:1, which calls us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. As followers of Christ, we are called to live a life of purpose and intentionality, taking one step at a time towards the destiny that God has planned for us.

Throughout this season, Angela & Kerry will be sharing practical insights and biblical wisdom to help you take actionable steps towards your goals. They'll be joined by guests who have taken their own next right steps and have inspiring testimonies to share about how God has led them on their journey.

Join them as we discover how to live out our calling by taking the next right step, guided by the wisdom and truth of God's Word.

Kathy is a gifted speaker with an extensive background in journalism, radio and television communications.

She has a heart for teaching practical truths from God’s word and a life imperfectly lived. Now in Act 3 of her career, she knows the “ups and downs” in her marriage, parenting, work, and life have given her a beautiful perspective about God’s abundant grace.

She's no stranger to small beginnings, having to "rinse and repeat" many times throughout her life.  She firmly believes that sometimes, small beginnings stay small because it is not your gifting.  We all need a “Simon Cowell” to tell us that as much as we want to do “X,” it might not be where we thrive.

God created you for something, and any time spent outside that “thing” is wasted.   If you have multiple trusted counselors bear witness to what you believe God has given you, then it is a daily walk of trust.  

We act - God responds.

We make plans, God confirms them.

*Originally scheduled for a November release*

Kerry and Angela sit down to discuss their thoughts and feelings about this season's podcast content, they share how they met, and their hopes and dreams for the future.
 
Their conversation covers a range of topics, including hermit crabs, platforms, comparison being a punk (a nod to our friend, Bob Goff), fading bodies, and the idea that our platform is wherever we are. 
They also talk about the increible fact that when we pursue God and His will for our lives, He rejoices in our obedience.
 
We hope you'll laugh a little but, ultimately, be inspired by the discussion!

OH Goodness! This conversation with our friend, Heidy Tandy, Senior Director of Discovery of Stadia, is an absolute gem.

If you need a little encouragement in your day to remember who you are and what God's called you to do, this episode is for you.

Heidy has learned that not everyone will get you, but that's okay -- we simply need to show up as our authentic selves and keep running our race with confidence.

Along the way, we'll chat through some indicators of un-health in relationships, when it's time to say buh-bye to certain people in our lives, and that it's okay to have a dream or a calling that no one else seems to understand fully. Did we mention this is a fabulous episode?!

Her final words of encouragement are a beautiful reminder to "Be You." The world doesn't need another version of anyone else, so show up as your whole self.

We hope you enjoy the conversation and, as always...

Aim Your Arrows Well!

Angela & Kerry

Continuing the series "Small Beginnings" we are so excited to welcome Pastor Valarie Grimes to the conversation.

Today, we're dropping the latest podcast episode featuring Valarie Grimes. She's a wife, mom, grandmother, nurse, and most recently, a pastor! When she's not building forts with her grandbabies, she's delivering the Word of God to her congregation at Radiant Church in Savannah, Georgia.  

Valarie began her career as a registered nurse and has pivoted to be a full-time church planter in the past few years. She understands the plan we have in our minds doesn't often materialize as we had envisioned...but God, in His sovereignty, can use brokenness and sorrow to paint beautiful brushstrokes on the canvas of our lives. Even when we can't see it -- He calls us a masterpiece commanded to do good works (Ephesians 2:10)-- using all the parts of who we are for His glory.  

We pray you enjoy this inspiring conversation!

On today's episode, we have Sarah Burnett as our guest.

Sarah's journey has been full of twists and turns, and at times, she's felt the Lord press pause on her dreams -- only for Him to continue to reveal His will for her life in the process.

Sarah's story is unique; however, many can relate to struggling with small beginnings and the seemingly endless seasons of waiting and wondering.

We hope you'll be encouraged as you listen to the latest episode in our Small Beginnings Series.

Enjoy the show and...

Aim Your Arrows Well!

>>Angela and Kerry

More on Sarah:

She is a dedicated leader recognized for her communication and strategic planning abilities. Sarah has a track record of implementing and automating systems that lead to clients becoming brand evangelists. 

Sarah is known for her ability to lead teams to operational excellence, creative work, and sustained improvements. 

Sarah is currently COO of Flourish and has experience in both the for-profit with Yum! Brands (the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut) and nonprofit organization with Stadia, leading in Bloom (a ministry dedicated to championing women in church planting).

She has helped start and launch everything from a golf team in high school, to a church plant in 2010, a children's ministry from scratch, a ministry for women in church planting called Bloom, a podcast called Plant Strong for women in ministry, and most recently a tech company called Flourish. She is married to Josh Burnett, her husband of almost 18 years. Together they have three children, Savannah (14), Grady (11), and Maddie (10), and live in Annapolis, MD on their turned farm with one dog, one cat, two bunnies, and a full fish tank. 

More on Flourish:

Flourish is a nonprofit operating system that optimizes how nonprofits and volunteers work together to make a difference. The Flourish CRM platform is an all-in-one solution that allows you to engage more people in the mission with automated systems and processes that every nonprofit needs. 

They also developed Latent, an App designed to guide volunteer ambassadors, enabling them to introduce a nonprofit's mission to new audiences and leverage the relational strengths of existing supporters to raise awareness and funds.

And lastly, they've recently developed another platform called Sermons.tech, which is an AI platform capable of summarizing sermon messages, generating discussion questions for small groups, summaries, and creating a beautiful group guide page to share out—in minutes.

All of their products exist to optimize how nonprofits and volunteers work together to make an impact... they call it no-fail volunteering. They are continually working to add more volunteer roles to the platform so that people can be matched to make a difference.

Based in Annapolis, MD, they can be found on onflourish.com, and @flourishos on instagram, twitter, facebook and linkedin.

We are intrinsically wired to form impressions and instantly jump to conclusions about people. It'd be easy to do that with today's guest, Michelle Bishop. One could look at the organization she's crafted and assume her journey to her platform has been nothing short of idyllic. However, we should never judge a person's story by the chapter we walk in on.

Today, Michelle shares the highlight reel of her journey. She'll talk about where she's come from, how she hustled, dreamed, and most importantly, did a LOT of praying and listening to the nudges from the Lord. Michelle will also share some of her "flops and failures" along the way. With divine wisdom, she recognizes that even those "wilderness moments" were opportunities for training and preparation for the plans the Lord had for her. As we say here on the show -- Nothing is Wasted!

We hope you enjoy the conversation, and if you want to learn more about Michelle and The Ladies Edge, a sisterhood of women who are on a mission to live life to the fullest, you can find more information at www.theladiesedge.com and on social media @theladiesedgeofficial and her personal profile @mshellll.

Aim Your Arrows Well!

>>Angela and Kerry

Join Angela and Kerry on today's first episode of a series called "Small Beginnings."

So often our culture poo-poos the small dreams or the small steps we take to reach our God-given purpose. On today's episode, the ladies discuss the importance of celebrating the small steps because guess what?? God does, so we should too!

Show Reference/content to check out after you listen:

>Warrior Raiser

>Warrior Women Tribe

>Fruitful: Live a Life of Abundant Harvest (the Bible Study Angela authored)

Available:

>Gathered Courage (Kerry's podcast - you can still access archived episodes!)

>Dream Small by Josh Williams