The mother of them all...Purity Culture. 

When we think about the “Things We Were Taught It Means To Be Christian”, sexual purity hits the top of the list for many of us, especially those who grew up in the faith in the 90s and 00s, when Purity Culture (True Love Waits, Silver Ring Thing, etc.) were at their peak. Cara Fifer has spent lots of time studying Purity Culture, how it has been propagated, and many of its unintended consequences...in particular, a culture of shame around sex and bodies that many of us have found very difficult to shake off as we’ve gotten older. 

In this episode, we raise some difficult, important questions; how do we address an increasingly sexualized culture that objectifies people (women in particular), without falling into the same trap by calling a woman’s body a “stumbling block” (which is, in fact, an object)? How do we counsel young people in particular, but others at large, in how to navigate this sexualized world, without giving them shame? How can we offer a truly counter-cultural understanding of sex, physical bodies, and sexual desire that is healthy and life-giving? 

(And yes...Cara happens to be married to Tom. 😊)

We reference Linda Kay Klein’s book, Pure, which is excellent. You can find it anywhere good books are sold. 

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There’s a meme floating around these days that says, “I love Jesus, but I cuss a little.” It resonates with many of us today, but growing up, many of us were taught that these two things absolutely couldn’t go together. What it meant to be a Christian was that you didn’t say these specific words. 

Tom & Pete colorfully take this idea apart, and really think critically about the power of language, and how perhaps we could let go of a legalistic definition of which words are “out of bounds”, and instead think about how our faith convictions can help us think about how we communicate with one another more broadly. 

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If you grew up with Christian music in the 90s and 00s, you may enjoy the nostalgia of this episode as much as we did.

We brought Mandy Fowler back to help us talk about our experiences growing up listening to Christian music...and NOT secular. We discuss those “if you like ____, then you’ll love ____” lists, the dynamics of the CCM world (including the more recent shift to primarily worship music), and how the black & white dualism of Christ vs. Culture shaped our understanding of our faith, the world, and our music preferences while we grew up in the Church.

This episode is part of a series titled “What We Were Taught It Means To Be Christian”.

For fun, Mandy created a Spotify playlist of 90s Christian music: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/43Fp57k07QOrA7Xy5nEvCj?si=wUtBxhUSRhuLQVfb1rUJ9g

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This episode starts a 6-week series of episodes on one theme: “What We Were Told It Means To Be A Christian.”

(Don’t worry, they won’t all start with the same letter.)

growing up in the church culture, there are all sorts of assumptions about what it means to be a Christian that, at this side of things, we aren’t sure are truly essential in order to be a follower of Jesus. Some are beliefs, some are certain behaviors, some are kind of funny, and some are a little funny, and some have been harmful adaptations of the faith. This series will help us continue the work of unravelling the things that have attached themselves to the Christian Faith that don’t necessarily belong in the faith, things we have begun to let go of, and in the process, have found more freedom, authenticity, and life in our faith.

We begin with a wide-ranging conversation on God‘s will. This was the first episode that we had to re-record, because, you know...you gotta get God’s Will right, or you’ll be outside his plans! 😱😱 More seriously, we all come to the table with varying experiences and teachings and understandings that have shaped how we’ve grappled with the will of God. But what all of us have in common Is that we’ve all had to let go of something we’ve believed about God’s will in response to something we’ve experienced and worked through.

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Follow Jenn!
IG - @LifeOfJenniferLynn
And, check out her her new podcast, The Adventure Before Us

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The movie Tom couldn’t remember the name of us called “The Adjustment Bureau”. Highly recommend! A great story that illustrates the issues involved in the old stodgy free-will vs determinism debate. https://youtu.be/gT4rzd6DlLg


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While much of our world has begun moving to become committed to the equality of the genders, many pockets of the church have remained committed to a more traditional understanding of the roles of men and women in ministry...specifically, that leadership is restricted to men. This has created the tragic moment where a woman can be a dynamite leader, perhaps a CEO or business owner, and join a church where she’s told, “your place is in children’s ministry”. 

In this episode, we brought on Tom’s good friend Mandy Fowler, an excellent theologian and a crucially important voice in the church, to help us discuss Women in Ministry. Mandy shares her story of growing up in the church and slowly discovering her call into ministry, and how her own thinking about women in ministry had to evolve in order to enable her to follow God’s call on her life. 

((Forgive us for the audio quality...we’re still figuring out how to capture good audio from a web call! 😅))

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Part 2 of our conversation about our frustrations with that which we love...the church. 

We brought on another former pastor and current licensed therapist Wayne Haines. After working in youth ministry for nearly a decade, Wayne went back to school to shift gears to become a therapist. His insight into the challenges of working in ministry, both as someone who’s done it and as a therapist, are incredibly enlightening and helpful. 

Enjoy another brutally honest, but hopefully also helpful, conversation about the frustrations of being a pastor (or ministry leader!). 

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Let’s keep this conversation going!

We’d love for you to share this episode with a friend, family member, or even an enemy. Listen to it together, talk about it together, and then tell us about your conversation. 

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((If you work, or ever have worked, in ministry, you may find this episode to be equal parts cathartic and frustrating. 🙃))

In the first conversation of two, Tom and Pete share some of what has made working in ministry frustrating at times. Both of them love the church, but they’ve also been frustrated by aspects of being a pastor. Some of this is due to the expectations placed on church leaders, while other parts just have to do with the general culture of the American church. 

Listen in for an honest conversation by a former pastor and a current pastor (both of whom still believe in the church), lamenting what makes this job so damn frustrating sometimes. 

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We’d love for you to share this episode with a friend, family member, or even an enemy. Listen to it together, talk about it together, and then tell us about your conversation. 

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Reach out to us with any thoughts, feedback, criticisms, what is helpful, what doesn’t make sense, what you think we’re totally wrong about, or what you’d love to hear on the podcast!

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Wouldn’t we all like to have a little more balance in our lives? 

In this episode, Tom and Pete are even more unscripted than usual, and just take some time to reflect on life during month 4 of the coronavirus pandemic. In some ways, they’ve been busier, but in others, they’ve found themselves with more time than they had before...which brings up that lovely dream of an idea called “balance”. 

But what even is balance? Obviously our “balance” has been thrown off with all of the changes around COVID. But really think about it...did any of us feel totally “balanced” before? 

We think balance is a well-intended myth, something we long for and strive for, but ultimately, we never really get there. 

So if we can’t be “balanced”...what is a more realistic goal to strive for?

Thanks for listening to the podcast. :-)

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Let’s keep this conversation going!

We’d love for you to share this episode with a friend, family member, or even an enemy. Listen to it together, talk about it together, and then tell us about your conversation. 

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Whoa. Buckle up.

This is by far our favorite conversation we’ve had yet, and it’s powerful.

Pete invited his friend Phillip Joubert who is an artist, pastor, theologian, and just flat-out brilliant. This conversation has a wide range, but ultimately, we seek to discuss the state of race in America, particularly in our churches, and try to discern how we can respond better than we have in the past.

Phillip shares his story of being part of a wide variety of churches (his description of how to tell a church is a white church may have made Tom feel a little called out....😬), and then presses into his experiences and what this might mean for the Church. Phillip is a voice we all need to listen to...but particularly those of us who are white, and have grown up in white churches. Phillip’s willingness to spend time with us, and with y’all, is an absolute gift, one we shouldn’t take lightly.

Follow Phillip Joubert:
phillipjoubertmusic.com
IG: @PhillipJoubert
FB: Phillip Joubert

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Let’s keep this conversation going!

We’d love for you to share this episode with a friend, family member, or even an enemy. Listen to it together, talk about it together, and then tell us about your conversation. 

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Reach out to us with any thoughts, feedback, criticisms, what is helpful, what doesn’t make sense, what you think we’re totally wrong about, or what you’d love to hear on the podcast!

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We had our first ever podcast guest!!! This means this episode will be at least 50% better than anything we’ve done so far. 

Dr. Tom Rundel is a pastor with a doctorate in spiritual formation and leadership. He is a long friend of Pete’s and a new friend for Tom. 

In this episode, Dr. Tom shares his story of growing up in the faith, and how many of the things he was taught about the Christian faith ended up, in an odd way, fueling him in his education and calling into ministry. He has come to discover what he calls the major blind spots of American Christianity, most significantly that much of the American Church uses religion to hide from God. 

(Yeah...reread that last sentence and let your mind be blown...then prepare for more and listen as Dr. Tom drops wisdom bombs.)

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Let’s keep this conversation going!

We’d love for you to share this episode with a friend, family member, or even an enemy. Listen to it together, talk about it together, and then tell us about your conversation. 

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Reach out to us with any thoughts, feedback, criticisms, what is helpful, what doesn’t make sense, what you think we’re totally wrong about, or what you’d love to hear on the podcast!

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Email - [email protected]