Spiritual Misfits Podcast

This is a conversation about what it’s like to go through faith crises, deconstruction, dark nights of the soul. etc etc. while pastoring a church. This is not an easy road. And I have not heard many people talk about it from the perspective of being a pastor. But I don’t think it’s uncommon. I hope that this conversation gives people a little more empathy for some of the tensions that many pastors deal with, trying to love a group of people with a diversity of opinions and perspectives, while going through their own process. If you are a pastor, I hope this makes you feel like your process is ok. And you too are not alone. Out of her own journey of change, Caro has shifted the way she leads and shapes church community. And in my opinion, what she describes sounds exactly like what I crave when I think of the church of tomorrow (which we’ve spoken a little bit about lately). It is well worth listening to this conversation just to hear how Caro approaches things like teaching the bible and nurturing community nowadays. So, my friends, enjoy this conversation. And if you happen to know a pastor like Caro. Send them a text. Or buy them a drink. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

This week on the podcast I am joined by Tash Holmes to chat about creativity, spirituality, faith communities….and just so much good stuff. Tash is a singer, musician & writer based in Sydney, and just another wonderful human I am grateful to have become friends with in recent months. Tash shares their story of coming out while at Hillsong and maintaining faith even through some really horrible experiences. We speak about the place of creatives in the church and faith spaces generally, and talk about some of the tensions around how the arts can be viewed kind of like a ‘cherry on top’ when really, they are foundational in so many ways to what it means to be human.After hanging out with Tash my heart felt full. I hope yours does also. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

Hello friends. Most of you probably know about the recent vote by the Baptist Association of NSW & ACT to kick out pastors and churches with theology that affirms same-sex marriage (and LGBTQI+ people more broadly). If you want to get a little more context, here are two articles worth your time: Here are Will's reflections the day after.And here is an excellent article from Erin Sessions  that gets into a little more of the nitty gritty if you want more details.This episode is a debrief chat the day after the vote with Mitch Forbes (who will lose his ordination), Hannah Gierhart (representing the perspective of someone watching this unfold from the 'outside') and Will (who was basically born into a Baptist church). Listen and join us in the Facebook group after to share your thoughts. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

Terms like post-evangelical and exvangelical have become increasingly prominent in recent years. I spoke about this in detail with David Gushee a few episodes back. But todays guest actually wrote a book called ‘the post evangelical’…almost 30 years ago, in 1995.So Dave Tomlinson is not new to this conversation and in many ways he is a wonderful guide to those of us seeking a renewed and renovated faith that takes the modern world seriously and stands the test of time. Dave is a vicar from London, a wonderful storyteller and truth seeker and has written many books including ‘how to be a bad Christian and a better human being’ which we discuss in this conversation.Simon Buckingham Shum who is a part of meeting ground church joined me to co-host this one - as a Brit who has been following Dave’s work for a long time. Simon and Dave make reference a few times to Greenbelt, which is an annual festival in the UK bringing together faith, justice, philosophy, art and a shared space for people from all walks of life. There’s a link in the shownotes if you want to learn more. At the end of the conversation Dave gives one of the best definitions of hope I’ve ever heard.This was a delightful conversation to have and I hope it encourages you.Listen to Dave's talks at  Greenbelt here: https://www.greenbelt.org.uk/talks-archive/#~tomlinsonCheck out Dave's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpGqunuXebtPE1SaSlVjsdAWant to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

Mitch Forbes returns to crack a beer with Will and debrief on their experience of seeing Rob Bell live in Sydney a couple weeks ago. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

The Reverend Dr. Karina Kreminski is a Mission Coaching Consultant with Uniting Mission & Education. She has a doctorate in missional formation. She’s a writer. She’s a facilitator of ‘The Happiness Lab’ in Surry Hills. She’s co-founder of ‘Neighbourhood Matters’. And as she shares in this conversation, she helps to lead a fascinating Sunday gathering with a crew of people in her hood who come from all different world views and backgrounds to explore spirituality together. Karina joined Simon Nixon and I (Will) to continue our chat about the 'church of tomorrow' and what it might look like.During the chat, we spoke about Karina’s own journey of evolving faith. We spoke about problematic language — and the tendency words like mission can have to sound colonising. We spoke about the significance of the local neighbourhood. And heaps more.  I don’t feel like we gave Karina the easiest questions, and I’m particularly grateful for her honesty throughout the conversation around all the things she’s still trying to figure out. We want you to continue to be part of the conversation — so join us in our Facebook group and let us know what you think after listening. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

Karl Hand is the pastor of Crave Church in Sydney, he has a PhD in the New Testament, and is a contributor to the recently updated Queer Bible Commentary with a chapter on the book of Ephesians.During our conversation Karl described this beautiful gift that queer people have for using humour as a means of survival in the face of oppression. He describes how in a way Mardis Gras is a response to police brutality involving people dressing up and throwing a party — and when you think about it, this is an incredible example of subversively comical resistance. It isn’t just police brutality that has been used against queer people historically — often scripture has been tragically used as part of the arsenal of weapons used to discriminate against them. Well, as Karl is going to show us in this conversation, at least one queer response is to re-read the text in brilliantly creative ways that see the humour, even through the trauma.I’m wary of anyone who says there’s only one way to read the Bible. I firmly believe that if it’s a living word — like I was taught growing up — then we can’t stop it from speaking in different ways to different people at different moments in time. And this conversation with Karl has given me fresh ways to see next time I open my Bible. Listen in, and by the end I hope you’ll be able to say the same thing. If nothing else, may you be inspired by the beautiful creative resistance of queer people. Check out the Queer Bible Commentary here.Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

Many of us have experienced significant changes in our faith, spirituality or worldview  in recent years (which by the way is a normal and healthy thing). And of course, those changes are taking place right across human societies in the information age we are living through.  I’ve heard people speculate that we’re living in a new church reformation — and I think there’s something to that idea. So what will the Church of tomorrow look like? We can think about this question as a purely imaginative exercise. Or we can play a role in answering it. By experimenting and starting our own communities. By having large, imaginative conversations where we dream about what’s possible — and then give it a go.This episode is an attempt to begin a conversation like that.Through spiritual misfits we want to help you know that you are not alone. It says that every week in the intro. So what could and can communities look like where people move through their processes of change and growth and doubt and faith and all the things together?Simon Nixon had the idea for this one — and we also threw out the invitation to our Facebook group for anyone who wanted to join us on zoom while we recorded this conversation. It was excellent to see a number of your faces and to spend a little time outside of the recording just connecting with people and hearing where you’re from.The facebook group is becoming a really great space, so if you’re not already in there feel free to join us, and from time to time we are planning to organise more live recordings you can join us for as well as other online meet-ups.Let’s shape this thing together. Here is the first (of many) conversations about what the church of tomorrow could look like.  Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

'Either Jesus would come back or Tom would be healed'This week’s episode is a rather lovely and profound conversation between myself, Hannah and Bruce Macauley (who happens to be her Dad), that is rich in both personal and philosophical wisdom.Bruce’s faith has changed a lot since the days he believed that Jesus would either return or heal his sons severe autism. It’s a journey involving hanging out with homeless people at a caravan park, listening to Richard Rohr sermons on CDs, reading 13th century monks and mystics and eventually heading over to the living school in Albuquerque to learn from father Richard in the flesh.It was also pretty special to explore some of that journey with reflections from a father and daughter, who have both experienced significant faith change, though in different life stages and circumstances. Both Hannah’s parents Bruce and Kerry are incredibly Christlike and beautiful humans. The kind that help me to see the sacred in the very ordinary moments and the very difficult ones.I'm so grateful for this sharing of some of their story, and I’m sure you will be also. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

The Reverend Dr David Gushee is one of the world’s leading Christian ethicists as well as a pastor, author and advocate. He’s the author of a range of important books, notably including ‘Changing our Mind’, a landmark argument for LGBTQI+ inclusion in the church first published in 2014. More recently his book ‘After Evangelicalism’ has provided an invaluable guide for many pilgrims trying to find their way out of the maze of American evangelical culture without necessarily knowing where to go from there. David’s books have been so helpful for me, so I can’t even tell you how excited I was to have this conversation with him. We explored a range of important and interesting questions together, like:How do you extract yourself from evangelicalism while retaining your Christianity? What might Christian humanism look like for post-evangelicals? What does it mean to have theology informed by the holocaust?What does responsible, meaningful engagement with scripture look like coming out of spaces that have weaponised it in various ways?David’s thoughts on all of these questions are well worth your time. He’s warm, intelligent, and gives me hope for the future. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguideSign up to our mailing list:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/Join our online Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spiritualmisfitspodcastSupport the pod:https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com