When You’re Scared You Can’t Trust God to Care for You: An Interview with Anna Pretorius (Season 2, Episode 15)
Today I’m chatting with Anna Pretorius—a mother of four, unexpected pastors wife, and Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Anna was born in the jungle in Papua New Guinea as the daughter of missionaries and moved to Japan when she was six years old.
Anna is delightfully funny and honest about the desire to be the strong one and build her own kingdom. She describes the fear underneath her frenetic busyness that she could not trust God to care for her. Anna tell us how God humbled her to know his power and authority and how this transformed her life. She also shares how she navigates working in the Diversity and Inclusion space and how Christians can navigate these spaces remembering how all kinds of people flocked to Jesus, he was attractive to them, but he was also challenging and convicting.
When You Are Lonely at Church (Episode 8, Season 2)
This episode was borne out of Maddy’s experience working on staff at a church and the sheer amount of people who confessed feeling disconnected and lonely in the post-service crowd. These people knew people at church, but described feeling awkward and uncomfortable, like they were not sure if they belonged or fit in with the crowd. So today, Maddy, Rach, Britt and Bec dig into our own experiences of loneliness, specifically at church, and what helped shift us out of these seasons.
Keeping the Faith in Frontline Mental Health (Season 2, Episode 6)
This banger of a question came from our end of year survey, “How do I retain my faith while being a first responder (i.e., frontline mental health, health, child protection) when the workplace culture demands dissonance from Christian values (i.e., black humour, seeing Christians as perpetrators of abuse etc). I personally and others I know in front line work struggle to reconcile their core values and faith with what they see in the world.”
Khaiah Thomson is a hospital social worker, the author of the Blackwood series, and one of our regular writers at Stories I’d Tell You at Dinner. Khaiah, Rach and Bec deep dive into some of the temptations we face as Christians working in frontline mental health and discuss what helps us to reconcile our faith with what we see in the world.
When You Are Drowning in Good Works (Season 2, Episode 4)
Rach and Bec chat with Amy Stopher, who is on staff at Providence City Church and one of our regular writers at Stories, as we explore the idea that if God made us with limits, for our good before the fall, and commands us to rest, how do we weigh up work, ministry, and family commitments? How do we rest amongst hustle culture?
Season 1, Episode 9. You’re So Vain, I Bet You Think This Podcast is About You
You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Podcast is About You is a conversation with Rach, Britt, Maddy, and Bec about our vain interests (see: fashion, deep-diving true crime podcasts, mindless celebrity knowledge, trashy novels, and music you scream-sing in the car with no kids around). The kind of stuff you wonder… “As a Christian, should I even be into this?”