Bodies Behind The Bus

Sarah's story continues. She returns to a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) base in the States, where a car accident leaves her hurt and exhausted. Instead of rest, she faces pressure to keep working and leading. In this episode, she describes a base culture built on strict molds, spiritual bypassing, and misogyny. When women disclose sexual assaults to her, leaders defend the men and dismiss the v...

Sarah joined Youth With A Mission (YWAM) at 22 and did her training school in Samoa. In this episode, she shares what happened on outreach in the Solomon Islands, where a fellow student assaulted her. When she told leaders, they blamed her, called it her sin, and separated her from the team while her abuser stayed. Sarah walks through the harm that followed and the few people who finally believed...

Jamie joins Youth With A Mission (YWAM) at 17 and stays 25 years, from 1994 to 2020. Jamie describes how YWAM's Founders Circle holds authority without accountability. After the Pulse nightclub shooting, Jamie, speaks out publicly as an affirming Christian. He recounts two years of meetings with international leaders and a talk in which founder Loren Cunningham tells of praying judgment on a...

Skyla shares her story of serving on a team called End Bible Poverty Now at Youth With A Mission's (YWAM) Kona campus in Hawaii, where she pushed leadership to support outreach to deaf communities. When she raised the issue, she was accused of being rude for crying and told she needed more discipleship. Skyla describes being tested, gaslit, and slowly pushed off her team, all while a separate...

Shelby returns to finish her story of leaving Youth With A Mission (YWAM) after almost 20 years. Two friends she trusted rise to lead her base, and when she raises concerns about how they treat people, she is accused of attacking them. She is pushed off a program she built, then invited onto their leadership team to quiet her down instead. She takes a sabbatical during the pandemic and starts nami...

Shelby joins us to share her story of almost 20 years with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), a Christian missions group with bases in nearly every country. She signs up at 24 to earn a counseling degree, hoping to help missionaries get better care. Instead, she is pushed to share painful secrets with strangers, watches a visiting speaker ask young women to sit on his lap for healing, and lives under a...

In this episode, Jay and Johnna introduce a new series featuring first hand stories from Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Before the storytellers share what happened to them, we take a step back and look at the roots. We cover who Loren Cunningham was, the Assemblies of God upbringing that shaped him, and how YWAM grew from a beach vision into a network of thousands of bases around the world with no c...

Keri Ladner is the author of American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom . Her book traces the roots of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and Dominion theology in the United States. She began her research while studying the Columbine shooting and how it was later used to build the martyr myths tied to this movement. Ladner also writes about these topics on Substack. Ameri...

Bel joins us from Australia to share her story of growing up in a church in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. When she was six, she nearly died in an accident at church. Soon after, her family moved to a new church led by a man we call Rev T. He called himself a counselor and claimed he could help people no doctor could. Bel describes a community shaped by control, fear, and the constant feeling of bei...

In this episode, our storyteller Jane shares her years inside Chi Alpha, the college campus ministry of the Assemblies of God (AG). What began as a warm, welcoming community slowly turned into something else. Jane describes the pressure to lead, the strict rules over her time, friendships, money, and even her food and health, and the spiritual control that kept her silent for years. She walks us t...

Michelle shares her story of serving on staff at a church in Indiana, where subtle control, blurred pastoral authority, financial pressure, and spiritual manipulation slowly became clear over time. Her story names the confusion of being labeled, silenced, and pushed to question herself while navigating deep personal and family crisis. Through telling the truth, Michelle begins reclaiming the voice...

Katie shares her story of growing up in a highly controlled religious environment, entering a young marriage shaped by strict gender roles, and spending years overseas as a missionary. Through the pressures of ministry, isolation, and motherhood, she began to recognize patterns of emotional and spiritual harm in her life. This episode follows her journey of unraveling those beliefs, finding her vo...

Katherine shares her journey from a young missionary sent overseas to confronting the realities of faith, sacrifice, and survival. Raised in the church and driven by a deep sense of purpose, she and her husband moved to the Middle East in their early twenties, navigating cultural barriers, personal risk, and the complexities of mission work. After experiencing trauma, health crises, and the unrave...

Dominique shares her experience at The Austin Stone, where she became deeply involved in church life, missions, and leadership development as a young woman. In this episode, she reflects on the pressure, isolation, racial dynamics, and harmful church culture she encountered, and why telling the truth about those experiences matters. Support the show

Alicia served for years as both a volunteer leader and staff member at a growing non-denominational church in Ohio. After becoming deeply involved in ministry and church leadership, she began noticing troubling patterns within the church’s culture and leadership structure. In this episode, Alicia courageously shares her story and reflects on the impact spiritual manipulation can have on individual...

In this episode of Bodies Behind the Bus , Julia shares her story of becoming involved in an Acts 29 affiliated church plant that gradually shifted from hopeful beginnings into a culture of control, blurred boundaries, and spiritual harm. As she navigated marriage struggles, postpartum depression, and increasing pressure from church leadership, Julia began to see how manipulation, unmet promises,...

In this episode of Bodies Behind the Bus, we’re joined by Ciji, founder of Louder Than Silence , an organization providing free, trauma-specific care and community for survivors of sexual violence. Together, we explore what trauma-informed spaces actually look like, the difference between big-T and little-t trauma, and how harm often compounds in faith communities through misplaced authority, lack...

In the final episode of this three-part series, Christy and Joshua come together to reflect on the shared impact of spiritual abuse and the long road toward truth and healing. Their conversation explores how harm reverberates through relationships, what accountability should look like, and what it means to move forward without erasing what happened. This closing chapter centers survivor clarity, c...

In Episode 2 of this three-part series, Christy shares her story of spiritual harm, silence, and survival within church systems that protected power over people. She reflects on the personal cost of being unheard, the impact on identity and faith, and the long road toward naming what happened. Christy’s testimony deepens the series by centering the lived experience of abuse and the courage it take...

In Episode 1 of this three-part series, Joshua shares his story of spiritual harm, silencing, and the cost of telling the truth inside church systems built to protect power. His testimony traces the personal and relational fallout of abuse, the pressure to stay quiet, and the long road toward clarity and agency. This episode centers Joshua’s voice and sets the foundation for the series to come. Su...

DACA Family Support Fund In this episode of Bodies Behind the Bus , hosts Johnna and Jay sit down with author and pastor Caleb Campbell , author of Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor . Together, they discuss faith, justice, and compassion in the face of political division, as well as their joint fundraiser supporting a DACA recipient fighting to stay with their family...

In this episode of Just Calling, hosts Johnna and Jay continue their conversation with author and justice advocate Joash Thomas about his book The Justice of Jesus. Together, they unpack what it means to “decolonize our budgets” exploring how faith, money, and justice intersect within the modern church. The discussion challenges listeners to reimagine generosity, confront systems of privilege, and...

In this Just Calling episode, the hosts talk about empire, power, and how faith communities are being influenced by political systems. The conversation unpacks a recent government filing showing efforts to target U.S. churches through digital campaigns and explores what faithful resistance looks like today. FARA filing Across The Divide Podcast The Justice of Jesus Support the show

In this episode, Cameron shares his powerful story of serving for sixteen years at one of Arizona’s largest megachurches, a place where faith, control, and fear collided. From witnessing the enforcement of “alignment” policies to experiencing personal retaliation and deep spiritual betrayal, Cameron opens up about what it meant to lose his community while finding his voice. His courage sheds light...

Introducing Just Calling — In this first episode of the series, Bodies Behind the Bus sits down with author and advocate Rev. Joash Thomas to talk about his new book The Justice of Jesus . Together, we explore what it means to move from diagnosis to a hopeful prognosis for the church, diving into themes of justice, decolonization, and the everyday choices that shape faithful living. www.joashpthom...