Life on Side B

Art Pereira is back and talking with Elizabeth about the committed friendships in his life. Elizabeth also shares about important committed friendships in her life as well. What does commitment look like in friendship especially when it is with a friend who is or plans to marry? What does resilience look like in relationships? 

Johana Marie Williams has returned to the podcast to talk with Bekah and Grant about processing doubt and deconstruction. Deconstruction especially has been a main topic of discussion recently. So how do we engage this discussion around faith and sexuality? What do we do when we find ourselves in the midst of a time of deconstruction? Listen now to hear our cohosts and Johana Marie share from thei...

Mary, our cohost from Season 2, is BACK! She has returned home to Life on Side B to talk with Ashley, Grant, and Josh about how we engage with queer media as Side B Christians. What media most impacted us? How do we engage it when our values are different? What counts as queer baiting? This episode gets a little unhinged but we hope you enjoy this special Pride month episode.

This episode has been a long time coming. Grant talks with Collin, Michelle, and Will about asexuality and grey sexuality. They cover various aspects of their experiences as ace Christians pursuing celibacy. 

Paolo Errico joins Josh this week to talk about sexual integrity. How does it differ from sexual purity? How does the closet work against the process of integrity in queer lives? How do we restore integrity when our lives begin to compartmentalize? Paolo and Josh share vulnerably from each of their experiences pursuing sexual integrity and we hope it can be helpful for you all.    Here are the boo...

This is a conversation we have been looking forward to for a long time. Many of you know of Jackie Hill Perry. Today, Elizabeth, Henry and Ashley are sitting down with her to talk about her newest book, Holier Than Thou, plus the intersection of faith and sexuality and how she navigates conversations on racial justice.

Lesli is back and talking with Henry and Bekah about grief - grief over the loss of their wife, the loss of sexual intimacy in a life of celibacy, and the pain of church hurt. There is so much wisdom packed in this episode. Lesli shares how embracing grief helps us embrace God. 

Josh is talking this week with Sarah Claire Smith, a licensed mental health counselor and the soul care director at Providencia WPB, where Josh attends. Sarah Claire shares about what is means to listen to your own story in order to process trauma and pain so that we can better engage in healthy community.    The book Sarah Clair quotes is My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway...

Today, Ashley, Elizabeth and Josh are getting "back to basics," discussing the question: "What do we wish we would have known back when we came out and entered Side B spaces for the first time?" 

This week, Greg Piken is joining us from SoCal and sharing insights as a counselor on how to build emotional resilience in our lives. Josh and Bekah talk with him about working through breakdowns, processing second adolescence, and how to support each other in a community such as the Side B LGBT+ Christian community which has high levels of trauma. 

This week, Bridget Eileen Rivera is back and talking with Henry about her new book, Heavy Burdens. You can tell from his questions that Henry has read this book more than once! They have a great conversation. Pick up your copy of Heavy Burdens today!

This week, we are sharing the recording from the live episode we did at the Q Christian Fellowship conference last month (January 2022). Elizabeth and Grant talk together about confronting shame as queer Christians and especially as Side B Christians. Thank you to everyone who attended and sent in questions!

We are finally back for Season 4! The cohosts are together again and talking about our season theme: the road to resilience. This is probably the most bible references we have ever made on the podcast so get ready. We hope you enjoy it.   The poem Ashley mentions is called "The One Hoss Shay" by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Thank you to Matthew Kaal (@matthewkaal on Twitter) for directing us to the name...

As we get ready for Season 4, we wanted to take this chance to get to know Elizabeth a little more. Josh and Elizabeth sit down to chat about her journey, her newly formed ministry called Kaleidoscope, and what it looks like to share your faith with others as a Christian who is queer and Side B. Learn more about Elizabeth on our team page at lifeonsideb.com/ourteam

Por fin, publicamos nuestro segundo capitulo en español. En este capitulo, Ashley habla con Jan de Puerto Rico sobre su experiencia de ser un cristiano gay y célibe. Hablan de todo un poco, incluyendo como pertenecer a la comunidad en la distancia (cultural, fisica, de lenguaje, etc). 

The cohost team got together in person while attending Revoice 2021 last week and talked about Season 3, what impacted us most, and what we learned. It was great to have multiple friends and listeners We have a lot of exciting news and can't wait for you to hear!   1:21 - Begin discussion on Season 3 25:00 - Announcing Sarah's departure 30:58 - Announcing Elizabeth as a new cohost 44:32 - Milk & H...

As we promised earlier in the season, Scott Herr is joining Grant to talk about being gay and Catholic as we were unable to include a Catholic voice in the Faith Tradition Diversity episode. Scott shares about his experience converting to Catholicism and how his sexual identity and faith relate to each other within the framework of Catholicism.

We are getting close to the end of season 3. Sarah is talking with Johana-Marie and Shelby about their experience of faith, sexuality, and gender as queer black women. Each of these wisdom has amazing wisdom in what they share.   Johana-Marie mentions an article called "Black is My Gender" by Hari Ziyad. Here is the link to check it out: https://afropunk.com/2017/07/my-gender-is-black/

Gregg Webb is back with us, joined as well by his long time friend Michelle. As we talked about being Side B in ministry in our last episode, it seemed only fitting to talk about what it is like being Side B outside vocational ministry. Sarah talks with Gregg and Michelle about what it is like to navigate sexuality and faith in their work environments.

The Brilliant Bee Patrons chose another episode topic and the winner was: Being Queer in Ministry. So today, Bekah is talking with Anderson McGee about his experience as an out bisexual pastor. Does being in vocational ministry make it easier or harder to be Side B? Anderson has been Co-Pastor, with his wife Sarah, of Trinity Family Midtown since December 2016 and co-Executive Director of Love Win...

Lesli Hudson-Reynolds is back as a guest cohost and talking with Lo about trans* inclusion. For this episode, we wanted to have a discussion with only trans voices and without the necessity to "cis-splain". This means we gave Lesli and Lo the freedom to talk about whatever they would like to discuss without needing to explain or define anything for cisgender listeners. If you would like an episode...

This is the last episode for the season on Side B globally and Bekah is talking with Adrian who lives with Hungary. Christian Johnston is also back and sharing from his experience as an American who lived in Poland. They discuss Adrian's experience as a British gay man living in Hungary, how the sexuality discussion looks in different parts of Europe compared to North America, and much more.

Greg Coles is back on the podcast and he is talking with Henry, Grant, and Josh about his new book - No Longer Strangers. This episode was delightful! Order your copy of No Longer Strangers here: Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/No-Longer-Strangers-Belonging-Alienation/dp/0830847901 Barnes and Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no-longer-strangers-gregory-coles/1137334317 IVP Press - https://...

In this week's episode, Josh and Ashley are talking with Lucas about his experience of being Side B in Brazil. We talk about what the conversation around faith, sexuality and gender looks like in Brazil, how Exodus looks different and/or similar than Exodus looked in the States, and Lucas' experience of coming out in Brazil. Here are resources in Portuguese which Lucas mentioned as well as others...

You may be asking, "What is a Queer Orientation Marriage?" It is the best name we could come up with for this episode. Ashley and Sarah are talking with Aaron and Liz Munson about being in a mixed orientation marriage as two queer people. They discuss attraction within relationship, the place other friendships hold in their lives, and how they navigate talking about their sexual identities with th...