Spiritual Misfits Podcast

So stoked to have Joel Hollier and Steff Fenton return to the podcast! (If you haven’t listened to their previous episodes I strongly recommend you do so.) Joel and Steff co-pastor New City Church and from its inception they have been seeking to create a trauma-informed faith community. We had a conversation about what that actually means. What happens when churches are not consciously thinking ab...

Rob Buckingham is the pastor of Bayside Church in Melbourne.  In many ways Rob is as Christian as they come. He loves Jesus, he loves scripture, he loves the church. He’s a pastor through and through.  At the same time, by his own confession he has always been somewhat of a misfit — and if you have any experience of the pentecostal church in Australia, you may listen to some things he says and won...

Hustle culture, busyness, sabbath and the struggle to pay attention. Plus the story behind the tattoo on Hannah's foot.  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/survivalguide Sign up to our mailing list: https://spiritualmisf...

Hey friends,  Happy new year! For these first couple weeks of 2023 I’m going to be replaying a couple of older episodes. Our listenership has grown a lot since these were released and so many of you may not have heard these ones before. On that note, if you’ve got some downtime in January there are plenty of excellent episodes in the back-log. Now’s a great time to catch up on some if you’d like t...

One week until Christmas day. Wild! This will be the last episode of the podcast for 2022. We put something out every single week since launching in January. And I really feel like we’re just getting started here. We have such a beautiful sense of community growing around the pod, and I love hearing stories about the connections facilitated through these episodes. I know that they have created spa...

Alright friends, as promised here’s another conversation about the ramifications of the NSW & ACT Baptist rumblings of late.     Recognising that listeners will have varied levels of engagement with this situation, here are the essential points you need to know upfront: At the most recent Baptist Assembly, there were a large and complicated set of motions essentially requiring uniformity aroun...

It has always been our intention to create resources to support spiritual practice, as well as hosting honest conversations and interviews. This episode is a little different to any of our previous ones, but it is intended to help you experience and enter the Advent season, with your mind, body and heart. We've created an advent liturgy of sorts. A collection of poetry, music and scripture, w...

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 past...

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 horrib...

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 Session...

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 renovat...

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/survivalguide Sign up to our mailing list: https://spiri...

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...

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 p...

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.  S...

'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 involv...

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...

A couple weeks ago there was a very special convergence of communities at Hamilton Baptist Church. I know many of you have listened to the episodes with Andrew Dodd and Scott Higgins sharing their stories and the story of Hamilton. If you haven’t listened yet add those to your up next.  Anyway, Andrew invited me to come along to Hamilton and share some thoughts and poems. And Mitch Forbes and some...

Laurie Wevers is a spiritual director and a therapist, who works with people at the intersection of religion and trauma. Her work is informed by her own story, growing up within white evangelicalism and with narcissistic parents, yet eventually finding her way towards mystical and contemplative spirituality, including being a student at Richard Rohr’s Living School. Of course, there are aspects to...

Earlier this week I was sitting in my lounge room, which generally looks like a tornado (aka children) has swept through the place, reading Thomas Merton on the contemplative life. At first, this seemed slightly humorous, as my life couldn't feel any further from the 'monastery' right now.  But it got me thinking. And I started to ponder my favourite parable Jesus told about a musta...

Did you grow up within ‘purity culture’?  If you’re unsure, here are some signs that maybe you did:  You or your friends had a crack at ‘kissing dating goodbye.’ God’s love seemed entirely contingent upon your sexual abstinence You got the impression that boys/men were unable to control their sexual desires, and girls/women were entirely responsible for any ‘sexual immorality.’  Sex outside of mar...

Mitch and I riff on some questions from the Facebook discussion group and then get into a slightly more impassioned discussion about fracturing denominations, peoples obsession with sexuality and why 'sola scripture' logically leads to polarisation.  Questions we discuss from the Facebook group:  - Divinisation/theosis. Did God really become human, so we could become God?  - Missing text...

Will does the majority of the interviews on this podcast, so Hannah decided it was time to flip the roles around and interview him. Will gave Hannah permission to play the role of investigative journalist and grill him.... there may not have been any 'gotcha' moments, but the wide-ranging conversation did include:  the origins of 'spiritual misfits' things Will regrets from his...

Hello friends! As I mentioned last week, with the birth of a new member of our family, I’ve dug out a couple of my favourite interviews from other shows I’ve hosted in the past, while I take a short break from doing interviews. This week’s conversation is truly top-shelf in my opinion and I’m sure you’ll learn something if you listen. For this week, I’ve grabbed an interview my friend Benj Gould a...

Joel McKerrow is a poet and educator. He speaks to large groups of people. He writes wonderful books. He occasionally paints skateboards or does wood carvings. He’s one of those people who is basically brilliant at everything he does. And he has a deep understanding of the winding pilgrimage that honest spirituality entails.  A couple years ago Joel published a book called ‘Woven: a Faith for the...