The Expansionist Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Prayer can feel hollow or difficult when our lives get real. When grief lingers, desire stays unmet, or the words you used to say no longer ring true, you can start to wonder whether you’ve lost your way spiritually. We sit down with Colette Lafia, a creative and spiritual writer, retreat leader, and longtime school librarian, to offer another path: poetry as prayer, and prayer as...

Send us Fan Mail A single late-night moment with a toddler sparked a question that can change how you pray: does God love us like a mother? We sit down with author Elizabeth Berget to talk about her book Love Like a Mother and the brave, careful work of expanding our understanding of God without losing our roots in scripture. If you’ve ever felt like the language you inherited for God was too smal...

Send us Fan Mail Resurrection can feel like a distant doctrine when the world is loud with loss, conflict, and exhaustion. Our conversation asks a more urgent question: what does it look like to practice resurrection when life is in ruins and hope feels thin? For us, resurrection is not something to watch from the sidelines. It’s an invitation to surrender, to let something real die, and to trust...

Send us Fan Mail She was born into a world marked by plague and upheaval, yet she found a kind of inner stillness strong enough to challenge popes and serve neighbors at the same time. We’re talking about St. Catherine of Siena, and we’re letting her life press on our assumptions about spirituality, authority, and what it means to love in public. We trace Catherine’s “cell” of contemplation as mor...

Send us Fan Mail The resurrection story starts with a problem anyone can recognize: you’re carrying love, you’re carrying grief, and there’s a stone in the way. We step into Eastertide by following the women to the tomb, lingering over their honest question, “Who will roll away the stone?” and noticing the courage hidden in plain sight. They don’t wait for perfect certainty. They go anyway, and th...

Send us Fan Mail A single sentence in the news can expose what we really trust and it’s rarely what we want it to be. We’re sitting with that tension, and with a different kind of confidence: milk and mercy, the fierce tenderness that refuses to accept a world built on domination, war, and forgetting.  We talk through the season of Lent as a time for deep reimagining, using spring as our teacher:...

Send us Fan Mail What if your spiritual life had a map you could actually see and use? We sit down with bestselling author Lori Beth Jones to explore the “21 holds of spiritual ascent,” a vivid framework that turns vague struggle into clear, actionable steps. Instead of abstract advice, Lori gives us memorable visuals: the social hold as a carousel that looks like motion but goes nowhere, the carg...

Send us Fan Mail What if wonder isn’t a luxury but a way of seeing that heals how we live? Shelly and Heather open the door to a practice of holy attention, starting with a simple moment on a city sidewalk: a box labeled “Free Lemons.” From that humble gift flows a conversation about abundance, beauty, and the courage to notice what is already with us. We explore how awe differs from endless quest...

Send us Fan Mail What if communion is less about rules and more about a living practice that heals our hunger for belonging? We sit down to reframe the table as a place of remembrance, courage, and everyday resistance—where bread meets body wisdom and wine meets shared responsibility. Starting with a growing pantry of rituals—anointing oil, candlelight, silence, movement, Celtic prayers, tea in wa...

Send us Fan Mail A single change of light can restory a whole room—and a whole life. We open the new year inside Epiphany’s gentle glow, trading the harsh glare of judgment for the candlelit mercy that helps us see what’s been true all along: we are held, invited, and free to go home by another route. Shelly and Heather explore how sacred rhythms, awe, and unhurried attention can shift our perspec...

Send us Fan Mail What if the holiest things in your life aren’t on an altar but on your kitchen shelf, folded in a quilt, or humming across your lawn? We sit down with Reverend Lori Brock—priest, author, and competitive equestrian—and uncover how ordinary objects become gateways to grace. Lori shares how a simple question from a priest cracked open a vocation she had never seen modeled for women....

Send us Fan Mail What if “All shall be well” isn’t escapism but a summons to live braver, kinder, and more open to mystery? We sit with Julian of Norwich’s beloved quote and ask what makes hope durable when the world feels unwell—plague, patriarchy, and the daily grind of uncertainty included. Instead of chasing certainty, we explore the freedom of unknowing, the grounding force of ritual, and the...

Send us Fan Mail What if reading the Bible felt less like swallowing a prepackaged meal and more like cooking something nourishing with friends? We sit down with Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw to reframe biblical interpretation through a simple, memorable kitchen metaphor that helps anyone move from fear and formulas to curiosity and depth. Instead of treating Scripture as a static rule book, we explo...

Send us Fan Mail A single billboard question haunted our childhoods and still shapes modern faith: Where will you spend eternity? We decided to take it apart—gently, honestly, and without losing the heart of the gospel. Together we trace how fear-based scripts formed our earliest images of God and how those scripts often create otherness, separation, and shame. Then we pivot to presence, asking wh...

Send us Fan Mail A grandmother takes a door off its hinges to make the table longer. That simple act becomes our compass for a bold claim: hospitality isn’t a niche talent—it’s a spiritual practice that can transform how we love, listen, and live together. We trace radical hospitality from the kitchen table to the inner life, challenging the idea that it belongs only to those with perfect homes or...

Send us Fan Mail What does it truly mean to practice radical acceptance in a deeply divided world? This question sits at the heart of our conversation as we explore the challenging yet transformative path toward seeing the sacred in everyone. The journey begins with an uncomfortable truth—many of us struggle to extend true acceptance beyond those who think, believe, and live like we do. Yet the re...

Send us Fan Mail Changing your mind might be the most revolutionary spiritual practice available to you right now. Heather and Shelly dive deep into the transformative power of mental flexibility and how it connects to the core teachings of Jesus. What happens when we allow ourselves to consider that our perspective might be incomplete? The hosts explore how Jesus repeatedly invited his followers...

Send us Fan Mail Prayer isn't just words whispered in sacred spaces—it's marching in the streets, demanding justice from those in power, and standing in solidarity with the marginalized. This revolutionary understanding of spirituality sits at the heart of "We Pray Freedom," a groundbreaking liturgical collection from theologians Liz Theoharis and Charon Hribar. The book reimag...

Send us Fan Mail Mary Magdalene beckons us beyond the twelve verses that mention her in scripture, inviting us into a profound reimagining of what it means to witness the divine. Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake explore this sacred friendship during Mary's feast week, diving into the transformative power of seeing resurrection through feminine eyes. What makes Mary's witness unique? The...

Send us Fan Mail What if Mary Magdalene's uncovered hair wasn't just a break from tradition, but a revolutionary act of spiritual and feminine liberation? As we approach Mary Magdalene's feast day on July 22nd, Shelley and Heather dive into one of the most overlooked yet profound aspects of her story – her hair. In ancient times, a woman's hair was simultaneously considered her...

Send us Fan Mail Could Mary Magdalene be a missing part of the Christ story? This question forms the heart of our exploration as we approach her feast day on July 22nd. While neither of us come from Catholic traditions, we recognize the profound wisdom in celebrating feast days that awaken our consciousness to spiritual truth—and Mary Magdalene holds truths too long overlooked. Mary represents a p...

Send us Fan Mail Your intuition speaks, but are you listening? In this soul-stirring conversation, Shelley and Heather explore what they call "ancient remembering" – that profound sense of recognition when something resonates deep within us, awakening wisdom we've always possessed but somehow forgotten. The hosts navigate the delicate balance between external authority and inner kno...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when we expand our vision of God beyond Father to include Mother? Shelley Shepard and I journey into territory many find unfamiliar yet deeply healing as we explore divine motherhood and its transformative potential. This conversation travels through personal stories of our relationships with our mothers and how these experiences have colored our spiritual understandi...

Send us Fan Mail What if everything you thought you knew about sin and separation from God was based on a misunderstanding? What if the true spiritual journey isn't about managing sin but remembering your divine nature? Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake dive into a spicy conversation about religious labels that have historically limited our spiritual experience. Through exploring Mary Magdale...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when the sacred spaces of our childhood reveal themselves to be breeding grounds for exclusion? Cara Meredith joins us to unpack her three-decade journey through evangelical church camp culture and the awakening that led to her powerful new book. From her first experience as a 9-year-old camper in 1988 to her final speaking engagement at a family camp in 2018, Cara&ap...