PODCAST · religion
Finding Free Podcast
by Amy & Craig Andrews
Finding Free Podcast is a place for exploration and wandering, where you can sift through your own life and faith, and uncover the truths about yourself that have been there all along. Amy and Craig Andrews are regular people who want to create safe space for all to explore questions of faith and culture.Our hope is that these conversations can be a place for you to interact with real stories of real people learning what it means to truly live out their full, meaningful and authentic lives. May this be a space for you to find rest, community and encouragement for your own journey to finding your free, even when it doesn't always look like what's expected.
Episodes
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Navigating Polarities in Difficult Conversations
It's challenging to communicate when emotions and passions are at their peak. To be honest, many times we aren't really taught how to discuss difficult topics with those whom we may disagree. With polarized opinions about almost everything at an all time high, having conversations on difficult...
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The Intersection of Radical Human Enhancement and Faith with Dr. Calvin Mercer
If you could choose to live forever, would you want to? If a scientific advancement could make it possible for you to reverse aging, would you make a jump for the fountain of youth? In this episode, we talk with Dr. Calvin Mercer, co-author of Religion and the Technological Future. Dr. Mercer has...
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10,000 Reasons to Celebrate
New Milestone Unlocked! We passed 10,000 downloads! We are celebrating 10,000 downloads for Finding Free Podcast with laughs, champagne and a trip down memory lane. Hear our reflections on the best parts of podcasting and what we have found to be the most challenging. We wrap it up with a few...
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Unpacking Christian Nationalism with Chaplain Aaron Saufley
You don't have to be paying close attention to current events to have heard about Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalist ideas have been swimming in the water of society for centuries but has certainly emerged as a hot topic, especially during this election year. In this podcast, Amy, Craig...
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Changing Church Culture: A Conversation with Stan Mitchell
In order for the Church to continue to be God's presence in the world, people must be wiling to dream, think, plan and prioritize differently. Sometimes this means rethinking long-held beliefs or traditional ways of thinking. What does God think of us? And how does "the work of the Church"…
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Changing Church Culture
It is very common for us at Finding Free to talk a lot about the Church. What are the trends we see happening? What seems to be on the horizon for the Church to tackle? Most especially- we spend a lot of time on what the Church has missed, trailed woefully behind on, or just seemingly flat out...
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Leaving Rapture Theology Behind with Chaplain Megan Joyner
If you grew up in the evangelical church culture, you are probably no stranger to rapture theology. Maybe you remember hearing detailed stories told about what the end of the world would be like or you may have poured over the Left Behind book series, using it as a map for what was to come. Where...
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Christian Universalism with Chaplain Aaron Saufley
What if God saves everyone? Christian Universalism (the idea that God will save everyone and the earth somehow in the end) is one theory of atonement that theologians have discussed for centuries. Though the idea of universal reconciliation was the most prominent atonement theory among early…
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Who Is Jesus to Us
The way we think about Jesus impacts the way we talk about faith and how we treat those around us. Who is Jesus to you? Where did that frame of reference come from and has it ever changed? We don't do a lot of sermon discussion focused podcasts on Finding Free Podcast but there was so much…
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Holiday Story Time
Grab your comfiest blankets and a mug of something great and listen to some stories of holidays past. Laugh as Craig talks about the time his grandpa accidentally got sloshed at a family gathering. Giggle as Amy shares her most memorable Christmas present (double AA batteries required). And Jeff...
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Finding Your Free and Feeding Your Soul
When Craig and Amy started Finding Free Podcast in 2020, they thought a lot about the podcast name. They settled on Finding Free Podcast because they wanted to focus on the freedom and liberation that can come from pushing yourself to break out of the metaphorical places where you feel stuck and...
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Faith Deconstruction: A Hard Journey that Challenges the Church to Show Up
"The next hard road for the Church will be walking with and beside those that are deconstructing their faith, taking it apart either in small bits and pieces or altogether, putting it back together in part or sometimes not at all. The question is, how will the Church show up for people in this...
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Purity Culture, Sex and the Church - Part 2
TW: purity culture, rape culture, sexual abuse Explicit Content: Language, Sexual Content - masturbation, orgasm gap, general make-you-blush adult content. In Part 2 we continue the conversation about purity culture and its impacts. We talk more about how conversations about purity and sex can be...
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Purity Culture, Sex and the Church - Part 1
TW: purity culture, rape culture, sexual abuse Explicit Content: Language, Sexual Content - masturbation, orgasm gap, general make-you-blush adult content. If you grew up in an Evangelical church in the 1990's, chances are you were exposed to the purity culture mindset. Though purity culture…
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Leaving Christian Evangelical _undamentalism - We Got the "F" Out!
In this episode, our friend Jeff Bell joins us to talk candidly about what it was like to grow up in and be a part of Christian fundamentalist evangelical organizations and churches in the 80's and 90's. We discuss what it was like to have this as our main faith experience during our formative...
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Our Response to the SBC Statement on Women in Ministry
This June, the Southern Baptist Convention approved an amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message to be approved next summer during their Annual Convention. The amendment restricted women in ministry, who were already not supposed to hold lead pastor roles, from having any pastoral position…
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LGBTQ Conversations in Local Churches - Part 2: A Conversation with Stan Mitchell
Many organizations operate in shadowed ambiguity, rather than clarity when it comes to who can do what in the organization, and churches are no exception. Unwritten rules are often enforced leaving individuals confused and hurt when they realize the "All are Welcome" slogan really doesn't apply…
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LGBTQ Conversations in Local Churches - Part 1: Questions, Thoughts and Our Experience
Difficult conversations in churches are…well, difficult. Most of us simply aren't taught how to disagree or discuss hard things in the context of faith within the church. One of the most difficult conversations a church can journey through is a conversation on LGBTQ inclusivity. Since there are...
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Limping Into the Kingdom with Layne Rogerson
Every experience we have in life impacts us. Some experiences leave a huge impact, like a canyon in the desert. Others might leave such a tiny ripple that we don't even notice the effects. Religious trauma, hurts from the institutional Church, or any pain we experience at the hands of those who...
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Holding Space & Sharing Stories: An Interview with Zachary Pomeroy
Stories matter. Telling our stories matters. And hearing the stories of others matters. It is in the telling of our own stories that we claim our own beauty, claim our own experiences, claim that we matter. And it is in hearing the stories of others, in holding space for what is real for someone...
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Faith Deconstruction: Finding Your Own Answers with Stan Mitchell
"In the most general sense, faith deconstruction begins with people realizing that the answers they possess are answers they have memorized that were achieved or developed by other people or authority figures…they were not their own answers. The demand of deconstruction is not that you find...
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Just for Laughs: Dad Jokes with Craig Andrews and Jeff Bell
Recently Craig and Jeff Bell did a "dad joke" video for Cedarbridge Baptist Church as a fun way to highlight Father's Day. Some of you have seen this video, but what you didn't see was the rest of the almost full hour of what they recorded. In this episode, we are releasing the full unedited...
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Faith Deconstruction: Craig Shares Experiences From his own Journey
Deconstruction is a bit of a buzz word these days, but for right reasons. Many people, especially those who grew up in a church atmosphere, find that at some point they need to rethink, unpack and "deconstruct" the theology, ideas and foundations that they were given early in life, sorting out...
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Sexual Abuse in the Church: An Interview with Survivor Keith Morris
Trigger alert: sexual abuse, rape, sexual trauma, religious sexual abuse There are some experiences none of us want to have inside knowledge about. Yet too often the unbelievable happens, and we find ourselves living through experiences that are so horrifying, our lives are instantly and forever...
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Trauma & Our Bodies: An Interview with Therapist Sarah Lewis
Any amount of research on stress and your body will tell you that chronic unresolved stress has a negative impact on your overall health. But what happens when life hands us more than stress, and in fact, we have to deal with experiences that are traumatic? Some trauma is easy to recognize…
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LGBTQ+ Affirmation: An Interview with Trauma Therapist Sarah Lewis
Despite our best efforts, sometimes we hurt those we love with our words and actions, causing trauma and pain that has to be unpacked and worked through for years. This happens in every family; it is a part of life as we know it. Yet often families of LGBTQ+ individuals have a deeper levels of…
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Finding Full LGBTQ+ Affirmation: A Conversation with Stan Mitchell
We are excited to share our conversation with Stan Mitchell with you on Finding Free Podcast! This episode is a must-listen for our community. Stan is Co-Founder of Everybody Church, an online community created as a haven for anyone feeling spiritually homeless, but specifically as a place of...
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Finding Full LGBTQ+ Affirmation: A Closer Look at Scripture
During any conversation on LGBTQ+ inclusivity and the Church, the topic of scripture takes center-stage. What does the Bible say about same sex orientation? What does Jesus say? Are there any identified bible verses that address same sex relationships? In this episode, we walk through specific...
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Finding Full Affirmation: Our Journey to LGBTQ+ Inclusion
I have heard it said many times before, "The Gospel is either good news for everyone or it is good news for no one." Yet time and time again, one group or another gets pushed aside, deemed not acceptable, excluded...by the Church. This conversation is a personal journey that Craig and I have been...
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Originally Sinful or Originally Blessed: What if We Have Thought About it Wrong All Along?
Often there are ideas and theologies that we are taught that we hold onto for a while in life, but that eventually we realize need reframing and rethinking. The doctrine of "original sin," the idea that every human being is born completely separated from God by sin inherited from Adam and Eve in...
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Pandemic Life: We're Struggling Too!
It's no secret that COVID-19 has everything in life as we knew it either on hold or moving forward in a very different way than we have known before. Every decision seems to take so much effort and yield more problems. We find ourselves on a wheel of uncertainty...spinning and spinning. Anyone…
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Mo's (my dad) Last Game Coaching at Apex
From 1972 to 1980, my dad (aka Mo, short for Morris) was the varsity basketball coach at Apex High School. When Amy and I were starting our Finding Free Podcast I needed to do a sound test for our phone interview equipment. So I called dad and got him to tell me about the last game he coached at...
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Power & Position: Religious Leaders Should Use it for Good and Not Harm
Power dynamics in churches...not something we like to talk about often, especially in today's political and social climate. It's hard but necessary for religious leaders to think about the power they wield in relationships and how it impacts those they communicate with. Especially in a religious...
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Amy's 7-12-2020 Oakmont Sermon - Patience: The Link Between Patience and Grace
Living in a culture that thrives on "more" and "faster," it's no secret that most of us have a hard time waiting for anything. When we begin to associate what we can get quickly with what is successful, we set ourselves up for a spiritual life of discontent. God is incredibly patient with us, and...
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Amy's 6-21-2020 Oakmont Sermon - Intentional Love: The First Fruit of the Spirit
Ask the general public for a definition of love and you'll get a variety of answers. We use the word love a lot, especially if you grew up in church and were told to "Love your neighbor" from a very young age. Yet, what does it look like to love others in today's culture that is brimming with…
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Women in Ministry Part 2: Sharing Her Story - An Interview with Rev. Beth Thompson
Second in our series on Women in Ministry, we dialogue today with a friend and former co-worker, Rev. Beth Thompson. Beth spent almost 40 years in ministry and was graduating from seminary at the height of the "women in ministry" conflict. She discusses the atmosphere during that time period and...
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Women in Ministry Part 1: A Beautiful but Difficult Road
When I was in college, I kept having this thought that would not let me go...a sense that, in order to be fully true to myself, I needed to accept that I was being called by God into Christian ministry. I wasn't exactly sure what that was going to look like, but I knew that it was true. Looking...
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Has Church Made 'Hearing God' More Difficult Than it Should Be?
How do we understand and communicate with God? How we grow up and our own personal experiences within church life can greatly impact our view of spirituality and how we understand listening to God. If you grew up in a more traditional church setting there may be automatic rules and stipulations...
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Backpacking Part 4: They Really Were Skinny Dipping and Other Funny Stories
In our final episode of the Backpacking Series, we share some of the more humorous experiences we've had on the trail. We simply couldn't end this series without sharing some of these stories. From walking up on people actually skinny dipping to the day we lost two college students, we do a lot…
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Backpacking Part 3: The Time Where Jeff Bell Swore He'd Never Go Back
In this episode we interview a very faithful backpacking leader, Jeff Bell. If you had asked him during his first trip if he thought he would go again, he would have said "I'm glad you saw me out here because you will never see me again!" Since his miserable & rainy first year, he has faithfully...
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Backpacking Part 2: "My how the trip has changed!"
In Part 2 of our Backpacking Series, we discuss how the trip has evolved over the last several years. As we learned more about how to manage a group in the wilderness, we were able to focus on helping students grow in leadership skills, team building and wilderness education. Of course you'll…
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Backpacking Part 1: It's a wonder we all came back alive!
For the past 20 years, over their spring break, we have taken our high school students on a 4 day, 20 to 30 mile backpacking trip in the NC mountains. If you have ever gone on one of our backpacking trips you may have asked yourself, "How in the world did they dream up this miserable fun?" In…
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We're all in the weeds and that's ok!
Anytime we face a crisis it disrupts everything that is "normal" for us. Often that means a lot of "unaddressed mess" that we can normally ignore --- can no longer be ignored. In this episode, Amy draws hope from the stories of the Jewish exile and offers a way to walk through this ever-changing,...
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Jonah: A story of God's Love for Everyone
The story of Jonah often captivates us as children. A person, swallowed by a fish? Are you kidding me? Yet even as we outgrow our childish thinking, we can learn a thing or two from this story for sure. In this episode, Amy suggests the book of Jonah has one main point...God's love includes...
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Maybe Doubting Thomas should be called Normal Thomas?
Asking a lot of questions can sometimes get you labeled as a skeptic, trouble maker, or in church lingo, a "Doubting Thomas." But asking questions and searching for answers can be the most holy pursuit we ever take. In this episode, Amy talks about the disciple Thomas and discusses the benefits…
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Jesus, Peter, Shame, Fishing & Comparison
In this episode Amy talks about an interaction between Jesus and Peter to reflect on the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is a natural emotion we feel when we do something we later realize is a mistake. Shame is when we allow our mistakes define us. In this story after the resurrection,...
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Easter Sunday: When Jesus was a stranger
In this episode Amy talks about the first Easter morning and a few of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They converse with a stranger they do not know is Jesus. In time their eyes are opened to His presence and to the new life he is calling them to live out.
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Coronavirus Frontlines: Interview with NYC Resident Ben Peery
In this episode we talk with Ben Peery, who moved to New York City this past October. Ben gives us insight into how daily life has changed in the city and talks about a moving show of support that happens every evening for those on the frontlines of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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Passover & the Last Supper: How are they connected?
In this episode Amy talks about the connection between the Jewish celebration of Passover and the Last Supper Jesus had with his disciples. Most people who are not Jewish do not celebrate Passover, but we are really missing out when we don't think about Passover and what it means for us today.…
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Motivations, Fears & Finding Free
In this episode we discuss some of our motivations and fears in starting this podcast. Amy shares how her fear of disappointing others held her back from stepping out and sharing her voice. Craig talks about the importance of having a safe space to ask hard questions about faith. We share how our...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Finding Free Podcast is a place for exploration and wandering, where you can sift through your own life and faith, and uncover the truths about yourself that have been there all along. Amy and Craig Andrews are regular people who want to create safe space for all to explore questions of faith and culture.Our hope is that these conversations can be a place for you to interact with real stories of real people learning what it means to truly live out their full, meaningful and authentic lives. May this be a space for you to find rest, community and encouragement for your own journey to finding your free, even when it doesn't always look like what's expected.
HOSTED BY
Amy & Craig Andrews
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Finding Free Podcast have?
Finding Free Podcast currently has 60 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Finding Free Podcast about?
Finding Free Podcast is a place for exploration and wandering, where you can sift through your own life and faith, and uncover the truths about yourself that have been there all along. Amy and Craig Andrews are regular people who want to create safe space for all to explore questions of faith and...
How often does Finding Free Podcast release new episodes?
Finding Free Podcast has 60 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Finding Free Podcast?
You can listen to Finding Free Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Finding Free Podcast?
Finding Free Podcast is created and hosted by Amy & Craig Andrews.
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