Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Candid conversations for the church. Host is Ardin Beech of Windsor District Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia. Co-hosted by Jonathan Hoffman.
Wow. Well, after what feels like an extended hiatus, Arden and Doctor J are back for This Week At Windsor.
Jonathan:Absolutely. What a thrill to be back. So good to see you, Arden.
Ardin:I know.
Jonathan:How was your break?
Ardin:I get it. Pretty good. Yep. Yeah. It feels like we haven't been here for ages.
Jonathan:Yes. It does. It does. Well, I've been here. I work here.
Ardin:But You work here. Alright. Come and go as I please.
Jonathan:That's right. That's right. It's been a while. Did you get up to anything fun?
Ardin:Gosh. It was so long ago. No. I think we just had so many events on. Every day, there was some new Christmas related event Yeah.
Ardin:At home, and we got away for a few days.
Jonathan:But Do you remember anything you got for Christmas? Because the last episode we did was a Christmas episode. So did you get anything for Christmas?
Ardin:Yes. I got a new amplifier Oh. Which I bought for myself in the Black Friday sales. Wow. I But wasn't allowed to open until Christmas morning.
Jonathan:It's making your hair look great. Wow.
Ardin:It's 2026. We've left the bad jokes back in 2025. It's quality from here on out. Nothing but quality.
Jonathan:Nothing but quality. That's alright. So what does an amplifier do?
Ardin:Powers all your speakers and your home theater stuff.
Jonathan:Oh, okay. Okay. That's right. You are a bit of an audiophile, aren't you?
Ardin:I try. Yeah. I dabble. What's coming up this year, this month, this week?
Jonathan:Well, if I could answer that question, I would be a very rich man. I don't know if it's coming up this year, but what I can tell you is we have a lot of exciting things happening here at WDBC. We are kind of revamping our evening service, trying to revision that space, make the service a little more compact, a little more relatable, a little more, yeah, time to focus on fellowship. That's going well. Looking through the book of Ecclesiastes.
Jonathan:Anyone who's sort of struggling with the meaning of life. I don't know whether to invite them to it because it's a it's a big flick or or to say like, you know, you know, come along or maybe don't know.
Ardin:It's gonna be a joyous time. Yeah.
Jonathan:Yeah. But speaking of joy, we are looking at joy, in the Philippians series in the morning, which is really cool. And I'm excited about this resource that we've activated for, for our church members. It's called Right Now Media. You've probably heard of it.
Jonathan:It's a company that's been around for a while. They've essentially created what they explained to me as Netflix for Christians. I guess you'd a Christian to watch Netflix, but but this is like a Netflix rant. Arden's feeling judged.
Ardin:Don't look at my playlist.
Jonathan:Note to self. Visit art in next week. No. It's like, it's like a library of really discipleship resources. So whether you're watching on your own or you're part of a small group or you wanna start a small group or you want just some additional support as we're working through, say, for instance, the series through Philippians or Ecclesiastes, you can log on to that and, yeah, it's on your phone.
Jonathan:You can even use it in your car. It'll just give you the audio only to keep everybody safe. So, yeah, feel free to ask us about that. That that's that's a pretty cool thing. We're really just looking to focus on hope this year.
Jonathan:And our theme verse for the year comes out of Romans 12, which talks about keeping your spiritual fervor. And then you have, you know, being joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, sharing with one another, and practicing hospitality. So those are really the things we're focusing on this year. Trying to keep our, spiritual vibe up as as you may say, and hope has a lot to do with that.
Ardin:Are there movies and stuff on this as well? Because there's a a number of Christian movies out there.
Jonathan:I don't know if there are movies per se. I'm sure there's some that some things that go for a long time, but it it's really it's really curriculum based. They have stuff for they have stuff for for children. They have stuff for youth and adults. They've really created different pathways.
Jonathan:So there's, like, a curated section. If you're in a men's group, you know, there's something that's been built for the whole year. You know, start you in this series. Move to that. The other day, I was just playing around because we have a custom church page.
Jonathan:If you if you sign up with the church, it'll just load it for you. And we can create our own channels, some resources that we recommend, including put our putting our own stuff up there. So, yeah. Previous messages and services as well as other resources. Yeah.
Jonathan:I watched this bible back roads program. Wanted to see what they said about Philippians and it's some guy in a driving through Philippi. Like ancient ancient Philippi as you do and like overlay with graphics and he showed us how to dye things in purple. The little montage with him in a purple suit was was a bit, cringe, but everything else was alright. Know?
Jonathan:Is Spoiler alert. Yeah. It is Christian media after all. You know, but but, yeah, I'm I'm excited to make that available to everybody.
Ardin:We've also got some changes coming for the kiddies.
Jonathan:We do have changes coming for the kiddies. We have, through the efforts of our guests and a few others in our church, started our playtime ministry back again so that we had a ministry to young young children and their parents, kind of various iterations in the life of the church, we're really excited that it's back again. Actually got to pop my head in this morning, and it was great to see just a vibrant group. The kids were having fun. Mom seemed to be getting along.
Jonathan:The music's going, and the kids are playing around. So, yeah, it was really exciting. We can hear more about that when our guest comes on.
Ardin:Small groups are coming up too?
Jonathan:Yeah. Small groups. We're really excited to be pushing a new initiative with, small groups this year where we're trying to make our groups really discipleship focused and just groups to kind of groups for group's sake, but groups that really grow and mature. And so we're gonna focus on really putting into our leaders this year, leaders of those groups, trying to raise people up to be apprentices in those groups, and then hopefully kinda get a multiplication factor going. It's amazing how much of the gospel is taught and learned through relationship.
Jonathan:Like, it's one thing to it's great to read your bible. It's great to sit with the lord and pray. But I bet most of us could go back through our lives and say, grew as a Christian when I was in these relationships and through the course of these interactions, you know, be it a growth group or just a few people who just committed to discipleship. So that's gonna be the emphasis on small groups this year. Hopefully, get a few more groups starting by the end of the year.
Jonathan:And, yeah, all this and more people can hear about if they come to our quarterly church meeting. Coming up. You're so excited
Ardin:about that. So excited.
Jonathan:You live for them.
Ardin:Love the church meetings.
Jonathan:Love the church meetings. Yeah. I I reckon I reckon we need to we need to change that sort of sarcastic approach to to real genuine enthusiasm. What would it take to make you genuinely enthused?
Ardin:Another twenty years when I'm old and crotchety.
Jonathan:No. No. We can do it faster than that. Alright.
Ardin:We'll give it a go.
Jonathan:I reckon if we had some of your creative input, we would really just soar.
Ardin:Yeah. Wow. That's big claims. Now when's the when's the meeting coming up?
Jonathan:This Sunday.
Ardin:This Sunday.
Jonathan:So if you're listening, you better be listening on the on the day it's released or the day after. Otherwise, you're gonna miss the meeting.
Ardin:Now there comes a time in every pastor's life when his ego outgrows the platform that he's on.
Jonathan:Okay.
Ardin:And so because of this, we're building a gigantic stage for yourself. There'll be spotlights coming in. There'll be glitz and glamour. It's gonna be huge. You'll be a star.
Jonathan:Are you the one behind all this?
Ardin:We're we're building a stage to to match your ego.
Jonathan:I was wondering who put everybody up to this.
Ardin:Was Yeah. It's grand. Yeah.
Jonathan:Well, is it is grand. I was told maybe people were just tiptoeing around my ego, but I was told that it was actually because there was a trip hazard on the stage.
Ardin:Oh, yeah.
Jonathan:And so it was really it's a public safety thing. Although some have commented to me that we replaced the trip hazard with a fall hazard now given given how high the stage is. But but but but that being said, we are very grateful for, Michael Douglas, Dave Pathius, who've organized the construction of the new stage. It's sort of unfinished.
Ardin:I know Jacob Keyes is doing some work on it.
Jonathan:Yeah. He'll be doing some work as well. Our design committee has been picking out carpet and whatnot. So, yeah, if you're here on Sunday or you tune in to services in the next couple of weeks, you'll it'll look like we're in the middle of a construction project.
Ardin:We are. And there's some thoughts around kind of, like, immortalizing it as well.
Jonathan:I think the idea that's been floated to me, and we'll share it with everyone, get some feedback, is that it would be cool to, before we carpet the stage, to get people to to sign it, to put a bible verse, put a prayer or a a hope, a dream, you know, just to write that on the plywood there, which will get covered over. Yeah. Then maybe one day when they're digging up and they're the next pastor comes along with an even bigger ego, then then they'll Is that possible? I walked into that. They'll they'll pull the carpet up and they'll see what we'll see what's there.
Ardin:Should we get to our next guest?
Jonathan:I think we should.
Ardin:This took some work because she was unwilling. Is that
Jonathan:a Reluctant? Reluctant. Hesitant.
Ardin:She did not wanna come on. She prefers being in the background. Yep. But our amazing producer, Katie, welcome.
Katie:Hello.
Ardin:We finally got you on.
Katie:I'm here. You're here.
Jonathan:I'm here. We now know why you're working so hard to get guests for our show. You were just avoiding the the pressure of of of being the ones to sit in the hot seat, but, thanks for joining us.
Katie:Thank you. Thank you. Believe it or not, I am glad to be here.
Jonathan:No. That's good. Well, we're grateful for all the work that you do, but we also wanna take a chance to get to know you a little bit. You and why don't you tell us bit about you, your family, and, yeah, how long how you came to this church and, yeah, sort of what your experience has been like
Katie:Yeah. So I've been a part of WDBC for, let's say, three years now, give or take. In the last two years, I've actually been working here in the office as Jonathan and Chris's assistant. Part of that role is to produce this show. So I've been blessed to listen to all of the podcasts in the last two years as well as all of the things that no one else gets to listen to.
Ardin:Call call it a show. That makes it sound so good.
Katie:Show podcast. I'm married to Dan, and we've been married for seven or so years now. We've got two kids and another one on the way.
Jonathan:Now, you're you guys came over here. You were you grew up in the this area, though, not not too far from here. Is that right?
Katie:Yeah. Close enough to here. Yeah. Hills, Hawkesbury, generally.
Jonathan:If you don't, I mean, without disparaging anyone, tell us a bit about the the switch sort of transitioning into this faith community. What were the things you were looking for, and and what what sort of helped you guys decide to say, hey. This is home for us.
Katie:Yeah. So Dan and I met at our previous church. He'd been there his whole life. He was born into the church. Didn't know anything else.
Katie:I'd been there for probably ten years, so all of my adult life. And, yeah, I think it came to a time we'd gotten through COVID. Everything was opening back up, going back to church after having quite a good amount of time doing either nothing at all or doing, like, an online type service. There was nothing was quite like COVID church.
Jonathan:Let's just say.
Ardin:It's interesting times.
Katie:And when when we got back and things sort of started going back to, let's say, normal, we just felt like it wasn't our church anymore. We weren't a 100% aligned with some of the teachings that they were doing anymore. So it was a very big decision, especially for Dan because it was his one and only church. And, yeah, so we just started to start looking around, seeing what's out there. We'd had Sam, our son.
Katie:So we were sort of thinking about him as well, thinking about where he we wanted him to grow up and what sort of church family we wanted him to be exposed to as well. And we had a look at couple churches. We found this one. We knew Grace and Michael McGinnis already, and they were coming here. So we're like, okay.
Katie:We'll give it a go. And we came, and we were just blown away by how friendly everyone was. I feel like we walked in. We sat next to the two people we knew, but we spoke to, I don't know, how many people on that first day. And then we came back again and similar thing.
Katie:Like, we got to meet all these new people. Everyone seemed to generally care about us. We're interested to get to know us and the people we were. Yeah. We just felt like we found a home here.
Katie:So never left after that.
Jonathan:So it sounds like Arden wasn't there those two weeks. It's like it's
Ardin:I go to the night service.
Katie:He came in the morning.
Jonathan:Oh, that's why we relegated him to that sort of night. Glad to hear it was such a such a positive experience. I think it's been it's been really positive. I mean, your husband, Dan, he's a deacon now, at our church. I remember when you you interviewed for one role, we were so impressed.
Jonathan:We're like, oh my goodness. We actually we we we might have to see how we can make room for Katie on our staff. And so, yeah, it's been just a real just been a real treat having you having you aboard. So that's awesome how you guys have jumped in.
Katie:Oh, thank
Ardin:you. So you sort of came to to Christ later in life?
Katie:No. I was born into a Christian home. I don't really remember a time I didn't believe in God. Yeah. We were church going family, everything you would expect.
Katie:I think I have a moment. I remember sitting in my bedroom as, like, a probably six or seven year old just by myself and deciding just to I don't know what was going on in my head. I don't know if I was reflecting on something I'd learned in Sunday school or something my parents had said, but I decided to open my heart and let God in at that point. So it's something that I've never really not known.
Jonathan:Yeah.
Katie:I think there was a big time when I was 16, 17 where I think I decided to really make it my own faith. I went through a bit of a journey of bringing God into my life and deciding to take it on rather than just going along with that because that's what my parents had done. And that was sort of the time that I moved from my parents' church and found my own place to make it my faith. But, yeah, it's always been something that's been a of my life.
Ardin:Yeah. I like to hear about those tentpole moments because you like, you talk to people and it's just a lot of time, their story just seems to be almost like Christianity by osmosis. Like, I'm I'm there and I'm amongst it, but that's about it. You know? And I love I love to hear about the moments where like decisive moments when a decision's been made.
Jonathan:I wonder if you could take us through part of that identifying as a Christian for yourself and I'm just sort of separating that identity from this is my family's religion to this is my faith. Do you recall what the issues were that that maybe kind of pushed you forward into making that decision or exercising some independence in that?
Katie:Yeah. I remember at school, we had a subject that we called bible where we just had a subject where we sat down with the school chaplain, and we would do a bible study. And we were going through this one study where each week, we were reading a story about a different martyr. And I think I just struggled at that point to understand why anyone would go as far as giving their life to spread the word of God. And I just I was like, I didn't understand it.
Katie:It's like, yeah, I believed in God and, yeah, that was cool. But why would anyone be driven to go to that extreme? And it just really made me question what God was doing in their lives that wasn't necessarily happening in my life to push them that far. And, obviously, that is the extreme. Like, most people are never gonna go that far.
Katie:But I just I didn't get it, and I wanted to understand why and why they would do that. And so I think that just really pushed me into reading the bible more for myself and thinking about who God is and bringing him into a more personal relationship with me over, you know, you go to church, pray, you sing some songs, you read the bible, you listen to a sermon, you go home, and then you repeat. Mhmm. Rinse and repeat. Yeah.
Katie:Yeah. So I think that was the starting point, the driver for me, and then think I just took it from there. I wasn't really a part of a youth group at that point, so I found a youth group that was thriving and joined their youth group and joined a bible study out of that youth group, which continued to propel me.
Jonathan:How would you go navigating, like, some some of these big life decisions? I think some people might look, you know, your experience. Okay. You grew up in a Christian home, started sort of moving through life, making some independent choices. You know, here you are, married, third child on the way.
Jonathan:I think some people might look at that and say, wow. You seem to be pretty confident in the direction that you're going. I wonder, is that how it feels to you? Or are you like, you know, is every day a new day? Like, you know, God will will sort of see what happens here.
Jonathan:And I guess this is in my mind because, you know, I've been reading articles about a lot of the challenges that women face and the different messaging that they get, in our culture. You know, some of them saying, you know, you need to be the girl boss. That's kind of the route to go. Others, you need to be at home kind of making your own clothes and, you know, churning churning butter and, like like, there just seems to be so many different caricatures.
Ardin:What media are you following?
Jonathan:What's the point? Like, it's just Amish monthly? No. Sorry. This is extreme as hell.
Jonathan:But, like, but, like, there just seem to be different portraits or caricatures of what it means to be a woman in society today. And now I'm hearing different voices from women on what's the preferred and what's the this is the way to go or that's the way to go. And and I guess, yeah, how do you navigate that? And I'm talking as a bloke from the outside. Like, to put it simply, maybe the question is, with so many different opinions going on around women and what they should be doing and what you know, when to start families and when not and when to pursue a career.
Jonathan:Like, how do you navigate that personally as a woman of faith?
Katie:The number one answer is to not listen to all those opinions, to do what you think or what you feel is the right way to to go in your timing or I should say God's timing. I think you could look at all different things on social media, and it can take you down all these different rabbit holes. And, you know, you gotta have a career first. You gotta do this. You gotta do that.
Katie:But at the end of the day, I think for me, I've always known that I wanna be a mom. I wanna have kids. I wanted to go down that road. And I think nothing else that's ever been portrayed in the media has been as important important to to me. Me.
Katie:So, yeah, I think it's important to just stay strong in what you feel like God's telling you to do and block out the the other voices that come in because, you know, there's so many of them. You could yeah. You're right. You could have someone's telling you to you gotta stay home and you gotta do this with your kids. You gotta have all these handmade graphs and activities for them to do.
Katie:You gotta spend an hour setting something up that they're gonna do for five minutes and then and then clean up again for another hour. Other people are saying, no. You need a if you're not working five days a week and you're not continuing on with this massive career and just leaving your kids kinda, like, in daycare and off to the side, then you're not doing the, quote, unquote, right thing. But in the end of the day, I'm a mom first or I'm anything else. And, you know, my kids are only gonna be little.
Katie:They're at the moment, they're one and three. They're only gonna be that little for such a short period of time, and I wanna spend time with them. But I'm gonna do it in a way that works for me. I'm not the kind of person to set up these endless activities for them, so I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole. Yeah.
Katie:I'm just gonna try and do the best I can for them in the best way I can, and I'm not gonna be perfect at it sometimes. Well, definitely, all the time. I feel like I'm just making it up as I go along, but, yeah, doing what I can.
Jonathan:I appreciate the the grace in that perspective. I wonder, can you share what is something for people like Arden and I? Right? We're never gonna be in your situation. As a mother of, like, kids of one and three, what do you think something that most husbands or men just don't get, like, about this particular time in life just from your observation?
Katie:I mean, I hear the buzzword a lot, but I do agree with it. It's the mental load. The amount that I'm thinking about all the things that need to happen in order to do even just the simplest of tasks. For example, we're going away next week on a holiday. The kids aren't coming with us.
Katie:Dan's really excited to go. I'm really excited to go, but I'm also thinking about all the things that we need to do or I need to do to prep the kids, get the kids ready, and have packed for them. And there's about a million things that need to fall into place first before I can even think about going away, going on a holiday.
Jonathan:If we can begin to enjoy it
Katie:Yeah. Anticipate. Yeah. I'm sure it'll be great, and it'll be fun. And and I know that even if not all of those things happen, the kids will be fine.
Katie:They'll have a great time. We'll have a great time. We'll come back, and everything will be great. But I still can't help but feel like I've gotta do all these different things, and I can't even begin to voice all those things. It's hard to share that mental load because you it just comes, you think about it, and then you think about the next thing, and then the next thing, and then they just it just it never stops.
Katie:And I don't know if that ever changes either as kids grow up.
Ardin:Yeah. My oldest is 22, and it hasn't stopped yet.
Jonathan:I'm not allowed to comment.
Ardin:Is this the is this the first one? This is the first mom and dad solo holiday? Yes. Yeah. So there will likely be some pining from mom as well?
Katie:Probably. Yes.
Jonathan:I think our first one of our very first trips away from the kids, we went to a little town called Cobar, which is like an hour south.
Ardin:What a paradise.
Jonathan:What a paradise. It's like an hour south of birth. Its claim to fame for us was it had a subway, and we stayed at a motor inn. It was like that was that was the post baby, yeah, the getaway. Tell us bit about playtime.
Jonathan:Yeah. Love that you guys have kind of birthed this ministry again. Yeah. Talk about the impetus for that and how the spin you're trying to put on it.
Katie:Yeah. So playtime well, you've already touched on it. Playtime was a ministry that has been around and has come and gone before. And we haven't had playtime for a year or so now, and there's a few other moms with younger children all individually. I felt in their heart that it was something that needed to come back.
Katie:It was a ministry that we could run, and we all came together, and we've all implemented it together. And we've all brought our own unique talents and ideas into it to make it what it is at the moment. So we're two weeks in. The change with it this time compared to playtime previously is that we've added a little bit of structure into the program. Gives the kids something to look forward to, something they know that something will happen when they're there, and we're using music to do that.
Katie:So we've got some songs that we'll sing, some actions that we'll do. We'll do a bit of dancing. We'll bring out some scarves and some ribbons and things to play with or some maracas and some little instruments for them to use in certain songs. And, yeah, I think it's a bit of fun. We have a bible theme.
Katie:So this term, we're going through the creation story, talking about god's wonderful creation in a way that a three year old could understand. So very basic. Yeah. Bringing that message across, reaching out to the community. We're having a few moms from the community that aren't necessarily linked to the church coming, which is really nice to see.
Ardin:Mums with young moms would be very easy to just feel completely isolated. You and, like, you've lost your whole social circle. Children take up all your time. Yes. You're on your own.
Katie:I think it is, especially if you're one of the first people in your friendship group to have kids. I think it it happens very easily because it changes everything. It changes all your priorities. It changes when you can see people, how you see people, everything changes. So I think it's really important to find those connections, find people that have children similar ages to your children as well that they can play while you chat with the moms or the parents or whoever they are.
Jonathan:Yeah. And we can't let you go without talking about your role in producing this epic show this week at Windsor. Tell us, aside from, growing in patience from having to listen to us and decide what's worthy of keeping and what's not worthy of keeping, What are some things that you've either appreciated about it? Yeah. What do you enjoy?
Jonathan:Is there challenges to to doing this work, putting this together?
Katie:I really enjoy putting this podcast together. It's probably one of my favorite parts of my role. I don't know. It's fun. I enjoy listening to the interviews that you do.
Katie:Usually, I'll listen to each interview a couple of times, so I feel like I get to know people that you interview a little bit even without speaking to them myself. Yeah. I enjoy the banter that happens or the banter that makes it into the show and the banter that doesn't.
Ardin:Be like a ninety ten rule.
Katie:It's been great. It's been great. It's the first time I've done something like this as well, but it's a fun little Friday afternoon activity normally for me. It's it's good.
Ardin:I'm certainly grateful that you do it because I know the time that it takes and the effort that goes into cutting it all up and stuff.
Jonathan:So I'm
Ardin:very glad just to be able to sit here and do the fun bits and leave all the hard work to someone else.
Jonathan:He he put it in his contract. It's it's the underwrite. He's That's right. He's like, well, I will only appear if Katie produces this.
Ardin:I'll never do actual work.
Jonathan:No. We're so grateful that you for the time that you put in. And, yeah, I just I I hope people can appreciate the amount of intentionality that has to go in behind the scenes to to make it sound good, to to seamlessly pull things together, and to chase people, like, to try to coordinate.
Ardin:Yeah. Yeah. She does all the bookings and everything.
Jonathan:That's right. Coordinate the schedules, work out who's good to talk to. I think, you know, probably at least half the guests last year were recommendations that you brought. So it was really, yeah, really grateful for for all that you do.
Katie:You're welcome.
Ardin:Well, thanks for joining us
Katie:Thank you.
Ardin:On this side for once.
Katie:Yeah. I know.
Jonathan:I have a dream that one day this will get bigger, and Katie will be on the other side of the glass, and she can just sort of Yeah. Well mixing live. And
Ardin:Once the stage is done, we'll we'll keep pandering to your ego.
Jonathan:So bad.
Katie:Play pass studio twenty twenty seven.
Jonathan:Oh my goodness. Oh, I don't even know how to respond.
Ardin:Anyway, thanks for joining us, Katie, and for all the hard work you do.
Katie:Thank you. Good to be here.
Ardin:Now normally at the end, we'd have a bit of a wrap up about, like, what the guest spoke about. But, obviously, she's just gonna cut it up whatever way she likes. So Katie's had some good stuff to say about church things and motherhood.
Jonathan:That's right. I think that's a good summary.
Ardin:Yeah. Because who who knows what state is?
Jonathan:You are in rare form. Glad to have you back, Arden. It's been a real privilege and looking forward to another year ahead.
Ardin:Now I won't be around next week, but you've got someone you're chatting to.
Jonathan:Dude, Nick Hood from Crew.
Ardin:From Crew. Crew. Nick Hood is up next week. Thanks for joining us, folks. Catch you again next week.